and after obtaining them. They solicit them in one manner, and execute them in another 2. They get out with a great appearance of activity, humility, and moderation; but they quickly fall into slōth, pride, and avarice. It is, undoubtedly, no easy matter to discharge, to general satisfaction, the duty of a supreme commander in troublesome times. 3. You have committed to my conduct the war against Jugurtha. The patricians are offended at this. But where would be the wisdom of giving such a command to one of their honorable body? a person of illustrious birth, of ancient family, of innumerable statues, butof no experience! 4. What service would his long line of dead ancestors, or his multitude of motionless statues, do his country in the day of battle? What could such a general do, but, in his trepidation and inexperience, have recourse to some inferior commander for direction in difficulties to which he was not himself equal? Thus, your patrician general would, in fact, have a general over him; so that the acting commander would still be a ple be'ian. 5. So true is this, my countrymen, that I have, myself, known those who have been chosen consuls, begin then to read the history of their own country, of which, till that time, they were totally ignorant; that is, they first obtained the employment, and then bethought themselves of the qualifications necessary for the proper discharge of it. 6. I submit to your judgment, Romans, on which side the advantage lies, when a comparison is made between patrician haughtiness, and plebeian experience. The very actions which they have only read, I have partly seen, and partly myself achieved. What they know by reading, I know by action. They are pleased to slight my mean birth; I despise their mean characters. 7. Want of birth and fortune is the objection against me; want of personal worth, against them. But, are not all men of the same species? What can make a dif ference between one man and another but the endow ments of the mind? For my part, I shall always look upon the bravest man as the noblest man. 8. If the patricians have reason to despise me, let them likewise despise their ancestors, whose nobility was the fruit of their virtue. Do they envy the honors bestowed upon me? let them envy, likewise, my labors, my abstinence, and the dangers I have undergone for my country, by which I have acquired them. 9. But those worthless men lead such a life of inactivity, as if they despised any honors you can bestow; while they aspire to honors as if they had deserved them by the most industrious virtue. They lay claims to the rewards of activity, for their having enjoyed the pleasures of luxury. Yet none can be more lavish than they are in praise of their ancestors. 10. And they imagine they honor themselves by celebrating their forefathers; whereas, they do the very contrary; for, as much as their ancestors were distin guished for their virtues, so much are they disgraced by their vices. 11. The glory of ancestors casts a light, indeed, upor their posterity; but it only serves to show what the de scendants are. It alike exhibits to public view their do generacy and their worth. and their worth. I own I cannot boast of the deeds of my forefathers; but I hope I may answer the cavils of the patricians, by standing up in defence of what I have myself done. 12. Observe now, my countrymen, the injustice of the patricians. They arrogate to themselves honors, on account of exploits' done by their forefathers, whilst they will not allow me due praise for performing the very same sort of actions in my own person. 13. He has no statues, they cry, of his family. He can trace no venerable line of ancestors. What then! is it matter of more praise to disgrace one's illustrious ancestors, than to become illustrious by one's own good behavior? 14. What if I can show no statues of my family? I can show the standards, the armor, and the trappings, which I have myself taken from the vanquished; I can show the scars of those wounds which I have received by facing the enemies of my country. 15. These are my statues. These are the honors I boast of; not left me by inheritance, as theirs, but earned by toil, by abstinence, by valor, amidst clouds of dust, and seas of blood; scenes of action, where those effeminate patricians, who endeavor, by indirect means, to depreciate me in your esteem, have never dared to show their faces. PART OF THE SPEECH OF PUBLIUS SCIPIO TO THE ROMAN ARMY, BEFORE THE BATTLE OF THE T. CIN. That you may not be unapprized, soldiers, of what sort of enemies you are about to encounter, or what is to be feared from them, I tell you they are the very same, whom, in a former war, you vanquished both by land and sea; the same from whom you took Sicily and Sardinia; and who have been these twenty years your tributaries. 2. You will not, I presume, march against these men with only that with which courage * you are wont to face other enemies, but with a certain anger and indignation such as you would feel if you saw your slaves on a sudden rise up in arms against you. 3. But you have heard, perhaps, that though they are few in number, they are men of stout hearts and robust bodies; heroes of such strength and vigor as nothing is able to resist. Mere effigies! nay, shadows of men! wretches, emaciated with hunger, and benumbed with cold, bruised and battered to pieces among the rocks and craggy cliffs; their weapons broken, and their horses weak and foundered! 4. Such are the cavalry, and such the infantry, with which you are going to contend; not enemies, but the fragments of enemies. There is nothing which I more apprehend than that it will be thought Hannibal was vanquished by the Alps before we had any conflict with him. * Pronounced, wunt. 5. I need not be in any fear that you will suspect me of saying these things merely to encourage you, while inwardly, I have different sentiments. Have I ever shown any inclination to avoid contest with this tre mendous Hannibal ? and have I now met with him only by accident, and unawares? or am I come on purpose to challenge him to the combat? 6. I would gladly try whether the earth, within these twenty years, has brought forth a new kind of Carthaginians, or whether they be the same sort of men who fought at the E-ga'tes, and whom, at E'ryx, you suffered to redeem themselves at eighteen denarii per head; whether this Hannibal, for labors and journeys, be, as hu would be thought, the rival of Hercules;* or whether he be what his father left him, a trib'utary, a vassal, a slave to the Roman people. 7. Did not the consciousness of his wicked deed at Saguntum torment him, and make him desperate, he would have some regard, if not to his conquered country, yet surely to his own family, to his father's memory, to the treaty written with Amilcar's own hand. We might have starved them in Eryx; we might have passed into Africa with our victorious fleet, and, in a few days, have destroyed Carthage. 8. At their humble supplication, we pardoned them. We released them when they were closely shut up without a possibility of escaping. We made peace with them when they were conquered.† When they were distressed |