On Duties 1.76 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 1.76

The same may be said of Pausanias and Lysander. Although it is thought that it was by their achievements that Sparta gained her supremacy, yet these are not even remotely to be compared with the legislation and discipline of Lycurgus. Nay, rather, it was due to these that Pausanias and Lysander had armies so brave and so well disciplined. For my own part, I do not consider that Marcus Scaurus was inferior to Gaius Marius, when I was a lad, or Quintus Catulus to Gnaeus Pompey, when I was engaged in public life. For arms are of little value in the field unless there is wise counsel at home. So, too, Africanus, though a great man and a soldier of extraordinary ability, did no greater service to the state by destroying Numantia than was done at the same time by Publius Nasica, though not then clothed with official authority, by removing Tiberius Gracchus. This deed does not, to be sure, belong wholly to the domain of civil affairs; it partakes of the nature of war also, since it was effected by violence; but it was, for all that, executed as a political measure without the help of an army.