[16]
Do not then, O Laterensis, insist on my
drawing any comparison between you. In truth, if the voting tablet is dear
to the people, which shows the countenances of men, while it conceals their
intentions, and which gives them the liberty of doing whatever they please,
while they can promise whatever they are asked, why do you require that to
be done in a court of justice which is not done in the Campus Martius?—This man is more
worthy than that man. It is a very grave assertion to make. What then is it
more reasonable to say? Say this, (and this is the question, this is
sufficient for the judge)—This is the man who has been elected.
Why should he have been elected rather than I? Either I do not know, or I do
not choose to say, or lastly, (which, however, would be a very vexatious
thing to me to say, and yet I ought to be able to say with impunity), he
ought not to have been. For what would you gain if I were to have recourse
to this last defence, that the people had done what it chose, and not what
it ought to have done?
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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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