BOOK VII. xLii. 134-XL111. 137 



following on disasters, orwhat immeasurable disasters 

 except when followinf:^ on enormous joys ? XLIII. 

 She preserved the senator Marcus Fidustius for 36 " 

 years after his proscription by Sulla, but only to pro- 

 scribe him a second time : he survived Sulla, but he 

 Hved to see Antony, and it is known that Antony 

 proscribed him for no other reason than that he had 

 been proscribed before ! It is true she willed that 

 Pubhus \'entidius should alone win a triumph from 

 the Parthians, but she also in his boyhood led him 

 captive in Gnaeus Pompeius's triumph after Asculum 

 — albeit Masurius states that he was led in triumph 

 t^^ice, and Cicero that he was a mule-driver for an 

 army bakcry, and many authorities say that in his 

 youth he supported his poverty bv foot-slo^ging in 

 the ranks ! Also the elder Cornehus Balbus was 

 consul, but he was impeached and handed over to a 

 court of justice to decide as to his legal Habihty to a 

 flogging — he being the first foreigner and actual 

 native of the Atlantic coast to have held an honour * 

 refused bv our ancestors even to Latium. Lucius 

 Fulvius also is one of the notable examples, having 

 l)een consul of the Tusculans at the time of their 

 revolt and after coming ovcr ha\ing been at once 

 honoured with the same office by the lloman nation : 

 he is the only man who ever in the same year in 

 which he had been Rome's enemy won a triumph 

 from the people whose consul he had been. Lucius 

 SuHa is the sole human being hitherto who has 

 assumed the surname Fortunate, in fact achieving 

 the title by civil bloodshed and by making war upon 

 his coimtry. And what tokerus of good fortune 

 were his motive ? His success in exihng and slaugh- 

 tering so many thousands of his feUow-countrymen ? 



voL. II. U 597 



