M. Tullius Cicero, On the Agrarian Law
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

But what is the meaning of this, that they fix no place for this auction which they are establishing? For power is given to the decemvirs by this law, of holding their sales in any places which seem convenient to them. The censors are not allowed to let the contracts for farming the revenues, except in the sight of the Roman people. Shall these men be allowed to sell them in the most distant countries? But even the most profligate men, when they have squandered their patrimony, prefer selling their property in the auctioneer's rooms, rather than in the roads, or in the streets. This man, by his law, gives leave to the decemvirs to sell the property of the Roman people in whatever darkness and whatever solitude they find it convenient. [8] Do you not, moreover, see how grievous, how formidable, and how pregnant with extortion that invasion of the decemvirs and of the multitude that will follow in their train will be to all the provinces, and kingdoms, and free nations? In the case of those men on whom you have conferred lieutenancies for the sake of entering on inheritances, though they went as private men, on private business, invested with no excessive power and no supreme authority, you have still heard how burdensome their arrival has proved to your allies. [9] What alarm and what misfortune, then must you think all nations are threatened with by this law, when decemvirs are sent all over the world with supreme power,—men of the greatest avarice, and with an insatiable desire for every sort of property? whose arrival will be grievous, whose forces will be formidable, whose judicial and arbitrary power will be absolutely intolerable. For they will have the power of deciding whatever they please to be public property, and of selling whatever they decide to be such. Even that very thing which conscientious men will not do, namely, taking money to abstain from selling, is to be made lawful for them to do by the express provisions of the law. From this provision what plunderings, what bargainings, what a regular auction of all law and of every one's fortunes must inevitably arise! [10] Even that which in the former pert of the law made in the consulship of Sulla and Pompeius was strictly defined, that they have now left at the discretion of these men, without any restriction or limitation.