[-46-] "How after this he brought Egypt to terms and how much money he conveyed to you from there it would be superfluous to relate. And when he made his campaign against Pharnaces, who already held considerable of Pontus and Armenia, he was on the same day reported to the rebel as approaching him, was seen confronting him, engaged in conflict with him, and conquered him.
"This better than anything else established the truth of the assertion that he had not become weaker in Alexandria and had not delayed there out of voluptuousness. For how could he have won that victory so easily without employing a great store of insight and great force? When now Pharnaces had fled he was preparing to conduct a campaign at once against the Parthian, but as certain quarrels were taking place there he withdrew rather unwillingly, but settled this dispute, too, so that no one would believe there had been a disturbance. Not a soul was killed or exiled or even dishonored in any way as a result of that trouble, not because many might not justly have been punished, but because he thought it right while destroying enemies unsparingly to preserve citizens, even if they were poor stuff. Therefore by his bravery he overcame foreigners in war, but out of his humanity kept unharmed the seditious citizens, although many of them by their acts had often shown themselves unworthy of this favor. This same policy he followed again both in Africa and in Spain, releasing all who had not before been captured and been made recipients of his mercy. To grant their lives invariably to such as frequently plotted against him he deemed folly, not humanity. On the other hand, he thought it quite the duty of a manly man to pardon opponents on the occasion of their first errors and not to keep an inexorable anger, yes, and to assign honors to them, but if they clung to their original course, to get rid of them. Yet why did I say this? Many of them also he preserved by allowing all his associates and those who had helped him conquer to save, one each, the life of a captive.
[-47-] "Moreover, that he did all this from inherent excellence and not from pretence or to gather any advantage, as others in large numbers have displayed humaneness, the greatest evidence is that everywhere and under all circumstances he showed himself the same: anger did not brutalize him nor good fortune corrupt him; power did not alter, nor authority change him. Yet it is very difficult when tested in so many enterprises of such a scope and following one another in quick succession at a time when one has been successful in some, is still engaged in conducting others, and only suspects the existence of others, to prove equally efficient on all occasions and to refrain from wishing to do anything harsh or frightful, if not out of vengeance for the past, at least as a measure of safeguard for the future. This, then, is enough to prove his excellence. He was so truly a scion of gods that he understood but one thing, to save those that could be saved. But if you want more evidence, it lies in this, that he took care to have those who warred against him chastised by no other hands than his own, and that he won back those who in former times had slipped away. He had amnesty granted to all who had been followers of Lepidus and Sertorius, and next arranged that safety should be afforded all the survivors among those proscribed by Sulla; somewhat later he brought them home from exile and bestowed honors and offices upon the children of all who had been slain by that tyrant. Greatest of all, he burned absolutely every one of the letters containing secret information that was found in the tent of either Pompey or Scipio, not reading or noticing any portion of them, in order that no one else might derive from them the power to play the rogue. That this was not only what he said, but what he did, his acts show clearly. No one as a result of those letters was even frightened, let alone suffering any great calamity. And no one knows those who escaped this danger except the men themselves. This is most astonishing and has nothing to surpass it, that they were spared before being accused, and saved before encountering danger, and that not even he who saved their lives learned who it was he pitied.