s marked out for it. Tiberius Gracchus made an
attempt to obtain the power of a king, or, I might rather say, enjoyed
that power for a few 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.

We conclude, then, not only that no such confederation of evilly
disposed men must be allowed to shelter itself under the plea of
friendship, but that, on the contrary, it must be visited with the
severest punishment, lest the idea should prevail that fidelity to a
friend justifies even making war upon one's country. And this is a case
which I am inclined to think, considering how things are beginning to
go, will sooner or later arise. And I care quite as much