Letter to the Senate and the People of Athens

Many are the deeds wrought by your ancestors, on which not they alone could then pride themselves, but on which you too may pride yourselves now; and many are the trophies raised on behalf of all Greece in common, and severally on behalf of the city itself, in contests in which she fought alone both against the rest of the Greeks and against the barbarian. There is no deed so great, no act of valour so vast, that the other cities may not also vie with it in some measure; for some things they too achieved in concert with you, and some on their own. But that I may not, by recalling these things and then setting them in comparison, be thought to prefer one city to another in the matters they dispute, or, like the orators, to praise too sparingly the cities that come off worse where it serves my purpose — this one thing alone I wish to declare on your behalf, for which we can find no rival among the other Greeks, handed down to us from ancient report. When the Lacedaemonians held empire, you took it from them not by force, but through your reputation for justice; and it was the laws among you that reared Aristides the Just. Yet these proofs, splendid as they are, you confirmed, I think, by deeds still more splendid. For to seem just might perhaps befall a man even falsely, and it is, perhaps, no marvel that among many base men one good man should arise. For is not a certain Deioces celebrated even among the Medes, and Abaris among the Hyperboreans, and Anacharsis among the Scythians? Concerning whom this was the marvel: that, born among the most unjust of nations, they nevertheless honoured justice — the two of them truly, but the third feigning it for advantage's sake. But a whole people and a city in love with just deeds and just words it is not easy to find, save among you. And I wish to remind you of one of the many deeds among you. When Themistocles, after the Persian wars, intended to bring forward a proposal to burn secretly the dockyards of the Greeks, and then, not daring to speak before the assembly, agreed to entrust the secret to one man whom the people, by their vote, should choose, the people put forward Aristides; and he, having heard the plan, concealed what was said but reported to the assembly that nothing was more profitable, nor more unjust, than the design. And the city straightway voted it down and renounced it — most magnanimously, by Zeus, and in the very manner that befitted men reared under the eye of the most prudent goddess.

If, then, these things were of old among you, and if from that source there is still preserved even unto you a small ember, as it were, of your ancestors' virtue, it is fitting that you look not to the magnitude of what is done, nor whether a man, as though flying through the air, has crossed the earth with inconceivable speed and untiring strength, but rather consider by whom these things have been accomplished with justice. And then, if a man appear to act with justice, you will all perhaps praise him, both privately and publicly; but if he has slighted justice, he would rightly be dishonoured by you. For nothing is so much sister to prudence as justice. Those, therefore, who dishonour it you would justly drive out as men impious toward the goddess who is among you. I wish, then, to report to you my own affairs — not that you are ignorant of them, but that if anything has escaped notice (and it is likely that some things have, even such as most of all befits all men to know) it may become known to you, and through you to the rest of the Greeks. Let no one, therefore, suppose that I am trifling or talking nonsense, if I should attempt to make some discourse concerning matters that have taken place as it were before all men's eyes, not only long ago but also a little while since; for I wish no one to be ignorant of anything of mine, though it is likely that one thing is unknown to one man and another to another. And I will begin first with my own ancestors.

That on my father's side our descent springs from the same source as that of Constantius on his father's side is plain; for our two fathers were brothers, born of the same father. And though we were thus such near kinsmen, see what this most humane emperor did to us. Six cousins of mine and his, and my father, his own uncle, and yet another, our common uncle on the father's side, and my eldest brother, he put to death without trial; and as for me and another brother of mine, though he wished to kill us, he in the end imposed exile, from which he released me, but stripped that other of the title of Caesar a little before his slaughter. But why must I now, as though out of a tragedy, measure out things unspeakable? For he repented, they say, and was sorely stung, and reckons that he is unhappy in his childlessness on this account, and supposes that his ill success against the Persian enemy springs from these deeds. Such was the talk of those about the court at that time, and concerning my blessed brother Gallus too, who now hears his name for the first time; for, having killed him contrary to the laws, the emperor did not even suffer him to share in the ancestral tombs, nor deem him worthy of consecrated remembrance. As I was saying, they kept telling us such things, and indeed persuaded us, that he had wrought some of these deeds through deception, and others through yielding to the violence and tumults of a disorderly and turbulent soldiery. Such tales they sang over us as we lay shut up in a certain estate in Cappadocia, allowing no one to approach — having recalled the one from his exile at Tralles, and led me, while still quite a boy, from the schools. How could I here describe those six years which we spent on another man's estate, like those among the Persians kept under guard in fortresses, with no stranger coming to us, and none of our former acquaintances permitted to visit us, living shut off from every serious study and from all free converse, reared amid splendid retinues of slaves and exercising with our own servants as though with comrades? For no one of our own age approached or was permitted to.

