XIX. Now apply the same arguments to modesty, or temperance, which is a moderation of the appetites, in subordination to reason. Can we say that a man pays sufficient regard to the dictates of modesty, who indulges his lusts in such a manner as to have no witnesses of his conduct? or is there anything which is intrinsically flagitious, even if no loss of reputation ensues? What do brave men do? Do they enter into an exact calculation of pleasure, and so enter the battle, and shed their blood for their country? or are they excited rather by a certain ardour and impetuosity of courage? Do you think, O Torquatus, that that imperious ancestor of yours, if he could hear what we are now saying, would rather listen to your sentiments concerning him, or to mine, when I said that he had done nothing for his own sake, but everything for that of the republic; and you, on the contrary, affirm that he did nothing except with a view to his own advantage? But if you were to wish to explain yourself further, and were to say openly that he did nothing except for the sake of pleasure, how do you think that he would bear such an assertion? Be it so. Let Torquatus, if you will, have acted solely with a view to his own advantage, for I would rather employ that expression than pleasure, especially when speaking of so eminent a man,—did his colleague too, Publius Decius, the first man who ever was consul in that family, did he, I say, when he was devoting himself, and rushing at the full speed of his horse into the middle of the army of the Latins, think at all of his own pleasures? For where or when was he to find any, when he knew that he should perish immediately, and when he was seeking that death with more eager zeal than Epicurus thinks even pleasure deserving to be sought with? And unless this exploit of his had been deservedly extolled, his son would not have imitated it in his fourth consulship; nor, again, would his son, when fighting against Pyrrhus, have fallen in battle when he was consul, and so offered himself up for the sake of the republic as a third victim in an uninterrupted succession from the same family. I will forbear giving any more examples. I might get a few from the Greeks, such as Leonidas, Epaminondas, and three or four more perhaps. And if I were to begin hunting up our own annals for such instances, I should soon establish my point, and compel Pleasure to give herself up, bound hand and foot, to virtue. But the day would be too short for me. And as Aulus Varius, who was considered a rather severe judge, was in the habit of saying to his colleague, when, after some witnesses had been produced, others were still being summoned, “Either we have had witnesses enough, or I do not know what is enough;” so I think that I have now brought forward witnesses enough.