[1] However, after the battle at Pharsalus,
1
in which Cicero took no part because of illness, had been fought, and Pompey was in flight, Cato, who had a considerable army and a large fleet at Dyrrhachium, asked Cicero to take the command in accordance with custom and because of his superior consular rank. But Cicero rejected the command and was altogether averse to sharing in the campaign, whereupon he came near being killed;
[2] for the young Pompey and his friends called him a traitor and drew their swords upon him, and that would have been the end of him had not Cato interposed and with difficulty rescued him and sent him away from the camp.
2
So Cicero put in at Brundisium and tarried there, waiting for Caesar, who was delayed by his affairs in Asia and Egypt.
[3] But when word was brought that Caesar had landed at Tarentum
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and was coming round by land from there to Brundisium, Cicero hastened to meet him, being not altogether despondent, but feeling shame to test in the presence of many witnesses the temper of a man who was an enemy and victorious. However, there was no need that he should do or say anything unworthy of himself.
[4] For Caesar, when he saw him approaching far in advance of the rest, got down and embraced him and journeyed on for many furlongs conversing with him alone. And after this he continued to show him honour and kindness, so that in his reply to the encomium upon Cato which Cicero wrote he praised Cicero’s eloquence and his life, as most resembling that of Pericles and Theramenes.
[5] Now, the discourse of Cicero was entitled
Cato, and that of Caesar
Anti-Cato.
It is said also that when Quintus Ligarius was under prosecution because he had been one of the enemies of Caesar, and Cicero was his advocate, Caesar said to his friends:
What is to prevent our hearing a speech from Cicero after all this while, since Ligarius has long been adjudged a villain and an enemy?
[6] But when Cicero had begun to speak and was moving his hearers beyond measure, and his speech, as it proceeded, showed varying pathos and amazing grace, Caesar’s face often changed colour and it was manifest that all the emotions of his soul were stirred; and at last, when the orator touched upon the struggles at Pharsalus,
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he was so greatly affected that his body shook and he dropped from his hand some of his documents. At any rate he acquitted Ligarius under compulsion.
Cicero. Plutarch. Bernadotte Perrin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1919.
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