When he heard that men had taken arms by the authority of the senate, acting with great unanimity; that the defence of the republic had been entrusted to the consuls, the praetors, the tribunes of the people, and to all of us who had received the title of Imperator, he was agitated in his mind, and being a man most deeply attached to this empire, he became alarmed for the safety of the Roman people, in which also he considered that his own was bound up. And being in a state of the greatest alarm, he thought it best to remain quiet himself. But he was beyond measure agitated when he heard that the consuls had fled from Italy, and all the men of consular rank (for so it was reported) with them, and all the senate, and that the whole of Italy was emptied. For the road was wide open for all such messengers and reports to travel to the East, and no true accounts followed. He never heard a word of the conditions which you offered, nor of your eagerness for concord and peace, nor of the way in which certain men conspired against your dignity. And though this was the state of things, still he continued quiet until ambassadors and letters came to him from Cnaeus Pompeius.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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