The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4Cicero, Marcus Tullius
History
The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Speeches, addresses, etc., Latin -- Translations into English
VII. On which account I give my vote for a decree in this form: 'As
Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the son of Quintus, of the Lemonian tribe,
at a most critical period of the republic, and being ill with a very
serious and dangerous disease, preferred the authority of the senate
and the safety of the republic to his own life, and struggled against
the violence and severity of his illness, in order to arrive at the
camp of Antonius, to which the senate had sent him; and as he when he
had almost arrived at the camp, being overwhelmed by the violence of
the disease, has lost his life in discharging a most important office
of the republic; and as his death has been in strict correspondence to
a life passed with the greatest integrity and honour, during which he,
Servius Sulpicius, has often been of great service to the republic,
both as a private individual and in the discharge of various
magistracies; and as he, being such a man, has encountered death on
behalf of the republic while employed on an embassy;--the senate
decrees that a brazen pedestrian statue of Servius Sulpicius be
erected in the rostra in compliance with the resolution of this order,
and that his children and posterity shall have a place round this
statue of five feet in every direction, from which to behold the
games and gladiatorial combats, because he died in the cause of the
republic; and that this reason be inscribed on the pedestal of the
statue; and that Carus Pansa and Aulus Hirtius the consuls, one or
both of them, if it seem good to them, shall command the quaestors
of the city to let out a contract for making that pedestal and that
statue, and erecting them in the rostra; and that whatever price they
contract for, they shall take care the amount is given and paid to the
contractor, and as in old times the senate has exerted its authority
with respect to the obsequies of, and honours paid to brave men, it
now decrees that he shall be carried to the tomb on the day of his
funeral with the greatest possible solemnity. And as Servius Sulpicius
Rufus, the son of Quintus of the Lemonian tribe, has deserved so well
of the republic as to be entitled to be complimented with all those
distinctions, the senate is of opinion, and thinks it for the
advantage of the republic, that the consule aedile should suspend the
edict which usually prevails with respect to funerals in the case of
the funeral of Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the son of Quintus of the
Lemonian tribe, and that Carus Pansa, the consul, shall assign him a
place for a tomb in the Esquiline plain, or in whatever place shall
seem good to him extending thirty feet in every direction, where
Servius Sulpicius may be buried, and that that shall be his tomb,
and that of his children and posterity, as having been a tomb most
deservedly given to them by the public authority.
THE TENTH ORATION OF M.T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO
THE TENTH PHILIPPIC.
THE ARGUMENT
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