people during all the years that he was alive would amount to.

But all those things I do not change, I do not meddle with. Nay, I
defend all his good acts with the greatest earnestness. Would that the
money remained in the temple of Opis! Bloodstained, indeed, it may be,
but still needful at these times, since it is not restored to those to
whom it really belongs.[7] Let that, however, be squandered too, if
it is so written in his acts. Is there anything whatever that can be
called so peculiarly the act of that man who, while clad in the robe
of peace, was yet invested with both civil and military command in
the republic, as a law of his? Ask for the acts of Gracchus, the
Sempronian laws will be brought forward; ask for those of Sylla, you
will have the Cornelian laws. What more? In what acts did the third
consulship of Cnaeus Pompeius consist? Why, in his laws. And if you
could ask Caesar himself what he had done in the city and in the garb
of peace, he would reply that he had passed many excellent laws; but
his memoranda he would either alter or not produce at all; or, if
he did produce them, he would not class them among his acts. But,
however, I allow even these things to pass for acts; at some things I
am content to wink; but I think it intolerable that the acts of Caesar
in the most important instances, that is to say, in his laws, are to
be annulled for their sake.

VIII. What law was ever better, more advantageous, more frequently
demanded in the best ages of the republic, than the one which forbade
the praetorian provinces to be retained more than a year, and the
consular provinces more than two? If this law be abrogated, do you
think that the acts of Caesar are maintained? What? are not all the
laws of Caesar respecting judicial proceedings abrogated by the law
which has been proposed concerning the third decury? And are you the