And why should I speak much more about this matter, while the
Parthians, that most warlike body of men, and lords of so many
nations, and encompassed with such mighty forces, send hostages
to the Romans? whereby you may see, if you please, even in Italy,
the noblest nation of the East, under the notion of peace,
submitting to serve them. Now when almost all people under the
sun submit to the Roman arms, will you be the only people that
make war against them? and this without regarding the fate of the
Carthaginians, who, in the midst of their brags of the great
Hannibal, and the nobility of their Phoenician original, fell by
the hand of Scipio. Nor indeed have the Cyrenians, derived from
the Lacedemonians, nor the Marmaridite, a nation extended as far
as the regions uninhabitable for want of water, nor have the
Syrtes, a place terrible to such as barely hear it described, the
Nasamons and Moors, and the immense multitude of the Numidians,
been able to put a stop to the Roman valor. And as for the third
part of the habitable earth, [Akica,] whose nations are so many
that it is not easy to number them, and which is bounded by the
Atlantic Sea and the pillars of Hercules, and feeds an
innumerable multitude of Ethiopians, as far as the Red Sea, these
have the Romans subdued entirely. And besides the annual fruits
of the earth, which maintain the multitude of the Romans for
eight months in the year, this, over and above, pays all sorts of
tribute, and affords revenues suitable to the necessities of the
government. Nor do they, like you, esteem such injunctions a
disgrace to them, although they have but one Roman legion that
abides among them. And indeed what occasion is there for showing
you the power of the Romans over remote countries, when it is so
easy to learn it from Egypt, in your neighborhood? This country
is extended as far as the Ethiopians, and Arabia the Happy, and