iments. And who of us can forget with what great
moderation he behaved during that crisis of the city which ensued
after the death of Caesar? These are great merits, but I hasten to
speak of greater still. For, (O ye immortal gods!) what could happen
more to be admired by foreign nations or more to be desired by the
Roman people, than, at a time when there was a most important civil
war, the result of which we were all dreading, that it should be
extinguished by prudence rather than that arms and violence should be
able to put everything to the hazard of a battle? And if Caesar had
been guided by the same principles in that odious and miserable war,
we should have--to say nothing of their father--the two sons of Cnaeus
Pompeius, that most illustrious and virtuous man, safe among us, men
whose piety and filial affection certainly ought not to have been
their ruin. Would that Marcus Lepidus had been able to save them all!
He showed that he would have done so, by his conduct in cases where he
had the power, when he restored Sextus Pompeius to the state, a great
ornament to the republic, and a most illustrious monument of his
clemency. Sad was that picture, melancholy was the destiny then of the
Roman people. For after Pompeius the father was dead, he who was
the light of the Roman people, the son too, who was wholly like his
father, was also slain. But all these calamities appear to me to have
been effaced by the kindness of the immortal gods, Sextus Pompeius
being preserved to the republic.

XV. For which cause, reasonable and important as it is and because
Marcus Lepidus, by his humanity and wisdom, has changed a most
dangerous and extensive civil war into peace and concord, I give my
vote, that a resolution of the senate be drawn up in these words:

"Since the affairs of the republic have repeatedly been well and
prosperously conducted by Marcus Lepidus, imperator, and Pontifex
Maximus, and since the Roman people is fully aware that kingly power
is very displeasing to him; and since by his exertions, and virtue,
and prudence, and singular clemency and humanity, a most bitter civil
war has been extinguished; and Sextus Pompeius Magnus, the son of
Cnaeus, having submitted to the authority of this order and laid down
his arms, and, in accordance with the perfect good-will of the senate
and people of Rome, has been restored to the state by Marcus Lepidus,
imperator, and Pontifex Maximus; the senate and people of Rome, in