[77]
Consider it in its
true light, and with due care. Do you think that in this number there will be room for you
yourselves, or for any men like you—quiet, easy men? If there be room for all of
you, or even for the greater part of you—although my regard for your honour compels
me to keep awake day and night, and to watch with eager eyes every part of the
republic—still I will close my eyes for a time, if your advantage will be at all
promoted by my doing so. But, if a place and a city is being looked out for five thousand
men, picked out as fit instruments for violence, and atrocity, and slaughter, from which they
may be able to make war, and which may be able to equip them properly for war,—will
you still suffer a power to be raised and garrisons to be armed in your own name against
yourselves? Will you allow cities and lands and forces to be arrayed against your interest?
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.