Book 6
40.12
none.” Just as if a man were to place poison together with food before some one famished with hunger and bid him either abstain from what would support his life or mix with it what would bring death. If this were a free State, would not hundreds of voices have exclaimed, “Be gone with your tribuneships and proposals.” What? If you do not bring in reforms which it is to the people's advantage to adopt, is there no one else who
40.13
will? If any patrician, if even a Claudius whom they detest still more —were to say, “Either accept all, or I propose none,” which of you, Quirites, would tolerate it? Will you never have more regard for measures than for
40.14
men? Will you always listen with approving ears to everything which your magistrate says and with hostile ears to whatever is said by any of us?” “His language is utterly unbecoming a citizen of a free
40.15
republic. Well, and what sort of a proposal is it, in heaven's name, that they are indignant with you for having rejected? One, Quirites, which quite matches his language. “I am proposing,” he says, “that you shall not be allowed to appoint whom you please as
40.16
consuls.” What else does his proposal mean? He is laying down the law that one consul at least shall be elected from the plebs, and is depriving you of the power of electing two
