[57]
But if the senate and people of Rome had compelled you (when you did not
desire it, or though you even endeavoured to avoid it) to undertake a war
and to command an army still it would have been the act of a narrow and mean
spirit to despise the honour and dignity of a well earned triumph. For as it
is a proof of a trifling character to catch at such praise as is derived
from empty reports, and to hunt after all the shadows of even false glory;
so it is surely a sign of a very worthless disposition, of one that hates
all light and all respectability, to reject true glory, which is the most
honourable reward of genuine virtue. But when the senate was so far from
requesting and compelling you to take this charge upon you, that it was only
unwillingly and under compulsion that it allowed you to do so;
when, not only did the Roman people betray no eagerness that you should do
so, but not one single freeman voted for it; when that province was your
wages for having, I will not say overturned, but utterly destroyed the
constitution, and when this covenant ran through all your wicked actions,
that if you handed over the whole republic to nefarious robbers, as a reward
for that conduct Macedonia should
be handed over to you with whatever boundaries you chose; when you were
draining the treasury, when you were depriving Italy of all its youth, when you were passing over the vast
sea in the winter season,—if you did at that time despise a
triumph, what was it, O you most insane of pirates, that urged you on,
unless it was some blind desire for booty and rapine?
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