1If ever, now above all I should wish you to be in Rome, and I ask you to be. 1I need a partner in my hopes, my labours and my anxiety. 1Julius Naso is standing for office; 1he stands with many, with good men, whom it is as glorious as it is difficult to defeat. 2So I am in suspense, I am worked upon by hope, I am stricken by fear, and I do not feel that I am a former consul; 2for I seem to myself to be a candidate again for all the offices I have run through. 3He deserves this concern by his long affection for me.
3My friendship with him is certainly not inherited — nor indeed could it be, given my age —; 3yet his father used to be pointed out to me with great praise when I was barely a youth. 3He was a great lover not only of literature but also of men of letters, and almost every day he would come to hear Quintilian and Nicetes Sacerdos, whom I was then attending; a man distinguished in other ways too and weighty, and one whose memory ought to help his son. 4But there are many in the senate now to whom he was unknown, many to whom he was known, but who respect none but the living.
4So all the more must this man, setting aside his father's glory, in which there is great distinction but feeble influence, strive by himself and labour by himself. 5And this indeed he has always done diligently, as if he foresaw this moment: he has won friends, he has cultivated the friends he had won, and me certainly, as soon as he was allowed to judge for himself, he chose to love and imitate. 6When I speak he stands by me anxiously, when I give a reading he sits by me; 6he is present too at the first birth of my little works, at the very moment they are being born, now alone, before with his brother, whose part, since he was lately lost, I must take up, whose place I must fill.
7For I grieve both that the one was most cruelly snatched away by an untimely death, and that the other has been robbed of the support of an excellent brother and left with his friends alone. 8For these reasons I insist that you come and join your vote to mine. 8It matters a great deal to me to show you off, to go round canvassing with you. 8Such is your influence that I think I shall solicit even my own friends more effectively with you. 9Break off whatever holds you back: my situation, my loyalty, even my standing demands this. 9I have taken up a candidate, and it is known that I have taken him up; 9it is I who am canvassing, I who am at risk; 9in short, if Naso is granted what he seeks, the honour is his; if he is refused, the defeat is mine.
9Farewell.