inks it reasonable that to himself alone,
amidst struggling competitors, honours should be certain? who would
withdraw himself from your judgment? who would make your suffrages
necessary instead of voluntary; servile instead of free? I omit mention
of Licinius and Sextius, whose years of perpetuated power ye number, as
that of the kings in the Capitol; who is there this day in the state so
mean, to whom the road to the consulate is not rendered easier through
the advantages of that law, than to us and to our children? inasmuch as
you will sometimes not be able to elect us even though you may wish it;
those persons you must elect, even though you were unwilling. Of the
insult offered to merit enough has been said (for merit appertains to
human beings); what shall I say respecting religion and the auspices,
which is contempt and injustice relating exclusively to the immortal
gods? Who is there who does not know that this city was built by
auspices, that all things are conducted by auspices during war and
peace, at home and abroad? In whom therefore are the auspices vested
according to the usage of our forefathers? In the patricians, no doubt;
for no plebeian magistrate is ever elected by auspices. So peculiar to
us are the auspices, that not only do the people elect in no other
manner, save by auspices, the patrician magistrates whom they do elect,
but even we ourselves, without the suffrages of the people, appoint the
interrex by auspices, and in our private station we hold those auspices,
which they do not hold even in office. What else then does he do, than
abolish auspices out of the state, who, by creating plebeian consuls,
takes them away from the patricians who alone can hold them? They may
now mock at religion. For what else is it, if the chickens do not feed?
if they come out too slowly from the coop? if a bird chaunt an
unfavourable note? These are trifling: but by not despising these
trifling matters, our ancestors have raised this state to the highest
eminence. Now, as if we had no need of the favour of the gods, we
violate all religious ceremonies. Wherefore let pontiffs, augurs, kings
of the sacrifices be appointed at random. Let us place the tiara of
Jupiter's flamen on any person, provided he be a man. Let us hand over
the ancilia, the shrines, the gods, and the charge of the worship of the
gods, to those to whom it is impious to commit them. Let not laws be
enacted, nor magistrates elected under auspices. L