[16] "I have not met one man," Cicero said, "who does not think it would
be better to make concessions to Caesar than to fight him.--Why fight now?
Things are no worse than when we gave him his additional five years, or
agreed to let him be chosen consul in his absence. You wish for my
opinion. I think we ought to use every means to escape war. But I must say
what Pompey says. I cannot differ from Pompey." [17]
A day later, before the final vote had been taken, he thought still that
the Senate was willing to let Caesar keep his province, if he would
dissolve his army. The moneyed interests, the peasant landholders, were
all on Caesar's side; they cared not even if monarchy came so that they
might have peace. "We could have resisted Caesar easily when he was weak,"
he wrote. "Now he has eleven legions and as many cavalry as he chooses
with him, the Cisalpine provincials, the Roman populace, the tribunes, and
the hosts of dissolute young men. Yet we are to fight with him, or take
account of him unconstitutionally. Fight, you say, rather than be a slave.
Fight for what? To be proscribed, if you are beaten; to be a slave still,
if you win. What will you do then? you ask. As the sheep follows the flock
and the ox the herd, so will I follow the 'good,' or those who are called
good, but I see plainly what will come out of this sick state of ours.
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