_imperium_, I would have you reflect on these objects long before you act, prepare yourself with a view to them, turn them over in your mind, train yourself to obtain them, and convince yourself that you can with the greatest ease maintain the highest and most exalted position in the state. This you have always looked for, and I am sure you understand that you have attained it. And that you may not think this exhortation of mine meaningless or adopted without reason, I should explain that the consideration which has moved me to make it was the conviction that you required to be warned by the incidents, which our careers have had in common, to be careful for the rest of your life as to whom to trust and against whom to be on your guard. As to your question about the state of public affairs--there is the most profound difference of opinion, but the energy is all on one side. For those who are strong in wealth, arms, and material power, appear to me to have scored so great a success from the stupidity and fickleness of their opponents, that they are now the stronger in moral weight as well. Accordingly, with very few to oppose them, they have got everything through the senate, which they never expected to get even by the popular vote without a riot: for a grant for military pay and ten legates have been given to Cæsar by decree,[506] and no difficulty has been made of deferring the nomination of his successor, as required by the Sempronian law.[507] I say the less to you on this point, because this position of public affairs is no pleasure to me: I mention it, however, in order to urge you to learn, while you can do so without suffering for it, the lesson which I myself, though devoted from boyhood to every kind of reading, yet learnt rather from bitter experience than from study, that we must neither consider our personal safety to the exclusion of our dignity, nor our dignity to the exclusion of our safety. In your congratulations as to my daughter and Crassipes I am obliged to you for your kindness, and do indeed expect and hope that this connexion may be a source of pleasure to us. Our dear Lentulus, a young man who gives such splendid promise of the highest qualities, be sure you instruct both in those accomplishments which you have yourself ever been forward in pursuing, and also, above all, in the imitation of yourself: he can study in no better school than that. He holds a very high place in my regard and affection, as well because he is yours, as because he is worthy of such a father, and because he is devoted to me, and has always been so. [Footnote 503: See Letter XCV.] [Footnote 504: See Letter CII.] [Footnote 505: Joined to the province of Cilicia by Cato in B.C. 58-57. What Cicero is recommending is a clear evasion. Lentulus is not to _take_ Ptolemy back, but to go to Egypt and make it ready for him.] [Footnote 506: Cicero says elsewhere that he supported this (_pro Balbo_, §61; _de Prov. Cons._ §28; cp. Dio, xxxix. 25).]