Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 2.pdf/58

 glory. Such a mode of commanding is at once useful to the State, and becoming to a citizen. For to coerce your troops with severity, while you yourself live at ease, is to be a tyrant, not a general.

It was by conduct such as this, my fellow citizens, that your ancestors made themselves and the republic renowned. Our nobility, relying on their forefathers' merits, tho totally different from them in conduct, disparage us who emulate their virtues and demand of you every public honor, as due, not to their personal merit, but to their high rank. Arrogant pretenders, and utterly unreasonable! For tho their ancestors left them all that was at their disposal—their riches, their statues, and their glorious names—they left them not, nor could leave them, their virtue; which alone, of all their possessions, could neither be communicated nor received.

They reproach me as being mean, and of unpolished manners, because, forsooth, I have but little skill in arranging an entertainment, and keep no actor, nor give my cook higher wages than my steward—all which charges I must, indeed, acknowledge to be just; for I learned from my father, and other venerable characters, that vain indulgences belong to women, and labor to men; that glory, rather than wealth, should be the object of the virtuous; and that arms and armor, not household furniture, are marks of honor. But let the nobility, if they please, pursue what is delightful and dear to them; let