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was my enemy—mine do I say? nay, rather the enemy of the laws, of the law-courts, of tranquillity, of his country, of all loyal citizens—that though they did not, it is true, exasperate me—I have entirely lost all sense of exasperation—they certainly imagined that they did.

At this crisis, so far as my human judgement enabled me to do so, having carefully reviewed my whole position, and cast up the account, I have arrived at the net result of all my deliberations; and to the best of my ability, I shall give you a short exposition of it.

¹¹ For my part, if I saw that the state was in the hands of unscrupulous and abandoned citizens, as we know occurred in the days of Cinna as well as at other times, not only should I not be tempted by the prospect of material benefits, which have but little weight with me, but neither could I be forced by any considerations of danger—and yet the most intrepid of men are affected thereby—to espouse their cause, no, not though their services to me were proved to be exceptionally great.

When, however, the leading man in the state was Gnaeus Pompey, a man who had gained such power and eminence as he has by the highest public services and the most brilliant military achievements, one whose public claims I had conspicuously supported from my youth upwards, and as conspicuously promoted both in my praetorship and in my consulship: when, moreover, he had himself given me the help of his influence and speeches on his own account, as well as of his advice and exertions in common with yourself; and when he regarded my enemy as his one great enemy in the state, I really did not