History of Rome (Complete)

by Livy

All discussion and even recollection of this dispute were lost in the outbreak of a more serious controversy with a greater and more distinguished man. We are told on the authority of Valerius Antias that the two Petillii instituted proceedings against P. Scipio Africanus. Men put different interpretations on this according to their various dispositions. Some blamed, not the tribunes only, but the whole body of citizens, for letting such a thing be possible; the two greatest cities in the world, they said, had proved themselves, almost at the same time, ungrateful to their foremost men. Rome was the more ungrateful of the two, for whilst Carthage after her defeat drove the defeated Hannibal into exile, Rome would banish the victorious Scipio in the hour of her victory. Others again took the ground that no single citizen should stand on such an eminence that he could not be required to answer according to law. Nothing contributed more towards maintaining liberty for all than the power of putting the most powerful citizen on his trial. What business, it was asked - not to mention the supreme interests of the State - could be entrusted to any man, if he had not to render an account for it? If a man cannot submit to laws which are the same for all, no force which may be employed against him is unlawful.