Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 38
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D., Ed.

49. “' Yes,' you say, for I fought on unfavourable ground. Tell me, then, in what more favourable place I could have fought. Since the enemy had occupied the mountain and were keeping themselves within a fortified place, naturally I had to go to the enemy if I wished to defeat them. [2] What if they had had a city in that place and were holding themselves within the walls? Naturally a siege would be necessary. Well, did Manius Acilius at Thermopylae fight with King Antiochus on favourable ground? [3] Well, was not Philip in the same fashion, when he held the crest of the mountains above the Aous, dislodged by Titus Quinctius? For my part, I: still do not discover what sort of enemy they are picturing to themselves, or what they want him to seem to you. [4] If he was an enemy degenerate and made effeminate by the pleasant life of Asia, what danger was there if we attacked even over unfavourable ground? [5] If he was an enemy to be feared because of both fierceness of temper and strength of body, why do you refuse a triumph to so great a. victory as this? It is blind jealousy, conscript Fathers, and it knows nothing except how to belittle deeds of valour and to spoil the distinctions and rewards they earn. [6] I beg that you will pardon me, conscript Fathers, on this ground, if my speech is made over-long, not by my desire to boast about myself, but by the need to defend myself against their accusations. [7] Again, could I make the passes in Thrace wide when they were narrow, level ground instead of steep, neat groves instead of wild forests, and could I guarantee that there should be no [p. 173]Thracian brigands lurking in ambushes known to¹ [8??] them, that there should be no loss of baggage, that no pack-animal from so long a train should be driven off, that no one should be wounded, that that brave and energetic man Quintus Minucius should not die from his wound? [9] They dwell on this misfortune, because it happened to our sorrow that we lost such a citizen; [10] the fact that, when the enemy attacked us in a defile hard to pass through, on unfavourable ground, the two divisions of our army, the van and the rear, at the same time surrounded the army of the barbarians which was lingering around our trains, that they killed and captured many thousands on that same day and many more [11??] a few days later,² if they keep silent about all this, do they think that you will not learn of it, since the whole army is here to bear witness to what I [12] say? If I had not drawn sword in Asia, if I had seen no enemy, I should still have earned a triumph in Thrace by these two battles. But enough has already been [13] said; rather, I should wish, conscript Fathers, that pardon be asked and granted for my wearying you with a longer speech than I should have wished to make.”³