up by some considerable repute from your
province and your government. However, in every administrative act which
you have to perform by means of your army and in virtue of your
_imperium_, I would have you reflect on these objects long before you
act, prepare yourself with a view to them, turn them over in your mind,
train yourself to obtain them, and convince yourself that you can with
the greatest ease maintain the highest and most exalted position in the
state. This you have always looked for, and I am sure you understand
that you have attained it. And that you may not think this exhortation
of mine meaningless or adopted without reason, I should explain that the
consideration which has moved me to make it was the conviction that you
required to be warned by the incidents, which our careers have had in
common, to be careful for the rest of your life as to whom to trust and
against whom to be on your guard.

As to your question about the state of public affairs--there is the most
profound difference of opinion, but the energy is all on one side. For
those who are strong in wealth, arms, and material power, appear to me
to have scored so great a success from the stupidity and fickleness of
their opponents, that they are now the stronger in moral weight as well.
Accordingly, with very few to oppose them, they have got everything
through the senate, which they never expected to get even by the popular
vote without a riot: for a grant for military pay and ten legates have
been given to Caesar by decree,[506] and no difficulty has been made of
deferring the nomination of his successor, as required by the Sempronian
law.[507] I say the less to you on this point, because this position of
public affairs is no pleasure to me: I mention it, however, in order to
urge you to learn, while you can do so without suffering for it, the
lesson which I myself, though devoted from boyhood to every kind of
reading, yet learnt rather from bitter experience than from study, that
we must neither consider our personal safety to the exclusion of our
dignity, nor our dignity to the exclusion of our safety.

In your congratulations as to my daughter and Crassipes I am obliged to
you for your kindness, and do indeed expect and hope that this connexion
may be a source of pleasure to us. Our dear Lentulus, a young man who
gives such splendid promise of the highest qualities, be sure you
instruct both in those accomplishments which you have yourse