Ab urbe condita

Of course they all knew it, and because they knew it they preferred to obey the Aemilian Law rather than that older one by which the censors were originally appointed, simply because the former was

the last passed by order of the people and also because when two laws contradict each other the later one repeals the earlier.

Do you maintain, Appius, that the people are not bound by the Aemilian Law, or do you claim, if they are bound by it, that you alone are exempt from its provisions? That law availed to bind those arbitrary censors C. Furius and M. Geganius, who gave us a proof of the mischief which that office could work in the republic when, in revenge for the limitation of their power, they placed among

the aerarii the foremost soldier and statesman of his time, Mamercus Aemilius. It bound all the succeeding censors for a hundred years, it binds your colleague C. Plautius, who was appointed under the same auspices, with the same powers as yourself.

Did not the people appoint him “with all the customary powers and privileges” that a censor can possess? Or are you the solitary exception in whom all these powers and privileges reside?

Whom then can you appoint as “king for sacrifices”? He will cling to the name of “king” and say that he was ap- pointed with all the powers that the Kings of Rome possessed. Who do you suppose would be contented with a six months' dictatorship or a five days' interregnum?

Whom would you venture to nominate as Dictator for the purpose of driving in the nail or presiding at the Games? How stupid and spiritless, Quirites, you must consider those men to have been who after their magnificent achievements resigned their dictatorship in twenty days, or vacated their office owing to some flaw in their appointment!

But why should I recall instances of old time? It is not ten years since C. Maenius as Dictator was conducting a criminal process with a rigour which some powerful people con- sidered dangerous to themselves, and in consequence his enemies charged him with being tainted with the very crime he was investigating.

He at once resigned his dictatorship in order to meet, as a private citizen, the charges brought against him. I am far from wishing to see such moderation in you, Appius . Do not show yourself a degenerate scion of your house; do not fall short of your ancestors in their craving for power, their love of tyranny; do not vacate your office a day or an hour sooner than you are obliged, only see that you do not exceed the fixed term.

Perhaps you will he satisfied with an additional day or an additional month?

“No,” he says, “I shall hold my censorship for three years and a half beyond the period fixed by the Aemilian Law and I shall hold it alone.”

This sounds very much like an absolute monarch. Or will you co-opt a colleague, a pro- ceeding forbidden by divine laws even where one has been lost by death?” “There is a sacred function going back to the very earliest times, the only one actually initiated by the deity in whose honour it is performed, which has always been discharged by men of the highest rank and most blameless character.

You, conscientious censor that you are, have transferred this ministry to servants, and a House older than this City, hallowed by the hospitality they showed to immortal gods, has become extinct in one short year owing to you and your censorship.

But this is not enough for you, you will not rest till you have involved the whole commonwealth in a sacrilege the consequences of which I dare not contemplate.