He had
broken the law by leading his legions over the frontier. He had defeated
the feeble Alexandrians, and the gratified Ptolemy had rewarded him with
the prodigious sum of ten thousand talents--a million and a half of
English money. While he thus enriched himself he had irritated the
knights, who might otherwise have supported him, by quarrelling with the
Syrian revenue farmers, and, according to popular scandal, he had
plundered the province worse than it had been plundered even by the
pirates.
When so fair a chance was thrown in his way, Cicero would have been more
than human if he had not availed himself of it. He moved in the Senate for
the recall of the two offenders, and in the finest of his speeches he laid
bare their reputed iniquities. His position was a delicate one, because
the senatorial party, could they have had their way, would have recalled
Caesar also. Gabinius was Pompey's favorite, and Piso was Caesar's father-
in-law. Cicero had no intention of quarrelling with Caesar; between his
invectives, therefore, he was careful to interweave the most elaborate
compliments to the conqueror of Gaul. He dwelt with extraordinary
clearness on the value of Caesar's achievements. The conquest of Gaul, he
said, was not the annexation of a province. It was the dispersion of a
cloud which had threatened Italy from the days of Brennus.
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