[-40-] “Since I have reached these statements, I will begin to speak about his public services.  If he had lived a quiet existence, perhaps his excellence would never have come to light; but as it was, by being raised to the highest position and becoming the greatest not only of his contemporaries but of all the rest who had ever wielded any influence, he displayed it more conspicuously.  For nearly all his predecessors this supreme authority had served only to reveal their defects, but him it made more luminous:  through the greatness of his excellence he undertook correspondingly great deeds, and was found to be a match for them; he alone of men after obtaining for himself so great good fortune as a result of true worth neither disgraced it nor treated it wantonly.  The brilliant successes which he regularly achieved on his campaigns and the highmindedness he showed in everyday duties I shall pass over, although they are so great that for any other man they would constitute sufficient praise:  but in view of the distinction of his subsequent deeds, I shall seem to be dealing with small matters, if I rehearse them all with exactness.  I shall only mention his achievements while ruling over you.  Even all of these, however, I shall not relate with minute scrupulousness.  I could not possibly give them adequate treatment, and I should cause you excessive weariness, particularly since you already know them.

[-41-] “First of all, this man was praetor in Spain, and finding it secretly hostile did not allow the inhabitants under the protection of the name of peace to develop into foes, nor chose to spend the period of his governorship in quiet rather than to effect what was for the advantage of the nation; hence, since they would not agree to alter their sentiments, he brought them to their senses without their consent, and in doing so so far surpassed the men who had previously won glory against them as keeping a thing is more difficult than acquiring it, and reducing men to a condition where they can never again become rebellious is more profitable than rendering them subject in the first place, while their power is still undiminished.  That is the reason that you voted him a triumph for this and gave him at once the office of consul.  As a result of your decree it became most plainly evident that he had waged that war not for his own desires or glory, but was preparing for the future.  The celebration of the triumph he waived on account of pressing business, and after thanking you for the honor he was satisfied with merely that to secure his glory, and entered upon the consulship. [-42-] Now all his administrative acts in this city during the discharge of that office would be verily countless to name.  And as soon as he had left it and been sent to conduct war against the Gauls, notice how many and how great were his achievements there.  So far from causing grievances to the allies he even went to their assistance, because he was not suspicious