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and possessions, the objects of your regret are as well off as ever they were—could not indeed be better off if you were with them—and are in no special danger. And it is not right, when you are thinking of your family, that you should either claim any peculiar favour of fortune, or refuse to submit to the common lot.
2 When, however, you are thinking of yourself, my dear Torquatus, it is incumbent upon you so to order your reflections as not to summon to the conclave of your thoughts either despair or fear. For neither has the man[1] who has hitherto been less just to you than your deserts demanded, failed to give distinct indications of being more mildly disposed towards you; nor, after all, has the very man to whom you appeal for safety any clear and assured method of securing his own. And, though the issues of all wars are uncertain, I clearly see that, while victory on the one side is no source of danger to you, apart, of course, from what is involved in the general ruin, victory on the other[2] is what you yourself, as I am well aware, have never been afraid of.
3 I am left to suppose then that what causes you the bitterest anguish is precisely what I regard in the light of a consolation—the common danger of the whole state; and for that overwhelming evil, however glibly philosophers may talk, I fear no real consolation can possibly be discovered except that of which the efficacy is in exact proportion to each man's moral strength and nerve. For if to have a sound judgement, and to act aright, is all that is requisite for a good and happy life, to speak of a man, who can hold his head up because he is con-