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IF you did not realize, fellow citizens, what a difference there is between the rights left you by your forefathers and this slavery imposed upon you by Sulla, I should be obliged to make a long speech and to inform you because of what wrongs, and how often, the plebeians took up arms and seceded from the patricians; and how they won the tribunes of the commons as the defenders of their rights. But as it is, I have only to encourage you and to precede you on the road which, in my opinion, leads to the recovery of your liberties. I am not unaware how great is the power of the nobles, whom I alone, powerless, am trying to drive from their tyranny by the empty semblance of a magistracy2; and I know how much more secure a faction of wicked men is than any upright man alone. But in addition to the fair hopes which you have inspired and which have dispelled my fear, I have decided that defeat in a struggle for liberty is for a brave man better than never to have struggled at all.
And yet all the others who were elected to maintain your rights have been led by personal interest, by hope, or by bribery to turn all their 423 power and authority against you; and they consider it better to do wrong for hire than to do right without recompense. Therefore they have now, one and all, submitted to the mastery of a few men, who, under the pretext of carrying on a war, have taken possession of the treasury, the armies, the kingdoms and the provinces. These men have made themselves a stronghold from your spoils.3 while in the meantime you, like so may cattle, yield yourselves, a multitude, to single owners for use and enjoyment; and that, too, after being stripped of every privilege which your forefathers left you, save that by your ballots you may yourselves choose, as once your defenders, so now your masters.
Therefore all men have now gone over to their side, but presently, if you regain what is yours, the most will return to you, since few have courage to defend their independence, the rest belong to the stronger. Can you fear that anything will be able to resist you, if you advance with a united purpose, when they have feared you even in your weakness and indifference? Unless haply it was from another motive than fear that Gaius Cotta, a consul chosen from the heart of the aristocratic party, restored some of their rights to the people’s tribunes. In fact, although Lucius Sicinius, who was the first to dare to speak about the tribunician power, was cut off while you only murmured, yet his slayers feared your displeasure even before you resented your wrongs. At that patience of yours, citizens, I cannot sufficiently marvel; for you knew that your hopes had often been disappointed. On the death of Sulla, who had imposed this infamous slavery upon you, you believed that your troubles were 425 ended; up rose Catalus, a tyrant far crueller than Sulla. There was an outbreak in the consulship of Brutus and Mamercus,4 and after it Gaius Curio was long enough your master to cause the death of a guiltless tribune.
You saw with what passion Lucullus last year assailed Lucius Quintius; what tempests are now roused against me! But these acts they certainly committed in vain, if it was their intention to put an end to their mastery before you did to your slavery; especially since in these civil dissensions, although other motives were alleged, the real object of the contest on both sides was to determine who should be your masters. Therefore the other struggles, inspired as they were by licence, by hatred, or by avarice, blazed up for a time only; one issue only has persisted, which has been the aim of both sides and has been taken away from you for the future: the tribunician power, a weapon given you by your ancestors, with which to defend your liberties. Of this fact I warn you and I beg you to bear it in mind; do not change the names of things to suit your own cowardice and give to slavery the title of peace. Even peace you will not be allowed to enjoy, if wickedness triumph over right and honour; you might have done so, if you had never roused yourselves. As it is, they are on their guard, and if you do not gain the victory, they will hold you in tighter bonds, since the greater the injustice the greater its safety.
What then do you advise? some one of you will say. First of all, you must give up this habit which you have, ye men of active tongues but of weak spirit, not to retain the thought of liberty outside of the place 427 of assembly.5 Then (not to attempt to urge you to those manly deeds6 by which your ancestors gained their tribunes of the commons, a magistracy previously patrician,7 and a suffrage independent of the sanction of the patricians) since all the power is in your hands, citizens, and since you undoubtedly can execute or fail to execute on your own account the orders to which you now submit for the profit of others, I would ask you whether you are waiting for the advice of Jupiter or some other one of the gods. That supreme power of the consuls, and those potent decrees of the senate, you yourselves ratify, citizens, by executing them; and you hasten voluntarily to increase and strengthen their despotism over you. I do not urge you to avenge your wrongs, but rather to seek quiet; and it is not because I desire discord, as they charge, but because I wish to put an end to it, that I demand restitution according to the law of nations. If they persist in refusing this, I do not advise war or secession, but merely that you should refuse longer to shed your blood for them. Let them hold their offices and administer them in their own way, let them seek triumphs, let them lead their ancestral portraits,8 against Mithridates, Sertorius, and what is left of the exiles, but let those who have no share in the profits be free also from dangers and toil.
