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the very man he had fiercely assailed a few days earlier—still I should have put up with it, had he undertaken that defence without any abuse of myself. But when on my arguing the case he attacked me without provocation, well, then I flashed out; it was not, I think, the irritation of the moment only (for that would probably have been less violent), no, but that pent-up rancour due to the many wrongs he had done me, a rancour of which I imagined I had completely purged my soul, had yet settled there without my knowing it, and suddenly revealed itself in all its bitterness.

And at this very time certain persons, indeed those very men whom I often hint at but do not name, though they declared that they had benefited very greatly by my outspoken manner, and that they considered that episode to be my first real restoration to the Republic as my old self again, and though my quarrel with Crassus had proved of great benefit to me even among the outside public, those same people now declared that they were delighted that he was at enmity with me, and that those^[1] who were in the same boat with him would never be friends with me. And when their malicious remarks were brought to my ears through the kindness of men of unimpeachable honour, when Pompey had striven as he never strove before to bring about my reconciliation with Crassus, and when Caesar plainly showed by his letter that that passage-at-arms had caused him intense annoyance—why, then I took into account not only my circumstances, but also the promptings of nature; and Crassus, so that our reconciliation might be, as it were, formally announced to the people of Rome, set out for his province, I