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,[1] while in the meantime you, like so many 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
- ↑ That is, the spoils taken from you.
