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ened by our own actions; and I grieved that a question of public right should be settled, not by conference or our moral authority, but by the pike and by the sword. And when I stated that what did occur would happen, I was not venturing to foretell the future; no, it was simply that I was afraid of that happening which I saw was a possibility, and would be the ruin of us if it did come to pass; especially when, had I been obliged to make a forecast, one way or the other, as to the development and issue of the campaign, the forecast I could have made with the greater certainty was, that just that would happen which did come to pass. For while we excelled in those qualities which do not display themselves in battle, we were inferior in the practice of arms and the physical fitness of our men. But do you, I beg of you, show that courage now which you thought I ought to have shown then.

⁶ My reason for writing thus is, that when I made searching inquiries about you, your freedman Phylargyrus, out of the loyalty of his heart (that was certainly my impression), informed me that you are subject to occasional fits of profound anxiety; you ought not to be so, nor should you doubt that if any form of constitution survives you will occupy the position due to you, or that, if none survives, you will be in no more wretched plight than the rest of us. The present crisis, however, which holds us all breathless with suspense, you should face with all the more self-control for two reasons—you are resident in that city where the principles on which life should be governed had their birth and nurture,^[1] and you have with you one to whom you have ever been singularly attached—Servius Sulpicius, whose