What is the meaning, then, of the eagerness to pass the law which brings with it the greatest possible infamy, and no popularity at all?  For what can be more discreditable than for a man who has committed treason against the Roman people by acts of violence, after he has been condemned by a legal decision, to be able to return to that very course of violence, on account of which he has been condemned?  But why do I argue any more about this law? as if the object aimed at were to enable any one to appeal?  The object is, the inevitable consequence must be, that no one can ever be prosecuted under those laws.  For what prosecutor will be found insane enough to be willing, after the defendant has been condemned, to expose himself to the fury of a hired mob? or what judge will be bold enough to venture to condemn a criminal, knowing that he will immediately be dragged before a gang of hireling operatives?  It is not, therefore, a right of appeal that is given by that law, but two most salutary laws and modes of judicial investigation that are abolished.  And what is this but exhorting young men to be turbulent, seditious, mischievous citizens?

To what extent of mischief will it not be possible to instigate the frenzy of the tribunes now that these two rights of impeachment for violence and for treason are annulled?  What more?  Is not this a substitution of a new law for the laws of Caesar, which enact that every man who has been convicted of violence, and also every man who has been convicted of treason, shall be interdicted from fire and water?  And, when those men have a right of appeal given them, are not the acts of Caesar rescinded?  And those acts, O conscript fathers, I, who never approved of them, have still thought it advisable to maintain for the sake of concord, so that I not only did not think that the laws which Caesar had passed in his lifetime ought to be repealed, but I did not approve of meddling with those even which since the death of Caesar you have seen produced and published.

X. Men have been recalled from banishment by a dead man; the freedom of the city has been conferred, not only on individuals, but on entire nations and provinces by a dead man; our revenues have been diminished by the granting of countless exemptions by a dead man.  Therefore, do we defend these measures which have been brought from his house on the authority of a single, but, I admit, a very excellent individual, and as for the laws which he, in your presence, read, and declared, and passed,—­in the passing of which he gloried, and on which he believed that the safety of the republic depended, especially those concerning provinces and concerning judicial proceedings,—­can we, I say, we who defend the acts of Caesar, think that those laws deserve to be upset?