where to prepare yourself a lodging, or rather that you might do so in both places:[1] for what he is going to do is uncertain. At the same time I have shewn you that I am intimate with these men and admitted to their counsels. And I don't see any reason for avoiding that. It is one thing to bear what one must bear, another to approve what one ought not to approve. Though for my part I do not know why I should not approve, with the exception of the first steps in the movement: for they were within the control of men's wills. I saw of course (you were abroad) that our friends desired war, whereas Cæsar did not so much desire it as not fear it (wherefore the first steps were deliberate, the rest merely consequential), and that it must needs be that either this party or that should win. I know that you always lamented with me, when we saw, first, that frightful alternative—the destruction of one or the other army and leader; and, secondly, that the most dreadful evil of all was victory in a civil war, which indeed I dreaded even if it declared on the side of those whom I had joined. For the veriest do-nothings[2] were uttering bloodthirsty threats, and they were offended both by your feelings and my words. At this moment, indeed, if our men had prevailed, they would have been exceedingly violent; for there were some who were very angry with us, as though forsooth we had adopted any resolution as to our own preservation which we had not decided to be good for them also; or as though it were more for the advantage of the state that they should fly to the protection of the beasts,[3] than either die out of hand, or continue to live, if not with the best prospect, yet at least with some. But, it may be said, we are living in a distracted republic. Who denies it? But this is their look-out, who secured no resources for the various phases of life.
Well, it was to arrive at this point that my preface has extended to a greater length than I intended. For as I have ever regarded you as a great man, because in the face of these storms you are nearly the only one safely in port, and are reaping the best fruits of philosophy—namely, to
