Let us then confer on Caesar a regular military command, without which the military affairs cannot be directed, the army cannot be held together, war cannot be waged.  Let him be made proprietor with all the privileges which have ever been attached to that appointment.  That honour, although it is a great one for a man of his age, still is not merely of influence as giving dignity, but it confers powers calculated to meet the present emergency.  Therefore, let us seek for honours for him which we shall not easily find at the present day.

XVII.  But I hope that we and the Roman people shall often have an opportunity of complimenting and honouring this young man.  But at the present moment I give my vote that we should pass a decree in this form: 

“As Caius Caesar, the son of Caius, Pontiff and Propraetor, has at a most critical period of the republic exhorted the veteran soldiers to defend the liberty of the Roman people, and has enlisted them in his army, and as the Martial legion and the fourth legion, with great zeal for the republic, and with admirable unanimity, under the guidance and authority of Caius Caesar, have defended and are defending the republic and the liberty of the Roman people, and as Caius Caesar, propraetor, has gone with his army as a reinforcement to the province of Gaul, has made cavalry, and archers, and elephants, obedient to himself and to the Roman people, and has, at a most critical time for the republic, come to the aid of the safety and dignity of the Roman people,—­on these accounts, it seems good to the senate that Caius Caesar, the son of Caius, pontiff and propraetor, shall be a senator, and shall deliver his opinions from the bench occupied by men of praetorian rank, and that, on occasion of his offering himself for any magistracy, he shall be considered of the same legal standing and qualification as if he had been quaestor the preceding year.”

For what reason can there be, O conscript fathers, why we should not wish him to arrive at the highest honours at as early an age as possible?  For when, by the laws fixing the age at which men might be appointed to the different magistracies our ancestors fixed a more mature age for the consulship, they were influenced by fears of the precipitation of youth, Caius Caesar, at his first entrance into life, has shown us that, in the case of his eminent and unparalleled virtue, we have no need to wait for the progress of age.  Therefore our ancestors, those old men, in the most ancient times, had no laws regulating the age for the different offices, it was ambition which caused them to be passed many years afterwards, in order that there might be among men of the same age different steps for arriving at honours.  And it has often happened that a disposition of great natural virtue has been lost before it had any opportunity of benefiting the republic.