[50]
We are speaking, then, of this law which appears to have been legally brought
forward, while yet every one that has had anything to do with any part of
it, either by hand, voice, vote, or by sharing in the plunder, wherever he
has been, has come off rejected and convicted.
What shall we say if the proscription is framed in such terms that it repels
itself? For it is, “Because Marcus Tullius has forged a decree of
the senate.” If, then, he did forge a decree of the senate, the
law was proposed; but if he did not forge one, no proposition has been made
at all. Does it or does it not appear sufficiently decided by the senate
that I did not falsely allege the authority of that order, but that I, of
all the men that have ever lived since the foundation of the city, have been
the most diligent in my obedience to the senate? In how many ways do I not
prove that that which you call a law is no law at all? What shall we say if
you brought many different matters before the people at one and the same
time? Do you still think that what Marcus Drusus, that admirable man, could
not obtain in most of his laws,—that what Marcus Scaurus and
Lucius Crassus, men of consular rank, could not obtain, you can obtain
through the agency of the Decurii and Clodii, the ministers of all your
debaucheries and crimes?
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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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