It is in accordance with the customs and established usages
of our ancestors, O Romans, that those who, by your kindness, have overtaken the images of
their family,“Those Romans who had passed through one of the high offices
of aediles, praetor, or consul were allowed to have their likenesses handed down to posterity.
These likenesses were, according to Casaubon, busts; but according to Schweighauser, masks;
they were kept in the hall of the house, in niches appropriated for their reception, and were
brought forth on occasions of funerals, together with their robes of office, to impersonate
the dead. Whoever had such images in his possession was nobilis.”—Riddle, Lat. Dict. v. Imago.
should, the first time that they hold an assembly of the people, take an opportunity of uniting
thanks to you for your kindness with a panegyric on their ancestors, and in the speech then
made, some men are, on some occasions, found worthy of the rank of their ancestors. But most
men only accomplish this,—namely, to make it seem that so vast a debt is due to their
ancestors, that there is something still left to be paid to their posterity. I, indeed, have no opportunity of speaking before you of my ancestors, not
because they were not such men as you see me also to be, who am born of their blood, and
educated in their principles, but because they had never any share of popular praise, or of the
light of honours conferred by you.
And of myself I fear lest it may look like arrogance to
speak, and yet like ingratitude to be silent.
For it is a very troublesome thing for me myself to enumerate to you the pursuits by which I have earned
this dignity; and, on the other hand, I cannot possibly be silent about your great kindnesses
to me. Wherefore I will employ a reasonable moderation in speaking, so as to mention the
kindness which I have received from you. I will speak slightly of the reasons why I am thought
to have deserved the greatest honour you can confer, and your singularly favourable judgment of
me.
After a very long interval, almost beyond the memory of our
times, you have for the first time made me, a new man, consul; and you have opened that rank
which the nobles have held strengthened by guards, and fenced round in every possible manner,
in my instance first, and have resolved that it should in future be open to virtue. Nor have
you only made me consul, though that is of itself a most honourable thing, but you have made me
so in such a way as very few nobles in this city have ever been made consuls before in, and no
new man whatever before me.
For, in truth, if you please to recollect, you will find that those new men who have at any
time been made consuls without a repulse, have been elected after long toil, and on some
critical emergency, having stood for it many years after they had been praetors, and a good
deal later than they might have done according to the laws regulating the age of candidates for
the office; but that those who stood for it in their regular year were not elected without a
repulse; that I am the only one of all the new men whom we can remember who have stood for the
consulship the first moment that by law I could,—who have been elected consul the first time
that I have stood; so that this honour which you have conferred on me, having been sought by me
at the proper time, appears not to have been filched by me on the occasion of some unpopular
candidate offering himself,—not to have been gained by long perseverance in asking for it, but
to have been fairly earned by my worth and dignity.
This,
also, is a most honorable thing for me, O Romans, which I mentioned a few minutes ago,—that I
am the first new man for many years on whom you have conferred this honour,—that you have
conferred it on my first application, in my proper year. But yet nothing can be more splendid
or more honourable for me than this circumstance,—that at the comitia at which I was elected
you delivered not your ballot, Middleton says (with express reference to this
passage,) “the method of choosing consuls was not by an open vote, but by a kind of ballot or
little tickets of wood distributed to the citizens with the names of the candidates severally
inscribed on each; but in Cicero's case, the people were not content with this secret and
silent way of testifying their inclinations but before they came to any scrutiny, loudly and
universally proclaimed Cicero the first consul; so that, as he himself declared in his speech
to them after his election he was not chosen by the votes of particular citizens, but by the
common suffrage of the city; nor declared by the voice of the crier, but of the whole Roman
people.” the vindication of your silent liberty, but your eager voices as the witnesses
of your good-will towards, and zeal for me. And so it was not the last tribe of the votes, but
the very first moment of your meeting,—it was not the single voices of the criers, but the
whole Roman people with one voice that declared me consul.
