[44]
I do not mean to say that I should be
much vexed if such a thing were to happen but still it would be an accident
such as all men are liable to. Marcus Marcellus, who was three times consul,
a man of the most excessive virtue and piety and military glory was lost at
sea; through his virtue he still lives in glory and renown. A death such as
that is to be attributed to fortune, not to be considered a
punishment. What then is punishment? What is chastisement? What is stoning?
What is the cross? It is punishment that there should be two generals in the
provinces of the Roman people, that they should have armies, that they
should be styled “Imperator,” that one of them should be so completely
cowed by the consciousness of his crimes and of his atrocities, as not to
dare to send any letter of any sort to the senate from that province which
was of all others the richest in triumphs. From that province that man, so
distinguished for every sort of worth and dignity, Lucius Torquatus, was
returning, when on account of his mighty deeds he was, on my motion, styled
“Imperator” by the
senate. In that province it was that those well-deserved triumphs of Cnaeus
Dolabella, and Caius Curio, and Marcus Lucullus were earned within the last
few years; and from that while you were the commander, no messenger whatever
was ever sent to the senate.
From the other consul certainly letters have been brought and read, and
motions respecting him have been submitted to the senate.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.