You see what the case is; now consider what you ought to do. It seems to me that I ought to
 speak in the first place of the sort of war that exists; in the second place, of its importance;
 and lastly, of the selection of a general. The kind of war is such as ought above all others to
 excite and inflame your minds to a determination to persevere in it. It is a war in which the
 glory of the Roman people is at stake; that glory which has been handed down to you from your
 ancestors, great indeed in everything, but most especially in military affairs. The safety of
 our friends and allies is at stake, in behalf of which your ancestors have waged many most
 important wars. The most certain and the largest revenues of the Roman people are at stake; and
 if they be lost, you will be at a loss for the luxuries of peace, and the sinews of war. The
 property of many citizens is at stake, which you ought greatly to regard, both for your own
 sake, and for that of the republic And since you have at all times been covetous of glory and greedy of praise beyond all other
 nations, you have to wipe out that stain, received in the former Mithridates War, which has now
 fixed itself deeply and eaten its way into the Roman name, the stain arising from the fact that
 he, who in one day marked down by one order, and one single letter, all the Roman citizens in
 all Asia , scattered as they were over so many cities,
 for slaughter and butchery, has not only never yet suffered any chastisement worthy of his
 wickedness, but now, twenty-three years after that time, is still a king, and a king in such a
 way that he is not content to hide himself in Pontus ,
 or in the recesses of Cappadocia , but he seeks to
 emerge from his hereditary kingdom, and to range among your revenues, in the broad light of
 Asia . Indeed up to
 this time your generals have been, contending with the king so as to carry off tokens of victory
 rather than actual victory. Lucius Sulla has triumphed, Lucius Murena has triumphed over
 Mithridates, two most gallant men, and most consummate generals; but yet they have triumphed in
 such a way that he, though routed and defeated, was still king. Not but what praise is to be
 given to those generals for what they did. Pardon must be conceded to them for what they left
 undone; because the republic recalled Sulla from that war into Italy , and Sulla recalled Murena. But Mithridates employed all the time which he had left to him, not in forgetting the old war,
 but in preparing for a new one; and, after he had built and equipped very large fleets, and had
 got together mighty armies from every nation he could, and had pretended to be preparing war
 against the tribes of the Bosphorus, his neighbours, sent ambassadors and letters as far as
 Spain to those chiefs with whom we were at war at the
 time, in order that, as you would by that means have war waged against you in the two parts of
 the world the furthest separated and most remote of all from one another, by two separate
 enemies warring against you with one uniform plan, you, hampered by the double enmity, might
 find that you were fighting for the empire itself. 
 However; the danger on one side, the danger from Sertorius and from Spain , which had much the most solid foundation and the most formidable strength,
 was warded off by the divine wisdom and extraordinary valour of Cnaeus Pompeius. And on the
 other side of the empire, affairs were so managed by Lucilius Lucullus, that most illustrious of
 men, that the beginning, of all those achievements in those countries, great and eminent as they
 were, deserve to be attributed not to his good fortune but to his valour; but the latter events
 which have taken place lately, ought to be imputed not to his fault, but to his ill-fortune.
 However, of Lucullus I will speak hereafter, and I will speak, O Romans, in such a manner, that
 his true glory shall not appear to be at all disparaged by my pleading, nor, on the other hand,
 shall any undeserved credit seem to be given to him.