Let it be supposed that I have not been injured by you in any respect beyond the ready credence of my death.

What! if I were dead, was the state to expire with me?
was the empire of the Roman people to fall with me?
Jupiter, most good and great, would not have permitted that the existence of the city, built under the auspices and sanction of the gods to last for ever, should terminate with that of this frail and perishable body.

The Roman people have survived those many and distinguished generals who were all cut off in one war; Flaminius, Paulus, Gracchus, Posthumius Albinus, Marcus Marcellus, Titus Quinctius Crispinus, Cneius Fulvius, my kinsmen the Scipios; and will survive a thousand others who may perish, some by the sword, others by disease; and would the Roman state have been buried with my single corpse?
You yourselves, here in Spain, when your two generals, my father and my uncle, fell, chose Septimus Marcius as your general to oppose the Carthaginians, exulting on account of their recent victory.

And thus I speak, on the supposition that Spain would have been without a leader.

Would Marcus Silanus, who was sent into the province with the same power and the same command as myself, would Lucius Scipio my brother, and Caius Laelius, lieutenant-generals, have been wanting to avenge the majesty of the empire?
Could the armies, the generals themselves, their dignity or their cause, be compared with one another?
And even had you got the better of all these, would you bear arms in conjunction with the Carthaginians against your country, against your countrymen?
Would you wish that Africa should rule Italy, and Carthage the city of Rome?
If so, for what offence on the part of your country?
29.