If, O conscript fathers, I return you thanks in a very inadequate manner for your kindness
to me, and to my brother, and to my children, (which shall never be forgotten by us,) I beg
and entreat you not to attribute it so much to any coldness of my disposition, as to the
magnitude of the service which you have done me. For what fertility of genius, what
copiousness of eloquence can be so great, what language can be found of such divine and
extraordinary power, as to enable any one, I will not say to do due honour to the universal
kindness of you all towards us, but even to count up and enumerate all the separate acts of
kindness which we have received from you? You have restored to me my brother; whom I have
wished for above all things; you have restored me to my most affectionate brother; you have
restored us parents to our children, and our children to us; you have restored to us our
dignity, our rank, our fortunes, the republic, which we reverence above all things, and our
country, than which nothing can be dearer to us; you have restored us, in short, to ourselves.
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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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