by the senate to investigate the dispositions of kings and of free nations, and especially to forbid the grandson of king Antiochus, the one who had carried on war against our forefathers, to maintain fleets and to keep elephants, he was slain at Laodicea, in the gymnasium, by a man of the name of Leptines.  On this a statue was given to him by our ancestors as a recompense for his life, which might ennoble his progeny for many years, and which is now the only memorial left of so illustrious a family.  But in his case, and in that of Tullus Cluvius,[43] and Lucius Roseius, and Spurius Antius, and Caius Fulcinius, who were slain by the king of Veii, it was not the blood that was shed at their death, but the death itself which was encountered in the service of the republic, which was the cause of their being thus honoured.

III.  Therefore, O conscript fathers, if it had been chance which had caused the death of Servius Sulpicius, I should sorrow indeed over such a loss to the republic, but I should consider him deserving of the honour, not of a monument, but of a public mourning.  But, as it is, who is there who doubts that it was the embassy itself which caused his death?  For he took death away with him; though, if he had remained among us, his own care, and the attention of his most excellent son and his most faithful wife, might have warded it off.  But he, as he saw that, if he did not obey your authority, he should not be acting like himself; but that if he did obey, then that duty, undertaken, for the welfare of the republic, would be the end of his life; preferred dying at a most critical period of the republic, to appearing to have done less service to the republic than he might have done.

He had an opportunity of recruiting his strength and taking care of himself in many cities through which his journey lay.  He was met by the liberal invitation of many entertainers as his dignity deserved, and the men too who were sent with him exhorted him to take rest, and to think of his own health.  But he, refusing all delay, hastening on eager to perform your commands, persevered in this his constant purpose, in spite of the hindrances of his illness And as Antonius was above all things disturbed by his arrival, because the commands which were laid upon him by your orders had been drawn up by the authority and wisdom of Servius Sulpicius, he showed plainly how he hated the senate by the evident joy which he displaced at the death of the adviser of the senate.

Leptines then did not kill Octavius, nor did the king of Veii slay those whom I have just named, more clearly than Antonius killed Servius Sulpicius.  Surely he brought the man death, who was the cause of his death.  Wherefore, I think it of consequence, in order that posterity may recollect it, that there should be a record of what the judgment of the senate was concerning this war.  For the statue itself will be a witness that the war was so serious an one, that the death of an ambassador in it gained the honour of an imperishable memorial.