Book 28
27
"It is painful for me to speak thus, opening up, as it were, wounds, but unless they are handled and probed they cannot be healed. After the expulsion of the Carthaginians from Spain I did not believe that there were anywhere people who wished me dead, such had been my conduct towards friends and enemies alike. And yet, alas so greatly was I mistaken that even in my own army the report of my death was not only credited but eagerly looked for. I would not for a moment wish to lay this to the charge of you all, for if I thought that the whole of my army wished for my death, I would die here before your eyes. My life would have no attraction for me if it were hateful to my fellow-countrymen and my soldiers. But every multitude is like the sea which left to itself is naturally motionless, till winds and gales excite it. So it is with calm and storms amongst you, the cause and origin of your madness is to be found in your ringleaders, who infected you with their frenzy. For you do not seem even now to be aware to what lengths of folly you have gone or what criminal recklessness you have been guilty of towards me, towards your country, your parents and your children, towards the gods who were witnesses of your military oath, towards the auspices under which your served, towards the traditions of the army and the discipline of our ancestors, towards the majesty inherent in supreme authority. About myself I prefer to be silent; you may have lent a thoughtless rather than a willing ear to the report of my death; I may be a man whose rule might be naturally expected to prove irksome to his army. But your country-what has it deserved of you that you should make common cause with Mandonius and Indibilis for its betrayal? What have the Roman people done that you should deprive the tribunes whom they elected of their authority, and bestow it on private individuals? And not content with having such men for tribunes you, a Roman army, have transferred the fasces of your commander to men who never possessed a single slave to be at their command! The headquarters tent was occupied by an Albius and an Atrius; at their doors the trumpet sounded; to them you went for orders; they were seated on P. Scipio's tribunal; the lictor was in attendance and cleared the way before them; in front of them the axes and fasces were borne! When there is a shower of stones, or buildings are struck by lightning, or animals produce monstrous offspring, you consider these things as portents. We have here a portent which no victims, no intercessions can expiate but the blood of those who have dared such an awful crime.
