Your great-great-grandfather spared the vanquished; for if he had not spared them, whom would he have had to rule? Sallustius and a Cocceius and a Deillius and the whole inner circle of his court he recruited from the camp of his opponents; and now it was his own mercifulness that gave him a Domitius, a Messala, an Asinius, a Cicero, and all the flower of the state. What a long time was granted even Lepidus to die! For many years he suffered him to retain the insignia of a ruler, and only after the other’s death did he permit the office of chief pontiff to be transferred to himself; for he preferred to have it called an honor rather than a spoil. This mercifulness led him on to safety and security, this made him popular and beloved, although the necks of the Roman people had not yet been humbled when he laid hand upon them; and today this preserves for him a reputation which is scarcely within the power of rulers even while they live. A god we believe him to be, but not because we are bidden; that Augustus was a good prince, that he well deserved the name of father, this we confess for no other reason than because he did not avenge with cruelty even the personal insults which usually sting a prince more than wrongs, because when he was the victim of lampoons he smiled, because he seemed to suffer punishment when he was exacting it, because he was so far from killing the various men whom he had convicted of intriguing with his daughter16 that he banished them for their greater safety, and gave them their credentials. Not merely to grant deliverance, but to guarantee it, when you know that there will be many to take up your quarrel and do you the favor of shedding an enemy’s blood — this is really to forgive.