De Lege Agraria

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 Therefore, the most excellent laws will be repealed by this law without the least suspicion of the fact.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.)

But now take notice of the diligence of the man, if indeed you think that Rullus contrived this, or that it is a thing which could possibly have occurred to Rullus. Those men who first projected these measures saw, that, if you had the power of making your selection out of the whole people, whatever the matter might be in which good faith, integrity, virtue, and authority were required, you would beyond all question entrust it to Cnaeus Pompeius as the chief manager. In truth, after you had chosen one man out of all the citizens, and appointed him to conduct all your wars against all nations by land and sea, they saw plainly that it was most natural that, when you were appointing decemvirs, whether it was to be looked on as committing a trust to, or conferring an honour on a man, you would commit the business to him, and most reasonable that he should have this compliment paid him.

Therefore, an exception is made by this law, mentioning not youth, nor any legal impediment, nor any command or magistracy, which might be encumbered with obstacles arising either from the business with which it was already loaded, or from the laws. There is not even an exception made in the case of any convicted person, to prevent his being made a decemvir. Cnaeus Pompeius is excepted and disabled from being elected a colleague of Publius Rullus (for I say nothing of the rest). For he has worded the law so that only those who are present can stand for the office; a clause which was never yet found in any other law, not even in the laws concerning those magistrates who are periodically elected. But this clause was inserted, in order that if the law passed you might not be able to give him a colleague who would be a guardian over him, and a check upon his covetousness. Here, since I see that you are moved by the dignity of the man, and by the insult put upon him by this law, I will return to the assertion that I made at the beginning, that a kingly power is being erected, and your liberties entirely taken away by this law.

Did you think, otherwise, that when a few men had cast the eyes of covetousness on all your possessions, they would not in the very first place take care that Cnaeus Pompeius should be removed from all power of protecting your liberty, from all power to promote, from all commission to watch over, and from all means of protecting your interests? They saw, and they see still, that if, through your own imprudence and my negligence, you adopt this law, without understanding its effect, you would afterwards, when you were creating decemvirs, think it expedient to oppose Cnaeus Pompeius as your defence against all defects and wickednesses in the law. And is this a slight argument to you, that these are men by whom dominion and power over everything is sought, when you see that he, whom they see will surely be the protector of your liberty, is the only one to whom that dignity is denied?

Now consider what a power is given to the decemvirs, and how great is its extent. In the first place be gives the decemvirs the honour of a lex curiata. [*](The comitia curiata, at which alone a lex curiata could he passed, was a meeting of the populus of Rome, assembled in its tribes of houses; and no member of the plebs could vote at such a meeting. They met principally for the sake of confirming some ordinance of the senate; a senatus consultum was an indispensable preliminary, and with regard to elections and laws, they had merely the power of confirming or rejecting what the senate had already decreed. The lex curiata (de imperio),which was the same as the auctoritas patrum, was necessary in order to confer upon the dictator, the consuls, and the other magistrates the imperium or military command. The comitia curiata were held by the patrician magistrates, and they voted by their curies. The comitia centuriata were the assembly of the populus and plebs together, and they voted by their centuries by ballot. The comitia tributa were not established till B. C. 491. They were an assembly of the people according to the local tribes into which the Plebs was originally divided. No qualification of birth or property was necessary to enable a them to vote in the comitia tributa. They were summoned by the tribuni plebis, who were also the presiding magistrates in general; but the consuls or praetors might preside if they were convoked for the election of inferior magistrates, such as the quaestor, propraetor, or proconsul. Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 274, v. Comitia, q. v. ) But this is unheard-of and absolutely without precedent, that a magistracy should be conferred by a lex curiata on a man who has not previously received it in some comitia. He orders the law to be brought in by that praetor who is appointed first praetor. But how? In order that these men may receive the decemvirate whom the people has elected. He has forgotten that none have been elected by the common people. Here is a pretty fellow to bind the whole world with laws, who does not recollect in the third clause what is set down in the second! This, too, is quite plain; both what privileges you have received from your ancestors, and what is left to you by this tribune of the people. Our ancestors chose that you should give your votes twice about every magistrate. For as a centuriata lex [*](This and the preceding chapter are exceedingly obscure, and almost unintelligible to us; perhaps also the text is a little corrupt. Manutius says, “An exceedingly difficult passage, which has perplexed men of the greatest ability and learning.” His explanation is as follows: “The ancient Romans had chosen that the people should decide on the election of every magistrate in two comitia; but the magistracies are distinguished into patrician and plebeian; the patrician magistrates are the quaestor, the curule aedile, the praetor, the consul, and the censor; the plebeian are the tribune of the people, the aedile of the people, and others. But there were two comitia first about the patrician magistrates before the plebeian ones were elected, namely the centuriata comitia, and the curiata. I except the censors, who, although they were patrician magistrates, still were elected by one comitia only, the centuriata. But when the plebeian magistrates were elected, then the tributa comitia succeeded to the place of the curiata, for the curiata had nothing to do with the plebeian magistrates. For they were instituted for the sake of the patrician magistrates long before the origin of the plebeian ones. Some one may say, Why were not the centuriata taken away for the same reason, as they were instituted by king Servius when there were not yet any plebeian magistrates? The answer is, In order that there might be some comitia held with proper auspices at which the patrician magistrates might be created, for the auspices were not taken at the tributa comitia. As, therefore, in the case of the patrician magistrates, (with the exception, as I have said before, of the censor,) the people gave their votes first in the centuriata comitia and then in the curiata, before the plebeian magistrates were elected; so, when the plebeian magistrates were elected, the same people voted in the centuriata and tributa comitia.”) was passed for the censors, and a curiata lex for the other patrician magistrates, by this means a decision was come to a second time about the same men, in order that the people might have an opportunity of correcting what they had done, if they repented of the honour they had conferred on any one.

