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[14]
What am I to say? Have we received any
other doctrine from our fathers? Therefore, that citizen—if you had
lived in those times—would not have been approved of by you, because
he did not wish all the citizens to be safe. “Because Lucius Opimius
the consul has made a speech concerning the republic, the senators have thus
decided on that matter, that Opimius the consul shall defend the
republic.” The senate adopted these measures in words, Opimius
followed them up by his arms Should you then if you had lived in those times
have thought him a hasty or a cruel citizen? or should you have thought Quintus
Metellus one whose four sons were all men of consular rank? or Publius Lentulus
the chief of the senate and many other admirable men who with Lucius Opimius the
consul, took arms, and pursued Gracchus to the Aventine? and in the battle which ensued, Lentulus received a
severe wound, Gracchus was slain, and so was Marcus Fulvius, a man of consular
rank, and his two youthful sons. Those men, therefore, are to be blamed; for
they did not wish all the citizens to be safe.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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