For A.L. Archias (9-10)

“But he had no residence at Rome.” What, not he who for so many years before the freedom of the city was given to him, had established the abode of all his property and fortunes at Rome? “But he did not return himself.” Indeed he did, and in that return which alone obtains with the college of praetors the authority of a public document.

And as this is the case, what reason have you for doubting about his citizenship, especially as he was enrolled as a citizen of other cities also? In truth, as men in Greece were in the habit of giving rights of citizenship to many men of very ordinary qualifications, and endowed with no talents at all, or with very moderate ones, without any payment, it is likely, I suppose, that the Rhegians, and Locrians, and Neapolitans, and Tarentines should have been unwilling to give to this man, enjoying the highest possible reputation for genius, what they were in the habit of giving even to theatrical artists. What, when other men, who not only after the freedom of the city had been given, but even after the passing of the Papian law, crept somehow or other into the registers of those municipalities, shall he be rejected who does not avail himself of those other lists in which he is enrolled, because he always wished to be considered a Heraclean?