Now, because you have preserved the comitia centuriata and tributa, the curiata have remained only for the sake of the auspices. But this tribune of the people, because he saw that no man could possibly have any authority conferred on him without the authority of the burghers [*](The Latin terms are populus and plebs. For the best account of the populus to be found in a small space, see Smith's Dict. Ant. p. 726, v. Patricii; and consult the same admirable book, p. 765, v. Plebes, or plebs. The word potestas, which I have translated “authority,” means strictly only civil authority, in opposition to imperium, military command.) or of the commonalty, confirmed that authority which he proposed to give by the curiata comitia, with which you have nothing to do, and took away the comitia tributa which belonged to you. So, though your ancestors intended you to decide at two comitia about each magistrate, this man, so attached to the interests of the people, did not leave the people the power of even one comitia.

But just note the scrupulousness and the diligence of the man. He saw, and was thoroughly aware, that without a lex curiata the decemvirs could not have authority, since they were elected by only nine tribes. So he directs that there should be a lex curiata passed about them, and orders the praetor to propose it. How ridiculous such a contrivance was, it is no business of mine to say. For he orders that “he who has been elected first praetor, shall propose a lex curiata; but if he be able to propose it, then the last praetor shall do it.” So that he seems either to have been playing the fool in this business, or else to have been aiming at something I know not what. But, however, let us pass over this, which is either so perverse, or so ridiculous, or so malicious and cunning, as to be unintelligible, and return to the scrupulousness of the man.He sees that nothing can be done by the decemvirs except by a lex curiata.

What was to happen afterwards, if a lex curiata were not passed? Remark the ingenuity of the man. “Then,” says he, “the decemvirs shall be in the same condition as those who are appointed in the strictest accordance with the law.” If this can be brought about, that, in this city which is far superior to all other states in its rights of liberty, any one may be able to obtain either military command or civil authority without the sanction of any comitia, then what is the necessity for ordering in the third chapter that some one shall propose a lex curiata, when in the fourth chapter you permit men to have the same rights without a lex curiata, which they would have if they were elected by the burghers according to the strictest form of law? Kings are being appointed, O Romans, not decemvirs; and they are starting with such beginnings and on such foundations, that the whole of your rights, and powers, and liberties are destroyed not only from the moment that they begin to act, but from the moment that they are appointed.

