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⁷ Now see with what lies they have crammed you, these fellows of no substance at all!—that not only were the votes for the expenses cancelled, but the money was actually reclaimed and taken out of the pockets of the agents of those who had already started, and that that was the reason in the case of many, why they did not go at all. I should complain and remonstrate with you were it not that, as I wrote above, I preferred to clear myself in your eyes in the day of your trouble, than to make any charge against you, and considered that the more proper course. I shall, therefore, say nothing about you for believing what you did, but only a word or two about myself, to show why you should not have believed it. If you have satisfied yourself that I am an honourable man, worthy of that study and that learning to which I have devoted myself from boyhood, a man of adequate fortitude and of a wisdom that can compare with that of most in affairs of the greatest gravity, then, I say, you ought not to recognize as characteristic of me anything, I will not say disloyal and designing and deceitful in my friendship, but that is even low or meagre. ⁸ If, however, it pleases you to represent me as crafty and underhanded, what can possibly be less consistent with such a nature than to flout the friendliness of one in the zenith of his success, or to assail in a province the prestige of one whose high repute you have defended at home? Or to show a spirit of hostility where you can do no damage? Or to select an opportunity for your treachery, which, while it attracts the greatest publicity as an exhibition of hatred, gives least weight to the blow you would inflict. But what reason was there for my being so implacable towards you, when