1After an interval of some years the public funeral of Verginius Rufus, a very great and very distinguished citizen, and no less fortunate, presented a notable and indeed memorable spectacle to the eyes of the Roman people. 2He outlived his own glory by thirty years; 2he read poems written about himself, he read histories, and he was present at his own posterity. 2He held a third consulship, so that he might reach the highest summit possible for a private man, since he had refused that of an emperor. 3He escaped the Caesars to whom his virtues had made him suspect and even hateful, and he left behind him in safety the best and friendliest of them, as though he had been kept in reserve for this very honour of a public funeral.
4He passed his eighty-third year in the deepest tranquillity, and with equal veneration. 4He enjoyed sound health, except that his hands used to tremble, though without pain. 4Only the approach of death was harsher and more drawn out, but even this was praiseworthy. 5For while he was practising his voice, as he was about to give thanks to the emperor in his consulship, a book that he happened to have taken up, a rather large one, slipped from him by its very weight, since he was both old and standing. 5While he followed it and gathered it up, his foot gave way on the smooth and slippery floor; he fell and broke his hip, which was set badly and, as his age resisted, knit poorly.
6This man's funeral brought great distinction to the emperor, great distinction to the age, great distinction also to the forum and the Rostra. 6He was praised in the funeral speech by the consul Cornelius Tacitus; 6for this crowning addition came last to his good fortune, a most eloquent eulogist. 7And he, indeed, departs full of years, full of honours, even those which he refused; yet we must seek and miss him as a model of an earlier age, and I above all, who loved him not only in public life as much as I admired him; 8first because we both had the same region, neighbouring towns, and adjoining fields and estates as well, and besides because, left to me as my guardian, he showed me a parent's affection.
8So he honoured me with his vote when I was a candidate; 8so he hastened from his retreats to all my entries into office, though he had long since given up duties of that kind; 8so on the day when the priests customarily nominate those whom they judge most worthy of the priesthood, he always nominated me. 9Even in this last illness, fearing that he might be appointed one of the five commissioners who were being set up by decree of the senate to reduce public expenditure, he chose me, young as I am, to make his excuses, although he had so many elderly friends of consular rank still living, and in these words: 'Even if I had a son, I would entrust this to you.' 10For these reasons I must weep for his death in your bosom as though it were untimely, if indeed it is right either to weep or to call it death at all, by which the mortality of so great a man has been ended rather than his life.
11For he lives and will live for ever, and will move even more widely in the memory and talk of men, now that he has passed from their sight. 12I wish to write you much else, but my whole mind is fixed on this one contemplation. 12Verginius I think of, Verginius I see, Verginius, in images now empty yet still fresh, I hear, I address, I hold; 12and perhaps we have, and shall have, some citizens equal to him in virtue, but none in glory. 12Farewell.