Therefore, as we are bound to vote, and as Servilius has already proposed a most just supplication for those letters which have been read to you; I will propose altogether to increase the number of the days which it is to last, especially as it is to be decreed in honour of three generals conjointly.  But first of all I will insist on styling those men imperator by whose valour, and wisdom, and good fortune we have been released from the most imminent danger of slavery and death.  Indeed, who is there within the last twenty years who has had a supplication decreed to him without being himself styled imperator, though he may have performed the most insignificant exploits, or even almost none at all.  Wherefore, the senator who spoke before me ought either not to have moved for a supplication at all, or he ought to have paid the usual and established compliment to those men to whom even new and extraordinary honours are justly due.

V. Shall the senate, according to this custom which has now obtained, style a man imperator if he has slain a thousand or two of Spaniards, or Gauls, or Thracians; and now that so many legions have been routed, now that such a multitude of enemies has been slain,—­aye, enemies, I say, although our enemies within the city do not fancy this expression,—­shall we pay to our most illustrious generals the honour of a supplication, and refuse them the name of imperator?  For with what great honour, and joy, and exultation ought the deliverers of this city themselves to enter into this temple, when yesterday, on account of the exploits which they have performed, the Roman people carried me in an ovation, almost in a triumph from my house to the Capitol, and back again from the Capitol to my own house?  That is indeed in my opinion a just and genuine triumph, when men who have deserved well of the republic receive public testimony to their merits from the unanimous consent of the senate.  For if, at a time of general rejoicing on the part of the Roman people, they addressed their congratulations to one individual, that is a great proof of their opinion of him; if they gave him thanks, that is a greater still; if they did both, then nothing more honourable to him can be possibly imagined.

Are you saying all this of yourself? some one will ask.  It is indeed against my will that I do so; but my indignation at injustice makes me boastful, contrary to my usual habit.  Is it not sufficient that thanks should not be given to men who have well earned them, by men who are ignorant of the very nature of virtue?  And shall accusations and odium be attempted to be excited against those men who devote all their thoughts to ensuring the safety of the republic?  For you well know that there has been a common report for the last few days, that the day before the wine feast,[55] that is to say, on this very day, I was intending to come forth with the fasces as dictator.  One would think that this story was invented against