2
Although long acquaintance, and habit, and a fellowship and resemblance in the most honorable pursuits, has bound us together from his first entrance into life; and his incredible diligence, proved at the time of the most formidable dangers of the civil war, showed that he was a favorer not only of my safety, but also of my dignity; still as I said before if he were not such a consul as I have described, I should venture to deny that he was a consul at all. But now I call him not only a consul but the most excellent and virtuous consul within my recollection; not but that there have been others of equal virtue and equal inclination, but still they have not had an equal opportunity of displaying the virtue and inclination. But the opportunity of a time of most formidable change has been afforded to his magnanimity and dignity and wisdom. And that is the time when the consulship is displayed to the greatest advantage when it governs the republic during a time which if not desirable is at all events critical and momentous. And a more critical time than the present, O conscript father, never was.