“Else for what reason did the people despatch you to this point, for what reason did they send me immediately after my consulship?  Why did they, on the one hand, elect me to hold command for five years at one time, as had never been done before, and on the other hand equip me with four legions, unless they believed that we should certainly be required to fight, besides?  Surely it was not that we might be supported in idleness or traveling about to allied cities and subject territory prove a worse bane to them than an enemy.  Not a man would make this assertion.  It was rather that we might keep our own land, ravage that of the enemy, and accomplish something worthy both of our numbers and our expenditures.  Therefore with this understanding both this war and every other whatsoever has been entrusted, has been delivered to us.  They acted very sensibly in leaving in our hands the decision as to whom we should fight against, instead of voting for the war themselves.  For they would not have been able to understand thoroughly the affairs of our allies, being at such a distance from them, and would not have taken measures against known and prepared enemies at an equally fitting moment.  So we, to whom is left at once the decision and the execution of the war, by turning our weapons immediately against foes that are actually in the field shall not be acting in an unauthorized or unjust or incautious manner.

[-42-] “But suppose some one of you interrupts me with the following objection:  ’What has Ariovistus done so far out of the way as to become an enemy of ours in Place of a friend and ally?’ Let any such man consider the fact that one has to defend one’s self against those who are undertaking to do any wrong not only on the basis of what they do, but also on the basis of what they intend, and has to check their growth in advance, before suffering some hurt, instead of waiting to have some real injury inflicted and then taking vengeance.  Now how could he better be proven to be hostile, yes, most hostile toward us than from what he has done?  I sent to him in a friendly way to have him come to me and deliberate in my company about present conditions, and he neither came nor promised that he would appear.  And yet what did I do that was unfair or unfitting or arrogant in summoning him as a friend and ally?  What insolence and wantonness rather, has he omitted in refusing to come?  Is it not inevitable that he did this from one of two reasons, either that he suspected he should suffer some harm or that he felt contempt for me?  Well, if he had any suspicions he convicted himself most clearly of conspiring against us.  For no one that has not endured any injury is suspicious toward us nor does one become so as a result of an upright and guileless mind:  no, it is those who have prepared to wrong others that are ready to be suspicious of them because of their own conscience.  If, again, nothing of this sort was at the bottom of his action, but he merely looked down on us and insulted us with overweening words, what must we expect him to do when he lays hold of some real project?  For when a man has shown such disdain in matters where he was not going to gain anything, how has he not been convicted of entire injustice in intention and in performance?