M. Tullius Cicero, For Archias
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

Therefore our ancestors received the man who was the cause of all this, a man of Rudiae, into their city as a citizen; and shall we reject from our city a man of Heraclea, a man sought by many cities, and made a citizen of ours by these very laws?

[23] For if any one thinks that there is a smaller gain of glory derived from Greek verses than from Latin ones, he is greatly mistaken, because Greek poetry is read among all nations, Latin is confined to its own natural limits, which are narrow enough. Wherefore, if those achievements which we have performed are limited only by the bounds of the whole world, we ought to desire that, wherever our vigour and our arms have penetrated, our glory and our fame should likewise extend. Because, as this is always an ample reward for those people whose achievements are the subject of writings, so especially is it the greatest inducement to encounter labours and dangers to all men who fight for themselves for the sake of glory. [24] How many historians of his exploits is Alexander the Great said to have had with him; and he, when standing on Cape Sigeum at the grave of Achilles, said—“O happy youth, to find Homer as the panegyrist of your glory!” And he said the truth; for, if the Iliad had not existed, the same tomb which covered his body would have also buried his renown. What, did not our own Magnus, whose valour has been equal to his fortune, present Theophanes the Mitylenaean, a relater of his actions, with the freedom of the city in an assembly of the soldiers? [25] And those brave men, our countrymen, soldiers and country bred men as they were, still being moved by the sweetness of glory, as if they were to some extent partakers of the same renown, showed their approbation of that action with a great shout. Therefore, I suppose, if Archias were not a Roman citizen according to the laws, he could not have contrived to get presented with the freedom of the city by some general! Sulla, when he was giving it to the Spaniards and Gauls, would, I suppose, have refused him if he had asked for it! a man whom we ourselves saw in the public assembly, when a bad poet of the common people had put a book in his hand, because he had made an epigram on him with every other verse too long, immediately ordered some of the things which he was selling at the moment to be given him as a reward, on condition of not writing anything more about him for the future. Would not he who thought the industry of a bad poet still worthy of some reward, have sought out the genius, and excellence, and copiousness in writing of this man? [26] What more need I say? Could he not have obtained the freedom of the city from Quintus Metellus Pius, his own most intimate friend, who gave it to many men, either by his own request, or by the intervention of the Luculli? especially when Metellus was so anxious to have his own deeds celebrated in writing, that he gave his attention willingly to poets born even at Cordova, whose poetry had a very heavy and foreign flavour.