[120] credo Boot: curo MSS.
Trebati, boni viri et civis, verbis te gaudeo delectatum, tuaque ista crebra ἐκφώνησις ὑπέρευ me sola adhuc delectavit. Litteras tuas vehementer
iniquities are being prepared and meditated, some now and some in the future? I shall certainly neglect the law of Solon, your countryman, and I imagine mine too soon, who provided the death penalty for anyone who should not take one side in a revolution, and, unless you advise otherwise, I shall keep apart both from Caesar and Pompey. The former course is quite certain: but I shall not forestall events. I shall await your advice and the letter which I asked you to give to Cephalio—unless you have now sent another.
You write, not on the authority of anyone, but as your own idea, that I shall be drawn into any negotiations there may be for peace. I cannot imagine that there can be such negotiations, since it is Caesar's positive determination to rob Pompey, if possible, of army and province, unless perhaps that hireling can induce him to keep quiet, pending the passage to and fro of intermediaries. I see nothing that I can hope for or even imagine is likely to happen. However this is the very question for an honest man to decide and one of the great questions of la haute politique, whether one may enter the council of a tyrant, if the subject of debate is good. Therefore, if anything should happen to cause me to be summoned—I don't in the least expect anything will, for I have said all I can say about peace, and Caesar was determined to repudiate it—still, if anything should happen, write and tell me what you think I should do in any case. For so far nothing has happened that demands greater deliberation.
I am glad you are pleased with the words of that loyal citizen Trebatius, and your frequent bravos have so far been my sole pleasure. Your letter I
exspecto; quas quidem credo iam datas esse. Tu cum Sexto servasti gravitatem eandem, quam mihi praecipis. Celer tuus disertus magis est quam sapiens. De iuvenibus quae ex Tullia audisti, vera sunt. Mucianum[121] istud, quod scribis, non mihi videtur tam re esse triste quam verbo. Haec est ἄλη, in qua nunc sumus, mortis instar. Aut enim mihi libere inter malos πολιτευτέον fuit aut vel periculose cum bonis. Aut oportet temeritatem bonorum sequamur aut audaciam improborum insectemur. Utrumque periculosum est, at hoc, quod agimus, turpe nec tamen tutum.
[121] Mucianum Reid: Maconi MSS.
Istum, qui filium Brundisium de pace misit (de pace idem sentio quod tu, simulationem esse apertam, parari autem acerrime bellum), me legatum iri non arbitror, cuius adhuc, ut optavi, mentio facta nulla sit. Eo minus habeo necesse scribere aut etiam cogitare, quid sim facturus, si acciderit, ut legarer.