But, to be sure, that most illustrious man, Quintus Catulus, a man most honestly attached to
the republic, and loaded with your kindness in a way most honourable to him; and also Quintus
Hortensius, a man endowed with the highest qualities of honour, and fortune, and virtue, and
genius, disagree to this proposal. And I admit that their authority has in many instances had
the greatest weight with you, and that it ought to have the greatest weight; but in this cause,
although you are aware that the opinions of many very brave and illustrious men are unfavourable
to us, still it is possible for us, disregarding those authorities, to arrive at the truth by
the circumstances of the case and by reason. And so much the more easily, because those very men
admit that everything which has been said by me up to this time is true,—that the war is
necessary, that it is an important war, and that all the requisite qualifications are in the
highest perfection in Cnaeus Pompeius.
What, then, does
Hortensius say? “That if the whole power must be given to one man, Pompeius alone is most worthy
to have it, but that, nevertheless, the power ought not to be entrusted to one individual.” That
argument, however, has now become obsolete, having been refuted much more by facts than by
words. For you, also, Quintus Hortensius, said many things with great force and fluency (as
might be expected from your exceeding ability, and eminent facility as an orator) in the senate
against that brave man, Aulus Gabinius, when he had brought forward the law about appointing one
commander-in-chief against the pirates; and also from this place where I now stand, you made a
long speech against that law.
What then? By the immortal
gods, if your authority had had greater weight with the Roman people than the safety and real
interests of the Roman people itself, should we have been this day in possession of our present
glory, and of the empire of the whole earth? Did this, then, appear to you to be dominion, when
it was a common thing for the ambassadors, and praetors, and quaestors of the Roman people to be
taken prisoners? when we were cut off from all supplies, both public and private, from all our
provinces? when all the seas were so closed against us, that we could neither visit any private
estate of our own, nor any public domain beyond the sea?
What city ever was there before this time,—I speak not of the city of the Athenians, which is
said formerly to have had a sufficiently extensive naval dominion; nor of that of the
Carthaginians, who had great power with their fleet and maritime resources; nor of those of the
Rhodians, whose naval discipline and naval renown has lasted even to our recollection,—but was
there ever any city before this time so insignificant, if it was only a small island, as not to
be able by its own power to defend its harbours, and its lands, and some part of its country and
maritime coast? But, forsooth, for many years before the Gabinian law was passed, the Roman
people, whose name, till within our own memory remained invincible in naval battles, was
deprived not only of a great, aye, of much the greatest part of its usefulness, but also of its
dignity and dominion.
We, whose ancestors conquered with our
fleets Antiochus the king, and Perses, and in every naval engagement defeated the Carthaginians,
the best practiced and best equipped of all men in maritime affairs; we could now in no place
prove ourselves equal to the pirates. We, who formerly had not only all Italy in safety, but who were able by the authority of our empire
to secure the safety of all our allies in the most distant countries, so that even the island of
Delos, situated so far from us in the Aegean sea, at which all men were in the habit of touching with
their merchandise and their freights, full of riches as it was, little and unwalled as it was,
still was in no alarm; we, I say, were cut off, not only from our provinces, and from the
sea-coast of Italy, and from our harbours, but even
from the Appian road; and at this time, the magistrates of the Roman people were not ashamed to
come up into this very rostrum where I am standing, which your ancestors had bequeathed to you
adorned with nautical trophies, and the spoils of the enemy's fleet.