De Lege Agraria

What will become of Alexandria, and of all Egypt? How much it is out of sight! how completely is it hidden! how stealthily is it abandoned entirely to the decemvirs! For who is there among you who is ignorant that that kingdom has become the property of the Roman people by the will of king Alexander? Here now I, the consul of the Roman people, not only give no decision, but I do not even express my opinion. For it appears to me a most important matter not merely to decide oil, but even to speak of. I see a man who assures me that the will was certainly made; I know that there is a resolution of the senate extant to the effect that it accepted the inheritance; which was passed when, after the death of Alexander, we sent ambassadors to Tyre, to recover for the people money which had been deposited there by him.

I recollect that Lucius Philippus has often stated these things positively in the senate. I see that is agreed upon by all men, that he, who is at this present moment in possession of the kingdom, is neither of the royal family nor of any royal disposition. It is said, on the other hand, that there is no will; that the Roman people ought not to seem to covet every kingdom under the sun; that our citizens will emigrate to those regions, on account of the fertility of the soil and the abundance of everything which exists there.

Will Publius Rullus, with the rest of the decemvirs, his colleagues, decide upon so important an affair as this? And which way will he decide? For each alternative is so important that it is quite impossible for you to entrust the decision to him, or to put up with his sentence. Will he desire to be popular? He will adjudge the kingdom to the Roman people. In consequence, he will also, in accordance with his own law, sell Alexandria, and sell Egypt. He will be found to be the judge, the arbiter, the master, of a most wealthy city, and of a most beautiful country; yes, he will be found to be the king of a most opulent kingdom. Will he abstain from taking all this? from desiring all this? He will decide that Alexandria belongs to the king; he will by his sentence deprive the Roman people of it.

Now, in the first place, shall decemvirs give a decision about the inheritance of the Roman people, when you require centumvirs to judge in the case of private inheritances? In the next place, who is to plead the cause of the Roman people? Where is the cause to be tried? Who are those decemvirs whom we think likely to adjudge the kingdom of Alexandria to Ptolemy for nothing? But, if Alexandria was the object, why did not they at this time proceed by the same course which they adopted in the consulship of Lucius Cotta and Lucius Torquatus? Why did they not proceed openly, as they did before? Why did they not act as they did when they before sought that country, in a straightforward and open manner? Did they, who, when they had a fair wind, could not hold their course straight on to the kingdom they coveted, think that they could reach Alexandria amid foul mists and darkness? [*](This sentence and the succeeding one are considered very corrupt, and there is a great variety of readings proposed; for qui Etesiis some read quietis iis; for directo, decreto. Unaque is quite unintelligible.)

Just revolve these things in your minds. . . . . Foreign nations can scarcely endure our lieutenants, though they are men of but slight authority, when they go on free lieutenancies, on account of some private business. For the name of power is a hard one to bear, and is dreaded even in ever so inconsiderable a person; because, when they have once left Rome they conduct their proceedings not in their own name, but in yours. What do you suppose will happen, when those decemvirs wander all over the world with their supreme power, and their faces, and their chosen band of surveyors? What do you suppose will be the feelings, what the alarm, what the actual danger of those unhappy nations?

Is there any terror in absolute power? they will endure it;—is there any expense entailed by the arrival of such men? they will bear it;—are any presents exacted from them? they will not refuse them. But what a business is that, O Romans, when a decemvir, who either has come to some city after being expected, as a guest, or unexpectedly, as a master, pronounces that very place to which he has come, that identical hospitable house in which he is received, to be the public property of the Roman people? How great will be the misery of the people if he says that it is so! How great will be his own private gain, if he says that it is not! And the same men who desire all this, are accustomed sometimes to complain that every land and every sea has been put under the power of Cnaeus Pompeius. But are these two cases, the one, of many things being entrusted to a man, the other, of everything being sacrificed to him, at all similar? Is there any resemblance between a man's being appointed as chief manager of a business requiring toil and labour, and a man's having the chief share in booty and gain allotted to him? in a man's being sent to deliver allies, and a man's being sent to oppress them? Lastly, if there be airy extraordinary honour in question, does it make no difference whether the Roman people confers that honour on any one it chooses, or whether he impudently filches it from the Roman people by an underhand trick of law?

You have now seen how many things and what valuable things the decemvirs are likely to sell with the sanction of the law. That is not enough. When they have sated themselves with the blood of the allies, and of foreign nations, and of kings, they will then cut the sinews of the Roman people; they will lay hands on your revenues; they will break into your treasury. For a clause follows, in which he is not content with permitting, if by chance any money should be wanting, (which, however, can be amassed in such quantities from the effect of the previous clauses, that it ought not to be wanting,) but which actually (as if that was likely to be the salvation of you all) orders and compels the decemvirs to sell all your revenues, naming each item separately.