But remark how carefully he preserves the rights of the tribunitian power. The consuls are often interrupted in proposing a lex curiata, by the intercession of the tribunes of the people. Not that we complain that the tribunes should have this power; only, if any one uses it in a random and inconsiderate manner, we form our own opinion. But this tribune of the people, by his lex curiata, which the praetor is to bring forward, takes away the power of intercession. And while he is made to be blamed for causing the tribunitian power to be diminished by his instrumentality, he is also to be laughed at, because a consul, if he be not invested with the authority by a lex curiata, has no power to interfere in military affairs; and yet he gives this man whom he prohibits from interceding, the very same power, even if the veto be interposed, as if a lex curiata had been passed. So that I am at a loss to understand either why he prohibits the intercession, or why he thinks that any one will intercede; as the intercession will only prove the folly of the intercessor, and will not hinder the business.

Let there then be decemvirs, appointed neither by the genuine comitia,—that is to say, by the votes of the people,—nor by that comitia convened in appearance, to keep up an ancient custom, by the thirty lictors for the sake of the auspices. [*](“In after times, when the comitia curiata were little more than a matter of form, their suffrages were represented by the thirty lictors of the curiae, whose duty it was to summon the curiae when the meetings actually took place.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 273 a, v. Comitia.) See now, also, how much greater honours he confers on these men who have received no authority from you, than we have received, to whom you have given the most ample authority, He orders the decemvirs, [*](The Latin has, “decemviri pullarii”. Pullarius was the officer appointed to feed and take care of the sacred chickens that were kept for the purpose of taking the auspices; and much was inferred from the way in which they took their food, or perhaps refused it.) who have the care of the auspices, to take auspices for the sake of conducting the colonies. “According,” says he, “to the same right which the triumvirs had by the Sempronian law.” Do you venture, O Rullus, even to make mention of the Sempronian law? and does not that law itself remind you that these triumvirs have been created by the suffrages of the tribes? And while you are

Besides all this, he gives them authority praetorian in name, but kingly in reality. He describes their power, as a power for five years; but he makes it perpetual. For he strengthens it with such bulwarks and defences that it will be quite impossible to deprive them of it against their own consent. Then he adorns them with apparitors, and secretaries, and clerks, and criers, and architects; besides that, with mules, and tents, and centuries, [*](There is, no doubt, some corruption here in the text.) and all sorts of furniture; he draws money for their expenses from the treasury; he supplies them with more money from the allies; he appoints them two hundred surveyors from the equestrian body every year as their personal attendants, and also as ministers and satellites of their power. You have now, O Romans, the form and very appearance of tyrants; you see all the ensigns of power, but not yet the power itself. For, perhaps, some one may say, “Well, what harm do all those men, secretary, lictor, crier, and chicken-feeder do me?” I will tell you. These things are of such a nature that the man who has them without their being conferred by your vote, must seem either a monarch with intolerable power, or if he assumes them as a private individual, a madman.

Just see what great authority they are invested with, and you will say that it is not the insanity of private individuals, but the immoderate arrogance of kings. First of all, they are entrusted with boundless power of acquiring enormous sums of money out of your revenues, not by farming them but by alienating them. In the next place, they are allowed to pursue an inquiry into the conduct of every country and of every nation, without any bench of judges; to punish without any right of appeal being allowed; and to condemn without there being any means of procuring a reversal of their sentence.

They will be able for five years to sit in judgment on the consuls, or even on the tribunes of the people themselves; but all that time no one will be able to sit in judgment on them. They will be allowed to fill magisterial offices; but they will not be allowed to be prosecuted. They will have power to purchase lands, from whomsoever they choose, whatever they choose, and at whatever price they choose. They are allowed to establish new colonies, to recruit old ones, to fill all Italy with their colonists; they have absolute authority for visiting every province, for depriving free people of their lands, for giving or taking away kingdoms, whenever they please. They may be at Rome when it is convenient to them; but they have a right also to wander about wherever they like with supreme command, and with a power of sitting in judgment on everything. They are allowed to put an end to all criminal trials; to remove from the tribunals whoever they think fit; to decide by themselves on the most important matters; to delegate their power to a quaestor; to send about surveyors; and to ratify whatever the surveyor has reported to that single decemvir by whom he has been sent.

