drawn up? Did we not see
the deed done before we even suspected that it was going to be done?
Where is the Caecilian and Didian law? What is become of the law that
such bills should be published on three market days? What is become of
the penalty appointed by the recent Junian and Licinian law? Can these
laws be ratified without the destruction of all other laws? Has any
one had a right of entering the forum? Moreover, what thunder, and
what a storm that was! so that even if the consideration of the
auspices had no weight with Marcus Antonius, it would seem strange
that he could endure and bear such exceeding violence of tempest, and
rain, and whirlwind. When therefore he, as augur, says that he carried
a law while Jupiter was not only thundering, but almost uttering an
express prohibition of it by his clamour from heaven, will he hesitate
to confess that it was carried in violation of the auspices? What?
does the virtuous augur think that it has nothing to do with the
auspices, that he carried the law with the aid of that colleague whose
election he himself vitiated by giving notice of the auspices?

IV. But perhaps we, who are his colleagues, may be the interpreters
of the auspices? Do we also want interpreters of arms? In the first
place, all the approaches to the forum were so fenced round, that even
if no armed men were standing in the way, still it would have been
impossible to enter the forum except by tearing down the barricades.
But the guards were arranged in such a manner, that, as the access of
an enemy to a city is prevented, so you might in this instance see the
burgesses and the tribunes of the people cut off by forts and works
from all entrance to the forum. On which account I give my vote that
those laws which Marcus Antonius is said to have carried were all
carried by violence, and in violation of the auspices; and that the
people is not bound by them. If Marcus Antonius is said to have
carried any law about confirming the acts of Caesar and abolishing the
dictatorship for ever, and of leading colonies into any lands, then I
vote that those laws be passed over again, with a due regard to the
auspices, so that they may bind the people. For although they may be
good measures which he passed irregularly and by violence, still they
are not to be accounted laws, and the whole audacity of this frantic
gladiator must be repudiated by our authority. But that squandering
of the public money cannot possibly be e