De Lege Agraria

The decemviri will sell the booty, the spoils, the division of the plunder, the very camp of Cnaeus Pompeius, while the general is forced to sit still.

In beardless youth---

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[The whole of the Propontis and of the Hellespont will therefore come under the power of the praetor; the whole coast of the Lycians and Cilicians will be advertised for sale; Mysia and Phrygia will be subjected to the same conditions [*](Rhunck has enclosed this sentence in brackets, as the gloss and interpolation of an ignorant man; but Orellius thinks some part of it really Cicero's, though not free from corruptions.)]

. . . . That which was then openly sought, is now endeavoured to be effected secretly by mines. For the decemvirs will say, what indeed is said by many, and has often been said,—that after the consulship of those men, all that kingdom became the property of the Roman people, by the bequest of the king Alexander. Will you then give Alexandria [*](Alexander, king of Egypt, had died at Tyre in the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, two years before, and had bequeathed Alexandria and Egypt to the Roman people, and in consequence many people advocated the course of claiming that inheritance, and depriving Ptolemy the king of Egypt. The subject will be mentioned again in the next oration.) to those men when they ask for it in an underhand way, whom you resisted when they openly fought against you? Which, in the name of the immortal gods, do these things seem to you,—the designs of sober men, or the dreams of drunken ones? the serious thoughts of wise men, or the frantic wishes of madmen?

See, now, in the second chapter of this law, how that profligate debauchee is disturbing the republic,—how he is ruining and dissipating the possessions left us by our ancestors; so as to be not less a spendthrift in the patrimony of the Roman people than in his own. He is advertising for sale by his law all the revenues, for the decemvirs to sell them; that is to say, he is advertising an auction of the property of the state. He wants lands to be bought, in order to be distributed; he is seeking money. No doubt he will devise something, and bring it forward; for in the preceding chapters the dignity of the Roman people was attacked; the name of our dominion was held up as an object of common hatred to all the nations of the earth; cities which were at peace with us, lands belonging to the allies, the ranks of kings in alliance with us, were all made a present of to the decemvirs; and now they want actual ready money paid down to them.

I am waiting to see what this vigilant and clever tribune is contriving. Let the Scantian [*](The Scantian wood was in Campania.) wood, says he, be sold. Did you then find this wood mentioned among the possessions that were left, or in the pasture lands of the lessors? If there is anything which you have hunted out, and discovered, brought to light out of darkness, although it is not just, still use that, since it is convenient, and since you yourself were the person to bring it forward. But shall you sell the Scantian wood while we are consuls, and while this senate is in existence? Shall you touch any of the revenues? Shall you take away from the Roman people that which is their strength in time of war, their ornament in time of peace? But then indeed, I shall think myself a lazier consul than those fearless men who filled this office in the times of our ancestors; because the revenues which were acquired by the Roman people when they were consuls, will be considered not able to be preserved when I am consul.

He is selling all the possessions in Italy, in regular order. Forsooth, he is very busy in that occupation. For does not omit one. He goes through the whole of Sicily in the account-books of the censors. He does not omit one single house, or one single field. You have heard an auction of the property of the Roman people given notice of by tribune of the people, and fixed for the month of January and I suppose you do not doubt, that they who procured these things by their arms and their valour, did not sell the for the sake of the treasury, on purpose that we might have something to sell for the sake of bribery.

See, now, how much more undisguisedly than before he proceeds on his course. For it has been already shown by how they attacked Pompeius in the earlier part of the law; and now they shall show it also themselves. He orders the lands belonging to the men of Attalia and Olympus to be sold. These lands the victory of Publius Servilius, that most gallant general, had made the property of the Roman people. After that, the royal domains in Macedonia, which were acquired partly by the valour of Titus Flamininus, and part by that of Lucius Paullus, who conquered Perses. After that, that most excellent and productive land which belongs Corinth, which was added to the revenues of the Roman people by the campaigns and successes of Lucius Mummius. After that, they sell the lands in Spain near Carthagena, acquired by the distinguished valour of the two Scipios. Then Carthagena itself, which Publius Scipio, having stripped it of all its fortifications, consecrated to the eternal recollection of men, whether his purpose was to keep up the memory of the disaster of the Carthaginians, or to bear witness to our victory, or to fulfill some religious obligation.