Page:Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto volume 2 Haines 1920.djvu/219

 5. The power of the Macedonians swelling like a torrent with mighty force in a brief day fell away to nothing: and their empire was extinguished in the lifetime of a single generation. For those portions which were held by the companions and friends of Alexander deserve the name of satrapies rather than of kingdoms

6. Not one of them anywhere has a town or permanent dwelling or settled home: they owe their freedom to their poverty, for he who goes about to subjugate the poor gets but a barren return for his labour wandering, roving, with no fixed goal of their march, the end of which depends not on locality but on nightfall

7. (those nations whose) plundering raids have caused disasters I class as brigands rather than as enemies. The Parthians alone of mankind have sustained against the Roman People the role of enemy in a fashion never to be despised, as is sufficiently shewn, not only by the disaster to Crassus, and the shameful flight of Antonius, but by the slaughter of a general with his army, under the leadership even of Trajan, the stoutest of Emperors, and by the retreat, by no means unharassed or without loss, of that emperor as he retired to celebrate his triumph.

8. I will proceed then to compare with one another, in respect to the forces of either leader and either occasion, the two most memorable wars against the Parthians fought with like success in our time, not forgetting withal that the doughty deeds 203