The 'good' had gained heart when you were consul. Pompey was
then won to the 'good' cause. Even Caesar, after being decorated by the
Senate for his victories, might have been brought to a better judgment,
and wicked citizens would have had no opening to make disturbances. But
what happened? These very men protected Clodius, who cared no more for the
Bona Dea than for the Three Sisters. They allowed my monument to be
engraved with a hostile record....[21] The good party are not as you left
them. Those who ought to have been staunch have fallen away. You see it in
their faces. You see it in the words and votes of those whom we called
'optimates;' so that wise citizens, one of whom I wish to be and to be
thought, must change their course. 'Persuade your countrymen, if you can,'
said Plato; 'but use no violence.' Plato found that he could no longer
persuade the Athenians, and therefore he withdrew from public life. Advice
could not move them, and he held force to be unlawful. My case was
different. I was not called on to undertake public responsibilities. I was
content to further my own interests, and to defend honest men's causes.
Caesar's goodness to me and to my brother would have bound me to him
whatever had been his fortunes. Now after so much glory and victory I
should speak nobly of him though I owed him nothing.
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