r in our private nor in our official
capacity, ever knowingly did any thing which was intended to be
detrimental to the commons; and that no act nor word of ours can be
mentioned with truth contrary to your interest (though some may have
been contrary to your inclinations). Even though I were not of the
Claudian family, nor descended from patrician blood, but an ordinary
individual of the Roman citizens, who merely felt that I was descended
from free-born parents, and that I lived in a free state, could I be
silent on this matter: that Lucius Sextius and Caius Licinius, perpetual
tribunes, forsooth, have assumed such a stock of arrogance during the
nine years in which they have reigned, as to refuse to allow you the
free exercise of your suffrage either at the elections or in enacting
laws. On a certain condition, one of them says, ye shall re-elect us
tribunes for the tenth time. What else is it, but saying, what others
sue for, we disdain so thoroughly, that without some consideration we
will not accept it? But in the name of goodness, what is that
consideration, for which we may always have you tribunes of the commons?
that ye admit collectively all our measures, whether they please or
displease, are profitable or unprofitable. I beg you, Tarquinii,
tribunes of the commons, suppose that I, an individual citizen, should
call out in reply from the middle of the assembly, With your good leave
be it permitted us to select out of these measures those which we deem
to be beneficial to us; to reject the others. It will not be permitted,
he says. Must you enact concerning the interest of money and the lands,
that which tends to the interest of you all; and must not this prodigy
take place in the city of Rome, that of seeing Lucius Sextius and this
Caius Licinius consuls, a thing which you loathe and abominate? Either
admit all; or I propose none. Just as if any one were to place poison
and food together before any one who was oppressed with famine, and
order him either to abstain from that which would sustain life, or to
mix with it that which would cause death. Wherefore, if this state were
free, would they not all in full assembly have replied to you, Begone
hence with your tribuneships and your propositions? What? if you will
not propose that which it is the interest of the people to accept, will
there be no one who will propose it? If any patrician, if (what they
desire to be still more invidious) any Claudius should say,