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Stoics are right in regarding as a virtue—do you, I ask, suppose that any Appiism or Lentulism in the world weighs more with me than the distinctions conferred by virtue? Why, even before I had attained the honours which are most magnificent in the eyes of men, yet those names of yours never excited my admiration; no, it was the men who had bequeathed them to you that I thought great. But later, when I had so accepted and administered the highest offices of the empire as to feel that I had obtained all I desired in the way of both promotion and glory, I hoped that I had become, never, indeed, your superior, but, at any rate, your peer. And I declare that I never observed that any different opinion was held either by Cn. Pompey, whom I consider a better man than any who has ever existed, or by Lentulus, whom I consider a better man than myself. If you think otherwise, you will not go wrong if in order to appreciate the difference between nobility of birth, and nobility of worth, you were to study with a little more attention what is said on this subject by Athenodorus,^[1] the son of Sandon.

⁶ But to return to my point, I should like you to believe that I am not only your friend, but a very great friend of yours. I shall assuredly succeed by the performance of every service in my power in enabling you to realize the truth of what I say. If it is your object, however, to make it appear that you are less bound to further my interests in my absence than I strove to further yours, I release you from that anxiety:

But if you are a born frondeur,^[3] while you will not