De Lege Agraria

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.