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Pompey—I could shed my life-blood for him. But when all is said and done, nothing in the world is more precious to me than the Republic herself. And you? you are not making much of a show in that same Republic; being at once a good citizen and a good friend, you seem to me to be drawn in two directions.

⁴ On quitting my province I put my quaestor Caelius in command. "A boy like that!" you will say. Yes, but a quaestor; yes, and a youth of noble birth; yes, and I followed a practically unbroken precedent, and there was nobody who had held a higher public office for me to appoint over his head. Pomptinus^[1] had left long before; my brother Quintus could not be induced to take office;—and besides, had I left him behind me, the maliciously disposed would now be saying that I had not as a matter of fact quitted the province at the end of my year, as was the intention of the Senate, seeing that I had left behind me a second self. Probably also they would add that the intention of the Senate had been that only those should be governors of provinces who had not been governors before; whereas my brother had been governor of Asia for three years. In short, I am rid of all anxieties; had I left my brother behind me, I should have everything to fear. Lastly, it was not so much on my own initiative as according to the precedent set by the two most powerful men in Rome, who have eagerly taken up all the Cassiuses and Antoniuses^[2] in the world, that in the case of this high-born youth I,—well, I was not so anxious to entice him to my side, as I was anxious not to make an enemy of him. You must perforce