to both race and nature and have the most diversified tempers and desires.  The interests have become so vast that it is very difficult to attempt to administer them. [-16-] Witness to the truth of my words is borne by our past.  While we were but few, we had no important quarrel with our neighbors, got along well with our government, and subjugated almost all of Italy.  But ever since we spread beyond the peninsula and crossed to many foreign lands and islands, filling the whole sea and the whole earth with our name and power, nothing good has been our lot.  In the first place we disputed in cliques at home and within our walls, and later we exported this plague to the camps.  Therefore our city, like a great merchantman full of a crowd of every race borne without a pilot these many years through rough water, rolls and shoots hither and thither because it is without ballast.  Do not, then, allow her to be longer exposed to the tempest; for you see that she is waterlogged.  And do not let her split upon a reef[5]; for her timbers are rotten and will not be able to hold out much longer.  But since the gods have taken pity on this land and have set you up as her arbiter and chief; do not betray your country.  Through you she has now revived a little:  if you are faithful, she may live with safety for ages to come.

[-17-] “That I do right to urge you to be sole ruler of the people I think you have long ere this been persuaded.  If so, then be ready and eager to assume the leadership of the State, or rather, do not let it slip.  For we are not deliberating about taking something, but about not losing it and about running hazards in addition.  Who will spare you if you commit matters to the people as they were, and to some other man, seeing that there are great numbers whom you have injured, all of whom, or nearly all, will lay claim to the sovereignty?  No one of them will fail to wish to punish you for what you have done, or will care to have you survive as a rival.  There is evidence of this in the case of Pompey, who, when he withdrew from his supremacy, became the victim of scorn and of plots:  he found himself unable to win back his place, and so perished.  Also Caesar your father, who did this very same thing, was slain for his trouble.  Marius and Sulla would certainly have endured a like fate, had they not died too soon.  Indeed, some say that Sulla anticipated this very end by making away with himself.  Many of the provisions of his constitution, at any rate, began to be abolished while he was still alive.  You, too, must expect to find that many Lepiduses, Sertoriuses, Brutuses, Cassiuses will arise against you.