Book 38
48
"Now that I have cleared myself of the charge of wanton aggression, I have to account for my conduct of the war. On this topic I should feel perfect confidence in my case, even if I were pleading not before the Romans but before the Carthaginian senate, where it is said that their generals are crucified, even when successful, if their strategy has been faulty. But this State has recourse to the gods at the commencement and during the conduct of all its business, because it will not have those matters which the gods have approved of open to any man's censure, and when it decrees special thanksgivings or a triumph, employs the solemn formula: 'Whereas he has managed the affairs of the Republic with success and good fortune.' If, then, renouncing all assertion of my own merits as arrogant and presumptuous, I were to demand on behalf of my own good fortune and that of my army, in having crushed so powerful a nation without any loss, that honours should be paid to the immortal gods, and that I, myself, should go up in triumph to the Capitol, from whence I started after my vows and prayers had been duly offered, would you refuse this to me and to the immortal gods as well?