I think this eminent and unprecedented kindness of yours, O Romans, of great weight as a
reward for my courage, and as a source of joy to me, but still more calculated to impress me
with care and anxiety. For, O Romans, many and grave thoughts occupy my mind, which allow me
but little rest day or night. First, there is anxiety about discharging the duties of the
consulship which is a difficult and important business to all men, and especially to me above
all other men; for if I err, I shall obtain no pardon—if I do well, I shall get but little
praise, and that, too, extorted from unwilling people—if I am in doubt, I have no faithful
counselors to whom I can apply—if I am in difficulty, I have no sure assistance from the nobles
on which I can depend.
But, if I alone were in danger, I would bear it, O Romans, with more equanimity; but there
appears to me to be some men determined, if they think that I have done anything wrongly not
only intentionally, but even by chance, to blame all of you for having preferred me to the
nobles. But I think, O Romans that I ought to endure everything rather than not discharge the
duties of my consulship in such a manner, as by all my actions and counsels to compel men to
praise your action and counsel with respect to me. There is also this added to the great labour
and difficulty which I see before me in discharging the duties of my office, that I have made
up my mind that I ought not to adopt the same rule and principle of conduct which former
consuls have; some of whom have carefully avoided all approach to this place, and the sight of
you, and others have at all events not been very fond of it. But I not only declare in this
place where it is exceedingly easy to do it, but I said in my very first speech on the first of
January, in the senate itself, which did not seem likely to be so favourable a place for the
expression, that I would be a consul in the interests of the people.
Nor is it possible for me, knowing, as I do, that I have been made consul,
not by the zeal of the powerful citizens, nor by the preponderating influence of a few men, but
by the deliberate judgment of the Roman people, and that, too, in such a way as to be preferred
to men of the very highest rank, to avoid, both in this magistracy and throughout my whole
life, devoting myself to the interests of the people.
When, however, I speak of the interests of the people, I have great need of your wisdom in
giving the proper meaning and interpretation to this expression. For there is a great error
abroad, by reason of the treacherous pretences made by some people, who, though they oppose and
hinder not only the advantage but even the safety of the people, still endeavour by their
speeches to make men believe them zealous for the interests of the people.
I, O Romans, know in what condition I received the republic on the first of
January: full of anxiety, full of fear. There was no evil, no misfortune which the good were
not dreading and the bad looking out for. Every sort of seditious design against the existing
constitution of the republic, and against your tranquillity, was said to be in
contemplation,—some such to have been actually set on foot the moment we were elected consuls.
All confidence was banished from the forum, not by the stroke of any new calamity, but by the
general suspicion entertained of the courts of justice, and by the disorder into which they had
fallen, and by the constant reversal of previous decisions. New authority, extraordinary
powers, suited not to commanders, but to kings, were supposed to be aimed at.
And as I did not only suspect these things, but clearly saw them, (for indeed there was no
secret made of what was being done,) I said in the senate that I would in this magistracy prove
a consul devoted to the interests of the people. For what is there so advantageous to the
people as peace? in which not only the animals to whom nature has given sense, but even the
houses and fields appear to me to rejoice. What is so advantageous to the people as liberty?
which is sought out and preferred to everything, not only by men, but even by the beasts. What
is so advantageous to the people as tranquillity? which is so delightful a thing, that both you
and your ancestors, and every brave man, thinks it worth his while to encounter the greatest
labours, in order at length to enjoy tranquillity, particularly if he be a man in command, or a
man of high rank. And we, therefore, are bound to give great praise and to show great gratitude
to our ancestors, because it is owing to their labours that we are able to enjoy tranquillity
without risk. How then can I avoid being devoted to the interests of the people, O Romans, when
I see all these things,—our peace abroad, and the liberty which belongs to the Roman race and
Roman name, and our domestic tranquillity, and everything, in short, which is considered by you
as valuable or honourable, entrusted to the good faith, and, as it were, to the protection of
my consulship?
And, O Romans, a promised liberality which,
however you may be encouraged by words to expect it, cannot be performed by any possible means
without exhausting the treasury, ought not to appear to you an agreeable measure, or one
calculated to promote your real interests. Nor are the disturbances of the courts of justice,
and the reversals of judicial decisions, and the restoration of convicted persons to be
considered as measures advantageous to the people; for they are rather the preludes to the
total ruin of cities whose affairs are already in a falling and almost desperate state. Nor, if
any men promise lands to the Roman people, or if they hold out to you, under false pretences,
hopes of such things, while in secret they are keeping entirely different objects in view, are
they to be thought devoted to the true interests of the people.
