Ab urbe condita

I have grown up to the measure of the glory of my seniors, and I would gladly see others rising to the height of my own renown.

There is no lack of honours in Rome for the strongest and most capable men, nor is there any lack of men to win the honour.” This display of modesty and unselfishness only made the popular feeling all the keener in his favour by showing how rightly it was directed.

Thinking that the best way of checking it would be to appeal to the instinctive reverence for law, he ordered the law to be rehearsed which forbade any man from being re-elected consul within ten years.

Owing to the clamour the law was hardly heard, and the tribunes of the plebs declared that there was no impediment here; they would make a proposition to the Assembly that he should be exempt from its provisions.