Speech For Marcellus

It is true, Gaius Caesar, that the fame of your military glory will be celebrated not by our lips and our literature alone, but by practically the whole world; nor shall any age ever be silent concerning your renown. And yet somehow it seems to me that great deeds of war are drowned even in the pages of history by the shouts of soldiers and the blare of trumpets. But when we hear or read of some act of mercy, of kindness, of justice, of self-control, or of wisdom, especially if it be done in the heat of passion, the foe of council, or by conqueror, who naturally tends to pride and arrogance, how our hearts burn with love for men we have never seen, whether they be real men or only heroes of fiction! How great then shall be our praise for you, how great our loyalty and devotion to you-you whom we see among us, whose thoughts and feelings we see reflected in your face, your wish to save all that the fortune of war has left of the republic! I swear that the very walls of this council-chamber seem to long to thank you.....
This day you are right to rank above all you're great days of triumph and thanksgiving. For this deed belongs to caesar alone; all those other victories, great us they were, you won as leader, but there was a great multitude to follow you. In this action you are both leader and follower; And it is a great action. Time will bring to an end your trophies and monuments ( for old age destroys all the works of men's hands ), But this justice and clemency of yours gains day by day a greater glory, so that even if passing years diminish your material achievements they add more and more to your honor. Indeed, you had already surpassed all previous victors in civil war in justice and mercy; but today you have conquered yourself.......
You seem to have been victorious over victory, since you have not exacted from the conquered all that victory had won for you. For although by the laws of victory we, the conquered should all have been ruined, by the judgment of your clemency we have been spared, Rightly therefore are you named " Unconquered ," for you have been victorious over the very nature and strength of victory itself....
Think not that your life consist only in the union of the body and spirit; nay, that is your true life, that which shall live in the memory of all the centuries, which posterity shall cherish, which eternity itself shall ever protect, To the future you must look, to the future you must turn; you have long given it much to admire; now it waits also for something to honor. it is true that men in ages to come will marvel when they hear and read of your commands, both in the army and the provinces, of the Rhine, the northern ocean, the Nile, your numberless battles, your incredible victories, your monuments, your gifts to the people, your triumphs. But, unless this city is firmly established by your policy and your laws, it may be that your name will wander far and wide, but it will not have a certain home and assure abiding-place.
Among those, too, who come after us, there will be, as there has been among us, a great division of opinion about you; for some will praise your achievements to the skies, while others perhaps will look for something more and that not the least important thing-unless you quench the smoldering fires of civil war by preserving the Republic, so that your military success may seem to be due to good fortune, while your home policy is your own work. Mold your actions therefore to please those critics who will pass judgment on your work many centuries hence; and, indeed, I believe their judgment will be fairer than ours; For it will not be colored by affection or greed, hatred or envy. And further more, even if, as some think, it will not matter to you then, now in truth it does matter than you should so act that oblivion will never blot out your glory.

( Dora Pym )