For I will speak the truth, O Romans; I cannot find fault with the general principle of an
agrarian law, for it occurs to my mind that two most illustrious men, two most able men, two
men most thoroughly attached to the Roman people, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, established the
people on public domains which had previously been occupied by private individuals. Nor am I a
consul of such opinions as to think it wrong, as most men do, to praise the Gracchi; by whose
counsels, and wisdom, and laws, I see that many parts of the republic have been greatly
strengthened.
Therefore, when at the very beginning, I,
being the consul elect, was informed that the tribunes elect of the people were drawing up an
agrarian law, I wished to ascertain what their plans were. In truth, I thought that, since we
were both to act as magistrates in the same year, it was right that there should be some union
between us, for the purpose of governing the republic wisely and successfully.
When I wished to join them familiarly in conversation, I was shut out;
their projects were concealed from me: and when I assured them that, if the law appeared to me
to be advantageous to the Roman people, I would assist them in it and promote it, still they
rejected this liberality of mine with scorn, and said that I could not possibly be induced to
approve of any liberal measures. I ceased to offer myself to them, lest perchance my
importunity should seem to them treacherous or impudent. In the meantime they did not cease to
have secret meetings among themselves, to invite some private individuals to them, and to
choose night and darkness for their clandestine deliberations. And what great alarm this
conduct of theirs caused us, you may easily divine by your own conjectures founded on the
anxiety which you yourselves experienced at that time.
At last the tribunes of the people enter on their office. The assembly to be convened by
Publius Rullus was anxiously looked for, both because he was the chief mover of the agrarian
law, and because he behaved with more violence than his colleagues. From the moment that he was
elected tribune, he put on another expression of countenance, another tone of voice, a
different gait; he went about in an old-fashioned dress, without any regard to neatness in his
person, with longer hair and a more abundant beard than before; so that he seemed by his eyes
and by his whole aspect to be threatening every one with the power of the tribunes, and to be
meditating evil to the republic. I was waiting in expectation of his law and of the assembly.
At first no law at all is proposed. He orders an assembly to be summoned as his first measure.
Men flock to it with the most eager expectation. He makes a long enough speech, expressed in
very good language. There was one thing which seemed to me bad, and that was, that out of all
the crowd there present, not one man could be found who was able to understand what he meant.
Whether he did this with any insidious design, or whether that is the sort of eloquence in
which he takes pleasure, I do not know. Still, if there was any one in the assembly cleverer
than another, he suspected that he was intending to say something or other about an agrarian
law. At last, after I had been elected consul, the law is proposed publicly. By my order
several clerks meet at one time, and bring me an accurate copy of the law.
I assure you with the most real sincerity, O Romans, that I applied myself to the reading and
understanding of this law with these feelings, that if I had thought it well adapted to your
interests, and advantageous to them, I would have been a chief mover in and promoter of it. For
the consulship has not, either by nature, or by any inherent difference of object, or by any
instinctive hatred, any enmity against the tribuneship, though good and fearless consuls have
often opposed seditious and worthless tribunes of the people, and though the power of the
tribunes has sometimes opposed the capricious licentiousness of the consuls. It is not the
dissimilarity of their powers, but the disunion of their minds, that creates dissension between
them.
Therefore, I applied myself to the consideration of
the law with these feelings, that I wished to find it calculated to promote your interests, and
such an one as a consul who was really, not in word only, devoted to the people; might honestly
and cheerfully advocate. And from the first clause of the proposed law to the last, O Romans, I
find nothing else thought of, nothing else intended, nothing else aimed at, but to appoint ten
kings of the treasury, of the revenues, of all the provinces, of the whole of the republic, of
the kingdoms allied with us, of the free nations confederate with us—ten lords of the whole
world, under the pretence and name of an agrarian law.
