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 holding the highest position among you and I have received and hold the second, it is requisite that I should deliver a twofold address: one as the man set down as his heir and the other in my capacity as magistrate. I must not omit anything that ought to be said, but speak what the whole people would have chanted with one tongue if they could have obtained one voice.

I am well aware that it is difficult to hit your precise sentiments. Especially is it no easy task to treat matters of such magnitude—what speech could equal the greatness of deeds?—and you, whose minds are insatiable because of the facts that you know already, will not prove lenient judges of my efforts. If the speech 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 Cæsar'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 criticize