was not suspicious at all of them and further saw that they were
wronged. But his foes, both those dwelling near the friendly tribes, and
all the rest that inhabited Gaul he subjugated, acquiring at one time
vast stretches of territory and at another unnumbered cities of which we
knew not even the names before. All this, moreover, he accomplished so
quickly, though he had received neither a competent force nor sufficient
money from you, that before any of you knew that he was at war he had
conquered; and he settled affairs on such a firm basis and [113] ...,
that as a result Celtica and Britain felt his footstep. And now is that
Gaul enslaved which sent against us the Ambrones and the Cimbri, and is
entirely cultivated like Italy itself. Ships traverse not only the Rhone
or the Arar, but the Mosa, the Liger, the very Rhine, and the very
ocean. Places of which we had not even heard the titles to lead us to
think that they existed were likewise subdued for us: the formerly
unknown he made accessible, the formerly unexplored navigable by his
greatness of purpose and greatness of accomplishment. [-43-] And had not
certain persons out of envy formed a faction against him, or rather us,
and forced him to return here before the proper time, he would certainly
have subdued Britain entire together with the remaining islands
surrounding it and all of Celtica to the Arctic Ocean, so that we should
have had as borders not land or people for the future, but air and the
outer sea. For these reasons you also, seeing the greatness of his mind
and his deeds and good fortune, assigned him the right to hold office a
very long time,--a privilege which, from the hour that we became a
democracy has belonged to no other man,--I mean holding the leadership
during eight whole years in succession. This shows that you thought him
to be really winning all those conquests for you and never entertained
the suspicion that he would strengthen himself to your hurt.

"No, you desired that he should spend in those regions as long a time as
possible. He was prevented, however, by those who regarded the
government as no longer a public but their own private possession, from
subjugating the remaining countries, and you were kept from becoming
lords of them all; these men, making an ill use of the opportunity given
them by his being occupied, ventured upon many impious projects, so that
you came to require his aid. [-44-] Therefore abandoning the victories