Thence I, by the grace of the gods, was with difficulty and good fortune set free, while my brother was shut up in the court most unhappily, if ever any man was. And indeed, if anything savage and harsh appeared in his character, it was fostered by his upbringing in the mountains. He, then, who by force imparted to us this rearing has, I think, a just claim to bear this charge too — that rearing from which the gods, through philosophy, rendered me pure and free, but to which no one suffered my brother to be otherwise. For straightway, upon his passing from the country estates to the palace, as soon as the emperor had clothed him in the purple robe, he began at once to envy him, and did not cease until he had destroyed him, not content with stripping off the purple robe. And yet he was at least worthy of life, even if he seemed unfit to reign. But he had to be deprived even of this. I grant it — provided he had first rendered an account, as malefactors do. For surely the law does not forbid one who has bound robbers to put them to death, yet declare that those stripped of the honours they held, and reduced from rulers to private men, must be slain without trial. For what, if he could have pointed out the authors of his faults? For there had been put into his hands certain letters — Heracles, what accusations they contained against him! — at which he, vexed, gave rein to his anger too intemperately and least like a king; yet he had done nothing worthy even of being deprived of life. For how could it be otherwise? Is not this the common law of all men, Greeks and barbarians alike, to ward off those who begin acts of injustice? But perhaps he warded them off too bitterly. Yet not altogether beyond what was reasonable; for that an enemy should do somewhat under the impulse of anger is reasonable, as has been said before. But to gratify a single creature half-man, his chamberlain, and besides him the steward of the cooks, he handed over to be killed by his bitterest foes his cousin, his Caesar, the man who had become his sister's husband and the father of his niece, the man whose own sister he had earlier married — toward whom he had so many claims of the gods of kindred — and gave him over to his deadliest enemies. And me he released only with difficulty, after dragging me hither and thither for seven whole months and keeping me under guard, so that, had not one of the gods, willing me to be saved, granted me at that time the good and gracious Eusebia, I should not myself then have escaped his hands. And yet, by the gods, my brother had done nothing even in a dream; for I neither kept his company, nor frequented him, nor went to him, but rarely wrote, and that on few matters. So then, having escaped thence, gladly I journeyed toward my mother's hearth; for I had nothing of my father's, nor possessed I anything out of all that it was likely my father had possessed — not the smallest clod, not a single slave, not a house. For the noble Constantius had inherited in my stead the whole of my father's estate, and to me, as I said, gave not a grain of it; nay, to my brother also he gave but little of our father's goods, having stripped him of all that was his mother's.

All, then, that he did to me before he imparted to me the most august title — yet in deed cast me into the bitterest and harshest servitude — you have heard, if not all, yet at least the most part. As I was journeying at last toward my hearth, gladly and with difficulty making good my escape, a certain informer appeared about Sirmium, who fabricated troubles there as though men were planning revolution. You know, no doubt, by report, Africanus and Marinus; nor did Felix escape your notice, nor all that was done concerning these men. But when this matter was reported to him, and Dynamius, another informer, suddenly announced from among the Celts that Silvanus was on the very point of declaring himself the emperor's enemy, Constantius, utterly afraid and terrified, straightway sent for me; and having bidden me withdraw for a little to Greece, he again summoned me thence to himself — though he had never before set eyes on me, save once in Cappadocia and once in Italy, when Eusebia strove on my behalf, that I might take courage for my own safety. And yet I dwelt six months in the same city with him, and indeed he promised that he would see me again. But that creature half-man, hateful to the gods, his faithful chamberlain, unawares became my benefactor even against his will; for he did not suffer me to meet with him often — perhaps because the emperor himself did not wish it, yet that man was the chief cause; for he shrank lest, some familiarity arising between us, I should then be cherished and, appearing trustworthy, be entrusted with some charge. When, then, I came at that first time from Greece, straightway, through the eunuchs of her service, the blessed Eusebia treated me with exceeding kindness. And a little later, when that other matter came on — for indeed the affair of Silvanus had now been accomplished — at last entrance into the court was granted me, and, as the saying goes, the Thessalian compulsion was cast about me. For when I steadfastly refused all dealings within the palace, certain men, coming together as in a barber's shop, sheared off my beard, clothed me in a cloak, and got me up, as I then supposed, into a quite ridiculous soldier; for none of the adornment of those wretches suited me. And I walked, not as they did, glancing about and strutting, but with my eyes upon the ground, as I had been accustomed by the tutor who reared me. So then at that time I afforded them laughter, but a little later suspicion, and then that great envy blazed forth. But here I must not pass over those things — how I consented, how I endured to come under the same roof with those whom I knew had ruined my whole house, and whom I suspected would ere long plot against me also. How many fountains of tears I shed, and what laments, stretching out my hands toward your Acropolis, when I was being summoned, and beseeching Athena to save her suppliant and not give him up — many of your own people who saw it are my witnesses; and the goddess herself before all, that I even begged death of her at Athens before that journey. That the goddess, then, did not betray her suppliant nor give him up, she showed by her deeds; for she became my guide everywhere, and set guardians about me on every side, taking her messengers from Helios and Selene.

