Your remarks about politics are couched in friendly and prudent terms, and your view does not differ from my own—for I must not withdraw from my dignified position, nor must I enter another’s lines without any forces of my own, and the man you mention has no broad-mindedness and no high-mindedness,
summissum atque populare. Verum tamen fuit ratio mihi fortasse ad tranquillitatem meorum temporum non inutilis, sed mehercule rei publicae multo etiam utilior quam mihi civium improborum impetus in me reprimi, cum hominis amplissima fortuna, auctoritate, gratia fluctuantem sententiam confirmassem et a spe malorum ad mearum rerum laudem convertissem. Quod si cum aliqua levitate mihi faciendum fuisset, nullam rem tanti aestimassem; sed tamen a me ita sunt acta omnia, non ut ego illi adsentiens levior, sed ut ille me probans gravior videretur. Reliqua sic a me aguntur et agentur, ut non committamus, ut ea, quae gessimus, fortuito gessisse videamur. Meos bonos viros, illos quos significas, et, eam quam mihi dicis obtigisse, Σπάρταν non modo numquam deseram, sed etiam, si ego ab illa deserar, tamen in mea pristina sententia permanebo. Illud tamen velim existimes, me hanc viam optimatem post Catuli mortem nec praesidio ullo nec comitatu tenere. Nam, ut ait Rhinton, ut opinor,
Οἱ μὲν παρ’ οὐδέν εἰσι, τοῖς δ’ οὐδὲν μέλει.
Mihi vero ut invideant piscinarii nostri, aut scribam ad te alias aut in congressum nostrum reservabo. A curia autem nulla me res divellet, vel quod ita rectum
nothing in him that is not low and time-serving. Well, perhaps the course I took was not opposed to my own advantage and peace of life, but I swear it was far more to the advantage of the State than to mine that I should be the means of suppressing the attacks of the disloyal, and of strengthening the wavering policy of a man of the highest position, influence and popularity, and converting him from pandering to the disloyal to approval of my achievements. If I had had to make any sacrifice of principle in so doing, I should never have thought it justifiable: but I managed it so that he seemed to gain in principle by his approval of me, more than I lost in bowing to him. I will take care that my actions now and in the future do not convey the impression that what I did in the past was done at haphazard. My honest comrades, at whom you hint, and the lot[44] which has fallen to me, as you say, I will never desert. Nay, even if I am deserted by it I will abide by my ancient principles. But I would have you please remember that, since the death of Catulus, I am holding the way for the conservative party without a garrison and without a comrade. For, as Rhinton, I think it is, says: