e cited the priesthood I had undertaken, and showed that I
had attained the highest honour that Carthage can bestow. But the
greatest and most remarkable compliment[55] paid me was this: after
producing such a wealth of flattering testimonials he commended me to
your notice by himself voting in my favour. Finally, he, a man in
whose honour every province rejoices through all the world to erect
four or six horse chariots, promised that he would erect my statue at
Carthage at his own expense.

[Footnote 54: _nunc postea vota omnia mea_ (MSS.).]

[Footnote 55: om. _honos_ following MSS.]

What lacks there to sanction and establish my glory and to set it on
the topmost pinnacle of fame? I ask you, what is there lacking?
Aemilianus Strabo, who has already held the consulship and is
destined, as we all hope and pray, soon to be a proconsul, proposed
the resolution conferring these honours upon me in the senate-house of
Carthage. You gave your unanimous assent to the proposal. Surely in
your eyes this was more than a mere resolution, it was a solemn
enactment of law. Nay more, all the Carthaginians gathered in this
august assembly showed such readiness in granting a site for the
statue that they might make it clear to you that, if they put off a
resolution for the erection of a second statue, as I hope,[56] to the
next meeting of the senate, they were influenced by the desire to show
the fullest reverence and respect to their honourable consular, and to
avoid seeming to emulate rather than imitate his beneficence. That is
to say, they wished to set apart a whole day for the business of
conferring on me the public honour still in store. Moreover, these
most excellent magistrates, these most gracious chiefs of your city,
remembered that the charge with which you men of Carthage had
entrusted them was in full harmony with their desires. Would you have
me be ignorant, be silent, as to these details? It would be rank
ingratitude. Far from that, I offer my very warmest thanks to the
whole assembly for their most lavish favour. I could not be more
grateful. For they have honoured me with the most flattering applause
in that senate-house, where even to be named is the height of honour.
And so I have in some sense achieved--pardon my vanity--that which was
so hard to achieve, and seemed indeed not unnaturally to be beyond my
powers. I have won the affections of the people, the favour of the
senate, the approbation of the magistrates