[21]
And the whole Mithridatic war,
great and difficult as it was, and carried on with so much diversity of fortune by land and
sea, has been related at length by him; and the books in which that is sung of, not only make
illustrious Lucius Lucullus, that most gallant and celebrated man, but they do honour also to
the Roman people. For, while Lucullus was general, the Roman people opened Pontus, though it
was defended both by the resources of the king and by the character of the country itself.
Under the same general the army of the Roman people, with no very great numbers, routed the
countless hosts of the Armenians. It is the glory of the Roman people that, by the wisdom of
that same general, the city of the Cyzicenes, most friendly to us, was delivered and preserved
from all the attacks of the kind, and from the very jaws as it were of the whole war. Ours is
the glory which will be for ever celebrated, which is derived from the fleet of the enemy
which was sunk after its admirals had been slain, and from the marvellous naval battle off
Tenedos: those trophies belong to us, those monuments are ours, those triumphs are ours.
Therefore, I say that the men by whose genius these exploits are celebrated, make illustrious
at the same time the glory of the Roman people.
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