History of Rome

​Then Servilius said: “How great a commander Lucius Aemilius has been, Quirites, even if he could be judged from no other circumstance, even this was enough: that, although he had in his camp soldiers so mutinous and fickle, and an enemy so noble, so rash, and so eloquent in instigating the multitude, he had no mutiny in his army.

​The very same severity of command, which they now hate, kept them in check then. And so, held under ancient discipline, they neither said nor did anything mutinous.

​Indeed, Servius Galba, if he wished to serve his apprenticeship in accusing Lucius Paulus and to give a proof of his eloquence, ought not to have obstructed the triumph, which, if nothing else, the senate had judged to be just; but on the day after the triumph was celebrated, when he was going to see him as a private citizen, he should have indicted him and prosecuted him under the laws;

​or a little later, as soon as he himself had obtained a magistracy, he should have appointed a day for his enemy and accused him before the people.

​Thus Lucius Paulus would both have his triumph as the reward of well-doing for having conducted an outstanding war, and punishment, if he had done anything unworthy of both his old and new glory.

​But clearly, since he could state no charge, no insult against him, he wished to disparage his praiseworthy deeds. Yesterday he asked for a whole day to accuse Lucius Paulus; but he spent four hours, which was all that remained of the day, in speaking.

​Who was ever so guilty a defendant that the vices of his life could not be set forth in so many hours? Meanwhile, what did he charge, which Lucius Paulus, if he were to plead his cause, would wish to be denied?

​Let someone make for me for a moment two assemblies, one of the Macedonian soldiers, the other of the entire Roman people, pure and of a more unbiased judgment, free from favor and hatred; let the defendant be tried first before the assembly of the citizens in togas and of the city.

​What would you say, Servius Galba, before the Roman Quirites? For that whole speech of yours would be cut off: ‘You stood on guard duty too strictly and attentively; the watch-rounds were made too harshly and diligently; you did more labor than before, when the commander himself went around like a taskmaster; on the same day you both marched and went into battle from the march;

​he did not allow you to rest even when victorious; he led you immediately to pursue the enemy. Although he could have made you rich by dividing the booty, he is going to carry the royal money in his triumph and bring it into the treasury.’

​Just as these things have some sting to stimulate the minds of the soldiers, who think that too little indulgence has been shown to their license, too little to their greed, so they would have had no weight with the Roman people, who, ​not to recall old events and things heard from their parents—what disasters were received through the self-seeking of commanders, what victories won through severity of command—at least in the last Punic War, remembers what a difference there was between Marcus Minucius, the master of the horse, and Quintus Fabius Maximus, the dictator.

​And so it would have been apparent that neither could the accuser open his mouth, and that the defense of Paulus was superfluous.

​Let us pass to the other assembly; and I seem likely to call you not ‘Quirites’ but ‘soldiers’, if this name at least can strike a blush into you and bring some shame for violating your commander.”