OT Cicero

[harry]

?A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.?

[Chris]

Yeah, Cicero had a bit of an issue with the Jews, to whom he refers to here. Classic bit of early anti-semitism.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Cicero is the name of a piece of OCR software for blind people.

[Another Dave]

As every schoolboy knows Cicero (who died in 47BC) was referring to members of the Catiline conspiracy, Romans to a man. Some decades before there had been a vicious civil war led by Sulla and the conspirators were adherents of Sulla.

I doubt Cicero ever met a Jew or had even heard of them.

[nightjar]

Nigel Farage to a T.

[harry]

I was thinking of the treasonous trio Cameron, May and Johnson.

[Chris]

Oh, but I think you'll find he did!

CICERO (Marcus Tullius Cicero). First century B.C. Roman statesman, writer:

"Softly! Softly! I want none but the judges to hear me. The Jews have already gotten me into a fine mess, as they have many other gentleman. I have no desire to furnish further grist for their mills." (Oration in Defense of Flaccus)

Cicero was serving as defense counsel at the trial of Flaccus, a Roman official who interfered with Jewish gold shipments to their international headquarters (then, as now) in Jerusalem. Cicero himself certainly was not a nobody, and for one of this stature to have to "speak softly" shows that he was in the presence of a dangerously powerful sphere of influence. and on another occasion Cicero wrote: "The Jews belong to a dark and repulsive force. One knows how numerous this clique is, how they stick together and what power they exercise through their unions. They are a nation of rascals and deceivers."

Like I said, an early example of classic anti-semitism.

[Grikbassturdo®™]

He was right, though, wasn't he?

[Dan Green]

But that was 2,000 years ago ffs. Things have changed massively since then.

[Ian Jackson]

One day, the EU Referendum will be 2000 years ago - and they'll still be claiming that it reflects The Will Of The People.

[Grikbassturdo®™]

Indeed. The jew problem has increased massively since then ffs.

[Al]

Have they though? I'm seeing them constantly interfering with Brexit, trying to de-rail it. 99 out of a 100 of them want us to remain in the EU, against the wishes of the British people and they always get what they want. AFAICS, nothings changed.

[Grikbassturdo®™]

You got that right. We've had constant inteference from 'speaker' John Bercow (né Berkowitz) (on secondment from the Knesset) and Oliver Letwin (né Letwinsky), the dishonourable member for Tel Aviv - Jaffa.

[Cursitor Doom]

Wot's all this? I thought the Labour Party Conference had finished by now! ;->

[Grikbassturdo®™]

And that's where I first heard it!