Parentalia IV. — Caecilius Argicius Arborius, my Grandfather

Forsake not your sacred task, my duteous page: next after these let me celebrate the memory of my mother's father, Arborius who derived his name from a line of Aeduan ancestors, uniting the blood of many a noble house, both of the province of Lyons, and of that land where the Aedui held sway, and in the country of Vienne bordered by Alpine heights. But trouble all too jealous of lineage and proud wealth weighed heavy upon him; for my grandfather and his father were proscribed when Victorinus was holding sway as prince, and when the supreme power passed into the hands of the two Tetrici. Then, while in exile in the lands through which the Adour breaks forth to the sea, and where wild Ocean rages on the shore of Tarbellae (Dax), though still he feared the arrows of Fortune who so long had sought his life, he was united in marriage with penniless Aemilia. In time a scanty sum gathered with great pains furnished his wearied age with some relief, though not with wealth. You — though you cloaked your pursuits — had skill in the measures of the heavens and in the stars which keep the secret of man's destiny. Not unknown to you was the outline of my life, which you had hidden in a sealed tablet, and never betrayed; but my mother's forward care revealed that which the care of my shy grandfather sought to conceal. When you had lived a life of ninety years, you found how to be dreaded are the arrows of the goddess Chance, and wounded by her shaft, mourned for a son, lost in his thirtieth year — a death which blotted the light out of your life. Yet you would say that some consolation, though far remote, cheered you, because high distinction awaited my destiny. And now that you join in the assemblies of souls that are gone before, surely you have knowledge of your grandson's fortunes: you feel that a quaestor, that a prefect, and likewise a consul am I who now commemorate you with a tribute in your honour.