[139] Probably Republic VIII, 562.
I need not put all the points together; you see them clearly enough: but put them before your eyes and you will understand that his reign can hardly last for half a year. If I am mistaken, I will bear the consequences, as many illustrious men, eminent in public life, have borne them, unless perhaps you consider that I should prefer to die like Sardanapalus [in his bed] rather than like Themistocles in exile. For Thucydides tells us that though Themistocles was "the best judge of current affairs on the shortest reflection, and the shrewdest to guess at what would happen in the future," yet he fell into misfortunes, which he would have escaped, had there been no
casus, quos vitasset, si eum nihil fefellisset. Etsi is erat, ut ait idem, qui τὸ ἄμεινον καὶ τὸ χεῖρον ἐν τῷ ἀφανεῖ ἔτι ἑώρα μάλιστα, tamen non vidit, nec quo modo Lacedaemoniorum nec quo modo suorum civium invidiam effugeret nec quid Artaxerxi polliceretur. Non fuisset illa nox tam acerba Africano, sapientissimo viro, non tam dirus ille dies Sullanus callidissimo viro, C. Mario, si nihil utrumque eorum fefellisset. Nos tamen hoc confirmamus illo augurio, quo diximus, nec nos fallit, nec aliter accidet. Corruat iste necesse est aut per adversarios aut ipse per se, qui quidem sibi est adversarius unus acerrimus. Id spero vivis nobis fore; quamquam tempus est nos de illa perpetua iam, non de hac exigua vita cogitare. Sin quid accident maturius, haud sane mea multum interfuerit, utrum factum videam an futurum esse multo ante viderim. Quae cum ita sint, non est committendum, ut iis paream, quos contra me senatus, ne quid res publica detrimenti acciperet, armavit.
Tibi sunt omnia commendata, quae commendationis meae pro tuo in nos amore non indigent. Nec hercule ego quidem reperio, quid scribam; sedeo enim πλουδοκῶν. Etsi nihil umquam tam fuit scribendum quam nihil mihi umquam ex plurimis tuis iucunditatibus
error in his calculations. Though he was, as the same writer says, "a clear-sighted judge of the better and the worse course in a doubtful crisis,"[140] yet he failed to see how to avoid the hate of the Spartans and his own fellow-citizens, nor what promise he ought to make to Artaxerxes. Africanus would have been spared that cruel night,[141] and that master of craft C. Marius the fateful day of Sulla's triumph, if nothing had ever escaped their calculations. So I strengthen myself by that prophetic remark of Plato: I am not deceived nor will it happen otherwise. Caesar is bound to fall either through the agency of his enemies or of himself, and he is his own worst enemy. I hope it will be in our lifetime, though it is an occasion for us to consider the lasting future and not our own narrow life. If anything happens to me before that day, it will not have mattered to me much whether I see it come about or foresee that it will happen long before. Since this is so, I must not obey men against whom the Senate armed me with power to see that the Republic took no harm.[142]
[140] Thucydides i, 138.
[141] P. Scipio Africanus the younger was found dead in his bed, and was supposed to have been murdered at Carbo's instigation.
[142] Cf. Ad Fam. XVI, 11, where he states that the Senate gave a general commission to all magistrates and ex-consuls "ne quid respublica detrimenti caperet."