VIII. I prefer in this connection to draw my illustrations from foreign history rather than from our own. Let me add, however, that as long as the empire of the Roman People maintained itself by acts of service, not of oppression, wars were waged in the interest of our allies or to safeguard our supremacy; the end of our wars was marked by acts of clemency or by only a necessary degree of severity; the senate was a haven of refuge for kings, tribes, and nations; 27 and the highest ambition of our magistrates and generals was to defend our provinces and allies with justice and honour. (27) And so our government could be called more accurately a protectorate of the world than a dominion.

This policy and practice we had begun gradually to modify even before Sulla's time; but since his victory we have departed from it altogether. For the time had gone by when any oppression of the allies could appear wrong, seeing that atrocities so outrageous were committed against Roman citizens. In Sulla's case, therefore, an unrighteous victory disgraced a righteous cause. For when he had planted his spear[AL] and was selling under the hammer in the forum the property of men who were patriots and men of wealth and, at least, Roman citizens, he had the effrontery to announce that "he was selling his spoils." After him came one who, in an unholy cause, made an even more shameful use of victory; for he did not stop at confiscating the property of individual citizens, but actually embraced whole provinces and countries in one common ban of ruin.

28 And so, when foreign nations had been oppressed and ruined, we have seen a model of Marseilles carried in a triumphal procession, to serve as proof to the world that the supremacy of the people had been forfeited; and that triumph we saw celebrated over a city without whose help our generals have never gained a triumph for their wars beyond the Alps. I might mention many other outrages against our allies, if the sun had ever beheld anything more infamous than this particular one. |The wages of the sin of Rome.| Justly, therefore, are we being punished. For if we had not allowed the crimes of many to go unpunished, so great licence would never have centred in one individual. His estate descended by inheritance to but a few individuals, his ambitions to many scoundrels. 29 And never will the seed and occasion of civil war be wanting, so long as villains remember that blood-stained spear and hope to see another. As Publius Sulla wielded that spear, when his kinsman was dictator, so again thirty-six years later he did not shrink from a still more criminal spear. And still another Sulla, who was a mere clerk under the former dictatorship, was under the later one a city quaestor. From this, one would realize that, if such rewards are offered, civil wars will never cease to be.

And so in Rome only the walls of her houses remain standing—and even they wait now in fear of the most unspeakable crimes—but our republic we have lost for ever. But to return to my subject: it is while we have preferred to be the object of fear rather than of love and affection, that all these misfortunes have fallen upon us. And if such retribution could overtake the Roman People for their injustice and tyranny, what ought private individuals to expect? And since it is manifest that the power of good-will is so great and that of fear is so weak, it remains for us to discuss by what means we can most readily win the affection, linked with honour and confidence, which we desire.

30 But we do not all feel this need to the same extent; for it must be determined in conformity with each individual's vocation in life whether it is essential for him to have the affection of many or whether the love of a few will suffice. Let this then be settled as the first and absolute essential—that we have the devotion of friends, affectionate and loving, who value our worth. For in just this one point there is but little difference between the greatest and the ordinary man; and friendship is to be cultivated almost equally by both.

31 All men do not, perhaps, stand equally in need of political honour, fame, and the good-will of their fellow-citizens; nevertheless, if these honours come to a man, they help in many ways, and especially in the acquisition of friends.

IX. But friendship has been discussed in another book of mine, entitled "Laelius." |The attainment of glory.| Let us now take up the discussion of Glory, although I have published two books[AM] on that subject also. Still, let us touch briefly on it here, since it is of very great help in the conduct of more important business.

The highest, truest glory depends upon the following three things: the affection, the confidence, and the mingled admiration and esteem of the people. Such sentiments, if I may speak plainly and concisely, are awakened in the masses in the same way as in individuals. |How to gain popularity:| But there is also another avenue of approach to the masses, by which we can, as it were, steal into the hearts of all at once.

32 But of the three above-named requisites, let us look first at good-will and the rules for securing it. Good-will is won principally through kind services[AN]; next to that, it is elicited by the will to do a kind service, even though nothing happen to come of it. Then, too, the love of people generally is powerfully attracted by a man's mere name and reputation for generosity, kindness, justice, honour, and all those virtues that belong to gentleness of character and affability of manner. And because that very quality which we term moral goodness and propriety is pleasing to us by and of itself and touches all our hearts both by its inward essence and its outward aspect and shines forth with most lustre through those virtues named above, we are, therefore, compelled by Nature herself to love those in whom we believe those virtues to reside. Now these are only the most powerful motives to love—not all of them; there may be some minor ones besides.

33 Secondly, the command of confidence can be secured on two conditions: (1) if people think us possessed of practical wisdom combined with a sense of justice. For we have confidence in those who we think have more understanding than ourselves, who, we believe, have better insight into the future, and who, when an emergency arises and a crisis comes, can clear away the difficulties and reach a safe decision according to the exigencies of the occasion; for that kind of wisdom the world accounts genuine and practical. But (2) confidence is reposed in men who are just and true—that is, good men—on the definite assumption that their characters admit of no suspicion of dishonesty or wrong-doing. And so we believe that it is perfectly safe to entrust our lives, our fortunes, and our children to their care.

34 Of these two qualities, then, justice has the greater power to inspire confidence; for even without the aid of wisdom, it has considerable weight; but wisdom without justice is of no avail to inspire confidence; for take from a man his reputation for probity, and the more shrewd and clever he is, the more hated and mistrusted he becomes. Therefore, justice combined with practical wisdom will command all the confidence we can desire; justice without wisdom will be able to do much; wisdom without justice will be of no avail at all.

35 X. But I am afraid some one may wonder why I am now separating the virtues—as if it were possible for anyone to be just who is not at the same time wise; for it is agreed upon among all philosophers, and I myself have often argued, that he who has one virtue has them all. The explanation of my apparent inconsistency is that the precision of speech we employ, when abstract truth is critically investigated in philosophic discussion, is one thing; and that employed, when we are adapting our language entirely to popular thinking, is another. And therefore I am speaking here in the popular sense, when I call some men brave, others good, and still others wise; for in dealing with popular conceptions we must employ familiar words in their common acceptation; and this was the practice of Panaetius likewise. But let us return to the subject.

36 The third, then, of the three conditions I named as essential to glory is that we be accounted worthy of the esteem and admiration of our fellow-men. While people admire in general everything that is great or better than they expect, they admire in particular the good qualities that they find unexpectedly in individuals. And so they reverence and extol with the highest praises those men in whom they see certain pre-eminent and extraordinary talents; and they look down with contempt upon those who they think have no ability, no spirit, no energy. For they do not despise all those of whom they think ill. For some men they consider unscrupulous, slanderous, fraudulent, and dangerous; they do not despise them, it may be; but they do think ill of them. And therefore, as I said before, those are despised who are "of no use to themselves or their neighbours," as the saying is, who are idle, lazy, and indifferent.

37 On the other hand, those are regarded with admiration who are thought to excel others in ability and to be free from all dishonour and also from those vices which others do not easily resist. For sensual pleasure, a most seductive mistress, turns the hearts of the greater part of humanity away from virtue; and when the fiery trial of affliction draws near, most people are terrified beyond measure. Life and death, wealth and want affect all men most powerfully. But when men, with a spirit great and exalted, can look down upon such outward circumstances, whether prosperous or adverse, and when some noble and virtuous purpose, presented to their minds, converts them wholly to itself and carries them away in its pursuit, who then could fail to admire in them the splendour and beauty of virtue?

38 XI. As, then, this superiority of mind to such externals inspires great admiration, so justice, above all, on the basis of which alone men are called "good men," seems to people generally a quite marvellous virtue—and not without good reason; for no one can be just who fears death or pain or exile or poverty, or who values their opposites above equity. And people admire especially the man who is uninfluenced by money; and if a man has proved himself in this direction, they think him tried as by fire.

Those three requisites, therefore, which were presupposed as the means of obtaining glory, are all secured by justice: (1) good-will, for it seeks to be of help to the greatest number; (2) confidence, for the same reason; and (3) admiration, because it scorns and cares nothing for those things, with a consuming passion for which most people are carried away.

39 Now, in my opinion at least, every walk and vocation in life calls for human co-operation—first and above all, in order that one may have friends with whom to enjoy social intercourse. And this is not easy, unless one is looked upon as a good man. So, even to a man who shuns society and to one who spends his life in the country a reputation for justice is essential—even more so than to others; for they who do not have it [but are considered unjust] will have no defence to protect them and so will be the victims of many kinds of wrong. 40 So also to buyers and sellers, to employers and employed, and to those who are engaged in commercial dealings generally, justice is indispensable for the conduct of business. |Honour among thieves.| Its importance is so great, that not even those who live by wickedness and crime can get on without some small element of justice. For if a robber takes anything by force or by fraud from another member of the gang, he loses his standing even in a band of robbers; and if the one called the "Pirate Captain" should not divide the plunder impartially, he would be either deserted or murdered by his comrades. Why, they say that robbers even have a code of laws to observe and obey. And so, because of his impartial division of booty, Bardulis, the Illyrian bandit, of whom we read in Theopompus, acquired great power, Viriathus, of Lusitania, much greater. He actually defied even our armies and generals. But Gaius Laelius—the one surnamed "the Wise"—in his praetorship crushed his power, reduced him to terms, and so checked his intrepid daring, that he left to his successors an easy conquest.

Since, therefore, the efficacy of justice is so great that it strengthens and augments the power even of robbers, how great do we think its power will be in a constitutional government with its laws and courts?

41 XII. Now it seems to me, at least, that not only among the Medes, as Herodotus tells us, but also among our own ancestors, men of high moral character were made kings in order that the people might enjoy justice. For, as the masses in their helplessness were oppressed by the strong, they appealed for protection to some one man who was conspicuous for his virtue; and as he shielded the weaker classes from wrong, he managed by establishing equitable conditions to hold the higher and the lower classes in an equality of right. The reason for making constitutional laws was the same as that for making kings. 42 For what people have always sought is equality of rights before the law. For rights that were not open to all alike would be no rights. If the people secured their end at the hands of one just and good man, they were satisfied with that; but when such was not their good fortune, laws were invented, to speak to all men at all times in one and the same voice.

This, then, is obvious: nations used to select for their rulers those men whose reputation for justice was high in the eyes of the people. If in addition they were also thought wise, there was nothing that men did not think they could secure under such leadership. Justice is, therefore, in every way to be cultivated and maintained, both for its own sake (for otherwise it would not be justice) and for the enhancement of personal honour and glory.

But as there is a method not only of acquiring money but also of investing it so as to yield an income to meet our continuously recurring expenses—both for the necessities and for the more refined comforts of life—so there must be a method of gaining glory and turning it to account. 43 |The way to glory is Justice.| And yet, as Socrates used to express it so admirably, "the nearest way to glory—a short-cut, as it were—is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be." For if anyone thinks that he can win lasting glory by pretence, by empty show, by hypocritical talk and looks, he is very much mistaken. True glory strikes deep root and spreads its branches wide; but all pretences soon fall to the ground like fragile flowers, and nothing counterfeit can be lasting. There are very many witnesses to both facts; but for brevity's sake, I shall confine myself to one family: Tiberius Gracchus, Publius's son, will be held in honour as long as the memory of Rome shall endure; but his sons were not approved by patriots while they lived, and since they are dead they are numbered among those whose murder was justifiable.

XIII. If, therefore, anyone wishes to win true glory, let him discharge the duties required by justice. And what they are has been set forth in the course of the preceding book.

44 (XIII.) But although the very essence of the problem is that we actually be what we wish to be thought to be, still some rules may be laid down to enable us most easily to secure the reputation of being what we are. For if anyone in his early youth has the responsibility of living up to a distinguished name acquired either by inheritance from his father (as, I think, my dear Cicero, is your good fortune) or by some chance or happy combination of circumstances, the eyes of the world are turned upon him; his life and character are scrutinized; and, as if he moved in a blaze of light, not a word and not a deed of his can be kept a secret. 45 Those, on the other hand, whose humble and obscure origin has kept them unknown to the world in their early years ought, as soon as they approach young manhood, to set a high ideal before their eyes and to strive with unswerving zeal towards its realization. This they will do with the better heart, because that time of life is accustomed to find favour rather than to meet with opposition.

Well, then, the first thing to recommend to a young man in his quest for glory is that he try to win it, if he can, in a military career. Among our forefathers many distinguished themselves as soldiers; for warfare was almost continuous then. The period of your own youth, however, has coincided with that war in which the one side was too prolific in crime, the other in failure. And yet, when Pompey placed you in command of a cavalry squadron in this war, you won the applause of that great man and of the army for your skill in riding and spear-throwing and for endurance of all the hardships of the soldier's life. But that credit accorded to you came to nothing along with the fall of the republic.

The subject of this discussion, however, is not your personal history, but the general theme. Let us, therefore, proceed to the sequel.

46 As, then, in everything else brain-work is far more important than mere hand-work, so those objects which we strive to attain through intellect and reason gain for us a higher degree of gratitude than those which we strive to gain by physical strength. The best recommendation, then, that a young man can have to popular esteem proceeds from self-restraint, filial affection, and devotion to kinsfolk. |(3) by association with the great,| Next to that, young men win recognition most easily and most favourably, if they attach themselves to men who are at once wise and renowned as well as patriotic counsellors in public affairs. And if they associate constantly with such men, they inspire in the public the expectation that they will be like them, seeing that they have themselves selected them for imitation. 47 His frequent visits to the home of Publius Mucius assisted young Publius Rutilius to gain a reputation for integrity of character and for ability as a jurisconsult. Not so, however, Lucius Crassus; for though he was a mere boy, he looked to no one else for assistance, but by his own unaided ability he won for himself in that brilliant and famous prosecution[AO] a splendid reputation as an orator. And at an age when young men are accustomed with their school exercises to win applause as students of oratory, this Roman Demosthenes, Lucius Crassus, was already proving himself in the law-courts a master of the art which he might even then have been studying at home with credit to himself.

48 XIV. But as the classification of discourse is a twofold one—conversation, on the one side; oratory, on the other—there can be no doubt that of the two this debating-power (for that is what we mean by eloquence) counts for more toward the attainment of glory; and yet, it is not easy to say how far an affable and courteous manner in conversation may go toward winning the affections. We have, for instance, the letters of Philip to Alexander, of Antipater to Cassander, and of Antigonus to Philip the Younger. The authors of these letters were, as we are informed, three of the wisest men in history; and in them they instruct their sons to woo the hearts of the populace to affection by words of kindness and to keep their soldiers loyal by a winning address. But the speech that is delivered in a debate before an assembly often stirs the hearts of thousands at once; for the eloquent and judicious speaker is received with high admiration, and his hearers think him understanding and wise beyond all others. And if his speech have also dignity combined with moderation, he will be admired beyond all measure, especially if these qualities are found in a young man.

49 But while there are occasions of many kinds that call for eloquence, and while many young men in our republic have obtained distinction by their speeches in the courts, in the popular assemblies, and in the senate, yet it is the speeches before our courts that excite the highest admiration.

The classification of forensic speeches also is a twofold one: they are divided into arguments for the prosecution and arguments for the defence. And while the side of the defence is more honourable, still that of the prosecution also has very often established a reputation. I spoke of Crassus a moment ago; Marcus Antonius, when a youth, had the same success. A prosecution brought the eloquence of Publius Sulpicius into favourable notice, when he brought an action against Gaius Norbanus, a seditious and dangerous citizen. 50 But this should not be done often—never, in fact, except in the interest of the state (as in the cases of those above mentioned) or to avenge wrongs (as the two Luculli, for example, did) or for the protection of our provincials (as I did in the defence of the Sicilians, or Julius in the prosecution of Albucius in behalf of the Sardinians). The activity of Lucius Fufius in the impeachment of Manius Aquilius is likewise famous. This sort of work, then, may be done once in a lifetime, or at all events not often. But if it shall be required of anyone to conduct more frequent prosecutions, let him do it as a service to his country; for it is no disgrace to be often employed in the prosecution of her enemies. And yet a limit should be set even to that. For it requires a heartless man, it seems, or rather one who is well-nigh inhuman, to be arraigning one person after another on capital charges.[AP] It is not only fraught with danger to the prosecutor himself, but is damaging to his reputation, to allow himself to be called a prosecutor. Such was the effect of this epithet upon Marcus Brutus, the scion of a very noble family and the son of that Brutus who was an eminent authority in the civil law.

51 Again, the following rule of duty is to be carefully observed: never prefer a capital charge against any person who may be innocent. For that cannot possibly be done without making oneself a criminal. For what is so unnatural as to turn to the ruin and destruction of good men the eloquence bestowed by nature for the safety and protection of our fellow-men? And yet, while we should never prosecute the innocent, we need not have scruples against undertaking on occasion the defence of a guilty person, provided he be not infamously depraved and wicked. For people expect it; custom sanctions it; humanity also accepts it. It is always the business of the judge in a trial to find out the truth; it is sometimes the business of the advocate to maintain what is plausible, even if it be not strictly true, though I should not venture to say this, especially in an ethical treatise, if it were not also the position of Panaetius, that strictest of Stoics. Then, too, briefs for the defence are most likely to bring glory and popularity to the pleader, and all the more so, if ever it falls to him to lend his aid to one who seems to be oppressed and persecuted by the influence of some one in power. This I have done on many other occasions; and once in particular, in my younger days, I defended Sextus Roscius of Ameria against the power of Lucius Sulla when he was acting the tyrant. The speech is published, as you know.