Pro L. Flacco

Now that the universal cupidity of those men is ascertained, I will proceed to the separate complaints and charges of the Greeks. They complain that money was levied from the cities under the name of money for a fleet. And we admit, O judges, that that was done. But if this be a crime, the guilt must consist either in the fact that it was not lawful so to levy money; or in the fact that the ships were not wanted; or in the third alternative, that no fleet put to sea while he was praetor. That you may see that this levy was lawful, listen, I pray you, to what the senate decreed, when I was consul, in which it did not depart at all from the former decrees of many years running. [The resolution of the senate is read.] The next thing is for us to inquire whether there was need of the fleet or not. Is it then the Greeks or any foreign nations who are to be judges of this, or your praetors, your generals, your commanders-in-chief? I indeed think that in a district and province of that sort which is surrounded by the sea, dotted all over with harbours, and girt with islands, a fleet is requisite not only for the sake of protection, but as an ornament of the empire.

For there were these principles and there was this greatness of mind in our ancestors, that while in their private affairs, and as to their own personal expenses, they lived contented with a little, and without the smallest approach to luxury; where the empire and the dignity of the state was concerned, they brought everything up to a high pitch of splendour and magnificence. For in a man's private affairs he desires the credit of moderation, but in public affairs dignity is the object aimed at. But even if he had a fleet for the sake of protection, who will be so unjust as to blame it?—“There were no pirates.” What? who could certify beforehand that there would be none? “You are taking away,” said he, “from the glory of Pompeius.”

Say, rather, that you yourself are increasing his difficulties. For he destroyed the fleets of the pirates, their cities, and harbours, and places of refuge. By his surpassing valour and incredible rapidity of motion he established a maritime peace; but this he neither undertook nor ought to have undertaken,—namely, to submit to appear worthy of prosecution if a single pirate's boat was anywhere seen. Therefore he himself in Asia, when he had terminated every war, both by land and sea, nevertheless levied a fleet on those self-same cities. And if he then thought that step was necessary, when everything might have been safe and tranquil through fear of his name, while he was still in those countries, what do you think that Flaccus ought to have decided on and to have done after he had departed?

What? did not we decree, by the advice of Pompeius himself, in the consulship of Silanus and Murena, that a fleet should put to sea to sail round Italy? Did not we, at the very same time that Lucius Flaccus was levying sailors in Asia, exact four millions three hundred thousand sesterces for fleets to defend the Mediterranean and Adriatic? What did we do the year after? was not money exacted for the use of the fleet when Marcus Curius and Publius Sextilius were quaestors? What? were there not all this time cavalry on the sea-coast? for that is the surpassing glory of Pompeius,—first of all, that those pirates who, when the conduct of the maritime war was first entrusted to him, wandered about straggling over the whole sea, were soon reduced under our power; in the next place, that Syria is ours, that Cilicia is occupied by us, that Cyprus, through the instrumentality of king Ptolemaeus, is reduced to a state in which it can venture to do nothing; moreover, that Crete, owing to the valour of Metellus, is ours; that the pirates have now no ports from which they can set out none to which they can return; that all the bays, and promontories, and shores, and islands, and maritime cities, are now contained within the barriers of our empire.