De Lege Agraria

I do not wonder that you, men of such folly and intemperance as you are, should have desired these things—I do marvel that you should have hoped that you could obtain them while I am consul. For as all consuls ought to exercise the greatest care and diligence in the protection of the republic, so, above all others, ought they to do so who have not been made consuls in their cradles, but in the Campus. No ancestors of mine went bail to the Roman people for me; you gave credit to me; it is from me that you must claim what I am bound to pay; all your demands must be made on me. As, when I stood for the consulship, no authors of my family recommended me to you; so, if. I commit any fault, there are no images of my ancestors which can beg me off from you. Wherefore, if only life be granted me, as far as I can I will defend the state from the wickedness and insidious designs of those men. I promise you this, O Romans, with good faith; you have entrusted the republic to a vigilant man, not to a timid one; to a diligent man, not to an idle one.

I am consul; how should I fear an assembly of the people? How should I be afraid of the tribunes of the people? How should I be frequently or causelessly agitated? How should I fear lest I may have to dwell in a prison, if a tribune of the people orders me to be led thither? for I, armed with your arms, adorned with your most honourable ensigns, and with command and authority conferred by you, have not been afraid to advance into this place, and, with you for my backers, to resist the wickedness of man; nor do I fear lest the republic, being fortified with such strong protection, may be conquered or overwhelmed by those men. If I had been afraid before, still now, with this assembly, and this people, I should not fear. For who ever had an assembly so well inclined to hear him while advocating an agrarian law, as I have had while arguing against one? if, indeed, I can be said to be arguing against one, and not rather upsetting and destroying one.

From which, O Romans, it may be easily understood that there is nothing so popular, as that which I, the consul of the people, am this year bringing to you; namely, peace, tranquillity and ease. All the things which when we were elected you were afraid might happen, have been guarded against by my prudence and caution. You not only will enjoy ease,—you who have always wished for it; but I will even make those men quiet, to whom our quiet has been a source of annoyance. In truth, however, power, riches, are accustomed to be acquired by them out of the tumults and dissensions of the citizens. You, whose interest consists in the votes of the people, whose liberty is based on the laws, whose honours depend on the courts of justice and on the equity of the magistrates, and whose enjoyment of your properties depends on peace, ought to preserve tranquillity by every means.

For if those men who, on account of indolence, are living in tranquillity, still take pleasure in their own base indolence; you, if in the calm quiet with which you govern fortune, you think such a condition as you enjoy better, should maintain it diligently; not as one that has been acquired by laziness, but as one that has been earned by virtue. [*]( This and the next sentence are given up as corrupt by every one. Many different readings have been proposed; and I have endeavoured to extract what appears to have been Cicero's meaning from them, keeping as closely as possible to the text of Orellius.) And I, by the unanimity which I have established between myself and my colleague, have provided against those men whom I knew to be hostile to my consulship both in their dispositions and actions. I have provided against everything; and I have sought to recall those men to their loyalty. I have also given notice to the tribunes of the people, to try no disorderly conduct while I am consul. My greatest and firmest support in our common fortunes, O Romans, will be, if you for the future behave, for the sake of it, to the republic in the same manner as you have this day behaved to me in this most numerous assembly, for the sake of your own safety. I promise you most certainly, and pledge myself to manage matters so that they who have envied the honours which I have gained, shall at last confess, that in selecting a consul you all showed the greatest possible foresight.

The tribunes of the people, O Romans, would have pursued a more convenient course, if they had said to my face, in my presence, the things which they allege to you concerning me. For then, they would have given you an opportunity for a more just decision in the matter, and they would have followed the usages of their predecessors, and have maintained their own privileges and power. But, since they have shunned any open contest and debate with me at present, now, if they please, let them come forth into the assembly which I have convened, and though they would not come forward willingly when challenged by me, let them at least return to it now that I openly invite them back.

I see, O Romans, that some men are making a noise to imply something or other, and that they no longer show me the same countenance in this present assembly which they showed me at the last assembly in which I addressed you. Wherefore, I entreat you, who have believed none of my enemies' stories about me, to retain the same favourable disposition towards me that you always had; but from you, whom I perceive to be a little changed towards me, I beg the loan of your good opinion of me for a short time, on condition of your retaining it forever, if I prove to you what I am going to say, but abandoning it and trampling it under foot in this very place if I fail to establish it.

Your minds and ears, O Romans, are blocked up with the assertion that I am opposing the agrarian law and your interest, out of a desire to gratify the seven tyrants, and the other possessors of Sulla's allotments. If there be any men who have believed these things, they must inevitably first have believed this, that by this agrarian law which has been proposed, the lands allotted by Sulla are taken away from their present possessors and divided among you, or else, that the possessions of private individuals are diminished, in order that you may be settled on their lands. If I show you, not only that not an atom of laud of Sulla's allotments is taken from any one, but even that that description of property is ensured to its possessors, and confirmed in a most impudent manner; if I prove, that Rullus, by his law, provides so carefully for the case of those lands which have been allotted by Sulla, that it is perfectly plain that that law was drawn up, not by any protector of your interests, but by the twin law of Valgius; is there then any reason at all, why he should disparage not only my diligence and prudence, but yours also, by the accusations which he has employed against me in my absence?

The fortieth clause of the law is one, O Romans, the mention of which I have hitherto purposely avoided, lest I should seem to be reopening a wound of the republic which was now scarred over, or to be renewing, at a most unseasonable time, some of our old dissensions. And now too I will argue that point, not because I do not think that this present condition of the republic deserving of being most zealously maintained, especially after I have professed myself to be for this year at least the patron of all tranquillity and unanimity in the republic; but in order to teach Rullus for the future to be silent at least in those matters with respect to which he wishes silence to be observed as to himself and his actions.

Of all laws I think that one is the most unjust and the most unlike a law, which Lucius Flaccus, the interrex, passed respecting Sulla—“That everything which he has done should be ratified.” For, as in other states, when tyrants are established, all laws are extinguished and destroyed this man established a tyrant of the republic by law. It is an invidious law, as I said before; but still it has some excuse. For it appears to be a law not urged by the man but by the time. What shall we say if this law is a far more impudent one?

For by the Valerian and Cornelian law this power is taken away at the same time that it is given. [*](There is probably some corruption in the text here and in the next few sentences; Orellius marks them with a dagger.) An impudent courting of the people is joined with a bitter injury done to them. But still a man from whom any property is taken always has some hope arising from those laws; and he, to whom any is given, has some scruples. The provision in Rullus's law is, “Whatever has been done since the consulship of Caius Marius and Cnaeus Papirius.” How carefully does he avoid suspicion, when he names those consuls most especially who were the greatest adversaries of Sulla. For, if he had named Sulla, he thought that that would have been a palpable and also an invidious measure. And yet, which of you did he expect to be so stupid, as not to be able to recollect that immediately after the consulship of those men Sulla became dictator?