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39“After these achievements, and when by kindness he had allayed all that remained of factional discord and by generosity had moderated the victorious soldiery, he might on the strength of this record and of the weapons and the money at his command have been indisputably the sole lord of all, as, indeed, he had become by the very course of events. 2Nevertheless, he refused; and like a good physician, who takes in hand a disease-ridden body and heals it, he first restored to health and then gave back to you the whole body politic. The significance of this act you may judge best by recalling that our fathers praised Pompey and the Metellus who flourished at that time because they voluntarily disbanded the forces with which they had waged war; 3for if they, who possessed only a small force gathered for the occasion, and, besides, were confronted by rivals who would not allow them to do otherwise, acted thus and received praise for doing so, how could one fittingly characterize the magnanimity of Augustus? 4He possessed all your armies, whose numbers you know; he was master of all your funds, so vast in amount; he had no one to fear or suspect, but might have ruled alone with the approval of all; yet he saw fit not to do this, but laid the arms, the provinces, and the money at your feet.
5“You, therefore, on your part acted well and prudently, when you withheld your assent and did not permit him to retire to private life; for you knew well that a democracy could never accommodate itself to interests so vast, but that the leadership of one man would be most likely to conserve them, and so refused to return to what was nominally independence but really factional discord; and making choice of him, whom you had tested by his actual deeds and approved, you constrained him for a time at least to be your leader. 6And when you had thus proved him far better than before, you compelled him for a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth time to continue in the management of affairs.
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