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[138] "If Cæsar did no more against your liberty then are we perjured. But if he restored to you neither the magistracies of the city nor those of the provinces, neither the command of armies, the priestly offices, the leadership of colonies, nor any other posts of honor; if he neither consulted the Senate about anything nor asked the authority of the people, but if Cæsar's command was all in all; if he was not even ever satiated with our misfortunes as Sulla was (for Sulla, when he had destroyed his enemies restored to you the government of the commonwealth, but Cæsar, as he was going away for another long military expedition, anticipated by his appointments your elections for five years), what sort of freedom was this in which not a ray of hope could be any longer discerned? What shall I say of the defenders of the people, Cæsetius and Marullus? Were not the incumbents of a sacred and inviolable office ignominiously banished? Although the law and the oath prescribed by our ancestors forbid calling the tribunes to account during their term of office, Cæsar banished them even without a trial. Have we then, or has he, done violence to inviolable persons -- unless you say that Cæsar was sacred and inviolable, upon whom we conferred that distinction not of our own free will, but by compulsion, and not until he had invaded his country with arms and killed a great number of our noblest and best citizens? Did not our fathers in a democracy and without compulsion take an oath that the office of tribune should be sacred and inviolable, and declare with maledictions that it should remain so forever? What has become of the public tribute? What of the public accounts? Who opened the public treasury without our consent? Who removed part of the consecrated money? Who threatened with death another tribune who opposed him?

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