B.C. 46, ÆT. 60 war, when we were all united in the same danger, consulted only himself and a certain clique of wholly incompetent persons, was likely to be more communicative in the hour of victory, than he had been when the result was still uncertain? And do you think that a man who in your consulship would never be guided by your consummate wisdom, nor, when your brother was administering the consulship under your inspiration, ever condescended to consult you two, would now, if he were in sole power, be likely to want suggestions from us?
Everything in civil war is wretched; of which our ancestors never even once had experience, while our generation has now had it repeatedly:[1] but nothing, after all, is more wretched than victory itself, which, even if it fall to the better men, yet renders them more savage and ruthless, so that, even if they are not such by nature, they are compelled to become so by the necessity of the case. For a conqueror is forced, at the beck of those who won him his victory, to do many things even against his inclination. Were you not wont to foresee simultaneously with myself how bloody that victory was likely to be? Well, would you at that time also have absented yourself from your country for fear of seeing what you disapproved? "No," you will say, "for then I should have been in possession of wealth and my proper position." Ah, but it had been consistent with a virtue such as yours to regard your personal interests as among the most insignificant concerns, and to be more profoundly affected by those of the state. Again, what is to be the end of your present policy? For up to now your conduct is approved, and, as far as such a business admits of it, your good fortune also is commended: your conduct, because while you engaged in the first part of the war under compulsion, you shewed your wisdom by refusing to follow it to the bitter end: your good fortune, because by an honourable retirement you have maintained both the dignity and the reputation of your character. Now, however, it is not right that you should feel any place more to your taste than your native land; nor ought you to love it less because it has lost some of its comeliness, but
- ↑ From the time of Sulla and Marius onwards.
