De Lege Agraria

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?