M. Tullius Cicero, For Cornelius Balbus
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

And if it be lawful to Africans, to Sardinians, to Spaniards,—men who have been punished by the deprivation of their lands and by the imposition of tribute,—to acquire the rights of citizenship among us by their virtue, but if it be not allowed to the men of Gades, who are united to us by duty, and by the antiquity of their alliance with us, and by their loyalty, and by our mutual dangers, and by an express treaty, to acquire the same rights, then they will think that they have not a treaty with us, but that most iniquitous laws have been imposed on them by us. And, O judges, the very circumstances of this case show that this assertion is not one just invented by me for the purpose, but that I am saying what the men of Gades have instructed me to say. I say that the men of Gades publicly entered into a connection of mutual hospitality many years before this time with Lucius Cornelius. I will produce witnesses, I will produce ambassadors who will prove this; I will bring forward panegyrists, whom you see here, having been sent expressly to this trial,—men of the highest character and of the most noble birth,—to seek to avert the danger of my client by their prayers. Lastly, by an act perfectly unheard-of among the people of Gades before this time, the moment that it was known that the prosecutor was preparing to bring Balbus before this court, the men of Gades passed most solemn resolutions of their senate respecting their own fellow-citizen.