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of a hundred years. It binds Caius Plautius your colleague, created
under the same auspices, with the same privileges. Did not the people
create him with the fullest privileges with which any censor ever was
created? Or is yours an excepted case, in which this peculiarity and
singularity takes place? Shall the person, whom you create king of the
sacrifices, laying hold of the style of sovereignty, say, that he was
created with the fullest privileges with which any king was ever
created at Rome? Who then, do you think, would be content with a
dictatorship of six months? who, with the office of interrex for five
days? Whom would you, with confidence, create dictator, for the
purpose of driving the nail, or of exhibiting games? How foolish, how
stupid, do ye think, those must appear in this man's eyes, who, after
performing most important services, abdicated the dictatorship within
the twentieth day; or who, being irregularly created, resigned their
office? Why should I bring instances from antiquity? Lately, within
these last ten years, Caius Maenius, dictator, having enforced
inquiries, with more strictness than consisted with the safety of some
powerful men, a charge was thrown out by his enemies, that he himself
was infected with the very crime against which his inquiries were
directed;--now Maenius, I say, in order that he might, in a private
capacity, meet the imputation, abdicated the dictatorship. I expect
not such moderation in you; you will not degenerate from your family,
of all others the most imperious and assuming; nor resign your office
a day, nor even an hour, before you are forced to it. Be it so: but
then let no one exceed the time limited. It is enough to add a day, or
a month, to the censorship. But Appius says, I will hold the
censorship, and hold it alone, three years and six months longer than
is allowed by the Aemilian law. Surely this is like kingly power. Or
will you fill up the vacancy with another colleague, a proceeding not
allowable, even in the case of the death of a censor? You are not
satisfied that, as if a religious censor, you have degraded a most
ancient solemnity, and the only one instituted by the very deity to
whom it is performed, from priests of that rite who were of the
highest rank to the ministry of mere servants. [You are not satisfied
that] a family, more ancient than the origin of this city, and
sanctified by an intercourse of hospitality with the immortal gods,
has, by m