BOOK VII. xLiv. 143-146 



resulted in his destruction, but ■with difficulty another 

 tribune was found to intercede, and he was recalled 

 froni the very threshold of death ; and subsequently 

 he lived on the charity of another, as his own property 

 had immediately been confiscated on the proposal 

 of the very man whom he had himself caused to be 

 condemned, just as though the penalty exacted from 

 him of having his throat tied in a rope and the 

 blood forced out through his ears were not sufficient ! 

 Although for my own part I should also reckon it as a 

 disaster to have been at enmity with the second 

 Africanus, on the evidence of Macedonicus himself, 

 inasmuch as he said, " Go, my sons, celebrate his 

 obsequies ; you will never see the funeral of a greater 

 citizen ! " And he said this to sons who had already 

 won the titles of Balearicus and Dalmaticus, while 

 he himself was already Macedonicus." But even if 

 only that injury be taken into account, who could 

 rightly pronounce happy this man who ran the risk 

 of perishing at the will of an enemy, and him not even 

 an Africanus ? Victory over what enemies was worth 

 so much ? or what honours and triumphal ears did 

 not fortune put into the shade by that violent stroke — 

 a censor dragged through the middle of the city (for 

 this had bcen the sole reason for delaying ^*), dragged 

 to that same Capitol to which he himself had not thus 

 dragged even prisoners when he was triumphing over 

 the spoils taken from them ? This was rendered a 

 greater crime by the happiness that followed, as it 

 placed Macedonicus in danger of losing even that 

 ffreat and fflorious funeral in which he was carried to 

 tlie pyre by his children who had themselves won 

 triumphs, so that even his obsequies were a triumphal 

 procession. Assuredly it is no firnily founded 



603 



