- joyment, now they are our salvation also. But, to return to
what I said at first, I have no doubt of everything having been accomplished in the matter of your restoration and return.
CCCCLXXXIX (F VI, 10, §§ 4-6)
TO TREBIANUS (IN EXILE)
Rome (September)
I would have sent you a letter before, if I had been able to
hit upon the best sort to write: for at such a crisis the
duty of friends is either to console or to make promises. I
did not offer consolation, because I was told by many of
the fortitude and wisdom with which you were bearing the
hardship of the present situation, and how thoroughly you
were consoled by the consciousness of your actions and
policy. If that is the case, you are reaping a rich reward
of your excellent studies, in which I know that you have
ever been engaged, and I exhort you again and again to
continue this line of conduct. At the same time, see here!
You are a man deeply versed in what is recorded not only
of particular examples, but in ancient history generally,
while I am not quite ignorant of them either; but, though
less deeply read than I could wish, I have had an even greater
experience than I could have desired in actual affairs and
practical business. Well, I pledge my word to you, that
this indignation and this injurious treatment will not last
long. For, in the first place, the man himself who has the
chief power appears to me to be daily inclining insensibly
towards just views and natural equity; and, in the second
place, the merits of our cause itself are of such a kind, that
it must necessarily revive and be renewed along with the
Republic, which cannot possibly be kept down for ever.
In fact, every day something is done in a spirit of greater
clemency and liberality than we feared would be the case.
And since such things depend upon shifting circumstances,
