those events were possible, than that we did not foresee what was going to happen, and were unable with our merely human faculties to prophesy it. For my part, I confess that my view was that, when that battle had been fought, which seemed as it were to be the last word of fate, the conquerors would desire measures to be taken for the safety of the community at large, the conquered for their own. But both of these policies I regarded as depending on the promptness of the victor. If that promptness had been displayed, Africa would have experienced the same indulgence which Asia and Achaia too have witnessed,[1] you yourself, as I think, acting as agent and intercessor.[2] But the hours having been allowed to slip away—always most precious, and never more so than in civil wars—the year that intervened induced some to hope for victory, others to think lightly of the defeat itself. And the blame for all this mischief is on the shoulders of fortune. For who would have thought such a serious delay as that of the Alexandrian war was going to be added to the war already fought, or that a princeling like that Pharnaces of yours was going to cause a panic in Asia.
For ourselves, however, though our policy was the same, our fortune has been different. For you have adopted the rôle of taking an active part in his councils, and of thus keeping yourself in a position to foresee what was going to happen, which more than anything else relieves one's anxiety.[3] I, who was in a hurry to see Cæsar in Italy—for that is what I thought would happen—and, when he returned after sparing many of the most honourable men, to "spur the willing horse" (as the phrase goes) in the direction of peace, am now most widely separated from him, and have been so all along. Moreover, I am living in the
- ↑ That is, the members of the defeated party who had taken up their abode in Asia and Achaia, and the numerous adherents who had gathered in Africa.
- ↑ Cassius had joined Cæsar early with his fleet. See p. 31.
- ↑ Cassius does not appear to have been in Egypt with Cæsar, but to have remained at Rhodes or on the coast of Cilicia with his ships. When Cæsar crossed from Alexandria to Cilicia in this year, Cassius met him at the mouth of the Cydnus, and, according to a later assertion of Cicero's (2 Phil. § 26), contemplated turning against him and destroying him. This is not mentioned by anyone else.
