1What is so new as for a mere youth, holding no office, to raise an army at a difficult time for the state? 1He raised one. 1To command it? 1He commanded it. 1To conduct affairs excellently under his own leadership? 1He did so. 1What is so contrary to custom as for a very young man, whose age fell far short of senatorial rank, to be given a command and an army, to be entrusted with Sicily and Africa and the war to be waged in that province? 1He conducted himself in these provinces with singular integrity, dignity and merit, finished a very great war in Africa, and brought his army home victorious.
1And what is so unheard of as for a Roman knight to celebrate a triumph? 1Yet the Roman people not only saw this too, but thought it a thing to be seen and celebrated with universal enthusiasm. 62What is so unusual as that, when there were two most illustrious and brave consuls, a Roman knight should be sent as proconsul to a very great and very fearful war? 62He was sent. 62At that time, when someone in the senate said 'a private individual ought not to be sent as proconsul', Philippus is said to have replied 'that by his vote he was sending him not in place of a consul but in place of both consuls'.
62So great was the hope placed in him of good management of the state that the duty of two consuls was entrusted to the merit of one young man. 62What is so singular as that he should be released from the laws by decree of the senate and made consul before he could legally have held any other magistracy? 62what so incredible as that a Roman knight should celebrate a second triumph by decree of the senate? 62All the novelties established in the case of all men since the memory of man began are not so many as these which we have seen in this one man. 63And all these precedents, so many, so great and so new, in the case of this same man originated from the authority of Catulus and of the other most distinguished men of the same rank.