M. Tullius Cicero, For King Deiotarius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

You ought, O Castor, rather to imitate the manner and principles of your grandfather, than calumniate a most virtuous and most illustrious man with the language of a runaway slave. Even if you had had a grandfather who was a dancer, and not a man from whom examples of modesty and chastity might be derived, still this reproach is one which is very little suited to your age. Those pursuits to which he had been habituated from his earliest age—not dancing, but such as would train him to wield his arms and manage his horses in the best manner,—those all had now failed him at his advanced time of life; so that we used to wonder, when several men had lifted Deiotarus on his horse, how so old a man as he could contrive to stick on. But this young man, who was a soldier of mine in Cilicia, and a comrade of mine in Greece, how was he used to ride about in that army of ours, with his own picked body of cavalry, whom his father had sent with him to join Pompeius! what gallops he used to take; how he used to display his skill! What a parade he used to make! How did he refuse to yield to any one in his zeal and eagerness for the success of that cause! [29] But even after the army was lost, I, who had at all times been an adviser of peace, but who, after the battle of Pharsalia, urged every one not to lay aside, but to throw away their arms, could never bring this young man to adopt my advice, both because of his own eagerness for that war, and because he thought himself bound to satisfy the expectations of his father.

Happy is that house which has obtained, not only impunity, but licence to accuse others! Unfortunate Deiotarus, who is not only accused by one who was in the same camp with him, before you, but who is impeached even by his own relations. Cannot you, O Castor, be content with your own good fortune without bringing misery on your relations?