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.
The same Rullus will cast lots between the tribes. He, happy man, will pick
out the tribes which he prefers. Those decemvirs whom the nine tribes selected by this same
Rullus may choose to appoint, we shall have, as I shall presently show, for our absolute
masters in everything. And they, that they may appear to be grateful men, and to be mindful of
kindness, will confess that they are indebted to the leading men of these nine tribes. But as
for the other six-and-twenty tribes, there will be nothing which they will not think that they
have a right to refuse them. Who are they, then, whom he means to have elected tribunes? In the
first place, himself. How can that be lawful? For there are old laws, and those too not laws
made by consuls, if you think that that makes any difference, but made by tribunes, very
pleasing and agreeable to you and to your ancestors. There is the Licinian law, and the second
Aebutian law; which excepts not only the man who has caused a law to be passed concerning any
commission or power, but also all his colleagues and all his connections, and incapacitates
them from being appointed to any power or commission so established.
In truth, if you consult the interests of the people, remove yourself from
all suspicion of any advantage to yourself; allow the power to accrue to others, gratitude for
the good you have done must be enough for yourself. For such conduct as this is scarcely
becoming in a free people, it is scarcely consistent with your spirit and dignity.
Who passed the law? Rullus. Who prevented the greater portion of the people from having a
vote? Rullus. Who presided over the comitia? Who summoned to the election whatever tribes he
pleased, having drawn the lots for them without any witness being present to see fair play? Who
appointed whatever decemvirs he chose? This same Rullus. Whom did he appoint chief of the
decemvirs? Rullus. I hardly believe that he could induce his own slaves to approve of this;
much less you, who are the masters of all nations. Therefore, the most excellent laws will be
repealed by this law without the least suspicion of the fact. He will seek for a commission for
himself by virtue of his own law; he will hold comitia, though the greater portion of the
people is stripped of their votes; he will appoint whomsoever he pleases, and himself among
them; and forsooth he will not reject his own colleagues, the backers of this agrarian law by
whom the first place in the unpopularity which may possibly arise from drawing the law, and
from having his name at the head of it, has indeed been conceded to him, but the profit from
the whole business, they, who in the hope of it are placed in this position, reserve to
themselves in equal shares with him. The last four lines of this
paragraph are very corrupt in the original, and there is a good deal of variety in the
readings.