(The time has now come when it is proper to consider whether your career, so far as I have described it, is at every point in harmony with virtue and the promptings of a noble disposition. For to this, as I said at the beginning of my speech, I think it right to pay special attention. Let me therefore mention once more what I said some time ago, that to your father you were dutiful and affectionate, and that you constantly maintained friendly relations with your brothers, for your father you were ever willing to obey, and as the colleague of your brothers in the empire you always displayed moderation. And if anyone thinks this a trifling proof of merit, let him consider the case of Alexander the son of Philip, and Cyrus the son of Cambyses, and then let him applaud your conduct. For Alexander, while still a mere boy, showed clearly that he would no longer brook his father’s control, while Cyrus dethroned his grandfather. Yet no one is so foolish as to suppose that, since you displayed such modesty and self‐ control towards your father and brothers, you were not fully equal to Alexander and Cyrus in greatness of soul and ambition for glory. For when fortune offered you the opportunity to claim as your right the empire of the world, you were the first to make the essay, though there were many who advised otherwise and tried to persuade you to the contrary course. Accordingly, when you had carried through the war that you had in hand, and that with the utmost ease and so as to ensure safety for the future, you resolved to liberate that part of the empire which had been occupied by the enemy, and the reason that you assigned for going to war was most just and such as had never before arisen, namely your detestation of those infamous men. Civil war one could not call it, for its leader was a barbarian who had proclaimed himself emperor and elected himself general. I dislike to speak too often of his evil deeds and the crimes that he committed against your house. But could anything be more heroic than your line of action? For should you fail in your undertaking the risk involved was obvious. But you faced it, and you were not bidding for gain, nay nor for undying renown, for whose sake brave men so often dare even to die, selling their lives for glory as though it were gold, nor was it from desire of wider or more brilliant empire, for not even in your youth were you ambitious of that, but it was because you were in love with the abstract beauty of such an achievement, and thought it your duty to endure anything rather than see a barbarian ruling over Roman citizens, making himself master of the laws and constitution and offering public prayers for the common weal, guilty as he was of so many impious crimes and murders. Who could fail to be dazzled by the splendour of your armament and the vast scale of your expenditure? And yet I am told that Xerxes, when he mustered all Asia against the Greeks, spent no less than ten years