Cicero onto something here.

[kairos12]

"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."

About right.

[Polly Hennessey]

1. How about this one:

“Politicians are not born; they are excreted.”

[usonian]

2. He's counting on it. His fifth column. Who? Rootin' Tootin' Putin'

A job VERY WELL DONE by Trump.

[Celerity]

3. Ego vero consisto. Accede, veterane, et, si hoc saltim potes recte facere, incide cervicem.

I go no further: approach, veteran soldier, and, if you can at least do so much properly, sever this neck.


Cicero dragged from his litter and assassinated by soldiers under the command of Mark Antony in 43 BC

https://www.attalus.org/translate/suasoria6.html

"Marcus Cicero, shortly before the arrival of the triumvirs, had left the city, convinced, and rightly, that he could no more escape Antony than Cassius and Brutus could escape Caesar: at first he had fled to his Tusculan villa, then he set out by cross-country roads to his villa at Formiae, intending to take ship from Caieta. He put out to sea several times but was driven back by contrary winds. At last since he could no longer put up with the tossing of the ship, as there was a heavy ground swell, he became weary of flight and of life, and returning to his villa on the high ground, which was little more than a mile from the sea, 'Let me die' says he, 'in my own country, which I have often saved'. It is quite true that his slaves were ready to fight for him with bravery and fidelity: but he ordered them to set down the litter, and quietly to suffer the hard necessity of fate. As he leaned from the litter and kept his neck still for the purpose, his head was struck off. But that did not satisfy the callous brutality of the soldiers: they cut off his hands too, reviling them for having written something against Antony. So the head was brought to Antony and by his order was set between the two hands on the rostra where he had been heard as consul, often as consular, where in that very year his eloquent invectives against Antony had commanded unprecedented admiration. Men were scarce able to raise their tearful eyes and look upon the mangled remains of their countryman".

[kairos12]

5. Thank you for sharing this.

[paleotn]

4. You know what Cicero and group of Roman Senators did in response to internal treason?

Set the law aside (Roman citizens were awarded the right to a trial), cleaned house at sword point, and Roman law returned to normal once the cancer had been excised. The Catilinarian Conspiracy. Or so the story goes. I would not be heartbroken with a modern rendition.