[47]
Grant this licence to a tribune of the people, and then
for a moment contemplate in your minds the youth of the city, and especially
those men who seem now to be anxiously coveting the tribunitian power. There
will be found, by Jove! whole colleges of tribunes of the people, if this
law is once established, and they will all conspire against the property of
all the richest men, when a booty so especially popular and the hope of
great acquisitions is thus held out to them.
But what vote is it that this skillful and experienced law-giver has carried?
“May you be willing and may you command that Marcus Tullius be
interdicted from water and fire.” A cruel vote, a nefarious vote,
one not to be endured even in the case of the very wickedest citizen,
without a trial. He did not propose a vote, “That he be
interdicted.” What then? “That he has been
interdicted.” O horrible, O prodigious, O what wickedness! Did
Clodius frame this law, more infamous than even his own
tongue?—that it has been interdicted to a person to whom it has
not been interdicted? My good friend Sextus, by your leave, tell me now,
since you are a logician and are devoted to this science, is it possible for
a proposition to be made to the people, or to be established by any form of
words, or to be confirmed by any votes, making that to have been done which
has not been done?
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