Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/55

 CICERO. 47 ward as candidates and caressed the people for them ; speaking many things truly and justly against the tyran- ny of Sylla, only that they disturbed the government at an improper and unseasonable time ; on the other hand, the tribunes of the people proposed laws to the same pur- pose, constituting a commission of ten persons, with un- limited powers, in whom as supreme governors should be vested the right of selling the public lands of all Italy and Syria and Pompey's new conquests, of judging and ban- ishing whom they pleased, of planting colonies, of taking moneys out of the treasury, and of levyuig and paying what soldiers should be thought needful. And several of the nobility favored this law, but especially Caius Anto- nius, Cicero's colleague, in hopes of being one of the ten. But what gave the greatest fear to the nobles was, that he was thought privy to the conspu-acy of Catiline, and not to dislike it, because of his great debts. Cicero, endeavoring in the first place to provide a rem- edy against this danger, procured a decree assigning to him the province of Macedonia, he himself declining that of Gaul, which was offered to him. And this piece of favor so completely won over Antonius, that he was ready to second and respond to, like a hired player, what- ever Cicero said for the good of the country. And now, having made his colleague thus tame and tractable, he could with greater courage attack the conspirators. And, therefore, in the senate, making an oration against the law of the ten commissioners, he so confounded those who proposed it, that they had nothing to reply. And when they again endeavored, and, having prepared things befoie- hand, had called the consuls before the assembl}' of the jjeople, Cicero, fearing nothing, went first out, and com- manded the senate to follow him, and not only succeeded in throwing out the law, but so entirely overpowered the tribunes by his oratory, that they abandoned all thought of then- other projects.