When you had done these mighty exploits for the safety of the
republic, did you repent of your fortune, or of the dignity and renown
and glory which you had acquired? Whence then is this sudden change? I
cannot be induced to suspect that you have been caught by the desire
of acquiring money; every one may say what he pleases, but we are not
bound to believe such a thing; for I never saw anything sordid or
anything mean in you. Although a man's intimate friends do sometimes
corrupt his natural disposition, still I know your firmness; and I
only wish that, as you avoid that fault, you had been able also to
escape all suspicion of it.

XIV. What I am more afraid of is lest, being ignorant of the true path
to glory, you should think it glorious for you to have more power by
yourself than all the rest of the people put together, and lest you
should prefer being feared by your fellow-citizens to being loved by
them. And if you do think so, you are ignorant of the road to glory.
For a citizen to be dear to his fellow-citizens, to deserve well
of the republic, to be praised, to be respected, to be loved, is
glorious; but to be feared, and to be an object of hatred, is odious,
detestable; and moreover, pregnant with weakness and decay. And we see
that, even in the play, the very man who said,

"What care I though all men should hate my name,
So long as fear accompanies their hate?"

found that it was a mischievous principle to act upon.

I wish, O Antonius, that you could recollect your grand father of
whom, however, you have repeatedly heard me speak. Do you think that
he would have been willing to deserve even immortality, at the price