[26]
That then which we
should guard against, if indicated by some disjointed prodigy admitting of
divers interpretations, shall we not be afraid of when it is its own
prodigy, and when the danger is in that very thing from which danger is
dreaded? Were such the Megalesia which your father celebrated? Did your
uncle celebrate them in such a manner as this? And then he makes mention to
me of his family, when he would rather celebrate the games after the fashion
of Athenio or Spartacus, than like Caius or Appius Claudius. When these
great men were celebrating games, they ordered all the slaves to depart from
the theatre. But you turned slaves into one, and turned free men out of the
other. Therefore they, who formerly used to be separated from free men by
the voice of the herald, now, at your games, separated free men from
themselves not by their voice, but by force.
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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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