Kitap 14
6.8
Some of these men eagerly strive for statues, thinking that by them they can be made immortal, as if they would gain a greater reward from senseless brazen images than from the consciousness of honourable and virtuous conduct. And they take pains to have them overlaid with gold, a fashion first introduced by Acilius Glabrio,See Livy, xl. 34, 5. after his skill and his arms had overcome King Antiochus.At Thermopylae in 191 B.C. But how noble it is, scorning these slight and trivial honours, to aim to tread the long and steep ascent to true glory, as the bard of Ascra expresses it,Hesiod, Works and Days, 289 ff. τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν | Ἀθάνατοι· μακρὸς δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐπ᾽ αὐτὴν, | καὶ τρηχὺς τὸ πρῶτον· ἐπὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται, | Ῥηιδίη δὴ ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ᾽ ἐοῦσα. is made clear by Cato the Censor. For when he was asked why he alone among many did not have a statue, he replied: I would rather that good men should wonder why I did not deserve one than (which is much worse) should mutter Why was he given one?
