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 The forum will be surrounded, every entrance of it will be blocked up; armed men will be placed in garrison, as it were, at many points. What then?—whatever is accomplished by those means will be law. And you will order, I suppose, all those regularly—passed decrees to be engraved on brazen tablets. "The consuls consulted the people in regular form"—(is this the way of consulting the people that we have received from our ancestors?)—"and the people voted it with due regularity." What people? That which was excluded from the forum? Under what law did they do so? Under that which has been wholly abrogated by violence and arms? But I am saying all this with reference to the future, because it is the part of a friend to point out evils which may be avoided; and if they never ensue, that will be the best refutation of my speech. I am speaking of laws which have been proposed, concerning which you have still full power to decide either way. I am pointing out the defects; away with them! I am denouneing violence and arms; away with them, too!

You and your colleag, O Dolabella, ought not, indeed, to be angry with me for speaking in defense of the republic. Altho I do not think that you yourself will be, I know your willingness to listen to reason. They say that your colleag, in this fortune of his, which he himself thinks so good, but which would seem to me more favorable if (not to use any harsh language) he were to imitate the example set him by the