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him in any project, and won the devotion of the rest by benefits, not bowing to any one of brilliant position, nor humiliating any one who was bettering himself; but as if he himself were being exalted through all their successes and acquiring strength and adornment, he took delight in making the largest number equal with himself. While he behaved thus toward his friends and acquaintances, he did not show himself cruel or inexorable even to his enemies, but many of those who had come into collision with him personally he let off scotfree, and many who had actually made war against him he released, giving some of them honors and offices. To this degree was he in every way inclined to right conduct, and not only had no baseness in his own making, but would not believe that it was found in anybody else.

Since I have reached these statements, I will begin to speak about his public services. If he had lived a quiet existence, perhaps his excellence would never have come to light; but as it was, by being raised to the highest position and becoming the greatest not only of his contemporaries but of all the rest who had ever wielded any influence, he displayed it more conspicuously. For nearly all his predecessors this supreme authority had served only to reveal their defects, but him it made luminous: through the greatness of his excellence he undertook correspondingly great deeds, and was found to be a match for them; he alone of men after obtaining for