“Also in the same manner,” it says in the second clause, “as in the comitia for the election of a Pontifex Maximus.” He did not perceive even this, that our ancestors did really study the good of the people so much, that, though it was not lawful for that office to be conferred by the people, on account of the religious ceremonies then used, still, they chose, in order to do additional honour to the priesthood, that the sanction of the people should be asked for it. And Cnaeus Domitius, a tribune of the people, and a most eminent man, passed the same law with respect to the other priesthoods; enacting, because the people, on account of the requirements of religion, could not confer the priesthoods, that a small half of the people should be invited; and that whoever was selected by that half should be chosen into their body by the sacred college.

See now how great a difference there is between Cnaeus Domitius, a tribune of the people, a man of the highest rank, and Publius Rullus, who tried your patience, as I imagine, when he said that he was a noble. Domitius contrived a way by which, as far as he was able, as far as was consistent with the laws of men and of gods, he might confer on a portion of the people what could not be done by any regular proceeding on the part of the entire people. But this man, when there was a thing which had always belonged to the people, which no one had ever impaired, and which no one had ever altered,—the principle, namely, that those who were to assign lands to the people, should receive a kindness from the Roman people before they conferred one on it; that this man has endeavoured entirely to take away from you, and to wrest out of your hands. The one contrived somehow or other to give that which could not really be given formally to the people; the other endeavours somehow or other to take away from them by manoeuvre, what could not possibly be taken from them by direct power.