[56]
I say nothing about that law which at one swoop destroyed all religious
observances, all the privileges attached to the auspices, to the civil magistrates, and all the enactments
which refer to the common law, and to the time of proposing laws; I say
nothing about all the internal misfortunes which afflicted us; we saw even
foreign nations shaken by the insanity of that year.
By a law proposed by a tribune of the people, the priest of the Mighty Mother
at Pessinus was expelled and
stripped of his priesthood; and that shrine of the most holy and most
ancient of all religious ceremonies was sold for a large sum to Brogitarus,
a profligate man, and unworthy of any such sacred character; especially as
he had desired it not for the purpose of doing honour to the goddess, but
only of profaning her temple. People were styled kings by the people, who
would never have even asked for such a title from the senate: condemned
exiles were brought back to Byzantium at the very time when citizens, who had not been
condemned, were being driven from the city.
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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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