20.
For what could you say? That I had been condemned?, Certainly not. That I had
been expelled. How could you say that? And yet even that was not stated in
your bill that I was to depart; there is a penalty for any one who received
me, which every one disregarded; but there is no mention anywhere of driving
me out. However, suppose there were,—what are we to say about the
collecting of all the common artisans to pull down my house? what shall we
say about your having your name cut on it? does that seem to you to be
anything except a plundering of all my property? except that you could not
by the Licinian law undertake the commission yourself. What are we to say
about this very matter which you are now arguing before the priests; namely,
that you consecrated my house, that you erected a memorial, that you
dedicated a statue in my house, and that you did all these things by one
little bit of a bill? Do all these things appear to be only one and the same
business with the bill which you carried against me expressly by name?
[52]
It is just the same thing that you
did when you also carried these different enactments in one
law,—one, that the king of Cyprus, whose ancestors had always been allies and friends
to this nation, should have all his goods sold by the public crier, and the
other, that the exiles should be brought back to Byzantium. “Oh,”
says he, “I employed the same person on both those
matters.” What? Suppose you had given the same man a commission to
get you an Asiatic coin in Asia,
and from thence to proceed into Spain; and given him leave, after he had departed from
Rome, to stand for the
consulship, and, after he was made consul, to obtain Syria for his province; would that be all
one measure, because you were mentioning only one man?
[53]
And if now the Roman people had been consulted about
that business, and if you had not done everything by the instrumentality of
slaves and robbers, was it impossible for the Roman people to approve of the
part of the measure relating to the king of Cyprus, and to approve of that part which affected
Byzantine exiles? What other force, what other meaning, I should like to
know, has the Caecilian and Didian law, except this; that the people are not
to be forced in consequence of many different things being joined in one
complicated bill, either to accept what it disapproves of; or reject what it
approves?
What shall we say if you carried the bill by violence? is it, nevertheless, a
law? Or can anything appear to have been done rightfully which was
notoriously done by violence? And if, at the very time of your getting this
law passed, when the city was stormed, stones were not thrown, and men did
not actually come to blows hand to hand, is that any proof that you were
able to contrive that disgrace and ruin to the city without extreme
violence?
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