We have got a most zealous prosecutor, O judges, and an enemy in every respect violent and
 furious against us. I trust that he may be of great use to his friends and to the republic; but
 at all events, he has undertaken this case and this prosecution, as if he were impelled by some
 most extraordinary eagerness. What a company attended him while pursuing his investigations!
 company, do I say? rather, what an army! what profusion! what expense! what prodigality was
 there! And though these statements are of service to my case, still I do not make them without
 apprehension lest Laelius should think that I am seeking by my oration to make him talked about,
 or to excite odium against him, in a business which he has undertaken for the sole object of
 acquiring credit. Therefore, I will pass over all this part of the subject. I will only beg of you, O judges, if
 you have heard anything yourselves by common report and in ordinary conversation about force,
 and violence, and arms, and troops, to recollect it and to remember, because of the unpopularity
 of such conduct, that by this recent law, a certain number of companions has been fixed as the
 greatest number that ought to attend a man while prosecuting such an inquiry. However, to say nothing of violence, what conduct is this? which, since it was
 adopted according to the privileges and customs of prosecutors we cannot impeach, but still we
 are compelled to complain if it. I mean, first of all, the making a statement which has been
 bruited abroad over all Asia, (different people having had regular districts assigned to them,
 in which they were to spread the report,) that Cnaeus Pompeius, because he is a
 most zealous enemy to Lucius Flaccus, had begged of Decimus Laelius, his father's and his own
 most intimate friend, to prosecute him on this charge, and that he placed at his disposal for
 the furtherance of this business, all his own authority, and influence, and resources, and
 riches. And this appeared all the more probable to the Greeks, because a little before they had
 seen Laelius in the same province with Flaccus, and on terms of great intimacy with him. And as
 the authority of Pompeius is great with every one, as indeed it ought to be, so especially is it
 predominant in that province which he has lately delivered from the war which pirates and kings
 were waging against it. He did this besides: those who did not wish to leave their homes he
 terrified with a summons to give their evidence; those who could not remain at home, he provided
 with a large and liberal sum for travelling expenses.