62.
The senate decreed at the same time that thanks should be given to those men
who had come up from all parts of Italy for the sake of my safety; and that they should be
requested to come again when the consideration of the subject was renewed.
[130]
And there was such a rivalry between
all people to show their zeal for my safety, that the very men to whom entreaties were addressed in my behalf by that senate,
did also themselves address entreaties to the senate respecting me; and,
accordingly, in all those transactions but one man alone was found who
openly dissented from this earnest unanimity of all good men, so that even
Quintus Metellus, the consul, who had been in a very great degree an enemy
to me in the violent party contests which had arisen about political
affairs, himself, made a motion in favour of my safety. And when he, being
roused up by the exceeding authority of Publius Servilius, and also by a
certain energy which gave weight to his eloquence, when he had invoked all
the Metelli from the shades below, and had diverted the thoughts of his
relation from the piratical attempts of Clodius to the dignity of that
family by which they were connected together; and when he had brought him
back to the recollection of their great domestic example and to the fate
(shall I call it glorious, or melancholy?) of that great man Metellus
Numidicus; then, I say, that illustrious man,—that genuine
Metellus wept, and gave himself up from that moment to Publius Servilius
even before he had come to the end of his speech. Nor could he, as a man of
the same illustrious family, withstand that godlike dignity of eloquence so
pregnant with the virtues of old time, and, though I was absent, he still
became reconciled to me from that moment.
[131]
And certainly, if it be the case that illustrious men retain any sense or
feeling after death, then he did a thing which was most acceptable to all
the Metelli, and, above all, to that bravest of men and best of citizens,
his own brother, the companion of all my labours, and dangers, and counsels.
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