[4]
I, on the first of January, delivered the senate and all
virtuous citizens from the fear of an agrarian law and of extravagant
largesses. I preserved the Campanian district, if it was not expedient that
it should be divided; if it was expedient, I reserved it for more
respectable authors of the division. I, in the case of Caius Rabirius, a man
on his trial for high treason, supported and defended against envy the
authority of the senate which had been interposed forty years before the
time of my consulship. I, at the cost of incurring great enmity myself, but
without any enmity falling on the senate, deprived some young
men—virtuous and brave men indeed but still men in such a peculiar
condition that if they had obtained magistracies they would have convulsed
the constitution of the republic of the opportunity of canvassing the
comitia.
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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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