[32]
Will your minds, pure and upright
as they are, bring themselves into such a state that, when all our ambassadors who for the
last three years have arrived in Gaul, when all the
Roman knights who have been in that province, when all the traders of that province, when, in
short, all the allies and friends of the Roman people who are in Gaul, wish Marcus Fonteius to be safe, and extol him on their oaths both in
public and in private, you should still prefer to give your decision in unison with the Gauls?
Appealing to comply with what? With the wishes of men? Is then the wish of our enemies to have
more authority in your eyes than that of our countrymen? With the dignity of the witnesses?
Can you then possibly prefer strangers to people whom you know, unjust men to just ones,
foreigners to countrymen, covetous men to moderate ones, mercenary men to disinterested ones,
impious men to conscientious ones, men who are the greatest enemies to our dominions and to
our name, to good and loyal allies and citizens?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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