[56]
When Lucius Sulla was selling at
that fatal auction of his the property of citizens who had not been condemned, and when he
said that he was selling his plunder, still he sold it on this spot where I am standing now;
nor did he venture to avoid the sight of those men to whose eyes he was so hateful. Shall the
decemvirs sell your revenues, not only where you yourselves are not witnesses of the sale,
but where there is not even a public crier present as a spectator?
Then follows—“All the lands out of Italy,” without any limit as to time, not (as was enacted before)
those acquired by Sulla and Pompeius when they were consuls. There is an inquiry to be made
by the decemvirs, whether the land be private or public property; and by this means a heavy
tax is laid on the laud.
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.
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