[18]
Will you, O Roman
knights, abandon this privilege which you have received from your fathers? I
warn you not to do so. Men will be hurried before these courts of justice,
not only whenever they fall into all deserved unpopularity, but whenever
spiteful people say a word against them, if you do not take care to prevent
it. If it were now told you that opinions were pronounced in the senate that
you should be liable to be proceeded against under these laws, you would
think it necessary to run in crowds to the senate-house. If the law was
passed, you would throng to the rostra. The
senate has decided that you are exempt from the operation of this law; the
people has never subjected you to it; you have met together here free from
it; take care that you do not depart entangled in its toils.
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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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