of his counsels! How honourably, yet how far from negligently, does he keep watch over him! How formidable a war, excited by the Gallic chief Sacrovir and Julius Florus, did he suppress, and with such amazing expedition and energy, that the Roman people learned that they were conquerors, before they knew that they were at war, and the news of victory outstripped the news of the danger! The African war too, perilous as it was, and daily increasing in strength, was quickly terminated under his auspices and direction. [Illustration: ROMAN TRIPOD] “What structures has he erected in his own name, and those of his family! With what dutiful munificence, even exceeding belief, is he building a temple to his father! With how laudable a generosity of disposition is he repairing even the buildings of Cneius Pompey that were consumed by fire! Whatever has been at any time conspicuously great, he regards as his own, and under his protection. With what liberality has he at all times, and particularly at the recent fire on the Cælian Mount, repaired the losses of people of all conditions out of his own property! With what perfect ease to the public does he manage the raising of troops, a business of constant and extreme apprehension, without the consternation attendant on a levy! If either nature allows us, or the humility of man may take upon itself, to make a modest complaint of such things to the gods, what has he deserved that, in the first place, Drusus Libo should form his execrable plots; and, in the next, that Silius and Piso should follow his example, one of whom he raised to dignity, the other he promoted? That I may pass to greater matters (though he accounted even these very great), what has he deserved, that he should lose his sons in their youth, or his grandson by Drusus? But we have only spoken of causes for sorrow, we must now come to occasions of shame. With what violent griefs, Marcus Vinicius, has he felt his mind tortured in the last three years! How long has his heart been consumed with affliction, and, what is most unhappy, such as he was obliged to conceal, while he was compelled to grieve, and to feel indignation and shame, at the conduct of his daughter-in-law and his grandson! And the sorrows of this period have been aggravated by the loss of his most excellent mother, a woman who resembled the gods more than human beings; and whose power no man ever felt but in the relief of distress or the conferring of honour.