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 *joyment, now they are our salvation also. But, to return to what I said at first, I have no doubt of everything having been accomplished in the matter of your restoration and return.

CCCCLXXXIX (F VI, 10, §§ 4-6)

TO TREBIANUS (IN EXILE)

I would have sent you a letter before, if I had been able to hit upon the best sort to write: for at such a crisis the duty of friends is either to console or to make promises. I did not offer consolation, because I was told by many of the fortitude and wisdom with which you were bearing the hardship of the present situation, and how thoroughly you were consoled by the consciousness of your actions and policy. If that is the case, you are reaping a rich reward of your excellent studies, in which I know that you have ever been engaged, and I exhort you again and again to continue this line of conduct. At the same time, see here! You are a man deeply versed in what is recorded not only of particular examples, but in ancient history generally, while I am not quite ignorant of them either; but, though less deeply read than I could wish, I have had an even greater experience than I could have desired in actual affairs and practical business. Well, I pledge my word to you, that this indignation and this injurious treatment will not last long. For, in the first place, the man himself who has the chief power appears to me to be daily inclining insensibly towards just views and natural equity; and, in the second place, the merits of our cause itself are of such a kind, that it must necessarily revive and be renewed along with the Republic, which cannot possibly be kept down for ever. In fact, every day something is done in a spirit of greater clemency and liberality than we feared would be the case. And since such things depend upon shifting circumstances,