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25He now came forward and said: “I rejoice, Quirites, in being honoured by you. All men naturally take pride in benefits conferred upon them by their fellow-citizens, and I, who have often enjoyed honours at your hands, scarcely know how to be properly pleased on the present occasion. Nevertheless, I do not think it fitting either that you should be so insatiable with regard to my services or that I myself should continually be in some position of command. For I have toiled since boyhood, and, as for you, you ought to be favouring others as well. 2Do you not recall how many hardships I underwent in the war against Cinna, though I was the veriest youth, and how many labours in Sicily and in Africa before I had as yet come fully of age, or how many dangers I encountered in Spain before I was even a senator? I will not say that you have shown yourselves ungrateful toward me for all these labours. 3How could I? On the contrary, in addition to the many other important favours of which you have deemed me worthy, the very fact that I was entrusted with the command against Sertorius, when no one else was either willing or able to undertake it, and that I celebrated a triumph, contrary to custom, upon resigning it, brought me the greatest honour. 4But inasmuch as I have undergone many anxieties and many dangers, I am worn out in body and wearied in soul. Do not keep reckoning that I am still young, and do not calculate that I am so and so many years old. 5For if you will count up the campaigns that I have made as well as the dangers I have faced, you will find them far more in number than my years, and in this way you will more readily believe that I can no longer endure either the hardships or the anxieties.
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