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man who now dominates everything favours men of talent: moreover, he opens his arms to high birth and lofty position, as far as circumstances and his own party needs allow. But I have said more than I intended. I return, therefore, to that one fact—that I am yours, and will be by the side of your friends, always provided that they are yours: if not, I will in any case satisfy the claims of our attachment and affection in all particulars. Good-bye.

CCCCLXXXIV (, 7)

TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AT MITYLENE)

Though I am aware that as yet you have maintained a policy of a nature that I do not venture to rebuke—not that I do not myself disagree with it, but because I judge you to be so wise a man, that I do not presume to prefer my view to yours—nevertheless, both the antiquity of our friendship and your eminent affection for me, which I have known from your childhood, have urged me to write to you what I believed would make for your personal security, and thought was not inconsistent with your honour. I have a vivid recollection that you were wise enough to discern the first signs of these disasters long before they occurred, and that you administered the consulship with the utmost splendour and in the most loyal spirit. But I also was conscious of this—that you were not satisfied with the policy of the civil war, nor with Pompey's forces, nor the nature of his army, and were always deeply distrustful of it: in which*