De Lege Agraria

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.