For M. Fonteius (42-45)

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.