1I have often urged you to publish as soon as possible the books which you wrote either in your own defence or against Planta — or rather both in your own defence and against him, for the subject demanded it; 1and now especially, having heard of his death, I both urge and advise this. 2For although you have read them to many and given them to many to read, I still do not want anyone to imagine that books which you completed while he was alive were only begun once he was dead. 2Let your reputation for steadfastness be kept safe. 2And it will be, if it becomes known to the fair-minded and the hostile alike that your confidence in writing was not born after your enemy's death, but that a publication already prepared was forestalled by his death.
3And at the same time you will avoid that charge of 'no piety towards the dead'. 3For what was written about a living man and recited about a living man is published against him, though dead, as if he were still alive, if it is published at once. 3So if you have anything else in hand, put it off for the moment; 3finish this, which to us who have read it has long seemed complete. 3But let it now seem so to you as well, since the matter itself does not call for your delay, and considerations of timing cut it short. 3Farewell.