unwillingly obtains no
less benefit than the other. And as for this very element of
unwillingness, I do not see how it can encounter a man of sense. If the
difference between being well and badly off is that some things we
readily volunteer to do and others we are unwilling and grudge to
perform, the trouble can be easily mended. For if We endure willingly
all necessary things and show the white feather before none of them, all
those matters in which one might assume unwillingness have been
abolished. There is, indeed, an old saying and a very good one, to the
effect that we ought not to think it requisite for whatever we wish to
come to pass, but to wish for whatever does come to pass as the result
of any necessity. We neither have free choice in our course of life nor
is it on ourselves that we are dependent; but according as it may suit
Fortune, and according to the character of the Divinity granted each one
of us for the fulfillment of what is ordained, must we also regard our
life.

[-25-] "Such is the nature of the case whether we like it or not. If,
now, it is not mere dishonor or mere exile that troubles you, but the
fact that not only without having done your country any hurt, but after
having benefited her greatly you were dishonored and expelled, look at
it in this way,--that once it was destined for you to have such an
experience, it has been the noblest and the best fortune that could
befall you to be despitefully used without having committed any wrong.
You advised and performed all that was proper for the citizens, not as
individual but as consul, not meddling officiously in a private capacity
but obeying the decree of the senate, not as a party measure but for the
best ends. This or that other person, on the contrary, out of his
superior power and insolence had devised everything against you,
wherefore disasters and grief belong to him for his injustice, but for
you it is noble as well as necessary to bear bravely what the Divinity
has determined. Surely you would not have preferred to cooeperate with
Catiline and to conspire with Lentulus, to give your country the exact
opposite of advantageous counsel, to discharge none of the duties laid
upon you by it, and thus to remain at home under a burden of wickedness
instead of displaying uprightness and being exiled. Accordingly, if you
have any care for reputation, it is far preferable for you to have been
driven out, guilty of no wrong, than to have remaine