Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 2.pdf/44

 her order, she is buried alive. For they who are guilty of impiety against the gods, lose that sacred character, which they had only for the sake of the gods. So a tribune who injures the people can be no longer sacred or inviolable on the people's account. He destroys that power in which alone his strength lay. If it is just for him to be invested with the tribunal authority by a majority of tribes, is it not more just for him to be deposed by the suffrages of them all? What is more sacred and inviolable than the offerings in the temples of the gods? yet no one pretends to hinder the people from making use of them, or removing them, whenever they please. And, indeed, that the tribune's office is not inviolable or unremovable, appears from hence, that several have voluntarily laid it down, or been discharged at their own request.