c. 1.
In my twentieth year,[2] acting upon my own judgment[3] and at my own expense,[4] I raised an army[5] by means of which I restored to liberty the commonwealth which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction.[6] On account of this the senate by laudatory decrees admitted me to its order,[7] in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, and at the same time gave me consular rank in the expression of opinion,[8] and gave me the imperium.[9] It also voted that I as propraetor,[10] together with the consuls, should see to it that the commonwealth suffered no harm.[11] In the same year, moreover, when both consuls had perished in war, the people made me consul,[12] and triumvir for organizing the commonwealth.[13]
c. 2.
Those who killed my father[14] I drove into exile by lawful judgments,[15] avenging their crime, and afterwards, when they waged war against the commonwealth, I twice defeated them in battle.[16]
c. 3.
I undertook civil and foreign wars by land and sea throughout the whole world, and as victor I showed mercy to all surviving citizens.[17] Foreign peoples, who could be pardoned with safety, I preferred to preserve rather than to destroy. About five hundred thousand Roman citizens took the military oath of allegiance to me.[18] Of these I have settled in colonies or sent back to their municipia,[19] upon the expiration of their terms of service,[20] somewhat over three hundred thousand, and to all these I have given lands purchased by me, or money for farms,[21] out of my own means. I have captured six hundred ships, besides those which were smaller than triremes.[22]
c. 4.
Twice I have triumphed in the ovation,[23] and three times in the curule triumph,[24] and I have been twenty-one times saluted as imperator.[25]
After that, when the senate decreed me many triumphs,[26] I declined them. Likewise I often deposited the laurels in the Capitol[27] in fulfilment of vows which I had also made in battle. On account of enterprises brought to a successful issue on land and sea by me, or by my lieutenants under my auspices, the senate fifty-five times decreed that there should be a thanksgiving to the immortal gods.[28] The number of days, moreover, on which thanksgiving was rendered in accordance with the decree of the senate was eight hundred and ninety.[29] In my triumphs there have been led before my chariot nine kings, or children of kings.[30] When I wrote these words I had been thirteen times consul, and was in the thirty-seventh year of the tribunitial power.[31]