Ab urbe condita

“On one condition,” they say, “you shall reappoint us tribunes for the tenth time.” What is this but saying, “What others seek we so thoroughly despise that we will not accept it without a heavy premium”?

But what premium have we to pay that we may always have you as tribunes of the plebs? “That you adopt all our measures en bloc, whether you agree with them or not, whether they are useful or the reverse.”

“Now I ask you —you Tarquinian tribunes [*](Tarquinian tribunes=tribunes showing the same tyrannical and despotic spirit as the old Tarquins) of the plebs —to listen to me. Suppose that I, as a citizen, call out from the middle of the Assembly, “Allow us, with your kind permission, to choose out of these proposed measures what we think beneficial for us and reject the

others.” “No,” he says, “you will not be allowed to do so. You would pass the measure about usury and the one about the distribution of land, for these concern you all; but you would not allow the City of Rome to witness the portentous sight of L. Sextius and C. Licinius as consuls, a prospect you regard with detestation and loathing. Either accept all, or I propose

none.” Just as if a man were to place poison together with food before some one famished with hunger and bid him either abstain from what would support his life or mix with it what would bring death. If this were a free State, would not hundreds of voices have exclaimed, “Be gone with your tribuneships and proposals.” What? If you do not bring in reforms which it is to the people's advantage to adopt, is there no one else who