But perhaps your services have been paid for by that hastily enacted law for the distribution of grain, a law by which they have valued all your liberties 429 at five pecks per man, an allowance actually not much greater than the rations of a prison. For just as in the case of prisoners that scanty supply keeps off death, but yet their strength wanes, so this small amount relieves you of no financial care and disappoints the slenderest hopes of the idle. But even though the allowance were a great one, what lethargy it would show, since it was offered as the price of your slavery, to be deceived by it and actually to owe gratitude to your oppressors for your own property. You must guard against craft; for by no other means can they prevail against the people as a whole, and in that way only will they attempt to do so. It is for this reason that they are making plans to soothe you and at the same time to put you off until the coming of Gnaeus Pompeius, the very man whom they bore upon their necks9 when they feared him, but presently, their fear dispelled, they tear to pieces. Nor are these self-styled defenders of liberty, many as they are, ashamed to need one man before they dare to right a wrong or to defend a right. For my own part I am fully convinced that Pompey, a young man of such renown, prefers to be the leading man of the state with your consent, rather than to share in their mastery, and that he will join you and lead you in restoring the power of the tribunes.
There was once a time, fellow countrymen, when each of you citizens found protection in the many10 and not the community in one man, and when no single mortal was able to give or to take away such things from you. I have therefore said enough; for it is not through ignorance that the matter halts, 431 but a kind of lethargy has laid hold upon you, because of which neither glory nor disgrace moves you. You have given up everything in exchange for your present slothfulness, thinking that you have ample freedom because your backs are spared, and because you are allowed to go hither and thither by the grace of your rich masters. Yet even these privileges are denied to the country people, who are cut down in the quarrels of the great, and sent to the provinces as gifts to the magistrates. Thus they fight and conquer for the benefit of a few, but whatever happens, the commons are treated as vanquished; and this will be more so every day, so long as your oppressors make greater efforts to retain their mastery than you do to regain your freedom.
1 In the year 73 B.C. the strife between the nobles and the commons continued. In the course of these dissensions the tribune C. Licinius Macer assailed the rule of the optimates in this long speech.
2 Since the tribunes of the commons had been deprived of their real power by Sulla.
3 That is, the spoils taken from you.
4 77 B.C.
5 That is, while they are being reminded of it by popular orators.
6 For quo, instead of quibus, cf. Jug. cii. 10.
7 That is, a share in a magistracy which had previously (modo) been confined to the patricians. The reference is to the consulship, to which plebeians became eligible by the bill of Licinious and Sextius in 377 B.C..
8 That is to say, let them lead the portraits of their ancestors against the enemy, in lieu of soldiers.
9 Like slaves (lecticarii) carrying their master in a litter.
10 In the collective strength of the community.
1 SI, Quirites, parum existumaretis quid inter ius a maioribus relictum vobis et hoc a Sulla paratum servitium interesset, multis mihi disserundum fuit, docendique quas ob iniurias et quotiens a patribus armata plebes secessisset utique vindices paravisset omnis iuris sui tribunos plebis: 2 nunc hortari modo relicum est et ire primum via qua capessundam arbitror libertatem. 3 Neque me praeterit quantas opes nobilitatis solus, inpotens, inani specie magistratus, pellere dominatione incipiam, quantoque tutius factio noxiorum agat quam soli innocentes. 4 Sed praeter spem bonam ex vobis, quae metum vicit, statui certaminis advorsa pro libertate potiora esse forti viro quam omnino non certavisse.
5 Quamquam omnes alii, creati pro iure vostro, vim cunctam et imperia sua gratia aut spe aut praemiis 422 in vos convortere, meliusque habent mercede delinquere quam gratis recte facere. 6 Itaque omnes concessere iam in paucorum dominationem, qui per militare nomen, aerarium, exercitus, regna, provincias occupavere et arcem habent ex spoliis vostris; cum interim, more pecorum vos, multitudo, singulis habendos fruendosque praebetis, exuti omnibus quae maiores reliquere, nisi quia vobismet ipsi12 per suffragia, ut praesides olim, nunc dominos destinatis.
7 ltaque concessere illuc omnes; at mox,13 si vostra receperitis, ad vos plerique : raris enim animus est ad ea, quae placent, defendunda; ceteri validiorum sunt. 8 An dubium habetis, num officere quid vobis uno animo pergentibus possit, quos languidos socordesque pertimuere? Nisi forte C. Cotta, ex factione media consul, aliter quam metu iura quaedam tribunis plebis restituit; et quamquam L. Sicinius, primus de potestate tribunicia loqui ausus, mussantibus vobis circumventus erat, tamen prius illi invidiam metuere quam vos iniuriae pertaesum est. Quod ego nequeo satis mirari, Quirites; nam spem frustra fuisse intellexistis. 9 Sulla mortuo, qui scelestum imposuerat servitium, finem mali credebatis; 424 ortus est longe saevior Catulus. 10 Tumultus intercessit Bruto et Mamerco consulibus. Dein C. Curio ad exitium usque insontis tribuni dominatus est.
