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23“And yet all these measures which you may seem to have voted you will find to be unimportant and differing but little from established custom. What was there so serious in the fact that one man was destined to govern Macedonia or Gaul instead of another? Or what was the harm if a man obtained soldiers during his consulship? 2But these are the things that are harmful and abominable,—that our land should be ravaged, the allied cities besieged, our soldiers armed against us, and our wealth expended to our detriment; this you neither voted nor would ever have voted. 3Do not, then, merely because you have granted him certain privileges, allow him to usurp what was not granted him; and do not imagine that, because you have conceded certain points, he ought therefore to be permitted to do what has not been conceded. Quite the reverse: you should for this very reason both hate and punish him, because he has dared not only in this case but in all other cases to use against you the honour and kindness you have bestowed. 4Consider a moment. Through my influence you voted that there should be peace and harmony amongst you. This man, when he was ordered to manage the business, performed it in such a way, taking Caesar’s funeral as a pretext, that almost the whole city was burned down and once more great numbers were slaughtered. 5You ratified all the grants made to various persons and all the laws laid down by Caesar, not because they were all excellent—far from it!—but because it was inadvisable to make any change in them, if we were to live together free from suspicion and without malice. This man, appointed to examine into Caesar’s acts, has abolished many of them and has substituted many others in the documents. 6He has taken away lands and citizenship and exemption from taxes and many other honours from their possessors, whether private persons, kings, or cities, and has given them to men who did not receive them, by altering the memoranda of Caesar; from those who were unwilling to give up anything to his grasp he took away even what had been given them, and sold this and everything else to such as wished to buy. 7Yet you, foreseeing this very possibility, had voted that no tablet should be set up after Caesar’s death purporting to contain any privilege granted by him to any one. Nevertheless, when it happened many times after that, and he claimed that it was necessary for some provisions found in Caesar’s papers to be specially singled out and put into effect, 8you assigned to him, in company with the foremost men, the task of making such excerpts; but he, paying no attention to the others, carried out everything alone according to his wishes, in regard to the laws, the exiles, and the other matters which I enumerated a few moments ago. This, indeed, is the way he chooses to execute all your decrees.
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