Chap. 2S.J nriOK OP HIGH QTIALITrES, ETC. 169 



M. Messala ;" " After having deKvered the sea-coast from 

 the pirates, and restored the seas to the people of Eome, he 

 enjoyed a triumph over Asia, Pontus, Armenia, Paphlagonia, 

 Cappadocia, Cilicia, Syria, the Scythians, Judsea, the Alba- 

 nians, Iberia, the island of Crete, the Basterni, and, in addition 

 to all. these, the kings Mithridates and Tigranes." 



The most glorious, however, of all glories, resulting from 

 these exploits, was, as he himself says, in the speech which he 

 made in public relative to his previous career, that Asia, 

 which he received as the boundary of the empire, he left its 

 centre.™ If any one should wish, on the other hand, in a 

 similar manner, to pass in review the exploits of Csesar, who 

 has shown himself greater still than Pompeius, why then he 

 must enumerate all the countries in the world, a task, I may 

 Bay, without an end. 



CHAP. 28. (27.) — UNION IN THE SAME PEBSOIT OF THEEE OF THE 

 HIGHEST QUALITIES WITH THE GEEATEST PUEIIT. 



Many other men have excelled in diiferent kinds of virtues. 

 Cato, however, who was the first of the Poroian family," is 

 generally thought to have been an example of the three greatest 

 of human endowments, for he was the most talented orator, 

 the most talented general, and the most talented politician ;"* 

 all which merits, if they were not perceptible before him, 

 stUl shone forth, more refulgently even, in my opinion, in Scipio 

 jEmilianus, who besides was exempted from that hatred on the 

 part of many others under which Cato laboured :" in conse- 



assist us in reconciling these dates. The same author gives a very minute 

 detail of all the transactions here referred to. — B. 



" According to the chronology ordinarily adopted, this would he in the 

 year of the City 692.— B. 



'8 By Asia, as we see from the geographical portion of this work, the 

 ancients often designated not the large tract to which we now apply the 

 name, but a comparatively small district lying on the east of the 2Egeau 

 sea. — Bi 



'9 See B. xiv. c. 5. 



"• Val. Maximus adds, that he was the best lawyer of his time. — B. 



*' We meet with a passage in Livy, B. xxxiz. c. 44, illustrative of this 

 view of Cato's character. In Cicero's, treatise, De Senectute, where Cato 

 bears a prominent part, frequent allusion is made to the strictness and even 

 severity of his principles, although the general impression which we re- 

 ceive of his character and manners is highly interesting, and, upon the 

 whole, not unamiable. — B. 



