[62]
What was ever so
unusual, as, when there were two most gallant and most illustrious consuls, for a Roman knight
to be sent as proconsul to a most important and formidable war? He was so sent—on
which occasion, indeed, when some one in the senate said that a private individual ought not
to be sent as proconsul, Lucius Philippus is reported to have answered, that if he had his
will he should be sent not for one consul, but for both the consuls. Such great hope was
entertained that the affairs of the republic would be prosperously managed by him, that the
charge which properly belonged to the two consuls was entrusted to the valour of one young
man. What was ever so extraordinary as for a man to be released from all laws by a formal
resolution of the senate, and made consul before he was of an age to undertake any other
magistracy according to the laws? What could be so incredible, as for a Roman knight to
celebrate a second triumph in pursuance of a resolution of the senate? All the unusual
circumstances which in the memory of man have ever happened to all other men put together, are
not so many as these which we see have occurred in the history of this one man.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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