4.3
For Pompey met with opposition from the senate when his province was allotted to him, and when Caesar routed three hundred thousand Germans, Cato moved in the senate that he should be delivered up to those whom he had vanquished, and so bring upon his own head the punishment for his breach of faith; but the people turned contemptuously from Cato, sacrificed to the gods for fifteen days in honour of Caesar’s victory, and were full of joy.
4.4
What, then, would have been their feelings, and for how many days would they have sacrificed to the gods, if Crassus had written to them from Babylon that he was victorious, and had then overrun Media, Persia, Hyrcania, Susa, and Bactria, and declared them Roman provinces? For if wrong must be done, as Euripides says, when men cannot keep quiet, and know not how to enjoy contentedly the blessings which they already have, then let it not be in raiding Scandeia or Mende, nor in beating up fugitive Aeginetans, who have forsaken their own,
4.5
and hidden themselves away like birds in another territory, but let a high price be demanded for the wrongdoing, and let not justice be thrown to the winds lightly, nor on the first best terms, as if it were some trifling or insignificant thing. Those who have praise for Alexander’s expedition, but blame for that of Crassus, unfairly judge of a beginning by its end.
