[51]
And do you now attempt to disparage
Cnaeus Pompeius's kindness, or I should rather say, his discretion and
conduct, in doing what he had heard that Caius Marius had done; and what he
had actually seen done in his own town by Publius Crassus, by Lucius Sulla,
by Quintus Metellus; and, though last not least, what he had a family
precedent for in his own father? Nor was Cornelius the only instance of his
doing this. For he also presented Hasdrubal, of Saguntum, after that important war in Africa, and several of the Mamertines1 who came across him,
and some of the inhabitants of Utica, and the Fabii from Saguntum, with the freedom of the city.
In truth, as those men are worthy of all other rewards too who defend our
republic with their personal exertions and at the expense of their own
personal danger, so certainly those men are of all others the
most worthy of being presented with the freedom of the city in defence of
which they have encountered dangers and wounds. And I wish that those men in
all quarters of the world who are the defenders of this empire, could all
enter this city as citizens, and, on the other hand, that all the enemies of
the republic could be got rid or out of it. Nor, indeed did that great poet
of our country intend that exhortation which he put into the mouth of
Hannibal to be peculiarly his language, but rather the common address of all
generals “
The man who slays a foe, whate'er his race,
Come whence he will, I call my countryman.
” And from what country an ally comes, all men consider and always have considered unimportant. Therefore, they have at all times adopted brave men as citizens from all quarters, and have often preferred the valour of men who may have been meanly born to the inactivity of the nobility.
Come whence he will, I call my countryman.
” And from what country an ally comes, all men consider and always have considered unimportant. Therefore, they have at all times adopted brave men as citizens from all quarters, and have often preferred the valour of men who may have been meanly born to the inactivity of the nobility.