I do assert to you, O Romans, that by this beautiful
agrarian law, by this law calculated solely for the good of the people, nothing whatever is
given to you, everything is sacrificed to a few particular men; that lands are displayed before
the eyes of the Roman people, liberty is taken away from them; that the fortunes of some
private individuals are increased, the public wealth is exhausted; and lastly, which is the
most scandalous thing of all, that by means of a tribune of the people, whom our ancestors
designed to be the protector and guardian of liberty, kings are being established in the city.
And when I have shown to you all the grounds for this statement, if they appear to you to be
erroneous, I will yield to your authority, I will abandon my own opinion, but if you become
aware that plots are laid against your liberty, under a pretence of liberality, then do not
hesitate, now that you have a consul to assist you, to defend that liberty which was earned by
the sweat and blood of your ancestors, and handed down to you, without any trouble on your
part.
The first clause in this agrarian law is one by which, as they think, you are a little
proved, to see with what feelings you can bear a diminution of your liberty. For it orders “the
tribune of the people who has passed this law to create ten decemvirs by the votes of seventeen
tribes, so that whomsoever a majority consisting of nine tribes elects, shall be a decemvir.”
On this I ask, on what
account the framer of this law has commenced his law and his measures in such a manner, as to
deprive the Roman people of its right of voting? As often as agrarian laws have been passed,
commissioners, and triumvirs, and quinquevirs, and decemvirs have been appointed. I
ask this tribune of the people, who is so attached to the people, whether they were ever
created except by the whole thirty-five tribes? In truth, as it is proper for every power, and
every command, and every charge which is committed to any one, to proceed from the entire Roman
people, so especially ought those to do so, which are established for any use and advantage of
the Roman people; as that is a case in which they all together choose the man who they think
will most study the advantage of the Roman people, and in which also each individual among them
by his own zeal and his own vote assists to make a road by which he may obtain some individual
benefit for himself. This is the tribune to whom it has occurred above all others to deprive
the Roman people of their suffrages, and to invite a few tribes not by any fixed condition of
law, but by the kindness of lots drawn, and by chance, to usurp the liberties belonging to all.
“Also in the same manner,” it says in the second clause,
“as in the comitia for the election of a Pontifex Maximus.” He did not perceive even this, that
our ancestors did really study the good of the people so much, that, though it was not lawful
for that office to be conferred by the people, on account of the religious ceremonies then
used, still, they chose, in order to do additional honour to the priesthood, that the sanction
of the people should be asked for it. And Cnaeus Domitius, a tribune of the people, and a most
eminent man, passed the same law with respect to the other priesthoods; enacting, because the
people, on account of the requirements of religion, could not confer the priesthoods, that a
small half of the people should be invited; and that whoever was selected by that half should
be chosen into their body by the sacred college.
See now how
great a difference there is between Cnaeus Domitius, a tribune of the people, a man of the
highest rank, and Publius Rullus, who tried your patience, as I imagine, when he said that he
was a noble. Domitius contrived a way by which, as far as he was able, as far as was consistent
with the laws of men and of gods, he might confer on a portion of the people what could not be
done by any regular proceeding on the part of the entire people. But this man, when there was a
thing which had always belonged to the people, which no one had ever impaired, and which no one
had ever altered,—the principle, namely, that those who were to assign lands to the people,
should receive a kindness from the Roman people before they conferred one on it; that this man
has endeavoured entirely to take away from you, and to wrest out of your hands. The one
contrived somehow or other to give that which could not really be given formally to the people;
the other endeavours somehow or other to take away from them by manoeuvre, what could not
possibly be taken from them by direct power.
Some one will ask what was his purpose in such injustice and such impudence. He was not
without an object. But good faith towards the Roman people, just feelings towards you and your
liberty, he was utterly without. For he orders the man who has passed the law to hold the
comitia for the creation of the decemvirs. I will state the case more plainly. Rullus, as a man
far from being covetous or ambitious, orders Rullus to hold the comitia. I do not find fault
yet. I see that others have done the same thing. Now see what is the object of this, which no
one else ever did, with respect to the smaller half of the people. He will hold the comitia; he
wishes to have the appointment of those officers for whom kingly power is sought to be procured
by this law. He himself will not entrust it to the entire people, nor do those who were the
original instigators of these designs think it ought to be entrusted to them.