[3]
Wherefore, O conscript fathers, consult the welfare of yourselves, provide for that of the
republic; preserve yourselves, your wives, your children, and your fortunes; defend the name
and safety of the Roman people; cease to spare me, and to think of me. For, in the first
place, I ought to hope that all the gods who preside over this city will show me gratitude in
proportion as I deserve it; and in the second place, if anything does happen to me, I shall
fall with a contented and prepared mind; and, indeed, death cannot be disgraceful to a brave
man, nor premature to one of consular rank, nor miserable to a wise man. Not that I am a man
of so iron a disposition as not to be moved by the grief of a most dear and affectionate
brother now present, and by the tears of all these men by whom you now see me surrounded. Nor
does my fainting wife, my daughter prostrate with fear, and my little son whom the republic
seems to me to embrace as a sort of hostage for my consulship, the son-in-law who, awaiting
the end of that day, is now standing in my sight, fail often to recall my mind to my home. I
am moved by all these circumstances, but in such a direction as to wish that they all may be
safe together with you, even if some violence overwhelms me, rather than that both they and
are should perish together with the republic.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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