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THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
THE THIRTEENTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE THIRTEENTH PHILIPPIC.
[34]
But since, O conscript fathers, the gift of glory is conferred on these most
excellent and gallant citizens by the honor of a monument, let us comfort their
relations, to whom this indeed is the best consolation. The greatest comfort for
their parents is the reflection that they have produced sons who have been such
bulwarks of the republic; for their children, that they will have such examples
of virtue in their family; for their wives, that the husbands whom they have
lost are men whom it is a credit to praise, and to have a right to mourn for;
and for their brothers, that they may trust that, as they resemble them in their
persons, so they do also in their virtues.
Would that we were able by the expression of our sentiments and by our votes to
wipe away the tears of all these persons; or that any such oration as this could
be publicly addressed to them, to cause them to lay aside their grief and
mourning, and to rejoice rather, that, while many various kinds of death impend
over men, the most honorable kind of all has fallen to the lot of their friends;
and that they are not unburied, nor deserted; though even that fate, when
incurred for one a country, is not accounted miserable; nor burned with equable
obsequies in scattered graves, but entombed in honorable sepulchers, and honored
with public offerings; and with a building which will be an altar of their valor
to insure the recollection of eternal ages.
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