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

The last thing that we have to inquire into is, whether that fleet really sailed with oars and sails, or only on paper, and as far as the expense went. Can that then be denied, of which all Asia is witness, that the fleet was distributed into two divisions, so that one division should sail above Ephesus, the other below Ephesus? in the one fleet Marcus Crassus, that most noble man, sailed from Aenas to Asia, with the other division Flaccus sailed from Asia to Macedonia. In what then is it that we look in vain for the diligence of the praetor? Is it in the number of the ships or in the equal division of the expense? He demanded just one half the fleet which Pompeius required. Could he be more economical? And he divided the expense according to the proportions settled by Pompeius, which was adapted to the division made by Sulla, who, when he had arranged all the cities in Asia according to the proportion that they were to bear of the expense imposed on the whole provinces, adopted a rule which Pompeius and Flaccus followed in raising the necessary sums, and even to this day the whole sum is not collected. But he makes no return of it.