[31]
Let there then be decemvirs, appointed neither by the genuine comitia,—that is to say, by the votes of the people,—nor by that comitia convened in appearance, to keep up an ancient custom, by the thirty lictors for the sake of the auspices. 1 See now, also, how much greater honours he confers on these men who have received no authority from you, than we have received, to whom you have given the most ample authority, He orders the decemvirs, 2 who have the care of the auspices, to take auspices for the sake of conducting the colonies. “According,” says he, “to the same right which the triumvirs had by the Sempronian law.” Do you venture, O Rullus, even to make mention of the Sempronian law? and does not that law itself remind you that these triumvirs have been created by the suffrages of the tribes? And while you are very far removed from the justice and modesty of Tiberius Gracchus, do you think that a law made on so different a principle ought to have the same authority?
Let there then be decemvirs, appointed neither by the genuine comitia,—that is to say, by the votes of the people,—nor by that comitia convened in appearance, to keep up an ancient custom, by the thirty lictors for the sake of the auspices. 1 See now, also, how much greater honours he confers on these men who have received no authority from you, than we have received, to whom you have given the most ample authority, He orders the decemvirs, 2 who have the care of the auspices, to take auspices for the sake of conducting the colonies. “According,” says he, “to the same right which the triumvirs had by the Sempronian law.” Do you venture, O Rullus, even to make mention of the Sempronian law? and does not that law itself remind you that these triumvirs have been created by the suffrages of the tribes? And while you are very far removed from the justice and modesty of Tiberius Gracchus, do you think that a law made on so different a principle ought to have the same authority?
De Lege Agraria. M. Tullius Cicero. Charles Duke Yonge (Translator). London. 1856.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by National Endowment For The Humanities (NEH).