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think I had any reason to dread very much the imputation of inconsistency if in the expression of some of my opinions I made a slight change in my political attitude, and contributed my moral support to the advancement of a most illustrious man who had laid me under the deepest obligations.
12 In this determination, I was obliged, as you must see, to include Caesar, the policy and position of the two men being so intimately connected. Here I attached great weight as well to the long-standing friendship, which, as you yourself are aware, my brother Quintus and I had with Caesar, as to Caesar's courtesy and generosity, which even in this short time I have recognized and acknowledged both in his letters and his acts of kindness to me. I was profoundly influenced too by the interests of the state, which seemed to me to demur to any quarrel with those great men, especially after Caesar's extraordinary successes, and indeed emphatically to forbid it.
But what impelled me most strongly to come to this decision was Pompey's having pledged his word for me to Caesar, and my brother's having pledged his to Pompey. Moreover, in a matter affecting the state, I could not but mark the inspired words in the writings of my master Plato "as are the leaders in a commonwealth, so are the other citizens apt to be."[1] I well remembered that in my consulship from the very first day of January such a foundation had been laid for the strengthening of the Senate, that nobody should have been surprised on December 5th[2] to find so much spirit, or shall I say authority in that body. I remembered also that when I had retired from office, up to the consulship[3] of Caesar