overeignty and voluntarily become a plain citizen? So if any
one of you doubts that any one else could show true moderation in this
and bring himself to speak out, let him at all events believe me. For,
though I could recite many great benefits which have been conferred upon
you by me and by my father for which you would naturally love and honor
us above all the rest, I could say nothing greater and I should take
pride in nothing else more than this, that he would not accept the
monarchy which you strove to give him, and that I, holding it, lay it
aside.

[-7-] "What need to set side by side his separate exploits,--the conquest
of Gaul, the subduing of Moesia, the subjugation of Egypt, the enslaving
of Pannonia? Or again Pharnaces, Juba, Phraates, the campaign against
the Britons, the crossing of the Rhine? Yet these are greater and more
important deeds than all our forefathers performed in all previous time.
Still, any of these accomplishments scarcely deserves a place beside my
present act, nor yet, indeed, does the fact that the civil wars, the
greatest and most diverse that have occurred in the history of man, we
fought to a successful finish, and that we made humane terms, overcoming
all who withstood us, as enemies, and saving alive all who yielded, as
friends; (so that if our city should ever again be fated to suffer from
disaffection, we might pray that the quarrel should follow this same
course). For that in spite of our possessing such great power and
standing at the summit of excellence and good fortune so that we might
govern you willing or unwilling, we should neither lose our heads nor
desire sole supremacy, but that instead he should reject it when offered
and I return it when given is a superhuman achievement. I speak in this
way not for idle boasting,--I should not have said it at all if I were
to derive any advantage whatever from it,--but in order that you may see
that whereas there are many public benefits to our credit and we have
in private many lofty titles, we take greatest pride in this, that what
others desire to gain even by doing violence to their neighbors we
surrender without any compulsion.

[-8-] Who could be found more magnanimous than I (not to mention again
my father deceased) or whose conduct more godlike? With so many fine
soldiers at my back and citizens and allies (O Jupiter and Hercules!),
that love me, supreme over the entire sea within the Pillars of Hercules
except a very few