1And since authority too counts for much in conducting wars and in military command, surely no one doubts that in this respect the same commander is supremely powerful. 1And who does not know that it matters greatly in conducting wars what the enemy and the allies think of our commanders, since we know that in such great affairs men are moved to fear or despise, to hate or love, no less by opinion and report than by any sure reasoning? 1What name, then, has ever been more famous in the whole world, whose achievements a match for his? 1about what man have you made such great and such glorious judgements, the very thing that most creates authority?
44Or do you really think that there is any coast anywhere so deserted that the fame of that day has not reached it, when the whole Roman people, with the forum packed and all the temples from which this place can be seen filled, demanded Pompey alone as their commander for a war common to all nations? 44And so, to say no more and not to confirm from the examples of others how much authority counts for in war, let examples of every outstanding achievement be taken from this same Gnaeus Pompey. 44On the day on which he was put in command of the war at sea by you, through the hope and name of one man such cheapness of corn suddenly followed upon the most extreme scarcity and high prices as a long peace could scarcely have produced in the greatest fertility of the fields.
45Again, after the disaster suffered in Pontus in that battle of which I reminded you a little earlier against my will, when the allies had become terrified, the enemy's resources and spirits had grown, and the province had no sufficiently strong garrison, you would have lost Asia, citizens, had not the Fortune of the Roman people, by divine providence, brought Gnaeus Pompey to those regions at the very crisis of that moment. 45His arrival both held back Mithridates, puffed up by an unaccustomed victory, and checked Tigranes, who was threatening Asia with great forces. 45And will anyone doubt what he will accomplish by his merit, who has accomplished so much by his authority, or how easily he will preserve allies and revenues with military command and an army, who has defended them by his very name and reputation?