1And since you have always been, beyond all other nations, eager for glory and greedy for praise, you must wipe out that stain contracted in the earlier Mithridatic war, which has now sunk deep and grown too old in the name of the Roman people: that the man who on a single day, throughout all Asia, in so many cities, by a single message and a single signal, had all Roman citizens killed and butchered, has not only so far suffered no punishment worthy of his crime, but is now in the twenty-third year of his reign since that time, and reigns in such a way that he does not wish to hide in the recesses of Pontus or Cappadocia but to break out of his ancestral kingdom and move about among your revenues, that is, in the full light of Asia.
8Indeed, up to now our commanders have contended with that king in such a way that they brought back from him the trappings of victory, not victory. 8Sulla triumphed, Murena triumphed over Mithridates, two very brave men and outstanding commanders, but they triumphed in such a way that he, though beaten and overcome, went on reigning. 8Even so, those commanders must be given praise for what they did and pardon for what they left undone, because the state recalled Sulla from that war to Italy, and Sulla recalled Murena.