11
Which, then, of us, O Labienus, is attached to the best interests of the people? you who think that an executioner and chains ought to be put in operation against Roman citizens in the very assembly of the people; who order a gallows to be planted and erected for the execution of citizens in the Campus Martius, in the comitia centuriata in a place hallowed by the auspices, or I, who forbid the assembly to be polluted by the contagion of an executioner who think that the forum of the Roman people ought to be purified from all such traces of nefarious wickedness who urge that the assembly ought to be kept pure, the campus holy, the person of every Roman citizen inviolate, and the rights of liberty unimpaired?
12
Of a truth, the tribune of the people is very much devoted to the interests of the people,—is a guardian and defender of its privileges and liberties! The Porcian law forbade a rod to be laid on the person of any Roman citizen. This merciful man has brought back the scourge. The Porcian law protected the freedom of the citizens against the lictor. Labienus, that friend of the people, has handed them over to the executioner. Caius Gracchus passed a law that no trial should take place affecting the life of a Roman citizen without your orders. This friend of the people has compelled the duumvirs (without any order of yours being issued on the subject) not only to try a Roman citizen, but to condemn a Roman citizen to death without hearing him in his own defence.
