But, however, to give up dwelling on my own case, recollect the rest of the calamities of that year. For by that means you will most easily perceive what a rigorous application of all sorts of remedies the republic required from the next magistrates, and what a multitude of laws wanted remedying, both such as had been passed, and such as had been only proposed. For some were passed while those consuls (shall I say, were silent respecting them? Yes, rather while they) actually approved of them; laws, that the notice of the censors and the most important decisions of the most holy magistrates should be abolished; that not only those ancient guilds which had existed before should be restored in defiance of the resolution of the senate, but that innumerable new ones should be established by one gladiator; that by abandoning the collection of the half as, and third of an as, nearly one-fifth part of our revenues should be destroyed; that Syria should be given to Gabinius instead of Cilicia, which he had bargained for, if he succeeded in betraying the republic; that one glutton should have the power of deliberating twice over about the same thing, and that he might propose a new law for the purpose of changing his province, after one law had been actually passed on that subject. [cap.26] [56]
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.