6.
[17]
But as you wanted to fill all Italy with your
colonies, did you think that not one of us would understand what sort of a measure that was?
For it is written, “The decemvirs may lead whatever settlers they choose into
whatever municipalities and colonies they like; and they may assign them lands in whatever
places they please;” so that, when they have occupied all Italy with their soldiers, you may have no hope left you, I
will not say of retaining your dignity, but none even of recovering your liberty. And these
things, indeed, I object to on suspicion and from conjecture.
[18]
But now all mistake on any side shall be removed; now they shall show
openly that the very name of this republic, and the situation of this city and empire, that
even this very temple of the good and great Jupiter,
and this citadel of all nations, is odious to them. They wish settlers to be conducted to
Capua. They wish again to oppose that city to
this city. They think of removing all their riches thither of transferring thither the name
of the empire. That place which, because of the fertility of its lands and its abundance of
every sort of production, is said to be the parent of pride and cruelty—in that our
colonists, men selected as fit for every imaginable purpose, will be settled by the
decemvirs. No doubt, in that city, in which men, though born to the enjoyment of ancient
dignities and hereditary fortunes, were still unable to bear with moderation the luxuriance
of their fortunes, your satellites will be able to restrain their insolence and to behave
with modesty.
[19]
Our ancestors removed from Capua the magistrates, the senate, the general council, and
all the ensigns of the republic, and left nothing there except the bare name of Capua; not out of cruelty, (for what was ever more merciful
than they were? for they often restored their property even to foreign enemies when they had
been subdued;) but out of wisdom; because they saw that if any trace of the republic remained
within those walls, the city itself might be able to afford a home to supreme power. And
would not you too see how mischievous these things were, if you were not desirous of
overturning the republic, and of procuring a new sort of power for your own selves?
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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