... An consules in praetore
coercendo fortes fuissent? Primum, Milone occiso habuisset suos
consules."--_Pro Milone_, 33.
[19] The _Oratio pro Milone_, published afterwards by Cicero, was the
speech which he intended to deliver and did not.
[20] Suetonius, _De Vita Julii Caesaris_. Cicero again and again
acknowledges in his letters to Atticus that the engagement had really
been made. Writing to Atticus (vii. 1), Cicero says: "Non est locus ad
tergiversandum. Contra Caesarem? Ubi illae sunt densae dexterae? Nam
ut illi hoc liceret adjuvi rogatus ab ipso Ravennae de Caelio tribuno
plebis. Ab ipso autem? Etiam a Cnaeo nostro in illo divino tertio
consulatu. Aliter sensero?"
CHAPTER XIX.
The conquest of Gaul had been an exploit of extraordinary military
difficulty. The intricacy of the problem had been enhanced by the venom of
a domestic faction, to which the victories of a democratic general were
more unwelcome than national disgrace. The discomfiture of Crassus had
been more pleasant news to the Senate than the defeat of Ariovistus, and
the passionate hope of the aristocracy had been for some opportunity which
would enable them to check Caesar in his career of conquest and bring him
home to dishonor and perhaps impeachment. They had failed. The efforts of
the Gauls to maintain or recover their independence had been successively
beaten down, and at the close of the summer of 53 Caesar had returned to
the north of Italy, believing that the organization of the province which
he had added to the Empire was all that remained to be accomplished.
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