_In Praise of Cicero._ A. Nihil tamen egisti, M. Antoni, nihil, inquam, egisti mercedem caelestissimi oris et clarissimi capitis abscisi numerando, auctoramentoque funebri ad conservatoris quondam rei publicae tantique consulis irritando necem. Rapuisti tum Ciceroni lucem {5} sollicitam et aetatem senilem et vitam miseriorem te principe quam sub te triumviro mortem, famam vero gloriamque factorum atque dictorum adeo non abstulisti, ut auxeris. Vivit vivetque per omnem saeculorum memoriam, dumque hoc vel forte vel {10} providentia vel utcumque constitutum rerum naturae corpus, quod ille paene solus Romanorum animo vidit, ingenio complexus est, eloquentia illuminavit, manebit incolume, comitem aevi sui laudem Ciceronis trahet omnisque posteritas illius in te scripta mirabitur, {15} tuum in eum factum exsecrabitur citiusque e mundo genus hominum quam Ciceronis memoria cedet. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, ii. 66. [Linenotes: 3-4. +auctoramentoque funebri irritando+ = lit. _and by stimulating (provoking) by a fatal reward_ (+auctoramento+) _the death_. . . . 10-15. +dumque ... trahet+, in reference to Cicero’s philosophical works, in which Cicero propounds no original scheme of philosophy, claiming only that he renders the conclusions of Greek thinkers accessible to his own countrymen.] B. Ingenium et operibus et praemiis operum felix; ipse fortunae diu prosperae et in longo tenore felicitatis {20} magnis interim ictus vulneribus, exilio, ruina partium pro quibus steterat, filiae exitu tam tristi tamque acerbo, omnium adversorum nihil ut viro dignum erat tulit praeter mortem, quae vere aestimanti minus indigna videri potuit, quod a victore {25} inimico nil crudelius passurus erat quam quod eiusdem fortunae compos victo fecisset. Si quis tamen virtutibus vitia pensaret, vir magnus ac memorabilis fuit, et in cuius laudes exsequendas Cicerone laudatore opus fuerit. {30} LIVY, _Fr. ap. Sen._ [Linenote: 21-22. +ruina ... steterat+, i.e. the restoration of the Commonwealth of the Scipios.] +Cicero.+ ‘It happened many years after that Augustus once found one of his grandsons with a work of Cicero’s in his hands. The boy was frightened, and hid the book under his gown; but Caesar took it from him, and, standing there motionless, he read through a great part of the book; then he gave it back to the boy, and said “This was a great orator, my child; a great orator, and a man who loved his country well.”’--Plutarch, _Cicero_, 49. B71 LAUS ITALIAE.