De Lege Agraria

But remark how carefully he preserves the rights of the tribunitian power. The consuls are often interrupted in proposing a lex curiata, by the intercession of the tribunes of the people. Not that we complain that the tribunes should have this power; only, if any one uses it in a random and inconsiderate manner, we form our own opinion. But this tribune of the people, by his lex curiata, which the praetor is to bring forward, takes away the power of intercession. And while he is made to be blamed for causing the tribunitian power to be diminished by his instrumentality, he is also to be laughed at, because a consul, if he be not invested with the authority by a lex curiata, has no power to interfere in military affairs; and yet he gives this man whom he prohibits from interceding, the very same power, even if the veto be interposed, as if a lex curiata had been passed. So that I am at a loss to understand either why he prohibits the intercession, or why he thinks that any one will intercede; as the intercession will only prove the folly of the intercessor, and will not hinder the business.

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. [*](“In after times, when the comitia curiata were little more than a matter of form, their suffrages were represented by the thirty lictors of the curiae, whose duty it was to summon the curiae when the meetings actually took place.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 273 a, v. Comitia.) 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, [*](The Latin has, “decemviri pullarii”. Pullarius was the officer appointed to feed and take care of the sacred chickens that were kept for the purpose of taking the auspices; and much was inferred from the way in which they took their food, or perhaps refused it.) 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

Besides all this, he gives them authority praetorian in name, but kingly in reality. He describes their power, as a power for five years; but he makes it perpetual. For he strengthens it with such bulwarks and defences that it will be quite impossible to deprive them of it against their own consent. Then he adorns them with apparitors, and secretaries, and clerks, and criers, and architects; besides that, with mules, and tents, and centuries, [*](There is, no doubt, some corruption here in the text.) and all sorts of furniture; he draws money for their expenses from the treasury; he supplies them with more money from the allies; he appoints them two hundred surveyors from the equestrian body every year as their personal attendants, and also as ministers and satellites of their power. You have now, O Romans, the form and very appearance of tyrants; you see all the ensigns of power, but not yet the power itself. For, perhaps, some one may say, “Well, what harm do all those men, secretary, lictor, crier, and chicken-feeder do me?” I will tell you. These things are of such a nature that the man who has them without their being conferred by your vote, must seem either a monarch with intolerable power, or if he assumes them as a private individual, a madman.

Just see what great authority they are invested with, and you will say that it is not the insanity of private individuals, but the immoderate arrogance of kings. First of all, they are entrusted with boundless power of acquiring enormous sums of money out of your revenues, not by farming them but by alienating them. In the next place, they are allowed to pursue an inquiry into the conduct of every country and of every nation, without any bench of judges; to punish without any right of appeal being allowed; and to condemn without there being any means of procuring a reversal of their sentence.

They will be able for five years to sit in judgment on the consuls, or even on the tribunes of the people themselves; but all that time no one will be able to sit in judgment on them. They will be allowed to fill magisterial offices; but they will not be allowed to be prosecuted. They will have power to purchase lands, from whomsoever they choose, whatever they choose, and at whatever price they choose. They are allowed to establish new colonies, to recruit old ones, to fill all Italy with their colonists; they have absolute authority for visiting every province, for depriving free people of their lands, for giving or taking away kingdoms, whenever they please. They may be at Rome when it is convenient to them; but they have a right also to wander about wherever they like with supreme command, and with a power of sitting in judgment on everything. They are allowed to put an end to all criminal trials; to remove from the tribunals whoever they think fit; to decide by themselves on the most important matters; to delegate their power to a quaestor; to send about surveyors; and to ratify whatever the surveyor has reported to that single decemvir by whom he has been sent.

It is a defect in my language, O Romans, when I call this power a kingly power. For in truth, it is something much more considerable; for there never was any kingly power that, if it was not defined by some express law, was not at least understood to be subject to certain limitations. But this power is absolutely unbounded; it is one within which all kingly powers, and your own imperial authority, which is of such wide extent, and all other powers, whether freely exercised by your permission, or existing only by your tacit countenance, are, by express permission of the law, comprehended. The first thing which is given to them is, a liberty of selling everything concerning the sale of which resolutions of the senate were passed in the consulship of Marcus Tullius and Cnaeus Cornelius or afterwards.