Now, he
urged, they had become formidable because every demand they made had
been agreed to, and nothing done against their wishes; they contemned
the authority of the consuls, and lived in defiance of the constitution,
governed only by their own seditious ringleaders, to whom they gave the
title of tribunes. For the Senate to sit and decree largesses of corn to
the populace, as is done in the most democratic States in Greece, would
merely be to pay them for their disobedience, to the common ruin of all
classes. "They cannot," he went on to say, "consider this largess of
corn to be a reward for the campaign in which they have refused to
serve, or for the secession by which they betrayed their country, or the
scandals which they have been so willing to believe against the Senate.
As they cannot be said to deserve this bounty, they will imagine that it
has been bestowed upon them by you because you fear them, and wish to
pay your court to them. In this case there will be no bounds to their
insubordination, and they never will cease from riots and disorders. To
give it them is clearly an insane proceeding; nay, we ought rather, if
we are wise, to take away from them this privilege of the tribuneship,
which is a distinct subversion of the consulate, and a cause of
dissension in the city, which now is no longer one, as before, but is
rent asunder in such a manner that there is no prospect of our ever
being reunited, and ceasing to be divided into two hostile factions.
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