months. Had the Roman people ever heard or seen the like before?
What the friends and connexions that followed him, even after his
death, have succeeded in doing in the case of Publius Scipio I
cannot describe without tears. As for Carbo, thanks to the
punishment recently inflicted on Tiberius Gracchus, we have by
hook or by crook managed to hold out against his attacks. But
what to expect of the tribuneship of Caius Gracchus I do not like
to forecast. One thing leads to another; and once set going, the
downward course proceeds with ever-increasing velocity. There is
the case of the ballot: what a blow was inflicted first by the lex
Gabinia, and two years afterwards by the lex Cassia! I seem
already to see the people estranged from the Senate, and the most
important affairs at the mercy of the multitude. For you may be
sure that more people will learn how to set such things in motion
than how to stop them. What is the point of these remarks? This:
no one ever makes any attempt of this sort without friends to help
him. We must therefore impress upon good men that, should they
become inevitably involved in friendships with men of this kind,
they ought not to consider themselves under any obligation to
stand by friends who are disloyal to the republic. Bad men must
have the fear of punishment before their eyes: a punishment not
less severe for those who follow than for those who lead others to
crime. Who was more famous and powerful in Greece than
Themistocles? At the head of the army in the Persian war he had
freed Greece; he owed his exile to personal envy: but he did not
submit to the wrong done him by his ungrateful country as he
ought to have done. He acted as Coriolanus had acted among us
twenty years before. But no one was found to help them in their
attacks upon their fatherland. Both of them accordingly committed
suicide.