[75]
But I beg you now, O Romans, to take notice how he is planning to besiege and occupy all
Italy with his garrison. He permits the decemvirs
to lead colonists, whomsoever he may choose to select, into every municipality and into every
colony in all Italy; and he orders lands to be
assigned to those colonists. Is there any obscurity here in the way in which greater powers
and greater defences than your liberty can tolerate are sought after? Is there any obscurity
here in the manner in which kingly power is established? Is there any disguise about your
liberty being wholly destroyed? For when it is one and the same body of men who with their
resources lay siege, as it were, to all the riches and all the population,—that is
to say, to all Italy,—and who propose to
hold all your liberties in blockade by their garrisons and colonies,—what hope,
yes, what possibility even is left to you of ever recovering your liberty?
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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