20
"What I have been meditating you have already heard separately. But my ardor for action is daily more and more excited, when I consider what our future condition of life must be, unless we ourselves assert our claims to liberty.Assert our claims to liberty] Nosmet ipsi vindicamus in libertatem. Unless we vindicate ourselves into liberty. See below,"En illa, illa, quam sæpe optâstis, libertas," etc. For since the government has fallen under the power and jurisdiction of a few, kings and princesKings and princes] Reges tetrarchæ. Tetrarchs were properly those who had the government of the fourth part of the country; but at length, the signification of the word being extended, it was applied to any governors of any country who were possessed of supreme authority, and yet were not acknowledged as kings by the Romans. See Hirt. Bell. Alex. c. 67: Deiotarus, at that time tetrarch of almost all Gallogræcia, a supremacy which the other tetrarchs would not allow to be granted him either by the laws or by custom, but indisputably acknowledged as king of Armenia Minor by the senate," etc. Dietsch. "Cicero, Phil. II., speaks of Reges Tetrarchas Dynastasque. And Lucan has (vii. 46) Tretrarchæ regesque tenent, magnique tyranni." Wasse. Horace also says, — Modo reges atque tetrarchas, Omnia magna loquens. I have, with Rose, rendered the word princes, as being the most eligible term. have constantly been their tributaries; nations and states have paid them taxes; but all the rest of us, however brave and worthy, whether noble or plebeian, have been regarded as a mere mob, without interest or authority, and subject to those, to whom, if the state were in a sound condition, we should be a terror. Hence, all influence, power, honor, and wealth, are in their hands, or where they dispose of them; to us they have left only insults,Insults] Repulsas. Repulses in standing for office. dangers, persecutions, and poverty. To such indignities, O bravest of men, how long will you submit? Is it not better to die in a glorious attempt, than, after having been the sport of other men's insolence, to resign a wretched and degraded existence with ignominy?