B.C. 46, ÆT. 60
the power of the man from whom you were fleeing. And
even if he were likely to make no difficulty about allowing
you to live in peace and freedom while deprived of property
and country, you ought yet to have reflected whether you
preferred living at Rome and in your own house, whatever
the state of affairs, to living at Mitylene or Rhodes. But
seeing that the power of the man whom we fear is so
widely extended, that it has embraced the whole world, do
you not prefer being in your own house without danger to
being in another man's with danger? For my part, if I
must face death, I would rather do so at home and in my
native country, than in a foreign and alien land. This is
the sentiment of all who love you, of whom the number is
as great as your eminent and shining virtues deserve. We
have also regard for your property, which we are unwilling
to see scattered. For, though it can receive no injury
destined to be lasting, because neither the present master
of the Republic, nor the Republic itself, will allow it, yet I
don't want to see an attack made by certain banditti upon
your possessions:[1] and who these are I would have ventured
to write, had I not felt sure that you understand. Here
the anxieties, nay, the copious and perpetual tears of one
man, your excellent brother Gaius Marcellus, plead for your
pardon: I come next him both in anxiety and sorrow, but
in actual prayers am somewhat slow, because I have not the
right of entrée to Cæsar, being myself in need of intercession.
We have only the influence which the conquered
have, yet in counsel and zeal we are not wanting to Marcellus.
By your other relations my help is not asked. I
am prepared for anything.
- ↑ He is referring to various irregular and unauthorized seizures of properties of the Pompeians by some of the Cæsarians, who, however, were in certain cases made to disgorge. See the case of Antony seizing the villa of Varro at Casinum (2 Phil. §§ 103-104).
