6.
[14]
I assure you with the most real sincerity, O Romans, that I applied myself to the reading
and understanding of this law with these feelings, that if I had thought it well adapted to
your interests, and advantageous to them, I would have been a chief mover in and promoter of
it. For the consulship has not, either by nature, or by any inherent difference of object, or
by any instinctive hatred, any enmity against the tribuneship, though good and fearless
consuls have often opposed seditious and worthless tribunes of the people, and though the
power of the tribunes has sometimes opposed the capricious licentiousness of the consuls. It
is not the dissimilarity of their powers, but the disunion of their minds, that creates
dissension between them.
[15]
Therefore, I applied myself to
the consideration of the law with these feelings, that I wished to find it calculated to
promote your interests, and such an one as a consul who was really, not in word only, devoted
to the people; might honestly and cheerfully advocate. And from the first clause of the
proposed law to the last, O Romans, I find nothing else thought of, nothing else intended,
nothing else aimed at, but to appoint ten kings of the treasury, of the revenues, of all the
provinces, of the whole of the republic, of the kingdoms allied with us, of the free nations
confederate with us—ten lords of the whole world, under the pretence and name of an
agrarian law.
[16]
I do assert to you, O Romans, that by this beautiful
agrarian law, by this law calculated solely for the good of the people, nothing whatever is
given to you, everything is sacrificed to a few particular men; that lands are displayed
before the eyes of the Roman people, liberty is taken away from them; that the fortunes of
some private individuals are increased, the public wealth is exhausted; and lastly, which is
the most scandalous thing of all, that by means of a tribune of the people, whom our
ancestors designed to be the protector and guardian of liberty, kings are being established
in the city. And when I have shown to you all the grounds for this statement, if they appear
to you to be erroneous, I will yield to your authority, I will abandon my own opinion, but if
you become aware that plots are laid against your liberty, under a pretence of liberality,
then do not hesitate, now that you have a consul to assist you, to defend that liberty which
was earned by the sweat and blood of your ancestors, and handed down to you, without any
trouble on your part.
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