Let us add, if you will, to these grounds of complaint the character of the youth himself, cut off in the midst of its first growth; worthy was he to be your brother. You, at any rate, were most worthy that not even an unworthy brother should be to you any cause for grief.3 All men alike bear witness to his character; he is regretted in compliment to you, he is lauded in compliment to himself. There was nothing in him which you were not glad to recognize. You would indeed have been good even to a brother less good, but in his case your natural affection, having found a suitable object, displayed itself much more generously. No one was ever made to feel his power from an injury he did, he never threatened anyone with your being his brother. He had moulded himself after the pattern of your modesty, and remembered what a great ornament you were to your family, and what a responsibility; but he was equal to this burden. O pitiless Fate, always unjust to virtue! Before your brother could know his own happiness, he was taken from it. But I know that I express my indignation poorly; for nothing is so difficult as to find words to match a great sorrow. Yet once again, if words can be of any avail, let us complain together: “What did you mean, O Fortune, by being so unjust and so violent? Did you repent so quickly of your former kindness? What cruelty is this, to make your assault upon a company of brothers, and by such cruel robbery to impoverish so loving a group? Did you mean to break up a household of admirable young men so closely united, no one of whom fell short of his brothers, and without any reason to take one from their number? Does blamelessness, then, avail nothing, though tested by every principle? old-fashioned simplicity, nothing? persistent self-restraint when there was unlimited opportunity to gain unlimited wealth, nothing? a sincere and safe love of letters, nothing? a mind free from every taint of sin, nothing? Polybius mourns, and, warned by the fate of one brother of what he may dread concerning the rest, he fears for the very solaces of his sorrow. O the shame! Polybius mourns and suffers sorrow while Caesar smiles upon him! O unbridled Fortune, clearly what you aimed at was this — to show that no one can be protected against you — no, not even by Caesar.”