beauty of any captive. While ruminating on these circumstances,
Laelius and Masinissa came up. Without making any distinction between
them he received them both with a cheerful countenance, and having
bestowed upon them the highest commendations before a full assembly
of his officers, he took Masinissa aside and thus addressed him:
"I suppose, Masinissa, that it was because you saw in me some good
qualities that you at first came to me when in Spain, for the purpose
of forming a friendship with me, and that afterwards in Africa you
committed yourself and all your hopes to my protection. But of all
those virtues, on account of which I seemed to you worthy of your
regard, there is not one in which I gloried so much as temperance and
the control of my passions. I could wish that you also, Masinissa,
had added this to your other distinguished qualities. There is not,
believe me, there is not so much danger to be apprehended by persons
at our time of life from armed foes, as from the pleasures which
surround us on all sides. The man who by temperance has curbed and
subdued his appetite for them, has acquired for himself much greater
honour and a much more important victory than we now enjoy in the
conquest of Syphax. I have mentioned with delight, and I remember with
pleasure, the instances of fortitude and courage which you displayed
in my absence. As to other matters, I would rather that you should
reflect upon them in private, than that you should be put to the
blush by my reciting them. Syphax was subdued and captured under
the auspices of the Roman people; therefore he himself, his wife his
kingdom, his territories, his towns and their inhabitants, in short,
every thing which belonged to him, is the booty of the Roman people,
and it was proper that the king himself and his consort, even though
she had not been a citizen of Carthage, even though we did not see her
father commanding the armies of our enemies, should be sent to Rome,
and that the senate and people of Rome should judge and determine
respecting her who is said to have alienated from us a king in
alliance with us, and to have precipitated him into war with us.
Subdue your passions. Beware how you deform many good qualities by one
vice, and mar the credit of so many meritorious deeds by a degree of
guilt more than proportioned to the value of its object."

15. While Masinissa heard these observations, he not only became
suffused with blushes, but burst into te