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And in fine, like Plato's restive and rebellious horse of the human soul, flinging off all good and wholesome counsel and breaking fairly loose, he sent Fonteius Capito to bring Cleopatra into Syria; to whom at her arrival he made no small or trifling present Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, Cyprus, great part of Cilicia, that side of Judea which produces balm, that part of Arabia where the Nabathaeans extend to the outer sea profuse gifts which much displeased the Romans.
Nothing that these wretched Gauls could say against a Roman citizen ought to be accepted in evidence! "All the Romans," he says, "who have been in the province wish well to Fonteius. Would you rather believe these Gauls led by what feeling? By the opinion of men!
To this year are to be referred the extant speeches for Fonteius and Caecina, and perhaps the lost ones for Matridius and Oppius. Cicero contrived without any great expenditure to make his aedileship a success. The people were well disposed to him, and regarded him as their most brilliant representative.
Even Lucullus in the East had only partially succeeded, leaving Mithridates still to be dealt with by Pompey. Of what nature was the government of the provinces under Sulla's aristocracy we learn from the trials of Verres, and of Fonteius, and of Catiline. The Mediterranean swarmed with pirates, who taught themselves to think that they had nothing to fear from the hands of the Romans.
All these conditions were broken. The pretended father, Fonteius, had a family of his own, and was younger than Clodius. The great Claudian family was desecrated, and there was no one so ignorant as not to know that the purpose intended was that of entering the Tribunate by a fraud.
Scipio, though a wary and provident general, overpowered by difficulties, adopted the rash measure of going to meet Indibilis by night, with the intention of fighting him wherever he should meet him. Leaving, therefore, a small force in his camp, under the command of Titus Fonteius, lieutenant-general, he set out at midnight, and meeting with the enemy, came to battle with him.
The speech for Fonteius is remarkable as being as hard against the provincial Gauls as his speech against Verres had been favorable to the Sicilians. But the Gauls were barbarians, whereas the Sicilians were Greeks. And it should be always remembered that Cicero spoke as an advocate, and that the praise and censure of an advocate require to be taken with many grains of salt.
In the meantime came Maecenas, and Cocceius, and Fonteius Capito along with them, a man of perfect polish, and intimate with Mark Antony, no man more so. At our next stage, being weary, we tarry in the city of the Mamurrae, Murena complimenting us with his house, and Capito with his kitchen.
Indeed, the taking off of Macer in Africa by Trebonius, and Fonteius by Valens in Germany, had a fair pretense, they being dreaded as armed commanders, having their soldiers at their bidding; but why refuse Turpilianus, an old man and unarmed, permission to try to clear himself, if any part of the moderation and equity at first promised were really to come to a performance?
Catiline was a bad subject for a defence as was Fonteius, whom he certainly did defend and Catiline was a democrat. But Cicero, had he defended Catiline, would not have done so as holding out his hand to democracy.
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