[24]
Therefore, an exception is made by
this law, mentioning not youth, nor any legal impediment, nor any command or magistracy,
which might be encumbered with obstacles arising either from the business with which it was
already loaded, or from the laws. There is not even an exception made in the case of any
convicted person, to prevent his being made a decemvir. Cnaeus
Pompeius is excepted and disabled from being elected a colleague of Publius Rullus (for I say
nothing of the rest). For he has worded the law so that only those who are present can stand
for the office; a clause which was never yet found in any other law, not even in the laws
concerning those magistrates who are periodically elected. But this clause was inserted, in
order that if the law passed you might not be able to give him a colleague who would be a
guardian over him, and a check upon his covetousness.
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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