[-35-] “What needed to be said privately by relatives over the divine Augustus Drusus has spoken.  But since the senate has wisely deemed him worthy of some kind of public utterance, I know that the speech was fittingly entrusted to me.  To whom more justly than to me, his child and successor, could be the task of praising him be confided?  It is not my privilege, however, to be gladdened by the thought that my ability must prove no whit inferior to your desires in the matter and to his worth.  Indeed, if I were to speak among strangers, I should be greatly alarmed lest in following my speech they should believe his deeds to be no better than I describe them.  As it is, I am encouraged by the thought that my words will be directed to you who know all of them thoroughly, have experienced them all, and for that reason have deemed him worthy of these very praises.  You will judge of his excellence not from what I may say but from what you yourselves know, and you will assist my discourse, making good what is deficient by your memory of events.  So that in this way his eulogy will become a public one, given by all, as I, like the head of some chorus, indicate the chief points and you come in with the remainder of the refrain.  I am certainly not afraid that you will hold me guilty of weakness because I am unable to meet your desires nor that you will be jealous to see his excellence going beyond your reach.  Who does not understand the fact that not all mankind assembled in one place could worthily sound his praises?  And you all voluntarily make way for him to triumph, not envious to think that not one of you could equal him, but rejoicing in his surpassing greatness.  The greater he looms up before you, the more greatly will you feel yourselves benefited, so that envy will not be bred in you by your inferiority to him but awe from the advantages you have received at his hands.

[-36-] “I shall begin at the point where he also began to enter politics, that is, from his earliest manhood.  This, indeed, is one of the greatest achievements of Augustus,—­that when he had just emerged from boyhood and was entering upon the state of youth, he paid attention to education so long as public affairs were well managed by the famous Caesar, the demi-god:  when after the conspiracy against the latter the whole commonwealth was thrown into confusion, he at the same time amply avenged his father and rendered a much needed aid to you, not fearing the multitude of his enemies nor dreading the greatness of the business nor hesitating through his own immaturity.  Yet what deed like this can be cited of Alexander of Macedon or our Romulus, who have the reputation of having done something brilliant when very young?  But these I shall pass over, lest from merely comparing them with him and bringing them up,—­and that among you who are acquainted with him no less than I,—­I may be thought to be diminishing the greatness of Augustus.  If I am to do this sort of thing, I should be justified