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way in which you, gifted as you are with such rare wisdom, think it ought to be borne. But now and then I feel crushed and hardly able to fight my grief, since I lack those consolations which those others on whose examples I fix my thoughts never, in similar circumstances, did lack.

Q. Maximus^[1] lost a son of consular rank, a man of distinction and of splendid achievement; L. Paullus,^[2] two sons within seven days; your kinsman Gallus^[3] lost his, and M. Cato^[4] was bereft of a son of consummate ability and gallantry; but then they lived when the times were such that their private grief was mitigated by the high positions they were winning for themselves in the service of the state. ² But in my case, after the loss of all those distinctions which you specify, and which I had gained by the most strenuous exertions, there still remained that one solace which has now been torn from me. I had no friends' interests, no public responsibility to interrupt my broodings; it was no pleasure to me to do anything in the courts; as for the senate-house, I could not bear the sight of it; I began to think, and it was the fact, that I had been robbed of the fruits of all my hard work and success. But when I reflected that I but shared these misfortunes with yourself and certain others, and tried to break myself in, and force myself to bear it all with patience, I always had a sanctuary to flee to and a haven of rest; I had one whose sweet converse could help me to drop the burden of all my anxieties and sorrows. But as it is, so cruel is this new wound, that the old wounds, too, which I thought had entirely healed, are breaking out afresh. For