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? [51] And do you now attempt to disparage Cnaeus Pompeius's kindness, or I should rather say, his discretion and conduct, in doing what he had heard that Caius Marius had done; and what he had actually seen done in his own town by Publius Crassus, by Lucius Sulla, by Quintus Metellus; and, though last not least, what he had a family precedent for in his own father? Nor was Cornelius the only instance of his doing this. For he also presented Hasdrubal, of Saguntum, after that important war in Africa, and several of the Mamertines2 who came across him, and some of the inhabitants of Utica, and the Fabii from Saguntum, with the freedom of the city.
In truth, as those men are worthy of all other rewards too who defend our
republic with their personal exertions and at the expense of their own
personal danger, so certainly those men are of all others the
most worthy of being presented with the freedom of the city in defence of
which they have encountered dangers and wounds. And I wish that those men in
all quarters of the world who are the defenders of this empire, could all
enter this city as citizens, and, on the other hand, that all the enemies of
the republic could be got rid or out of it. Nor, indeed did that great poet
of our country intend that exhortation which he put into the mouth of
Hannibal to be peculiarly his language, but rather the common address of all
generals “
The man who slays a foe, whate'er his race,
Come whence he will, I call my countryman.
” And from what country an ally comes, all men consider and always
have considered unimportant. Therefore, they have at all times adopted brave
men as citizens from all quarters, and have often preferred the valour of
men who may have been meanly born to the inactivity of the nobility.
