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17.
But I hope that we and the Roman people shall often have an opportunity of
complimenting and honoring this young man.
[46]
But at the present moment I give my vote that we should pass a decree in this
form:
“As Caius Caesar, the son of Caius, pontiff and propraetor, has at a
most critical period of the republic exhorted the veteran soldiers to defend the
liberty of the Roman people, and has enlisted them in his army; and as the
Martial legion and the fourth legion, with great zeal for the republic, and with
admirable unanimity, under the guidance and authority of Caius Caesar, have
defended and are defending the republic and the liberty of the Roman people; and
as Caius Caesar, propraetor, has gone with his army as a reinforcement to the
province of Gaul; has made cavalry, and
archers, and elephants, obedient to himself and to the Roman people, and has, at
a most critical time for the republic, come to the aid of the safety and dignity
of the Roman people;—on these accounts, it seems good to the senate
that Caius Caesar, the son of Caius, pontiff and propraetor, shall be a senator,
and shall deliver his opinions from the bench occupied by men of praetorian
rank; and that, on occasion of his offering himself for any magistracy, he shall
be considered of the same legal standing and qualification as if he had been
quaestor the preceding year.”
[47]
For what reason can there be, O conscript
fathers, why we should not wish him to arrive at the highest honors at as early
an age as possible? For when, by the laws fixing the age at which men might be
appointed to the different magistracies, our ancestors fixed a more mature age
for the consulship, they were influenced by fears of the precipitation of youth;
Caius Caesar at his first entrance into life, has shown us that, in the case of
his eminent and unparalleled virtue, we have no need to wait for the progress of
age. Therefore our ancestors, those old men in the most ancient times, had no
laws regulating the age for the different offices; it was ambition which caused
them to be passed many years afterwards, in order that there might be among men
of the same age different steps for arriving at honors And it has often happened
that a disposition of great natural virtue has been lost before it had any
opportunity of benefiting the republic
[48]
But among the ancients, the Rulli, the Decii,
the Corvini, and many others and in more modern times the elder Africanus and
Titus Flaminius were made consuls very young, and performed such exploits as
greatly to extend the empire of the Roman people, and to embellish its name What
more? Did not the Macedonian Alexander, having begun to perform mighty deeds
from his earliest youth, die when he was only in his thirty-third year? And that
age is ten years less than that fixed by our laws for a man to be eligible for
the consulship. From which it may be plainly seen that the progress of virtue is
often swifter than that of age.
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