your tenacity. I remember, Cato, that glorious day when you defeated Caesar by taking your own life. You thus made it clear to those guarding you that your life was not in their hands since to end it, all you needed to do was stop breathing or smash your head against the wall. Therefore, following a noble lesson, I am going to join my dear Brutus. See, noble husband, the last act of your wife. Judge my life by my death and the affection I had for you by these glowing coals that I hold and that will suffocate me.

                                         Effect of this discourse
       
         As she spoke these last words, she followed through. With a firmness and courage that both inspire admiration and horror, she demonstrated that things are neither easy nor impossible depending on how we perceive them. When you love someone and their ideals more than your own life, it is not difficult to embrace death.

                                                  Notes

         Portia is a woman from ancient Rome, daughter of Cato of Utica and wife of Brutus, died in 42 B.C. Her death is an example of loyalty to her conviction and her husband, but not the only one in this turbulent end of the Republic.
         Volumnius is an officer of Brutus and a friend. He refused to assist Brutus in taking his own life. 
         Brutus is a senator, a lawyer, and a Roman philosopher. He is the son of Julius Caesar and the husband of Portia. He participated in the assassination of Caesar, believing it would save the Republic. 
         Cassius, or Caius Cassius Longinus, born around 87-86 B.C. and died in early October 42 B.C. at the first battle of Philippi, is a politician and a general at the end of the Roman Republic. He is Brutus's brother-in-law. They together assassinated Julius Caesar.
         Cato of Utica, or Cato the Younger, born in 95 B.C. in Rome and died on April 12, 46 B.C. in Utica, current Tunisia. He is Portia's father and a Roman politician. He remains in history as a figure of stoicism, known for his firmness of spirit. He is known for having committed suicide by opening his chest with his sword to avoid Caesar's servitude. Caesar, his enemy at the time, declared that he regretted this death because he would have forgiven Cato's choices.
         Brutus, Lucius Junius Brutus, or Lucius Iunius Brutus, is the legendary founder of the Roman Republic and one of the first two Roman consuls in 509 B.C. He led a revolution to expel the kings of Rome.
         The Battle of Pharsalus is a clash that took place in Thessaly, near the city of the same name, in the early summer of 48 B.C., during the Roman civil war. 

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