[14]
And since the beginnings of all great things are derived from
the gods, I wish you to answer me,—you, who are accustomed to call
yourself a Pythagorean, and to put forth the name of a most learned man as a
screen to bide your own savage and barbarian habits,—what
depravity of intellect possessed you, what excessive frenzy seized on you,
and made you, when you had begun your unheard-of and impious sacrifices,
accustomed as you are to seek to evoke the spirits of the shades below, and
to appease the Dî Manes with the
entrails of murdered boys, despise the auspices
under which this city was founded, by which the whole of this republic and
empire is kept together, and, at the very beginning of your tribuneship,
give notice to the senate that the responses of the augurs and the arrogance
of that college should be no obstacle to your proceedings?
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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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