M. Tullius Cicero, For Cornelius Balbus
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

What? Did not Cnaeus Pompeius, the father of this man, after he had performed mighty achievements in the Italian war, present Publius Caesius, a Roman knight and a virtuous man, who is still alive, a native of Ravenna, a city of a federate state, with the freedom of the city of Rome? What? did he not give the same gift also to two entire troops of the Camertines? What? Did not Publius Crassus, that most distinguished man, give the same gift to Alexas, the Heraclean, a man of that city with which there was a treaty, such as I may almost say there is no other instance of, made in the time of Pyrrhus, by Caius Fabricius, the consul? What? did not Sulla do the same to Aristo of Massilia? What? Since we are speaking of the people of Gades, did not that same man¹ make nine men of the citizens of Gades, citizens of Rome at the same time? What? Did not that most scrupulously correct man, that most conscientious and modest man, Quintus Metellus Pius, give the freedom of the city to Quintus Fabius, of Saguntum? What? Did not this very man who is here in court, by whom all these cases, which I am now lightly running over, were all most carefully wrought up and set before you; did not Marcus Crassus give the freedom of the city to a man of Aletrium, which is a federate town,—Marcus Crassus, I say, a man not only eminent for wisdom and sobriety of conduct but also one who is usually even too sparing in admitting men as citizens of Rome?