nsidered 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.

But among the ancients, the Rulii, the Decii, the Corvim, and many
others, and in more modern times the elder Africanus and Titus
Flaminius were made consuls very young, and performed such exploits as
greatly to extend the empire of the Roman people, and to embellish its
name. What more? Did not the Macedonian Alexander, having begun to
perform mighty deeds from his earliest youth, die when he was only in
his thirty-third year? And that age is ten years less than that fixed
by our laws for a man to be eligible for the consulship. From which it
may be plainly seen that the progress of virtue is often swifter than
that of age.

XVIII. For as to the fear which those men, who are enemies of Caesar,
pretend to entertain, there is not the slightest reason to apprehend
that he will be unable to restrain and govern himself, or that he will
be so elated by the honours which he receives from us as to use his
power with out moderation. It is only natural, O conscript fathers,
that the man who has learnt to appreciate real glory, and who feels
that he is considered by the senate and by the Roman knights and the
whole Roman people a citizen who is dear to, and a blessing to the
republic, should think nothing whatever deserving of being compared to
this glory. Would that it had happened to Caius Caesar--the father,
I mean--when he was a young man, to be beloved by the senate and by
ever