1To the long silence, conscript fathers, which I had kept in these times, not from any fear but partly from grief, partly from shame, this present day has brought an end, and likewise a beginning of speaking what I wished and what I felt in my former manner. 1For such gentleness, such unusual and unheard-of clemency, such moderation in supreme power over all things, and finally such incredible and almost divine wisdom, I can by no means pass over in silence. 2For with Marcus Marcellus restored to you, conscript fathers, and to the commonwealth, I consider that not only his voice and authority but mine too have been preserved and restored to you and to the commonwealth.
2For I grieved, conscript fathers, and was greatly distressed when I saw that such a man, though he had been on the same side as I, was not in the same fortune, and I could neither persuade myself nor did I think it right that I should go on in our old course while that rival and imitator of my studies and labours had been torn away from me, like a partner and companion. 2So you, Gaius Caesar, have both opened up to me the way of my former life, which had been shut off, and raised, as it were, a standard for all these men to hope well for the commonwealth.
3For it has been understood, by me indeed in many cases and most of all in my own, but by everyone a little while ago, when you granted Marcus Marcellus to the senate and the commonwealth, especially after his offences had been recalled, that you set the authority of this order and the dignity of the commonwealth above your own resentments or suspicions. 3He, indeed, has today reaped the greatest reward of his whole past life, both in the full agreement of the senate and in your most weighty and important judgement. 3From this you surely understand how much praise lies in a kindness given, when there is such glory in one received.
4Fortunate indeed is he from whose deliverance a joy has reached everyone almost no less great than that which is to reach him himself: and this has befallen him deservedly and by the best of rights. 4For who is more outstanding than he, whether in nobility or uprightness or devotion to the noblest studies or integrity or any kind of merit?