[79]
The Roman people
on the motion of Lucius Sulla, the dictator, in the comitia centuriata, took away the rights of citizenship from
the municipal towns, and at the same time took away their lands. The decree
about the lands was ratified, for that the people had power to pass; but
their decree concerning the rights of citizenship did not last even as long
as the disturbances of the time of Sulla. Shall we then say that Lucius
Sulla, victorious as he was, after he had been restored to the republic,
could not in the comitia centuriata take away
the rights of citizenship from the people of Volaterra, even though they
were in arms at the time;—and the Volaterrans to this day enjoy
the rights of citizenship in common with ourselves, being not only citizens,
but most excellent citizens too;—and allow that Publius Clodius,
at a time when the republic was utterly overturned, could take away his
rights as a citizen from a man of consular rank, by summoning an assembly,
and hiring bands not only of needy citizens, but even of slaves, with
Sedulius as their imputed leader, though he declares that on that day he was
not in Rome at all?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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