For P. Sulla (26-30)

If, after having done so many services to the republic, I were to ask for myself no other reward from the senate and people of Rome beyond honourable ease, who is there who would not grant it to me? If I were to ask, that they would keep all honours, and commands, and provinces, and triumphs, and all the other insignia of eminent renown to themselves, and that they would allow me to enjoy the sight of the city which I had saved, and a tranquil and quiet mind?—What, however, if I do not ask this? what, if my former industry, my anxiety, my assistance, my labour, my vigilance is still at the service of my friends, and ready at the call of every one? If my friends never seek in vain for my zeal on their behalf in the forum, nor the republic in the senate house; if neither the holiday earned by my previous achievements, nor the excuse—which my past honours or my present age might supply me with, is employed to save me from trouble; if my good-will—my industry, my house, my attention, and my ears are always open to all men; if I have not even any time left to recollect and think over those things which I have done for the safety of the whole body of citizens; shall this still be called kingly power, when no one can possibly be found who would act as my substitute in it?

All suspicion of aiming at kingly power is very far removed from me. If you ask who they are who have endeavoured to assume kingly power in Rome, without unfolding the records of the public annals, you may find them among the images in your own house. I suppose it is my achievements which have unduly elated me, and have inspired me with I know not how much pride. Concerning which deeds of mine, illustrious and immortal as they are, O judges, I can say thus much—that I, who have saved this city, and

In truth, I recollect in what state it is that I have done such great exploits, and in what city I am living. The forum is full of those men whom I, O judges, have taken off from your necks, but have not removed from my own. Unless you think that they were only a few men, who were able to attempt or to hope that they might be able to destroy so vast an empire. I was able to take away their firebrands, to wrest their torches from their hands, as I did; but their wicked and impious inclinations I could neither cure nor eradicate. Therefore I am not ignorant in what danger I am living among such a multitude of wicked men, since I see that I have undertaken single-handed an eternal war against all wicked men.

But if perchance, you envy that means of protection which I have, and if it seems to you to be of a kingly sort,—namely, the fact that all good men of all ranks and classes consider their safety as bound up with mine,—comfort yourself with the reflection that the dispositions of all wicked men are especially hostile to and furious against me alone; and they hate me, not only because I repressed their profligate attempts and impious madness, but still more because they think, that, as long as I am alive, they can attempt nothing more of the same sort.

But why do I wonder if any wicked thing is said of me by wicked men, where Lucius Torquatus himself, after having in the first place laid such a foundation of virtue as he did in his youth, after having proposed to himself the hope of the most honourable dignity in the state, and, in the second place, being the son of Lucius Torquatus, a most intrepid consul a most virtuous senator, and at all times a most admirable citizen, is sometimes run away with by impetuosity of language? For when he had spoken in a low voice of the wickedness of Publius Lentulus, and of the audacity of all the conspirators, so that only you, who approve of those things, could hear what he said, he spoke with a loud querulous voice of the execution of Publius Lentulus and of the prison;