His family was recent enough to excite dispraise or contempt, even among the plebeian aristocracy: its first consul (in 141 B.C.) had been promoted through patronage of the Scipiones. 4 Subsequent alliances had not brought much aristocratic distinction. […] The province could boast opulent and cultivated natives of dynastic families, Hellenized before they became Roman, whose citizenship, so far from being the recent gift of Caesar, went back to proconsuls a generation or two earlier. […] The reality was very different. 2 The recent war of Italy against Rome must not be forgotten. […] Cingulum owed recent benefits to Labienus:1 yet Cingulum was easily won. […] Nor was trouble likely to come from the other Caesarian military men or recent governors of provinces, few of whom possessed family influence or talent for intrigue.