[46] But when, after the helm had been wrested from the senate, so many armed fleets appeared ready to attack the vessel of the republic, tossed about on the deep by the tempests of sedition and discord, unless I alone were surrendered; when proscription, and plunder, and massacre were threatened; when some stood aloof from defending me from suspicion that their doing so might bring themselves into danger, and some were prompted by their long-standing hatred of all good men, and some envied me, and some thought that I was in their way, and some wished to revenge some grief or other which they had suffered, and some were influenced by hatred of the republic itself, and of the present state and tranquillity of good men, and on account of all these numerous and various causes were demanding me alone to be given up to them,—was I to fight against them to the extreme, I will not say destruction, but danger at all events, of you and your children, rather than by myself encounter and endure on behalf of all that evil which was impending over all? [cap.21] [47]