Cicero

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. VII. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1919.

He became also one of the priests whom the Romans call Augurs, in place of the younger Crassus, who had died among the Parthians.[*](In 53 B.C. See the Crassus, chapter xxv. ) Then the lot gave him Cilicia as his province, with an army of twelve thousand men-at-arms and twenty-six hundred horsemen, and he set sail,[*](In 51 B.C.) with instructions to keep Cappadocia friendly and obedient to King Ariobarzanes.

This he accomplished and arranged satisfactorily without war, and seeing that the Cilicians, in view of the Parthian disaster to the Romans and the uprising in Syria, were in an agitated state, he pacified them by his mild government. Gifts he would not receive, not even when the kings offered them, and he relieved the provincials from the expense of entertainments; but he himself daily received men of pleasing accomplishments at banquets which were not expensive, although generous.

His house, too, had no door-keeper, nor did anyone ever see him lying a-bed, but early in the morning he would stand or walk in front of his chamber and receive those who came to pay him their respects. It is said, moreover, that he never ordered any man to be chastised with rods or to have his raiment torn from him, and that he never inflicted angry abuse or contumelious punishments.