"Orations" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cicero Marcus Tullius)

IX. Another law was proposed, that men who had been condemned of
violence and treason may appeal to the public if they please. Is this
now a law, or rather an abrogation of all laws? For who is there at
this day to whom it is an object that that law should stand? No one is
accused under those laws; there is no one whom we think likely to be
so accused. For measures which have been carried by force of arms will
certainly never be impeached in a court of justice. But the measure is
a popular one. I wish, indeed, that you were willing to promote any
popular measure; for, at present, all the citizens agree with one
mind and one voice in their view of its bearing on the safety of the
republic.

What is the meaning, then, of the eagerness to pass the law which
brings with it the greatest possible infamy, and no popularity at all?
For what can be more discreditable than for a man who has committed
treason against the Roman people by acts of violence, after he has
been condemned by a legal decision, to be able to return to that very
course of violence, on account of which he has been condemned? But why
do I argue any more about this law? as if the object aimed at were to
enable any one to appeal? The object is, the inevitable consequence
must be, that no one can ever be prosecuted under those laws. For
what prosecutor will be found insane enough to be willing, after the
defendant has been condemned, to expose himself to the fury of a
hired mob? or what judge will be bold enough to venture to condemn a
criminal, knowing that he will immediately be dragged before a gang of
hireling operatives? It is not, therefore, a right of appeal that is
given by that law, but two most salutary laws and modes of judicial
investigation that are abolished. And what is this but exhorting young
men to be turbulent, seditious, mischievous citizens?

To what extent of mischief will it not be possible to instigate the
frenzy of the tribunes now that these two rights of impeachment for
violence and for treason are annulled? What more? Is not this a
substitution of a new law for the laws of Caesar, which enact that
every man who has been convicted of violence, and also every man who
has been convicted of treason, shall be interdicted from fire and
water? And, when those men have a right of appeal given them, are not
the acts of Caesar rescinded? And those acts, O conscript fathers,
I, who never approved of them, have still thought it advisable to
maintain for the sake of concord, so that I not only did not think
that the laws which Caesar had passed in his lifetime ought to be
repealed, but I did not approve of meddling with those even which
since the death of Caesar you have seen produced and published.

X. Men have been recalled from banishment by a dead man; the freedom
of the city has been conferred, not only on individuals, but on entire
nations and provinces by a dead man; our revenues have been diminished
by the granting of countless exemptions by a dead man. Therefore, do
we defend these measures which have been brought from his house on the
authority of a single, but, I admit, a very excellent individual, and