[98]
You, O Publius Rullus, have chosen to follow in the footsteps of Marcus Brutus's
wickedness, rather than to be guided by the monuments of the wisdom of our ancestors. You
have flavoured all this with these advices of yours—to sell the old revenues, and
to waste the new ones,—to oppose Capua
to this city in a rivalry of dignity—to subject all cities, nations and provinces,
all free peoples, and kings, and the whole world in short, to your laws, and jurisdiction,
and power, in order that, when you have drained all the money out of the treasury, and
exacted all that may be due from the taxes, and extorted all that you can from kings, and
nations, and even from our own generals, all men may still be forced to pay money to you at
your nod; that you, also, or your friends, may buy up from those who have become possessed of
them, as members of Sulla's party, their lands—some of which produce too much
unpopularity to their owners to be worth keeping; some of which are unhealthy, and deserted
on that account and charge them to the Roman people at whatever price you please; that you
may occupy all the municipalities and colonies of Italy with new settlers; that you may establish colonies in whatever places you
think fit, and in as many places as seems desirable to you,
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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