38.
For if any one thinks that my independence has suffered any diminution,
because I do not now differ in opinion with all those same men with whom I
was formerly accustomed to differ; in the first place, if I show myself
grateful to those who have deserved well of me, I do not cease
to be attacked with the accusation of being a man of too good a memory, and
too grateful. But if, without any injury to the republic, I sometimes show a
regard to my own safety and that of my family, at all events I not only do
not deserve to be blamed for this, but, even if I were to wish myself to run
on ruin, there are good men who would entreat me not to do so.
[92]
But the republic itself, if it were able
to speak, would plead with me, that as I had always served her interests,
and never my own, and as I had received a reward from her not such as I
ought, rich and abundant, but mingled with exceeding bitterness, now at
length to serve myself, and to consult the interests of my family; and would
urge not only that she herself had received enough from me, but that she
even feared that she had made me but an inadequate return for all the
services which I had rendered her.
[93]
But what will you say if I think nothing
of all these things, and if I persevere in the same course in the republic
which I have always pursued? will you still ask what is become of my
independence? which you make to consist in the fact of our struggling for
ever with any one with whom we have at any time had a contest. But this is
all nonsense; for we ought at all times to act as if we were standing in
some revolving orb of the republic, and as that turns round we ought to
choose that part to which the advantage and safety of the republic direct
us.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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