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33“We call gods and men to witness, general, that we have taken up arms, not against our fatherland nor to bring danger upon others, but to protect our own persons from outrage; for we are wretched and destitute, many of us have been driven from our country by the violence and cruelty of the moneylenders, while all have lost repute and fortune. None of us has been allowed, in accordance with the usage of our forefathers, to enjoy the protection of the law and retain our personal liberty after being stripped of our patrimony, such was the inhumanity of the moneylenders and the praetor. 2Your forefathers often took pity on the Roman commons and relieved their necessities by senatorial decrees, and not long ago, within our own memory, because of the great amount of their debt, silver was paid in copper with the general consent of the nobles. 3Often the commons themselves, actuated by a desire to rule or incensed at the arrogance of the magistrates, have taken up arms and seceded from the patricians. 4But we ask neither for power nor for riches, the usual causes of wars and strife among mortals, but only for freedom, which no true man gives up except with his life. 5We implore you and the senate to take thought for your unhappy countrymen, to restore the bulwark of the law, of which the praetor’s injustice has deprived us, and not to impose upon us the necessity of asking ourselves how we may sell our lives most dearly.”
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