In truth, I will say sincerely, O conscript fathers, what I feel, and what I have often said before in your hearing. If Caius Caesar had never been friendly towards me; if he had always been hostile to me; if he had despised my friendship, and had always shown himself implacable and irreconcilable towards me; still I could not feel otherwise than friendly towards a man who had performed and was daily performing such mighty actions. Now that he is in command, I no longer oppose and array the rampart of the Alps against the ascent and crossing of the Gauls, nor the channel of the Rhine, foaming with its vast whirlpools, to those most savage nations of the Germans. [82] Caesar has brought things to such a pass, that even if the mountains were to sink down, and the rivers to be dried up, we should still have Italy fortified, not indeed, by the bulwarks of nature, but by his victory and great exploits. But as he courts me, and loves me, and thinks me worthy of every sort of praise, will you call me off from my enmity against you to a quarrel with him? Will you thus reopen the past wounds of the republic by your enormities? Which, indeed, you, who were well acquainted with the union subsisting between Caesar and me, sought to elude, when you asked me,—with trembling lips, indeed, but still you did ask me,—why I did not proceed against you? Although, as far as I am concerned—
Never shall you from care or pain be freed
By my denial,—
[14] still I must consider how much anxiety and how great a burden I, being exceedingly friendly to him, am imposing on him, while embarrassed with such important affairs of the republic, and with so formidable a war.