You, on your departure (O you punishment, O you Fury of the allies) destroyed the unhappy Aetolia, which being separated by a great distance from the barbarian nations, is placed in the lap of peace and is in almost the centre of Greece. You confess as indeed you mentioned yourself only just now that Arsinoë and Stratus and Naupactus noble and wealthy cities were taken by the enemy. And by what enemies? Why, by those whom you, while encamped at Ambracia, on your first arrival, compelled to depart from the towns of the Agrinae and of the Dolopes, and to leave their altars and their homes. But now, on this departure of yours, O you illustrious “Imperator” though the sudden destruction of Aetolia was no trifling addition to your previous disasters,—you disbanded your army; nor was there any punishment which could be considered due to such guilt as yours which you were not willing to undergo, rather than allow any one to become acquainted with the existing numbers of the relics of your army. [cap.38] [92]
And, that you, O conscript fathers, may see how great is the resemblance between the two Epicurean generals in their military exploits and management of their command; Albucius, after he had triumphed in Sardinia, was condemned at Rome. And as this man expected a similar end to his campaigns, he laid aside his trophies in Macedonia; and those things which all nations have agreed in considering the insignia and monuments of military glory and victory, this extraordinary “Imperator” of ours made the fatal evidences of towns which had been lost of legions which had been cut to pieces, of a province stripped of its garrison and of all the rest of its troops, to the everlasting disgrace of his family and name; and then, in order that there should to something which might be recorded and engraved on the pedestal of his trophies, when, on his departure from his province, he arrived at Dyrrachium, he was besieged by those very soldiers whom he told Torquatus just now, in answer to his questions, had been disbanded by him out of kindness.