And do you now read to me in regular order, the catalogue of the property of the Roman people which is for sale according to the written provisions of this law. A catalogue which I think, in truth, will be miserable and grievous to the very crier himself. He is as prodigal a spendthrift with regard to the property of the republic, as a private individual is with regard to his own estate, who sells his woods, before he sells his vineyards. You hare gone all through Italy, now go on into Sicily. There is nothing in that province which your ancestors have left to you as your own property, either in the towns, or in the fields, which he does not order to be sold.

All that property, which, having been gained by their recent victory, your ancestors left to you in the cities and territories of the allies, as both a bond of peace and a monument of war, will you now, though you received it from them, sell it at this man's instigation? Here for a moment I seem, O Romans, to move your feelings, while I make plain to you the plots when they think have escaped every one's notice, as having been laid by them against the dignity of Cnaeus Pompeius. And, I beseech you, pardon me if I am forced to make frequent mention of that man's name. You, O Romans, imposed this character on me, two years ago, in this very same place, and bound me to share with you in the protection of his dignity during his absence, in whatever manner I could. I have hitherto done all that I could, not because I was persuaded to it by my intimacy with him, nor from any hope of honour; or of any most honourable dignity; which I have gained by your means, in his absence, though no doubt with his perfect goodwill.

Wherefore, when I perceive that nearly the whole of this law is made ready, as if it were an engine, for the object of overthrowing his power, I will both resist the designs of the men who have contrived it, and I will enable you not only to perceive, but to be entire masters of the whole plot which I now see in preparation. He orders everything to be sold which belonged to the people of Attalia, and of Phaselus, and of Olympus, and the land of Agera, of Orindia, and of Gedusa. All this became your property owing to the campaigns and victory of that most illustrious man, Publius Servilius. He adds the royal domain of Bithynia, which is at present farmed by the public contractors; after that, he adds the lands belonging to Attalus in the Chersonesus; and those in Macedonia, which belonged to king Philip or king Perses; which also were let out to contractors by the censors, and which are a most certain revenue.

He also puts up to auction the lands of the Corinthians, rich and fertile lands; and those of the Cyrenaeans, which did belong to Apion; and the lands in Spain near Carthagena; and those in Africa near the old Carthage itself—a place which Publius Africanus consecrated, not on account of any religious feeling for the place itself and for its antiquity, but in accordance with the advice of his counselors, in order that the place itself might bear record of the disasters of that people which had contended with us for the empire of the world. But Scipio was not as diligent as Rullus is; or else, perhaps, he could not find a purchaser for that place. However, among these royal districts, taken in our ancient wars by the consummate valour of our generals, he adds the royal lands of Mithridates, which were in Paphlagonia, and in Pontus, and in Cappadocia, and orders the decemvirs to sell them.

Is it so indeed? when no law has been passed to that effect, when the words of our commander-in-chief have not yet been heard, when the war is not yet over, when king Mithridates, having lost his army, having been driven from his kingdom, is even now planning something against us in the most distant corners of the earth, and while he is still defended by the Maeotis, and by those marshes, and by the narrow defiles through which the only passes lie in those countries, and by the height of the mountains, from the invincible band of Cnaeus Pompeius; when our general is actually engaged in the war against him; and while the name of war still lingers in those districts; shall the decemvirs sell those lands over which the military command and civil authority of Cnaeus Pompeius still extends and ought to extend, according to the principles and usages of our ancestors?

And, I make no doubt, Publius Rullus (for he now conducts himself in such a manner as shows that he already fancies himself a decemvir elect) will hasten to attend that auction in preference to every other. He, forsooth, before he arrives in Pontus, will send letters to Cnaeus Pompeius, of which I suppose a copy has already been composed in these terms:—“Publius Servilius Rullus, tribune of the people, decemvir, to Cnaeus Pompeius, the son of Cnaeus, greeting.” I do not suppose that he will add “Magnus;” for it is not likely that he will grant him by a word that dignity which he is endeavouring to diminish. “I wish you to take care to meet me at Sinope, and to bring me assistance, while I am selling, in accordance with the provisions of my law, those lands which you acquired by your labour.” Or will he not invite Pompeius? Will he sell the spoils of the general in his own province? Just place before your eyes Rullus, in Pontus, holding his auction between your camp and that of the enemy, and knocking down lands surrounded by his beautiful band of surveyors.

Nor does the insult consist solely in this, though this is very preposterous, and very unprecedented, that anything which has been acquired in war, while the general is still carrying on the war, should be sold, or even let. But these men have something more in view than mere insult. They hope, if it is allowed to the enemies of Cnaeus Pompeius, not only to stroll about other countries, but even to come to his very army with absolute authority, with a power of sitting as judges in every case, with boundless power, and with countless sums of money, that some plot may be laid against him himself; and that something may be taken from his army, or power, or renown. They think that, if the army reposes any hope in Cnaeus Pompeius with respect to either lands, or any other advantages, it will do so no longer when it sees that the supreme power in all those matters is transferred to the decemvirs.

