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desire to survive the Republic, even if allowed to do so, that you must accept your lot, especially as it has no connexion with any fault of yours. But enough of this. I should like you to write and tell me what you are doing, and where you are likely to be, so that I may know either where to write, or where to come.

¹ In my last letter^[1] I was tempted by my friendliness, rather than because the circumstances demanded it, to be somewhat prolix; for neither did your manliness require any encouragement of mine, nor, considering my own utter destitution, was my case and condition such as to warrant my encouraging anyone else.

² On this occasion too I must be briefer. For if there was no need of so many words then, there is no greater need at all now; and if there was then, what I have already written is enough, especially as there has been nothing new to add. For though I daily hear something of these affairs, which I believe reach your ears too, it all amounts to the same thing in the end; and that end I see as clearly with my mind as the things we behold with our eyes; and indeed there is nothing I see which I am not quite sure that you see also. For though no man can divine what the issue of a battle will be, I can yet see the issue of the war, or, if not exactly that, I can at any rate see, since one side or the other must necessarily prove victorious, what is likely to be the effect of victory on either side.