[25]
Do you then, O you patron of all treaties and federate states, lay down this
as the condition of the people of Gades, your fellow-citizens, that what is lawful for those
nations which we have subdued with our arms, and reduced under our dominion,
having the people of Gades for our
assistants while doing so, namely, that if the Roman people shall permit it,
they may have the rights of citizenship conferred on them by the senate or
by our generals,—is not to be lawful for the men of Gades themselves?
Suppose they had determined by their own decrees or laws that no one of their
fellow citizens should enter the camp of a general of the Roman people, that
no one should incur any personal risk or danger of his life in defence of
our empire, that we should not be allowed to avail ourselves of the
assistance of the people of Gades
whenever we chose, and that in his private capacity no individual, being
eminent for courage and valour, should dare to struggle to his own personal
danger, in defence of our empire; we should naturally be very indignant at
that, at the resources of the Roman people being diminished, at the courage
of brave men being damped, and at our being deprived of the aid afforded us
by the zeal of nations unconnected with us in our behalf, and by the valour
of foreign peoples.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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