M. Tullius Cicero, For Plancius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

[43] What could he say then before men of the Voltinian tribe, or before his own tribesmen, if they were his judges? Yes, what rather could you say yourself? What judge of all the number could you find who might be a silent witness of those matters, or which of them could you summon as such? In truth, if the defendant himself were to propose the tribes which were to furnish his judges, Plancius perhaps would have proposed the Voltinian tribe on account of his neighbourhood to and connection with it; but most unquestionably he would have proposed his own. And if he had had to propose the president of the court whom would he have been more likely to propose than this very Caius Alfius, who is the president to whom he ought to be thoroughly well-known, his own neighbour, a man of his own tribe, a most respectable and upright man? Whose impartiality and desire for the safety of Cnaeus Plancius which, without the least suspicion of being influenced by any covetous motives he makes no concealment of, declares plainly enough that my client had no reason to avoid having men of his own tribe for judges, when you see that a man of his own tribe for president was a most desirable thing for him.