Book 3
39.4
It was not the name of “king” that men had now grown weary of, for it was the proper title of Jupiter, Romulus the founder of the City and his successors were called “kings,” and the name was still retained for religious purposes.
39.5
It was the tyranny and violence of kings that men detested. If these were insupportable in a king or a king's son, who would endure them in ten private citizens?
39.6
They should see to it that they did not, by forbidding freedom of speech in the House, compel them to speak outside its walls. He could not see how it was less permissible for him as a private citizen to convene an Assembly of the people than for them to summon the senate.
39.7
They might find out whenever they chose how much more powerful a sense of wrong is to vindicate liberty than greedy ambition is to support tyranny.
39.8
They were bringing up the question of the Sabine war as if the Roman people had any more serious war to wage than one against men who, appointed to draw up laws, left no vestige of law or justice in the State; who had abolished the elections, the annual magistrates, the regular succession of rulers, which formed the sole guarantee of equal liberty for all; who, though simple citizens, still retained the fasces and the power of despotic monarchs.
