[19]
See now
how great a difference there is between Cnaeus Domitius, a tribune of the people, a man of
the highest rank, and Publius Rullus, who tried your patience, as I imagine, when he said
that he was a noble. Domitius contrived a way by which, as far as he was able, as far as was
consistent with the laws of men and of gods, he might confer on a portion of the people what
could not be done by any regular proceeding on the part of the entire people. But this man,
when there was a thing which had always belonged to the people, which no one had ever
impaired, and which no one had ever altered,—the principle, namely, that those who
were to assign lands to the people, should receive a kindness from the Roman people before
they conferred one on it; that this man has endeavoured entirely to take away from you, and
to wrest out of your hands. The one contrived somehow or other to give that which could not
really be given formally to the people; the other endeavours somehow or other to take away
from them by manoeuvre, what could not possibly be taken from them by direct power.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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