Certainly, I suppose I was anxious for violence, who, as long as there was any violence going on, did nothing whatever, and who could not possibly have been undermined and injured if it had not been for violence. [128] Was I to regret such a recall as this, which was so honourable to me that I am almost afraid of seeming to have left the city from a covetousness of glory, in order to return in such a manner? For what citizen except me did the senate ever recommend to the protection of foreign nations? For whose safety except mine did the senate ever publicly return thanks to the allies of the Roman people? I am the only person concerning whom the conscript fathers ever decreed that whoever went in command to any of the provinces, whoever were quaestors or lieutenants, were to take care of my safety and my life. Mine is the only cause since the foundation of the city in which every one who had any regard for the safety of the republic was summoned to Rome from every part of Italy, by letters written by the consuls in obedience to a resolution of the senate. That which the senate never once decreed at a time of peril to the entire republic, they thought it necessary to decree for the preservation of my individual safety. Who was ever more regretted in the senate house? who was ever more lamented in the forum? who was ever so much missed in the courts of justice? At, and in consequence of my departure, every place immediately became deserted, melancholy, mute, full of grief and lamentation. What spot is there in all Italy in which there is not imprinted on the public monuments some proof of the zeal of the people for my safety, some testimony to my worth? [cap.61] [129]
For why should I mention those resolutions of the senate, of more than human kindness towards me? Either that which was passed in the temple of the all-good and all-powerful Jupiter, when that man, who has marked by three triumphs that he has added himself three countries and nations to this empire, read a long written speech in support of his opinion, and bore his testimony to the fact that I alone had preserved the country; and the senate in the fullest possible house adopted his opinion so entirely that only one enemy of mine dissented from it, and the decree as supported by Pompeius was recorded in the public registers for the eternal recollection of posterity? Or that which was passed the next day in the senate house, at the suggestion of the Roman people themselves, and of those men who had come up from the municipal towns to the effect that no one was to observe the heavens that no one was to cause any delay whatever, that if any one did so, he should be considered at once as one who wished to overturn the republic, and the senate would be very much offended, and that a motion should be immediately made respecting his conduct? And when the senate, meeting in great numbers, had checked the wickedness and audacity of some of those men by its authority and dignity, it added this clause, moreover; that if within the next five days in which my affairs could be discussed, they were not brought to a termination, I was to return to my country and be restored to all my former dignities. [cap.62]