storm, wind, tempest, and whirlwind, amid thunder
and lightning; it was that we might have those men for our judges
whom no one would like to have for guests. It is the enormity of his
wickedness, the consciousness of his crimes, the plunder of that money
of which the account was kept in the temple of Ops, which have been
the real inventors of this third decury. And infamous judges were not
sought for, till all hope of safety for the guilty was despaired of,
if they came before respectable ones. But what must have been the
impudence, what must have been the iniquity of a man who dared to
select those men as judges, by the selection of whom a double disgrace
was stamped on the republic: one, because the judges were so infamous;
the other, because by this step it was revealed and published to the
world how many infamous citizens we had in the republic? These then,
and all other similar laws, I should vote ought to be annulled, even
if they had been passed without violence, and with all proper respect
for the auspices. But now why need I vote that they ought to be
annulled, when I do not consider that they were ever legally passed?

Is not this, too, to be marked with the deepest ignominy, and with the
severest animadversion of this order, so as to be recollected by all
posterity, that Marcus Antonius (the first man who has ever done so
since the foundation of the city) has openly taken armed men about
with him in this city? A thing which the kings never did, nor those
men who, since the kings have been banished, have endeavoured to seize
on kingly power. I can recollect Cinna; I have seen Sylla; and lately
Caesar. For these three men are the only ones since the city was
delivered by Lucius Brutus, who have had more power than the entire
republic. I cannot assert that no man in their trains had weapons.
This I do say, that they had not many, and that they concealed them.
But this pest was attended by an army of armed men. Classitius,
Mustela, and Tiro, openly displaying their swords, led troops of
fellows like themselves through the forum. Barbarian archers occupied
their regular place in the army. And when they arrived at the temple
of Concord, the steps were crowded, the litters full of shields were
arranged; not because he wished the shields to be concealed, but that
his friends might not be fatigued by carrying the shields themselves.

VII. And what was most infamous not only to see, but even to hear of,
armed men, r