For M. Fonteius (41-45)

Consider, therefore, whether it is more just that a most honourable and brave man, that a most virtuous citizen, should be given up to the most hostile and ferocious nations, or restored to his freedom, especially when there are so many circumstances which cooperate in entreating your favourable disposition in aid of this man's safety. First of all, there is the antiquity of his family, which we are aware proceeds from Tusculum, a most illustrious municipality, and whose fame is engraved and handed down on monuments of the exploits of its members; secondly, there have been continual praetorships in that family, which have been distinguished by every sort of honour, and especially by the credit of unimpeachable innocence; besides that, there is the recent memory of his father, by whose blood, not only the troop of Asculum, by whom he was slain, but the whole of that social war has been stained with the deep dye of wickedness; lastly, there is the man himself, honourable and upright in every particular of his life, and in military affairs not only endued with the greatest wisdom, and the most brilliant courage, but also skillful through personal experience in carrying on war, beyond almost any man of the present age.

Recollect what lieutenants Lucius Julius, and Publius Rutilius, and Lucius Cato, and Cnaeus Pompeius have lately had in war. You will see that at that time there existed also Marcus Cornutus, Lucius Cinna, and Lucius Sulla, men of praetorian rank, and of the greatest skill in war; and, besides them, Caius Marius, Publius Didius, Quintus Catulus, and Publius Crassus, men not learned in the science of war through books, but accomplished and renowned by their achievements and their victories. Come now, cast your eyes over the senate house, look thoroughly into every part of the republic; do you see no possible event in which you may require men like those? or, if any such event should arise, do you think that the Roman people is at this moment rich in such men? And if you carefully consider all these circumstances, you will rather, O judges, retain at home, for yourselves and for your children, a man energetic in undertaking the toils of war, gallant in encountering its dangers, skillful in its practice and its discipline, prudent in his designs, fortunate and successful in their accomplishment, than deliver him over to nations most hostile to the Roman people, and most cruel, by condemning him.

On the opposite side stands the further Spain, which is able in this case not only to withstand the eagerness of the accusers by its own honest disposition, but which can even refute the perjuries of wicked men by its testimonies and by its panegyrics. And even from Gaul itself most faithful and most important assistance is derived. As an assistance to this unhappy and innocent man, the city of the Massilians has come forward, which is labouring now, not only in order to appear to requite with proper gratitude the exertions of the man by whom it has been preserved, but which also believes that it has been placed in those districts for that very object, and with that express destiny, to prevent those nations from being able to injure our countrymen.