Philippicae

I wish, O conscript fathers, that the immortal gods had granted to us to return thanks to Servius Sulpicius while alive, rather than thus to devise honors for him now that he is dead. Nor have I any doubt, but that if that man had been able himself to give us his report of the proceedings of his embassy, his return would have been acceptable to you and salutary to the republic. Not that either Lucius. Piso or Lucius Philippus have been deficient in either zeal or care in the performance of so important a duty and so grave a commission; but, as Servius Sulpicius was superior in age to them, and in wisdom to every one, he, being suddenly taken from the business, left the whole embassy crippled and enfeebled.

But if deserved honors have been paid to any ambassador after death, there is no one by whom they can be found to have been ever more fully deserved than by Servius Sulpicius. The rest of those men who have died while engaged on an embassy, have gone forth, subject indeed to the usual uncertainties of life, but without any especial danger or fear of death. Servius Sulpicius set out with some hope indeed of reaching Antonius, but with none of returning. But though he was so very ill that if any exertion were added to his bad state of health, he would have no hope of himself, still he did not refuse to try, even while at his last gasp, to be of some service to the republic. Therefore neither the severity of the winter, nor the snow, nor the length of the journey, nor the badness of the roads, nor his daily increasing illness, delayed him. And when he had arrived where he might meet and confer with the man to whom he had been sent, he departed this life in the midst of his care and consideration as to how he might best discharge the duty which he had undertaken.

As therefore, O Caius Pansa, you have done well in other respects, so you have acted admirably in exhorting us this day to pay honor to Servius Sulpicius, and in yourself making an eloquent oration in his praise. And after the speech which we have heard from you, I should have been content to say nothing beyond barely giving my vote, if I did not think it necessary to reply to Publius Servilius, who has declared his opinion that this honor of a statue ought to be granted to no one who has not been actually slain with a sword while performing the duties of his embassy. But I, O conscript fathers, consider that this was the feeling of our ancestors, that they considered that it was the cause of death, and not the manner of it, which was a proper subject for inquiry. In fact, they thought fit that a monument should be erected to any man whose death was caused by an embassy, in order to tempt men in perilous wars to be the more bold in undertaking the office of an ambassador. What we ought to do, therefore, is, not to scrutinize the precedents afforded by our ancestors, but to explain their intentions from which the precedents themselves arose.

Lar Tolumnius, the king of Veii, slew four ambassadors of the Roman people, at Fidenae, whose statues were standing in the rostra till within my recollection. The honor was well deserved. For our ancestors gave those men who had encountered death in the cause of the republic an imperishable memory in exchange for this transitory life. We see in the rostra the statue of Cnaeus Octavius, an illustrious and great man, the first man who brought the consulship into that family, which afterward abounded in illustrious men. There was no one then who envied him, because he was a new man; there was no one who did not honor his virtue. But yet the embassy of Octavius was one in which there was no suspicion of danger. For having been sent by the senate to investigate the dispositions of kings and of free nations, and especially to forbid the grandson of king Antiochus, the one who had carried on war against our forefathers, to maintain fleets and to keep elephants, he was slain at Laodicea, in the gymnasium, by a man of the name of Leptines. On this a statue was given to him by our ancestors as a recompense for his life, which might ennoble his progeny for many years, and which is now the only memorial left of so illustrious a family. But in his case, and in that of Tullus Cluvius,[*](There is some corruption of the text here.) and Lucius Roscius, and Spurius Antius, and Caius Fulcinius, who were slain by the king of Veii, it was not the blood that was shed at their death, but the death itself which was encountered in the service of the republic, which was the cause of their being thus honored.

Therefore, O conscript fathers, if it had been chance which had caused the death of Servius. Sulpicius, I should sorrow indeed over such a loss to the republic, but I should consider him deserving of the honor, not of a monument, but of a public mourning. But, as it is, who is there who doubts that it was the embassy itself which caused his death? For he took death away with him; though, if he had remained among us, his own care, and the attention of his most excellent son and his most faithful wife, might have warded it off. But he, as he saw that, if he did not obey your authority, he should not be acting like himself; but that if he did obey, then that duty, undertaken for the welfare of the republic, would be the end of his life; preferred dying at a most critical period of the republic, to appearing to have done less service to the republic than he might have done.

He had an opportunity of recruiting his strength and taking care of himself in many cities through which his journey lay. He was met by the liberal invitation of many entertainers, as his dignity deserved, and the men too who were sent with him exhorted him to take rest, and to think of his own health. But he, refusing all delay, hastening on, eager to perform your commands, persevered in this his constant purpose, in spite of the hindrances of his illness. And as Antonius was above all things disturbed by his arrival, because the commands which were laid upon him by your orders had been drawn up by the authority and wisdom of Servius Sulpicius, he showed plainly how he hated the senate by the evident joy which he displayed at the death of the adviser of the senate.

Leptines then did not kill Octavius, nor did the king of Veii slay those whom I have just named, more clearly than Antonius killed Servius Sulpicius. Surely he brought the man death, who was the cause of his death. Wherefore, I think it of consequence, in order that posterity may recollect it, that there should be a record of what the judgment of the senate was concerning this war. For the statue itself will be a witness that the war was so serious a one, that the death of an ambassador in it gained the honor of an imperishable memorial.