In Defense of the Proposed Manilian Law (53)

What then? By the immortal gods, if your authority had had greater weight with the Roman people than the safety and real interests of the Roman people itself, should we have been this day in possession of our present glory, and of the empire of the whole earth? Did this, then, appear to you to be dominion, when it was a common thing for the ambassadors, and praetors, and quaestors of the Roman people to be taken prisoners? when we were cut off from all supplies, both public and private, from all our provinces? when all the seas were so closed against us, that we could neither visit any private estate of our own, nor any public domain beyond the sea?