For L. Flaccus (65-66)

Wherefore I beseech you, O you Asiatic witnesses, that, when you wish to recollect with accuracy what amount of authority you bring into a court of justice, you would yourselves describe Asia, and remember, not what foreigners are accustomed to say of you, but what you yourselves affirm of your own races. For, as I think, the Asia that you talk of consists of Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, and Lydia. Is it then a proverb of ours or of yours that a Phrygian is usually made better by beating? What more? Is not this a common saying of you all with respect to the whole of Caria, if you wish to make any experiment accompanied with danger, that you had better try it on a Carian? Moreover what saying is there in Greek conversation more ordinary and well known, than, when any one is spoken of contemptuously, to say that he is the very lowest of the Mysians? For why should I speak of Lydia? What Greek ever wrote a comedy in which the principal slave was not a Lydian? What injury, then, is done to you, if we decide that we are to adhere to the judgment which you have formed of yourselves?

In truth, I think that I have said enough and more than enough of the whole race of witnesses from Asia. But still it is your duty, O judges, to weigh in your minds and thoughts everything which can be said against the insignificance, the inconstancy, and the covetousness of the men, even if these points are not sufficiently enlarged upon by me.