[65] Now then do you, O Romans, commit all these things to these men whom you suspect of aiming at this decemvirate; you will find some of them to whom nothing appears sufficient to possess, some to whom nothing seems sufficient to squander.
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Here I will not discuss what is sufficiently notorious, O Romans, or argue that it is not a custom handed down to you from your ancestors, that lands may be bought from private individuals for the purpose of settling portions of the common people in them by the public authority; or that there are not many laws by which private individuals have been established in the public domains. I will admit that I expected something of this sort from this illiterate and ill-mannered tribune of the people; but this most profitable and at the same time most discreditable traffic in buying and selling, I have always thought wholly inconsistent with the duty of a tribune, wholly inconsistent with the dignity of the Roman people.
Here I will not discuss what is sufficiently notorious, O Romans, or argue that it is not a custom handed down to you from your ancestors, that lands may be bought from private individuals for the purpose of settling portions of the common people in them by the public authority; or that there are not many laws by which private individuals have been established in the public domains. I will admit that I expected something of this sort from this illiterate and ill-mannered tribune of the people; but this most profitable and at the same time most discreditable traffic in buying and selling, I have always thought wholly inconsistent with the duty of a tribune, wholly inconsistent with the dignity of the Roman people.
De Lege Agraria. M. Tullius Cicero. Charles Duke Yonge (Translator). London. 1856.
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