[97]
I felt indeed, O priests, a
great and incredible pain; I do not deny it; nor do I pretend to that wisdom
which some expected of me, who said that I was too much dispirited and cast
down. Could I, when I was torn from such a number and variety of enjoyments,
(which I pass over, because even now I cannot speak of them without tears,)
deny that I was a human being, and repudiate the common feelings of our
nature? But in that case I should neither call that action of mine
praise-worthy, nor should I say that any service had been done to the
republic by me, if I had only given up, for the sake of the republic, those
things which I could bear the loss of with calmness; and that firmness of
the mind, resembling that hardness of body, which, even when it is burnt, does not feel it, I should consider insensibility rather than
virtue.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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