ing eminent, nothing
beyond the practice of others, would have been demanded of you. As it
is, however, owing to the brilliancy and magnitude of the affairs in
which we have been engaged, if we do not obtain the very highest
reputation from your province, it seems scarcely possible for us to
avoid the most violent abuse. Our position is such that all loyalists
support us, but demand also and expect from us every kind of activity
and virtue, while all the disloyal, seeing that we have entered upon a
lasting war with them, appear contented with the very smallest excuse
for attacking us. Wherefore, since fortune has allotted to you such a
theatre as Asia, completely packed with an audience, of immense size, of
the most refined judgment, and, moreover, naturally so capable of
conveying sound, that its expressions of opinion and its remarks reach
Rome, put out all your power, I beseech you, exert all your energies to
appear not only to have been worthy of the part we played here, but to
have surpassed everything done there by your high qualities.

XV. And since chance has assigned to me among the magistracies the
conduct of public business in the city, to you that in a province, if my
share is inferior to no one's, take care that yours surpasses others. At
the same time think of this: we are not now working for a future and
prospective glory, but are fighting in defence of what has been already
gained; which indeed it was not so much an object to gain as it is now
our duty to defend. And if anything in me could be apart from you, I
should desire nothing more than the position which I have already
gained. The actual fact, however, is that unless all your acts and deeds
in your province correspond to my achievements, I shall think that I
have gained nothing by those great labours and dangers, in all of which
you have shared. But if it was you who, above all others, assisted me to
gain a most splendid reputation, you will certainly also labour more
than others to enable me to retain it. You must not be guided by the
opinions and judgments of the present generation only, but of those to
come also: and yet the latter will be a more candid judgment, for it
will not be influenced by detraction and malice. Finally, you should
think of this--that you are not seeking glory for yourself alone (and
even if that were the case, you still ought not to be careless of it,
especially as you had determined to consecrate the memory of your name