De Lege Agraria

But as Pompeius's feelings will be these, that he will think it becomes him to bear whatever seems fitting to you; on the other hand, if there be anything which you cannot bear, he will take care that you are not long compelled to bear it against your will. But the law makes a provision that, “if any money is received from any new source of revenue after our consulship, the decemvirs are to be allowed to use it.” Moreover, he sees that the new sources of revenue will be those which Pompeius has added to the republic. And so, he lets off his spoils, but thinks that it is right for him to reap the benefit of all the revenues acquired by his valour. Let then, O Romans, all the money which there is in the world conic into the hands of the dictators; let nothing be omitted; let every city, every district, every kingdom, and lastly even your own revenues be sold by them; let the spoils won by your generals be added to the heap. You see now what enormous, what incredible riches are sought to be acquired by your decemvirs by such extensive sales, by so many decisions which they have the power to make, and by such unlimited authority over everything.

Now remark their other immense and intolerable gains, in order to understand that this popular name of an agrarian law has only been hunted out as a means of gratifying the unreasonable avarice of particular men. He orders lands to be bought with this money, to which you are to be conducted as colonists. I am not accustomed, O Romans, to speak or men with unnecessary harshness unless I am provoked. I wish it were possible for those men to be named by me without speaking ill of them, who hope to be themselves appointed decemvirs; and you should quickly see what sort of men they are to whom you have committed the power of selling and buying everything.

But, that which I have made up my mind that I ought not to say, yet you can still form an idea of in your minds. This one thing at all events I appear to myself to be able to say with the greatest truth,—that in former times when this republic had the Luscini, the Calatini, the Acidini, men adorned not only with the honours conferred on them by the people, and by their own great exploits, but also by the patience with which they endured poverty; and then also when the Catos, and the Phili, and Laelii lived, men whose wisdom and moderation you had obtained a thorough knowledge of in public, and private, and forensic, and domestic affairs; still such a charge as this was entrusted to no one, so as to allow the same man to be both judge and seller, and to be so for five years over the whole world, and also to have power to alienate the lands of the Roman people from which their revenues are derived; and when by these means he had amassed a vast sum of money according to his own pleasure, without any witness, then he was to buy whatever he pleased from any one he pleased.