[193] Civil rights had been curtailed--_Jus libertatis imminutum erat_. "Sylla, by one of his laws, had rendered the children of proscribed persons incapable of holding any public office; a law unjust, indeed, but which, having been established and acted upon for more than twenty years, could not be rescinded without inconvenience to the government. Cicero, accordingly, opposed the attempts which were made, in his consulship, to remove this restriction, as he himself states in his Oration against Piso, c. 2." _Bernouf_. See Vell. Patere., ii., 28; Plutarch, Vit. Syll.; Quintil., xi. 1, where a fragment of Cicero's speech, _De Proscriptorum Liberis_, is preserved. This law of Sylla was at length abrogated by Julius Caesar, Suet. J. Caes. 41; Plutarch Vit. Caes.; Dio Cass., xli. 18. [194] This was an evil--to the extent to which it now prevailed--_Id adeò malum multos post annos in civitatem reverterat_. "_Adeò_, says Cortius, "_in particula elegantissima_" Allen makes it equivalent to _eò usque_. [195] XXXVIII. The powers of the tribunes--had been fully restored --_Tribunicia potestas restituta_. Before the time of Sylla, the power of the tribunes had grown immoderate, but Sylla diminished and almost annihilated it, by taking from them the privileges of holding any other magistracy after the tribunate, of publicly addressing the people, of proposing laws, and of listening to appeals. But in the consulship of Cotta, A.U.C. 679, the first of these privileges had been restored; and in that of Pompey and Crassus, A.U.C. 683, the tribunes were reinstated in all their former powers. [196] Having obtained that high office--_Summam potestatem nacti_. Cortius thinks these words spurious. [197] XXXIX. Free from harm--_Innoxii_. In a passive sense. [198] Overawing others--with threats of impeachment--_Caeteros judiciis terrere_. "Accusationibus et judiciorum periculis." _Bernouf_. [199] His father ordered to be put to death--_Parens necari jussit_. "His father put him to death, not by order of the consuls, but by his own private authority; nor was he the only one who, at the same period, exercised similar power." Dion. Cass., lib. xxxvii. The father observed on the occasion, that, "he had begotten him, not for Catiline against his country, but for his country against Catiline". Val. Max., v.8. The Roman laws allowed fathers absolute control over the lives of their children. [200] XL. Certain deputies of the Allobroges--_Legatos Allobrogum_. Plutarch, in his Life of Cicero, says that there were then at Rome _two deputies_ from this Gallic nation, sent to complain of oppression on the part of the Roman governors.