This is the choice of subject I have made, although I am not unaware which of the two discourses is the easier to deal with; nay, I know perfectly well that to discover actions which are noble, great, and advantageous is difficult and given to few men, whereas to praise your virtues I should have found an easy task. For there would have been no need of deriving from my own resources all that was to be said about them, but in your own past achievements I should have found topics for treatment so many and of such a kind that the eulogies pronounced upon other men would not have rivalled in the slightest degree the praise that I should have lavished upon you.