in which fortune reigns
supreme, but one in which a well-considered policy and an attention to
business are the most important things. But if I had seen you receiving
the prolongation of a command in a great and dangerous war, I should
have trembled in spirit, because I should have known that the dominion
of fortune over us had been at the same time prolonged. As it is,
however, a department of the state has been intrusted to you in which
fortune occupies no part, or, at any rate, an insignificant one, and
which appears to me to depend entirely on your virtue and self-control.
We have no reason to fear, as far as I know, any designs of our enemies,
any actual fighting in the field, any revolts of allies, any default in
the tribute or in the supply of corn, any mutiny in the army: things
which have very often befallen the wisest of men in such a way, that
they have been no more able to get the better of the assault of fortune,
than the best of pilots a violent tempest. You have been granted
profound peace, a dead calm: yet if the pilot falls asleep, it may even
so overwhelm him, though if he keeps awake it may give him positive
pleasure. For your province consists, in the first place, of allies of a
race which, of all the world, is the most civilized; and, in the second
place, of citizens, who, either as being _publicani_, are very closely
connected with me, or, as being traders who have made money, think that
they owe the security of their property to my consulship.

II. But it may be said that among even such men as these there occur
serious disputes, many wrongful acts are committed, and hotly contested
litigation is the result. As though I ever thought that you had no
trouble to contend with! I know that the trouble is exceedingly great,
and such as demands the very greatest prudence; but remember that it is
prudence much more than fortune on which, in my opinion, the result of
your trouble depends. For what trouble is it to govern those over whom
you are set, if you do but govern yourself? That may be a great and
difficult task to others, and indeed it is most difficult: to you it has
always been the easiest thing in the world, and indeed ought to be so,
for your natural disposition is such that, even without discipline, it
appears capable of self-control; whereas a discipline has, in fact, been
applied that might educate the most faulty of characters. But while you
resist, as you do, money, pleasure, and every kind