M. Tullius Cicero, On the Consular Provinces
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

But even if they were the most excellent of men, still, in my opinion, it could never be advisable to appoint a successor to Caius Caesar. Now, concerning this matter, O conscript fathers. I shall declare my real sentiments, and I shall not be disconcerted by that interruption of my most intimate friend, who did a little while ago interrupt my speech, as you heard. That excellent man says that I ought not to be more hostile to Gabinius than to Caesar; for that all that storm, to which I yielded, was raised by the instigation and assistance of Caesar. And if I were in the first instance to reply that I was having regard to the common advantage, and not to my own private sufferings, could I not establish that, when I say that I am doing what I well may do according to the example of other most valiant and most illustrious citizens? Did Tiberius Gracchus (I am speaking of the father, and would that his son had never degenerated from that father's virtue!) gain such great glory because he, while tribune of the people, was the only one of the whole college who was any assistance to Lucius Scipio, though he was the bitterest possible enemy, both to him and to his brother Africanus; and did he not swear in the public assembly that he had by no means become reconciled to him, but that it seemed to him quite inconsistent with the dignity of the empire that, after the generals of the enemy had been led to prison while Scipio was celebrating his triumph, the very man also who had triumphed should be led to the same place?