I am not concerned at those men being so foolish, as to hope for these things; and so impudent, as to attempt to cause them. What I do complain of is, that I am so much despised by them, that they should select the period of my consulship, of all times in the world, for seeking to bring about such prodigious absurdities. And in the sale of all these lands and houses leave is given to the decemvirs “to hold their sales in whatever places they think fit.” Oh their perverted senses! Oh their licentiousness, so necessary to be checked! Oh their profligate and wicked intentions! It is not lawful to let the revenues anywhere except in this city, in this very spot, in the presence of this assembly here present. Shall it be lawful for your own property to be sold and alienated from you for ever in the darkness or Paphlagonia, or in the deserts of Cappadocia?

When Lucius Sulla was selling at that fatal auction of his the property of citizens who had not been condemned, and when he said that he was selling his plunder, still he sold it on this spot where I am standing now; nor did he venture to avoid the sight of those men to whose eyes he was so hateful. Shall the decemvirs sell your revenues, not only where you yourselves are not witnesses of the sale, but where there is not even a public crier present as a spectator? Then follows—“All the lands out of Italy,” without any limit as to time, not (as was enacted before) those acquired by Sulla and Pompeius when they were consuls. There is an inquiry to be made by the decemvirs, whether the land be private or public property; and by this means a heavy tax is laid on the laud.

Who is there who does not see how great a judicial power this is, how intolerable, how tyrannical? for them to be able, in whatever places they please, without any discussion or formal decision, without any assessors, to confiscate private property, and to release public property? In this clause the Recentoric district in Sicily is excepted; which I am exceedingly delighted is excepted, O Romans, both on account of my connection with the people of that district, and because of the justice of the exception. But what impudence it is! Those who are the occupiers of the Recentoric district, defend themselves on the ground of length of occupation, not of right; they rely on the pity of the senate, not on the conditions on which they hold their lands. For they confess that it is part of the public domain; but still they say that they ought not to be removed from their possessions, and their much-loved homes, and their household gods. But if the Recentoric district be private property, why do you except it? But if it be public, where then is the justice of allowing other lands, even if they are private lands, to be adjudged to be public, and to except this district by name which confesses that it is public property? Therefore the land of those men is excepted who have had any means of influencing Rullus; all otter lands, wherever they are—without any selection being made, without any examination being instituted by the people, without any decision being come to by the senate, are to be sold by the decemvirs.

There is also another profitable exception made in the former chapter according to which everything is to be sold. An exception which comprehends those lands which are protected by treaty. He heard that this matter was often agitated in the senate, not by me, but by others, and sometimes also in this place; that king Hiempsal was in possession of lands on the sea coast, which Publius Africanus adjudged to the Roman people; and yet afterwards express provision was made respecting them in a treaty, by Caius Cotta, when consul. But, because you did not order this treaty to be made, Hiempsal is in fear lest it may not be considered firm and properly ratified. What? What sort of proceeding is this? Your decision is not waited for; the whole treaty is excepted. It is approved by Rullus. As it limits the power of sale to be given to the decemvirs, I am glad of it; as it protects the interests of a king who is our friend, I find no fault with it; but my opinion is that the exception was not made for nothing;

for there is constantly fluttering before those men's eyes Juba, the king's son, whose purse is every bit as long as his hair. Even now there scarcely appears to be any place capable of containing such vast heaps of money. He increases the sums, he adds to them, he keeps on accumulating. “To whomsoever gold or silver comes, from spoils, from money given for crowns, if it has neither been paid into the public treasury, nor spent in any monument.” Of that treasure he orders a return to be made to the decemvirs, and the treasure is to be paid over to them. By this case you see that an investigation even into the conduct of the most illustrious men, who have carried on the wars of the Roman people, and that judicial examinations into charges of peculation or extortion, are transferred to the decemvirs. They will have a power of deciding what is the value of the spoils which have been gained by each individual, what return he has made, and what he has left. But this law is laid down for all your generals for the future, that, whoever leaves his province, must make a return to these same decemvirs, of how much booty, and spoils, and gold given for the purpose of crowns he has.

But here this admirable man excepts Cnaeus Pompeius, whom he is so fond of. Whence does this affection so sudden and previously unknown originate? for he is excluded from the honour of the decemvirate almost by name; his power of deciding judicially, of giving laws, or of making any formal inquiry respecting the lands which have been taken by his your, is taken from him; decemvirs are sent not only into his province but into his very camp, with military authority, with immense sums of money, with unlimited power, and with a right of deciding on everything. His rights as a general, which have hitherto always been most jealously preserved to every general are for the first time taken from him. But he is excepted as the only one who is not bound to make a return of his booty. Does it seem that the real object of this clause is to do honour to the man, or to excite a feeling of unpopularity against him?