De Lege Agraria

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.

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?