IV.  But if, O conscript fathers, you would only recollect the excuses alleged by Servius Sulpicius why he should not be appointed to this embassy, then no doubt will be left on your minds that we ought to repair by the honour paid to the dead the injury which we did to him while living.  For it is you, O conscript fathers (it is a grave charge to make, but it must be uttered,) it is you, I say, who have deprived Servius Sulpicius of life.  For when you saw him pleading his illness as an excuse more by the truth of the fact than by any laboured plea of words, you were not indeed cruel, (for what can be more impossible for this order to be guilty of than that,) but as you hoped that there was nothing that could not be accomplished by his authority and wisdom, you opposed his excuse with great earnestness, and compelled the man, who had always thought your decisions of the greatest weight, to abandon his own opinion.  But when there was added the exhortation of Pansa, the consul, delivered with more weight than the ears of Servius Sulpicius had learnt to resist, then at last he led me and his own son aside, and said that he was bound to prefer your authority to his own life.  And we, admiring his virtue, did not dare to oppose his determination.  His son was moved with extraordinary piety and affection, and my own grief did not fall far short of his agitation, but each of us was compelled to yield to his greatness of mind, and to the dignity of his language, when he, indeed, amid the loud praises and congratulations of you all, promised to do whatever you wished, and not to avoid the danger which might be inclined by the adoption of the opinion of which he himself had been the author.  And we the next day escorted him early in the morning as he hastened forth to execute your commands.  And he, in truth, when departing, spoke with me in such a manner that his language seemed like an omen of his fate.

V. Restore then, O conscript fathers, life to him from whom you have taken it.  For the life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living.  Take ye care that he, whom you without intending it sent to his death, shall from you receive immortality.  And if you by your decree erect a statue to him in the rostia, no forgetfulness of posterity will ever obscure the memory of his embassy.  For the remainder of the life of Servius Sulpicius will be recommended to the eternal recollection of all men by many and splendid memorials.  The praise of all mortals will for ever celebrate his wisdom, his firmness, his loyalty, his admirable vigilance and prudence in upholding the interests of the public.  Nor will that admirable, and incredible, and almost godlike skill of his in interpreting the laws and explaining the principles of equity be buried in silence.  If all the men of all ages, who have ever had any acquaintance with the law in this city, were got together into one place, they would not deserve to be compared to Servius Sulpicius.  Nor was he more skilful