Chap. 28.J 
UNIOTs" OF HIGH QUALITIES, ETC. 
169 
M. Messala After having delivered 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, S^yria, the Scythians, Judaea, 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 ho 
made in public relative to his previous career, that Asia, 
which he received as the boundary of the empire, he left its 
centreJ^ If any one should wish, on the other hand, in a 
similar manner, to pass in review the exploits of Caesar, who 
has shown himself greater still than Pompeius, why then he 
must enumerate all the countries in the world, a task, I may 
say, without an end. 
.CHAP. 28. (27.) — iriirioi!^ in the same peeson of three of the 
HIGHEST QUALITIES WITH THE GREATEST PURITY. 
Many other men have excelled in different kinds of virtues. 
Cato, however, who was the first of the Porcian 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, 
still 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 be in the 
year of the City 692.— B. 
'^^ 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 ^gean 
sea. — B. 
'^'^ See B. xiv. c. 5. 
80 Yal. Maximus adds, that he was the best lawyer of his time. — B. 
We meet with a passage in Livy, B. xxxix. c. 44, illustrative of this 
^dew 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 unamiahle. — B. 
