Turn now to the harangue of that same enemy of mine concerning me the same person of whom those great men had been speaking, delivered in the Campus Martins, to a genuine assembly of the people. Who was there who (I will not say approved of it but who) did not think it a most scandalous thing that he should be allowed to live and breathe at all, much less to speak? Who was there who did not think that the republic was polluted by his voice and that he himself, if he only listened to him was implicated in his wickedness? [cap.51] [109]
I come now to the comitia, whether those for electing magistrates or for enacting laws. We often see many laws passed. I say nothing of those which are passed in such a manner that scarcely five men, and those only of the lowest class, can be found to give a vote for them. He says that at the time of that ruin of the republic he carried a law respecting me, whom he called a tyrant and the destroyer of liberty. Who is there who will confess that he gave a vote when this law was passed against me? But when, in compliance with the same resolution of the senate, a law was passed about me in the comitia centuriata who is there who does not profess that then he was present, and that he gave a vote in favour of my safety? Which cause then, is the one which only to appear popular? that in which everything that is honourable in the city, and every age, and every rank of men agree? or that to the carrying of which some excited enemies fly as if hastening to banquet on the funeral of the republic?