[9]
What alarm and what
misfortune, then must you think all nations are threatened with by this law, when decemvirs
are sent all over the world with supreme power,—men of the greatest avarice, and
with an insatiable desire for every sort of property? whose arrival will be grievous, whose
forces will be formidable, whose judicial and arbitrary power will be absolutely intolerable.
For they will have the power of deciding whatever they please to be public property, and of
selling whatever they decide to be such. Even that very thing which conscientious men will
not do, namely, taking money to abstain from selling, is to be made lawful for
them to do by the express provisions of the law. From this provision what plunderings, what
bargainings, what a regular auction of all law and of every one's fortunes must inevitably
arise!
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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