[95]
And this principle you, O judges, ought, as your wisdom and humanity prompts and enables you
to do, to consider over in your mind carefully; and to be thoroughly aware what disaster and
what danger the tribunitian power can bring upon every one individual among us, especially
when it is egged on by party spirit, and by assemblies of the people, stirred up in a
seditious manner. In the very best times, forsooth, when men defended themselves, not by
boastings addressed to the populace, but by their own worth and innocence, still neither
Publius Popillius, nor Quintus Metellus, most illustrious and most honourable men, could
withstand the power of the tribunes; much less at the present time, with such manners as we
now have, and such magistrates, can we possibly be saved without the aid of your wisdom, and
without the relief which is afforded by the courts of justice.
This text is part of:
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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