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matters then stood, the unpopularity roused by the price of corn, the hostility not only of your own, but also of your friends' enemies, the unfairness of the whole trial, and many other defects in the constitution, had proved stronger than the merits of the case and truth itself, I never failed to put my services, advice, efforts, influence, and testimony at the disposal of your son Publius.
3 And for that reason having scrupulously and religiously satisfied all the claims of friendship, I did not think it right to omit the further duty of exhorting and entreating you to remember, that, though a mortal, you are yet a man; in other words, to bear philosophically our common lot of fickle change and chance, which no single one of us can either avoid or vouch for, to defy sorrow and misfortune with a stout heart; and to reflect that in our state, as in all others that have risen to empire, the like calamities have befallen the bravest and best of men through the injustice of tribunals. Would it were not the truth when I write that the state from which you are cut off is one in which no man of discernment could find any reason for gratification.
4 Now as to your son, I am afraid that, if I say nothing about him in my letter, it will appear as though I had omitted to testify to his merits as much as he deserves; but if, on the other hand, I write down all I feel, I fear that I shall so cause a recrudescence of your regret and sorrow. But anyhow the most sensible thing you can do is to look upon his filial affection, his sterling character, and his assiduity as your own assets, ready to your hand wherever you happen to be; for what we make our own in imagination is not less ours than what we see with our eyes.