Page:Loeb Classical Library L205N (1958).djvu/491

so well of me, should be under the impression that I gave such advice to Pompey, that, had he followed it, Caesar, while he would no doubt be distinguished in civil life and a leading man in the state,^[1] would not have the extraordinary power he now has. I expressed the opinion that Pompey ought to go to Spain; and had he done so, there would have been no civil war at all. As to recognizing the candidature of an absentee,^[2] I did not fight so much for making it a legal precedent, as for having it recognized because the people had insisted upon it at the urgent instance of the consul himself.

There arose a pretext for war. What opportunity of either warning or remonstrating did I ever let slip, feeling as I did that a peace even on the most unfavourable terms was preferable to the most righteous of wars? ⁶ My counsel was over-ruled, not so much by Pompey, for he was impressed by it, but by those who relied on Pompey's leadership, and imagined that a victory in that war would exactly suit their private interests and their greed. The war was begun; I took no part in it; it was driven away frcm the shores of Italy,^[3] where I remained as long as I possibly could. But my sense of honour weighed more with me than my fears. I shrank from failing Pompey in his hour of need, considering that on a former occasion he had not failed me in mine. And so, yielding perforce to my sense of duty, or my fear of what good citizens would say, or the promptings of honour (call it what you please), like Amphiaraus in the plays,^[4] I too, not blindly but knowingly, set forth for "the field of ruin spread before my eyes." And in this war no disaster has happened without my foretelling it.