(Such were the trophies and victories that you left behind you in Asia, and you led your troops to Europe in perfect condition, determined to fill the whole world with the monuments of your victories. Even if I had nothing more wonderful to relate about you, what I have said is enough to demonstrate that in good sense and energy you surpass all those in the past whose fortune was the same as yours. Indeed to have repulsed the whole strength of Persia and remain unscathed, not to have lost so much as a soldier from the ranks, much less a town or fort, and finally to have brought the siege to so brilliant and unprecedented a conclusion,—what achievement I ask in the past could one compare with this? The Carthaginians were famous for their daring in the face of danger, but they ended in disaster. The siege of Plataea shed lustre on its citizens, but all that their valour could do for those unhappy men was to make their misfortunes more widely known. What need to quote Messene or Pylos, since there the defeated did not make a brave defence nor was a vigorous assault necessary to subdue them? As for the Syracusans, they had their famous man of science(126) to aid them against the armaments of Rome and our illustrious general,(127) but what did he avail them in the end? Did they not fall more ignominiously than the rest, and were only spared to be a glorious monument of their conqueror’s clemency? But if I wished to reckon up all the states that could not withstand armaments inferior to their own, how many volumes do you think would suffice? Rome, however, I ought perhaps to mention, because long ago she had just such a fortune, I mean when the Galatians and Celts(128) conspired together, and without warning poured down on the city like a winter torrent.(129) The citizens occupied the famous hill(130) on which stands the statue of Jupiter. There they intrenched themselves with wicker barricades and such like defences, as though with a wall, while the enemy offered no hindrance nor ventured to approach to attack at close quarters, and so they won the day.)