h were
being made among men ignorant of the subject, it would be very easy to
content them, for they would be startled by such great deeds: but as the
matter stands, through your familiarity with the events, it is
inevitable that everything that shall be said will be thought less than
the reality. Outsiders, even if through jealousy they should distrust
it, yet for that very reason must deem each statement they hear strong
enough: but your gathering, influenced by good-will, must inevitably
prove impossible to satisfy. You yourselves have profited most by
Caesar's virtues and you demand his praises not half-heartedly, as if he
were no relation, but out of deep affection as one of your very own. I
shall strive therefore to meet your wishes to the fullest extent, and I
feel sure that you will not criticise too closely my command of words or
conception of the subject, but will, out of your kindness of heart, make
up whatever is lacking in that respect.

[-37-] "I shall speak first about his lineage, though not because it is
very brilliant. Yet this too has considerable bearing on the nature of
excellence, that a man should have become good not through force of
circumstances but by inherent power. Those not born of noble parents may
disguise themselves as honest men but may also some day be convicted of
their base origin by innate qualities. Those, however, who possess the
seed of honesty, descending through a long line of ancestors, cannot
possibly help having an excellence which is of spontaneous growth and
permanent. Still, I do not now praise Caesar chiefly because he was
sprung from many noble men of recent times and kings and gods of ancient
days, but because in the first place he was a kinsman of our whole
city,--we were founded by the men that were his ancestors,--and secondly
because he not only confirmed the renown of his forefathers who were
believed by virtue to have attained divinity, but actually increased it;
if any person disputed formerly the possibility of Aeneas ever having
been born of Venus, he may now believe it. The gods in past times have
been reported as possessing some unworthy children, but no one could
deem this man unworthy to have had gods for his ancestors. Aeneas himself
became king, as likewise some of his descendants. This man proved
himself so much superior to them that whereas they were monarchs of
Lavinium and Alba, he refused to become king of Rome; and whereas they
laid the foundation