I say nothing about that law which at one swoop destroyed all religious observances, all the privileges attached to the auspices, to the civil magistrates, and all the enactments which refer to the common law, and to the time of proposing laws; I say nothing about all the internal misfortunes which afflicted us; we saw even foreign nations shaken by the insanity of that year.
By a law proposed by a tribune of the people, the priest of the Mighty Mother at Pessinus was expelled and stripped of his priesthood; and that shrine of the most holy and most ancient of all religious ceremonies was sold for a large sum to Brogitarus, a profligate man, and unworthy of any such sacred character; especially as he had desired it not for the purpose of doing honour to the goddess, but only of profaning her temple. People were styled kings by the people, who would never have even asked for such a title from the senate: condemned exiles were brought back to Byzantium at the very time when citizens, who had not been condemned, were being driven from the city.