It is a defect in my language, O Romans, when I call this power a kingly power. For in truth, it is something much more considerable; for there never was any kingly power that, if it was not defined by some express law, was not at least understood to be subject to certain limitations. But this power is absolutely unbounded; it is one within which all kingly powers, and your own imperial authority, which is of such wide extent, and all other powers, whether freely exercised by your permission, or existing only by your tacit countenance, are, by express permission of the law, comprehended. The first thing which is given to them is, a liberty of selling everything concerning the sale of which resolutions of the senate were passed in the consulship of Marcus Tullius and Cnaeus Cornelius or afterwards.

Why is this so obscure and so concealed? What is the meaning of it? Could not those matters concerning which the senate passed resolutions, be mentioned in the law by name? There are two reasons for this obscurity, O Romans; one, a reason of modesty, if there can be any modesty in such inordinate impudence; the other, a reason of wickedness. For it does not dare to name those things which the senate resolved were to he sold, mentioning them by name; for they are public places in the city, they are shrines, which since the restoration of the tribunitian power no one has touched, and which our ancestors partly intended to be refuges in times of danger in the heart of the city. But all these things the decemvirs will sell by this law of this tribune of the people. Besides them, there will be Mount Gaurus; besides that, there will be the osier-beds at Minturnae; besides them, that very salable road to Herculaneum, a road of many delights and of considerable value; and many other things which the senate considered it advisable to sell on account of the straits to which the treasury was reduced, but which the consuls did not sell on account of the unpopularity which would have attended such a measure.

However, perhaps it is owing to shame that there is no mention of all these things in the law. What is much more to be guarded against, what is a much more real object of fear, is, that great power is permitted to the boldness of these decemvirs of tampering with the public documents, and forging decrees of the Senate, which have never been made; as a great many of those men who have been consuls of late years are dead. Unless, perhaps, I may be told, that it is not reasonable for you to entertain any suspicions of their audacity, for whose cupidity the whole world appears too narrow.

You see now one kind of sale, which I am aware appears very important to you; but pray give your attention to what follows, and you will see that this is only a kind of step and road to other measures. “Whatever lands, whatever places, whatever buildings.” What is there besides? There is much property in slaves, in cattle, in bullion, in money, in ivory, in robes, in furniture, in all sorts of other things. What shall that say? Did he think it would cause unpopularity to name all these things? He was not afraid of unpopularity. What then was his motive? He thought the catalogue a long one, and he was afraid of passing over anything; so he wrote in addition, “or anything else;” by which brief formula you see that nothing can be omitted. Whatever, therefore, there is out of Italy, that has been made the property of the Roman people by Lucius Sulla and Quintus Pompeius in their consulships, or afterwards, that he orders the decemvirs to sell.

By this clause, I say, O Romans, that all nations, and people, and provinces, and kingdoms, are given up and handed over to the dominion, and judgment, and power of the decemvirs. This is the first thing; for I ask what place there is anywhere in the world which the decemvirs may not be able to say has been made the property of the Roman people? For, when the same person who has made the assertion is also to judge of the truth of it, what is there which he may not say, when he is also the person to decide in the question? It will be very convenient to say, that Pergamus, and Smyrna, and Tralles, and Ephesus, and Miletus, and Cyzicus, and, in short, all Asia, which has been recovered since the consulship of Lucius Sulla and Quintus Pompeius, has become the property of the Roman people.

Will language fail him in which to assert such a doctrine? or, when the same person makes the statement and judges of the truth of it, will it be impossible to induce him to give a false decision? or, if he is unwilling to pass sentence on Asia, will he not estimate at his own price its release from the dread of condemnation? What will he say—(and it is quite impossible for any one to argue against this, since it has been already settled and decided by you, and since we have already voted it to be our inheritance,)—what will he say to the kingdom of Bithynia? which has undoubtedly become the public property of the Roman people. Is there any reason why the decemvirs should not sell all the lands, and cities, and military stations and harbours, and in short all Bithynia? What will they do at Mitylene? which has undoubtedly become yours, O Romans, by the laws of war and by the rights of victory; a city both by nature and situation, and by the description of its houses, and by its general beauty, most eminently remarkable; and its lands are pleasant and productive. That city, forsooth, comes under the same head.