1Although both the friends I had with me and the talk of people seem to have approved what I did, I still set great store by knowing what you think. 2For I am wonderfully eager to learn, now that the matter is done, the verdict of the man whose advice I would have wished to seek while it was still undecided. 2When I had hurried off to my Tuscan estate to begin a public building at my own expense, having obtained leave as prefect of the treasury, envoys from the province of Baetica, intending to complain of the proconsulship of Caecilius Classicus, asked the senate for me as their advocate.
3My excellent colleagues, who are most devoted to me, spoke first of the demands of our joint office and tried to excuse and exempt me. 3A decree of the senate was passed, most complimentary to me, that I should be given to the provincials as their patron if they obtained my consent from me myself. 4The envoys, brought in again, once more demanded me as their advocate, now that I was present, appealing to my good faith, which they had experienced against Massa Baebius, and pleading the bond of patronage. 4There followed the senate's loud assent, which usually runs ahead of its decrees. 4Then I said: 'I cease, conscript fathers, to think that I have put forward just grounds for being excused.' 4Both the modesty of the remark and its reasoning gave pleasure.
5I was driven to this decision, moreover, not only by the agreement of the senate, though by this most of all, but also by certain other considerations, lesser ones but still of weight. 5It came into my mind that our forefathers had pursued by voluntary prosecutions the wrongs done even to individual guest-friends, and so I thought it all the more disgraceful to neglect the rights of public hospitality. 6Besides, when I recalled what dangers I had even undergone for these same Baeticans in my previous advocacy, it seemed that the merit of the old service should be preserved by a new one. 6For things are so ordered that you overturn earlier kindnesses unless you crown them with later ones.
6For however often people have been obliged, if you refuse them one thing, they remember only what was refused. 7I was also influenced by the fact that Classicus had died, and what is usually the grimmest thing in cases of this kind, danger to a senator, had been removed. 7I saw, then, that no less gratitude was in store for my advocacy than if he had been alive, and no ill will. 8In sum, I reckoned that if I performed this duty now for the third time, it would be easier for me to be excused if anyone should turn up whom I ought not to prosecute. 8For while there is some limit to all duties, freedom is best prepared for by earning indulgence through compliance.
9You have heard the motives for my decision: it remains for you to give your judgement one way or the other, and in it the frankness of disagreement will be as welcome to me as the authority of approval. 9Farewell.