Kitap 37
53
"I shall not ask, senators, who, in respect of services rendered in this war, can be compared with me; there is none out of all the peoples or monarchs whom you hold in high honour with whom I would not dare to compare myself. Masinissa was your enemy before he was your ally, nor was he friendly to you while his crown was safe and he could have given you military help, but when he was a homeless fugitive and all his forces were lost he sought refuge in your camp with a solitary troop of cavalry. And yet, because he stood by you loyally and effectively against Syphax and the Carthaginians, you have not only restored to him his kingdom, but by adding the richest part of the dominions of Syphax to it you have made him the most powerful of African kings. What reward or honour then do we seem in your eyes to deserve, we who have never been your enemies, but always your friends? Not only in Asia have my father, my brothers and myself taken up arms on your behalf, but far from home in the Peloponnesus, in Boeotia, in Aetolia, in the wars with Philip and Antiochus and the Aetolians, on sea as well as on land. Someone will say, 'What, then, do you ask for?' As you insist, senators, upon my speaking freely, I must comply. If, then, your intention in removing Antiochus beyond the Taurus range is that you may hold those lands yourselves, I would rather have you than any others as my neighbours, nor do I see how my kingdom could be more secure or less liable to disturbance under any other arrangement. But if you purpose to retire and withdraw your armies from those parts, I would venture to suggest that there is none of your allies more worthy to occupy the territories you have conquered than myself. But I may be told it is a splendid thing to liberate cities from servitude. I think so too, if they have done nothing hostile to you. But if they have taken part with Antiochus, how much more worthy of your wisdom and justice is it to study the interest of allies who have done you good, rather than the interest of your foes."
