On the Agrarian Law (1.15-1.16)

Now just see the boundless and intolerable licentiousness of all these measures. Money has been collected for the purchase of lands. More-over, the lands are not to be bought of people against their will. Suppose all the owners agree not to sell, what is to happen then? Is the money to be refunded? That cannot

be. Is it to be collected? The law forbids that. However, let that pass. There is nothing which cannot be bought, if you will only give as much as the seller asks. Let us plunder the whole world, let us sell our revenues, let us exhaust the treasury, in order that, whether men be owners of wealth, or of odium, or even of a pestilence, still their lands may be bought.

What is to happen then? what sort of men are to be established as settlers in those lands? what is to be the system and plan adopted in the whole business? Colonies, say the law, shall be led thither, and settled there. How many? Of what class of men? Where are they to be established? For who is there who does not see that all these things have got to be considered when we are talking of colonies? Did you think, O Rullus, that we would give up the whole of Italy to you and to those contrivers of everything whom you have set up, in an unarmed and defenceless state, for you to strengthen it with garrisons afterwards? for you to occupy it with colonies? to hold it bound and fettered by every sort of chain? For where is there any clause to prevent your establishing a colony on the Janiculan Hill? or from oppressing and overwhelming this city with some other city? We will not do so, says he. In the first place, I don't know that; in the next place, I am afraid of you; lastly, I will never permit our safety to depend on your kindness rather than on our own prudence.