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 necks[1] 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 many[2] 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,
