[71]
But do you, O Romans, if you will be guided by me, preserve your present possession of
popularity, of liberty, of your votes, of your dignity, of the city, of the forum, of the
games, of the days of festivals, and of all your other enjoyments. Unless, by chance, you
prefer leaving all these things and this light of the republic, to be settled in the midst of
the droughts of Sipontum, or in the
pestilential districts of Salapia, under the
leadership of Rullus. But let him tell us what lands he is going to buy; let him show what he
is going to give, and to whom he is going to give it. But can you possibly, tell me, allow
him the power of selling any imaginable city, or land, or revenue, or kingdom that he likes,
and then buying some tract of sand or some swamp? Although this is a very remarkable point,
that according to this law everything is to be sold, all the money is to be collected and
amassed together, before one perch of ground is bought. Then the law orders him to proceed to
buy; but forbids any purchases to be made against the inclination or the owner.
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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