M. Tullius Cicero, To the Citizens after his Return
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

[20] And I heard him say that he had been miserable when he was deprived of his country which he had delivered from siege; when he heard that his property was taken possession of and plundered by his enemies; when he saw his young son a sharer of the same calamity; when, up to his neck in the marshes, he only preserved his body and his life by the aid of the Minturnensians, who thronged to the place and pitied him; when, having crossed over to Africa in a little boat, he had arrived as a beggar and a suppliant among those people to whom he himself had given kingdoms; but that now that he had recovered his dignity he would take care, as all those things which he had lost had been restored to him, still to preserve that fortitude of mind which he never had lost. But there is this difference between myself and him, that he used those means in which he was most powerful, namely his arms, in order to revenge himself on his enemies. I, too, will use the instrument to which I am accustomed; since it is in war and sedition that there is room for his qualities, but in peace and tranquillity that there is scope for mine.