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that you may surround, and hold in subjection, the whole republic with your soldiers, and
your cities and your garrisons , that you may be able to proscribe and to deprive of the
sight of these men Cnaeus Pompeius himself by whose protection and assistance the Roman
people has repeatedly been triumphant over its most active enemies and its most worthless
citizens that there may be nothing, which is either capable of being tampered with by means
of gold and silver, or carried by numbers and votes, or accomplished by force and violence,
which you do not hold in your own power, and under your dominion; that meanwhile you may go
at full speed through every nation and every kingdom with the most absolute
power,—with unrestricted authority as judges, and with immense sums of money; that
you may come into the camp of Cnaeus Pompeius, and sell his very camp itself, if it be
desirable for you to do so; that in the meantime, you, being freed from every restraint of
law, and from all fear of the courts of justice, and from all danger, may be able to stand
for all the other magistracies; so that no one may be able to bring you before the Roman
people, or summon you before any court,—so that the senate may not be able to
compel you, nor the consul to restrain you, nor the tribune of the people to offer any
impediment to you.
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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