l language of all who either see or hear of your
monument cease to be heard. And in this manner you, in exchange for
your mortal condition of life, have attained immortality.

XIII. But since, O conscript fathers, the gift of glory is conferred
on these most excellent and gallant citizens by the honour 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 honourable 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's
country, is not accounted miserable; nor burnt with equable obsequies
in scattered graves, but entombed in honourable sepulchres, and
honoured with public offerings; and with a building which will be an
altar of their valour to ensure the recollection of eternal ages.

Wherefore it will be the greatest possible comfort to their relations,
that by the same monument are clearly displayed the valour of their
kinsmen, and also their piety, and the good faith of the senate, and
the memory of this most inhuman war, in which, if the valour of the
soldiers had been less conspicuous, the very name of the Roman people
would have perished by the parricidal treason of Marcus Antonius.
And I think also, O conscript fathers, that those rewards which we
promised to bestow on the soldiers when we had recovered the republic,
we should give with abundant usury to those who are alive and
victorious when the time comes; and that in the case of the men to
whom those rewards were promised, but who have died in the defence of
their country, I think those same rewards should be given to their
parents or children, or