Pro L. Flacco

I come now to Lysanias, of the same city,—your own especial witness, Decianus,—a

I come now to that state to which I myself have shown great kindness and done many great services, and which my brother has shown the greatest attachment to and fondness for. And if that city had brought its complaints before you by the month of creditable and respectable men, I should be a little more concerned about it; but now what am I to think? Am I to think that the Trallians entrusted their cause to Maeandrius, a needy, sordid man, without honour, without character, without income? Where were the Pythodori, the Aetideni, the Lepisos, and the other men who are well known among us, and who are of high rank among their own people? where is their splendid and high-spirited display of the respectability of their city? Would they not have been ashamed, if they had been serious about this business, that Maeandrius should be called, I will not say their deputy, but even a Trallian at all? Would they ever have entrusted to this man as their deputy,—to this man as their public witness, Lucius Flaccus the hereditary patron of their city, whose father and ancestors had been so before him, to be ruined by the evidence of their city? This cannot be the fact, O judges; it never can be.

I myself lately saw in some trial a Trallian witness of the name of Philodorus, I saw Parrhasius, I saw Archidemus, when this identical man Maeandrius came to me as a sort of attorney, suggesting to me what I might say, if I pleased, against his own fellow-citizens and his own city. For there is nothing more worthless than that fellow,—nothing more needy, nothing more infamous. Wherefore, if the Trallians employ him as the relater of their indignation, and the keeper of their letters, and the witness of their injuries, and the utterer of their complaints, let them lower their high tone for the future, let them restrain their high spirit, let them bridle their arrogance, let them confess that the best representative of their city is to be found in the person of Maeandrius. But if they themselves have always thought this man a man to be buffeted and trampled upon at home, let them cease to think that there is any authority in that evidence which there is no respectable person to father. But I will explain what the facts of the case really are, that you may know why that city was neither severe in attacking Flaccus, nor very anxious to defend him.

The city was offended with him on account of the affair of Castricius; concerning the whole of which Hortensius has made a sufficient reply. Very much against its will, it had paid Castricius some money which had long been due to him. Hence comes all its hatred to Flaccus, and this is his whole offence. And when Laelius had arrived in that city among a set of angry men, and had re-opened their indignation with respect to Castricius by mentioning the subject, the chief men jumped up and left the place, and refused to be present in that assembly, and would not assist in carrying the decree, or in framing the deposition. And to such an extent was that assembly deprived of the presence of the nobles of the city, that Maeandrius was the chief of the chief men present; and it was by his tongue, acting like a sort of fan of sedition, that assembly of needy men was ventilated.