De Lege Agraria

I am waiting to see what this vigilant and clever tribune is contriving. Let the Scantian [*](The Scantian wood was in Campania.) wood, says he, be sold. Did you then find this wood mentioned among the possessions that were left, or in the pasture lands of the lessors? If there is anything which you have hunted out, and discovered, brought to light out of darkness, although it is not just, still use that, since it is convenient, and since you yourself were the person to bring it forward. But shall you sell the Scantian wood while we are consuls, and while this senate is in existence? Shall you touch any of the revenues? Shall you take away from the Roman people that which is their strength in time of war, their ornament in time of peace? But then indeed, I shall think myself a lazier consul than those fearless men who filled this office in the times of our ancestors; because the revenues which were acquired by the Roman people when they were consuls, will be considered not able to be preserved when I am consul.

He is selling all the possessions in Italy, in regular order. Forsooth, he is very busy in that occupation. For does not omit one. He goes through the whole of Sicily in the account-books of the censors. He does not omit one single house, or one single field. You have heard an auction of the property of the Roman people given notice of by tribune of the people, and fixed for the month of January and I suppose you do not doubt, that they who procured these things by their arms and their valour, did not sell the for the sake of the treasury, on purpose that we might have something to sell for the sake of bribery.

See, now, how much more undisguisedly than before he proceeds on his course. For it has been already shown by how they attacked Pompeius in the earlier part of the law; and now they shall show it also themselves. He orders the lands belonging to the men of Attalia and Olympus to be sold. These lands the victory of Publius Servilius, that most gallant general, had made the property of the Roman people. After that, the royal domains in Macedonia, which were acquired partly by the valour of Titus Flamininus, and part by that of Lucius Paullus, who conquered Perses. After that, that most excellent and productive land which belongs Corinth, which was added to the revenues of the Roman people by the campaigns and successes of Lucius Mummius. After that, they sell the lands in Spain near Carthagena, acquired by the distinguished valour of the two Scipios. Then Carthagena itself, which Publius Scipio, having stripped it of all its fortifications, consecrated to the eternal recollection of men, whether his purpose was to keep up the memory of the disaster of the Carthaginians, or to bear witness to our victory, or to fulfill some religious obligation.

Having sold all these ensigns and crowns, as it were, of the empire, with which the republic was adorned, and handed down to you by your ancestors, they then order the lands to be sold which the king Mithridates possessed in Paphlagonia, and Pontus, and Cappadocia. Do they not seem to be pursuing without much disguise, and almost with the crier's spear, the army of Cnaeus Pompeius, when they order those lands to be sold in which he is now engaged and carrying on war?

But what is the meaning of this, that they fix no place for this auction which they are establishing? For power is given to the decemvirs by this law, of holding their sales in any places which seem convenient to them. The censors are not allowed to let the contracts for farming the revenues, except in the sight of the Roman people. Shall these men be allowed to sell them in the most distant countries? But even the most profligate men, when they have squandered their patrimony, prefer selling their property in the auctioneer's rooms, rather than in the roads, or in the streets. This man, by his law, gives leave to the decemvirs to sell the property of the Roman people in whatever darkness and whatever solitude they find it convenient.

Do you not, moreover, see how grievous, how formidable, and how pregnant with extortion that invasion of the decemvirs and of the multitude that will follow in their train will be to all the provinces, and kingdoms, and free nations? In the case of those men on whom you have conferred lieutenancies for the sake of entering on inheritances, though they went as private men, on private business, invested with no excessive power and no supreme authority, you have still heard how burdensome their arrival has proved to your allies.