[5]
Of all laws I think that one is the most unjust and the
most unlike a law, which Lucius Flaccus, the interrex, passed respecting
Sulla—“That everything which he has done should be ratified.”
For, as in other states, when tyrants are established, all laws are extinguished and
destroyed this man established a tyrant of the republic by law. It is an invidious law, as I
said before; but still it has some excuse. For it appears to be a law not urged by the man
but by the time. What shall we say if this law is a far more impudent one?
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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