[44]
Will you, then, O priests, by this decision, and by your authority, give a
tribune of the people power to proscribe whomsoever he chooses? For I ask
what else proscribing is, excepting proposing such a law as this,
“That you will decide and order that Marcus Tullius shall no
longer be in the city, and that his property may become mine?” For
this is the effect of what he carried, though the language is somewhat
different. Is this a resolution of the people? Is this a law? Is this a
motion? Can you endure this? Can the city endure that a single citizen
should be removed out of the city by a single line? I, indeed, have now
endured my share. I have no more violence to fear. I am in dread of no
further attacks. I have satisfied the hostility of those who envied me; I
have appeased the hatred of wicked men; I have satiated even the treachery
and wickedness of traitors; and, what is more, by this time every city, all
ranks of men, all gods and men have expressed their opinion on my case,
which appeared to those profligate men to be exposed above all others as a
mark for unpopularity.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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