11 Lucullus superiore anno quantis animis ierit in L Quintium vidistis: quantae denique mihi turbae concitantur! Quae profecto in cassum agebantur, si prius quam vos serviundi finem, illi dominationis facturi erant; praesertim cum his civilibus armis dicta alia, sed certatum utrimque de dominatione in vobis sit. 12 Itaque cetera ex licentia aut odio aut avaritia in tempus arsere; permansit una res modo, quae utrimque quaesita est et erepta in posterum: vis tribunicia, telum a maioribus libertati paratum. 13 Quod ego vos moneo quaesoque ut animadvortatis, neu nomina rerum ad ignaviam mutantes otium pro servitio appelletis. Quo iam ipso frui, si vera et honesta flagitium superaverit, non est condicio; fuisset, si omnino quiessetis. Nunc animum advortere et, nisi viceritis, quoniam omnis iniuria gravitate tutior est, artius habebunt.
14 "Quid censes igitur?" aliquis vostrum subiecerit. Primum omnium, omittendum morem hunc quem agitis impigrae linguae, animi ignavi, non ultra contionis 426 locum memores libertatis. 15 Deinde — ne vos ad virilia illa vocem, quo tribunos plebei, modo patricium magistratum, libera ab auctoribus patriciis suffragia maiores vostri paravere — cum vis omnis, Quirites, in vobis sit et quae iussa nunc pro aliis tolerate, pro vobis agere aut non agere certe possitis, Iovem aut alium quem deum consultorem expectatis? 16 Magna illa consulum imperia et patrum decreta vos exsequendo rata efficitis, Quirites; ultroque licentiam in vos auctum atque adiutum properatis. 17 Neque ego vos ultum iniurias hortor, magis uti requiem cupiatis, neque discordias, uti illi criminantur, sed earum finem volens iure gentium res repeto; et si pertinaciter retinebunt, non arma neque secessionem, tantum modo ne amplius sanguinem vostrum praebeatis censebo. 18 Gerant habeantque suo modo imperia, quaerant triumphos, Mithridatem, Sertorium et reliquias exsulum persequantur cum imaginibus suis; absit periculum et labos, quibus nulla pars fructus est.
19 Nisi forte repentina ista frumentaria lege munia vostra pensantur; qua tamen quinis modiis libertatem 428 omnium aestumavere, qui profecto non amplius possunt alimentis carceris. Namque ut illis exiguitate mors prohibetur, senescunt vires, sic neque absolvit14 cura familiari tam parva res et ignavi cuiusque tenuissumas spes frustratur. 20 Qua tamen quamvis ampla, quoniam serviti pretium ostentaretur, cuius torpedinis erat decipi et vostrarum rerum ultro iniuriae gratiam debere? Cavendus dolus est; 21 namque alio modo neque valent in univorsos neque conabuntur. Itaque simul comparant delenimenta et differunt vos in adventum Cn. Pompei, quem ipsum, ubi pertimuere, sublatum in cervices suas, mox dempto metu lacerant. 22 Neque eos pudet, vindices uti se ferunt libertatis, tot viros sine uno aut remittere iniuriam non audere aut ius non posse defendere. 23 Mihi quidem satis spectatum est Pompeium, tantae gloriae adulescentem, malle principem volentibus vobis esse quam illis dominationis socium auctoremque in primis fore tribuniciae potestatis.
24 Verum, Quirites, antea singuli cives in pluribus, non in uno cuncti praesidia habebatis. Neque mortalium quisquam dare aut eripere talia unus poterat. 25 Itaque verborum satis dictum est; neque enim ignorantia res claudit, 26 verum occupavit nescio 430 quae15 vos torpedo, qua non gloria movemini neque flagitio, cunctaque praesenti ignavia mutavistis, abunde libertatem rati, quia tergis abstinetur et huc ire licet atque illuc, munera ditium dominorum. 27 Atque haec eadem non sunt agrestibus, sed caeduntur inter potentium inimicitias donoque dantur in provincias magistratibus. Ita pugnatur et vincitur paucis; plebes, quodeumque accidit, pro victis est et in dies magis erit, si quidem maiore cura dominationem illi retinuerint, quam vos repetiveritis libertatem.
11 Histories, iii. 48.
12 vobiamet ipsi, Corte; vobismet ipsis, F.
13 at mox, Kritz; et mox, V.
14 absolvit] absolvi, V.
15 nescio quae, Carrio; nescio qua, V.