[101]
I am not unaware, O judges, although I pass over many things bearing on this right, that
still I have dwelt on it at greater length than the plan of your tribunal requires. But I did
so, not because I thought that there was any need of urging this defence to you, but in order
that all men might understand that the rights of citizenship never had been taken away from
any one, and could not be taken away. As I wished those men, whom Sulla desired to injure, to
know this, so I wished, also, all the other citizens, both new and old, to be acquainted with
it. For no reason can be produced why, if the rights of citizenship could be taken from any
new 1 citizen, they cannot also be taken away from all the patricians, from all the
very oldest citizens.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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