But will any one hesitate to call Caesar imperator?  Most certainly his age will not deter any one from agreeing to this proposition, since he has gone beyond his age in virtue.  And to me, indeed, the services of Caius Caesar have always appeared the more thankworthy, in proportion as they were less to have been expected from a man of his age.  For when we conferred military command on him, we were in fact encouraging the hope with which his name inspired us; and now that he has fulfilled those hopes, he has sanctioned the authority of our decree by his exploits.  This young man of great mind, as Hirtius most truly calls him in his letters, with a few cohorts defended the camp of many legions, and fought a successful battle.  And in this manner the republic has on one day been preserved in many places by the valour, and wisdom, and good fortune of three imperators of the Roman people.

XI.  I therefore propose supplications of fifty days in the joint names of the three.  The reasons I will embrace in the words of the resolution, using the most honourable language that I can devise.

But it becomes our good faith and our piety to show plainly to our most gallant soldiers how mindful of their services and how grateful for them we are; and accordingly I give my vote that our promises, and those pledges too which we promised to bestow on the legions when the war was finished, be repeated in the resolution which we are going to pass this day.  For it is quite fair that the honour of the soldiers, especially of such soldiers as those, should be united with that of their commanders.  And I wish, O conscript fathers, that it was lawful for us to dispense rewards to all the citizens; although we will give those which we have promised with the most careful usury.  But that remains, as I well hope, to the conquerors, to whom the faith of the senate is pledged; and, as they have adhered to it at a most critical period of the republic, we are bound to take care that they never have cause to repent of their conduct.  But it is easy for us to deal fairly by those men whose very services, though mute, appear to demand our liberality.  This is a much more praiseworthy and more important duty, to pay a proper tribute of grateful recollection to the valour of those men who have shed their blood in the cause of their country.  And I wish more suggestions could occur to me in the way of doing honour to those men.  The two ideas which principally do occur to me, I will at all events not pass over; the one of which has reference to the everlasting glory of those bravest of men; the other may tend to mitigate the sorrow and mourning of their relations.