Sextus Agrippa Rufus was truly beginning to relish his role as spokesman for the faction which Gallus had cobbled together during his previous year as Tribune. Gallus had given him a great deal of advice, but quite frankly, nothing Gallus had discussed had prepared him for this rather startling pair of proposals which now were on the floor. Rufus, perhaps more conservative than Gallus, was on his own...

"Conscript Fathers, fellow Senators all. These two latest proposals--I'm not talking about the third one; give the boy his torque, of course!--but these other two must be thought upon very carefully, for they seek to bring about some very substantial changes to our Mos Maiorum..

"Take this first one proposed by Scipio, the SC Ultimum de Re Publica Defendenda. It attempts to make the consuls dictators without making them dictators! The proposal certainly does have some merits. Rather than having the whole of the Senate at each other's throats trying to decide how to handle a Teutonic invasiion, we can all sit back and enjoy the spectacle of the two consuls fighting it out! For you see, you are still splitting the powers--and the responsibilities--right down the middle. Could we not, Friend Scipio, find ourselves in a situation where the two consuls are completely deadlocked, but we in the Senate will be ordered to sit down and shut up on pain of legal punishment, because it's up to these two chappies to solve all their problems entirely on their own? The idea of giving a dictator his absolute dictatorial powers is so that he'll have absolute dictatorial powers! Those powers are very properly well-defined and narrowly limited to addressing a particular task at hand, and only for a limited period of time. That narrowing of scope and limiting of duration serve to place proper checks and balances upon the office.

"Scipio's proposal seeks to place checks and balances upon the increased power of the consuls in a variety of ways, most notably by making them subject to prosecution apparantly while they are still in office! The idea of a sitting magistrate being liable to legal action is certainly something entirely new to our experience. You must all ask yourselves, Conscript Fathers, is this a road down which we wish to travel?

"Now while Scipio's proposal is somewhat progressive in its outlook, the proposal put forth by Marcus Brutus is downright radical, if not revolutionary! While the goals of defeating corruption are laudable, the manner by which these goals are sought to be achieved could easily result in utter and complete chaos! All I have to do, under the provisions of Senatus Consultum Junium Obviam Corruptio, is to merely accuse any magistrate anywhere in the whole wide world of any crime, no matter how unsubstantiated, and whoosh! this poor fellow must pack up and return to Rome on the double! Imagine the fun we can have! Let's just wait until Lucius Tiddlypus arrives at Further Spain, then accuse him of pinching a coin from a Vestal, and whoosh! back he comes to Rome to face trial! That, my friends, is disruptive, unbalanced, and dangerous.

"Again, Conscript Fathers, our Mos Maoirum stipulates that a sitting magistrate is immune from prosecution. Immune! Now the day after he leaves office, we can throw the codex at him, hitting him smack in the face with it! But...not a day before! That, at least, is the way things have worked in this Republic since its founding.

"Again, Conscript Fathers, I must ask you: is this a road down which we wish to travel?

"Before I could lend my support to either of these measures, I truly do think in my guts that they must be amended, clarified, and mitigated just a bit. These are, well...just a tad too radical for this Senator's tastes!"