For Aulus Caecina (96-100)

But I ask of you whether you think, if the people ordered me to be your slave, or, on the other hand, you to be mine, that that order would be authoritative and valid? You see that such an order is worthless. ⋯ First of all, you allow this,—that it does not follow that whatever the people orders ought to be ratified. In the next place, you allege no reason why, if liberty cannot possibly be taken away, citizenship may. For we have received our traditions about each in the same way; and if citizenship can once be taken away, liberty cannot be preserved. For how can a man be free by the rights of the Quirites, who is not included in the number of the Quirites?

And I, when quite a young man, established this principle when I was pleading against Cotta, the most eloquent man of our city. When I was defending the liberty of a woman of Arretium, and when Cotta had suggested a scruple to the decemvirs that our action was not a regular one, because the rights of citizenship had been taken from the Arretines, and when I argued rather vehemently that rights of citizenship could not be taken away, at the first hearing the decemvirs gave no decision; afterwards, when they had inquired into, and deliberated on, the subject, they decided that our action was quite regular. And this was decided, though Cotta spoke in opposition to it, and while Sulla was alive. But now on the other cities, why need I tell you how all men who are in the same circumstances proceed by law, and prosecute their rights, and all avail themselves of the civil law without the slightest hesitation on the part of any one, whether magistrate or judge, learned man or ignorant one? There is not one of you who doubts this.

At all events, I am well aware that this is frequently asked, (as I must remind you of those things which do not occur to yourself,) how it is, if the right of citizenship cannot be taken away, that our citizens have often gone to the Latin colonies. They have gone either of their own accord, or in consequence of some penalty inflicted by the law; though if they would have submitted to the penalty, they might have remained in the city.

When the people sell a man who has not become a soldier, it does not take his liberty from him, but decides that he is not a free man who is afraid to encounter danger in order to be free; but when it sells a man whose name is not on the register, it judges in this way,—that as a man who is in just slavery is not on the register, a man who, though a free man, is unwilling to be on the register, has, of his own accord, repudiated his freedom. But if it is chiefly in those ways that freedom, or the rights of citizenship, can be taken from a man, do not they who mention these things understand that if our ancestors chose that those rights should be taken away for these reasons, they chose also that they should not be taken away in any other manner?

For, as they have produced these arguments from the civil law, I wish they would also produce any case of men having had either their rights of citizenship or their freedom taken away by law. For as to banishment, it is very easy to be understood what sort of thing that is. For banishment is not a punishment, but is a refuge and harbour of safety from punishment. For those who are desirous to avoid some punishment or some calamity, turn to banishment alone,— that is to say, they change their residence and their situation, and, therefore, there will not be found in any law of ours, as there is in the laws of other states, any mention of any crime being punished with banishment. But as men wished to avoid imprisonment, execution, or infamy, which are penalties ,appointed by the laws, they flee to banishment as to an altar, though, if they chose to remain in the city and to submit to the rigour of the law, they would not lose their rights of citizenship sooner than they lost their lives; but because they do not so choose, their rights of citizenship are not taken from them, but are abandoned and laid aside by them. For as, according to our law, no one can be a citizen of two cities, the rights of citizenship here are lost when he who has fled is received into banishment,—that is to say, into another city.