And there befell also something of this kind. Having come to Mediolanum, I dwelt in a certain suburb. Thither Eusebia often sent to me, treating me kindly, bidding me write and take courage concerning whatever I might need. I wrote her a letter, or rather a supplication, containing oaths of this sort: "So may you have children as heirs; so may god grant you this and that; send me home as quickly as possible." Then I bethought me that it was not safe to send letters into the palace to the emperor's wife. So I besought the gods by night to make plain to me whether I ought to send the letter to the empress; and they threatened me, if I should send it, with a most shameful death. That I write this truly, I call all the gods to witness. For this cause, then, I held back from sending the letter. And from that night a reflection came into my mind, which it is perhaps worth your while to hear. "Now," I said, "I am minded to set myself against the gods, and have deemed myself better able to take counsel for myself than they who know all things. And yet human prudence, looking only to the present, would be content if it could attain, and that with difficulty, to being free from error for a little while. Wherefore no one takes counsel concerning matters thirty years hence, nor concerning what has already come to pass; for the one is superfluous, the other impossible; but only concerning matters at hand, and those whose beginnings and seeds are already present. But the prudence that dwells with the gods, looking to the farthest, or rather to all things, both reveals rightly and does what is best; for they are the authors, even as of things that are, so also of things that are to be. It is fitting, then, that they should have knowledge concerning present matters." For the while, then, the second judgement seemed to me, in this respect, wiser than the former. But looking to justice, I said at once: "What? Are you vexed if any of your possessions deprive you of its use, or even run away when called — be it a horse, a sheep, or an ox — and yet you, wishing to be a man, and not one of the herd or of the rabble, but of the decent and moderate sort, would deprive yourself of the gods, and not commit it to them to use you for whatever they will? See lest, besides being too senseless, you act also with disregard for the justice due to the gods. And where, and what, is your courage? Ridiculous! You are ready even to fawn and flatter for fear of death, when it is in your power to lay down all things and to commit it to the gods to act as they will, dividing with them, as Socrates too thought fit, the care of yourself: doing what is in your own power so far as may be, but making the whole depend on them, possessing nothing and seizing nothing, but receiving simply what is given by them."

Deeming this judgement not only safe but befitting a moderate man — since the will of the gods too pointed this way (for to guard against future plots by casting myself into a shameful and manifest danger seemed to me dreadfully rash) — I yielded and obeyed. And the title and the cloak of the Caesar were quickly cast about me; but the servitude that followed thereon, and the daily fear hanging over my very life — Heracles, how great and of what sort! Bars upon the doors, doorkeepers, the hands of my servants searched lest someone bring me a little letter from my friends, an alien retinue. With difficulty was I able to bring into the court four servants of my own to attend me more intimately — two quite little boys, and two older — of whom one alone was privy to my devotions toward the gods, and, so far as could be, secretly assisted me; he had been entrusted with the guarding of my books, being the only one, among my many comrades and faithful friends, who knew it. There was one physician, who also, because it had escaped notice that he was my friend, journeyed abroad with me. So afraid was I of these things, and so timorous toward them, that even when many of my friends wished to come in to me, I very unwillingly forbade them, longing to see them but shrinking from becoming the cause of misfortunes to them and to myself. But these things are external; the following belong to the affairs themselves. Having given me three hundred and sixty soldiers, the emperor sent me, in the very middle of winter, into the Celtic nation, then in ruins — not so much as a ruler of the armies there, but as one subject to the generals there. For it had been written to them and expressly enjoined to watch not so much the enemy as me, lest I should attempt any revolution. These things having come about in the manner I have described, about the summer solstice he permitted me to go to the camps, to carry about with me his image and likeness; for indeed it had been said and written that he was giving to the Gauls not a king, but one who should bear about to them his image. And not amiss, as you have heard, in that first year, after I had served as general and accomplished something worthwhile, on returning again to winter quarters I was set in the uttermost danger. For neither was it permitted me to muster an army — for another was master of that — and, shut up myself with a few men, and then asked for aid by the neighbouring cities, having given the most part of what I had to those cities, I myself was left alone. So, then, were those matters managed at that time. And when the commander of the armies, having fallen under suspicion with him, was removed and dismissed from his command, deemed not very fit, I myself came to be reckoned least of all a worthy and able general, inasmuch as I had shown myself gentle and moderate. For I did not think I ought to wrangle or to overstep my command, unless somewhere I saw some too perilous thing either being overlooked when it ought to be done, or, from the very beginning, being done that ought not to be done. But once and twice, when certain men treated me unbecomingly, I thought I ought to honour myself by silence, and thenceforth carried about the cloak and the image; for of these, at that time, I conceived I had been declared master. Whence Constantius, supposing that I should make but little progress, and that the affairs of the Celts would not come to so great a change, gave me the command of the armies at the beginning of spring. And I took the field while the corn was ripening, very many of the Germans dwelling fearlessly about the sacked cities in Celtic land. The number of the cities is some forty-five, their walls plundered, apart from the towers and the lesser fortresses. And of all the land on this side of the Rhine the barbarians held a stretch as great as that which it encompasses, beginning from its very sources down to the Ocean; and three hundred stadia from the bank of the Rhine dwelt the nearest of them to us, while three times this breadth still had been left desolate by their ravaging, where it was not even permitted to the Celts to pasture their flocks; and there were certain cities deserted of their inhabitants, beside which the barbarians did not yet dwell.

Finding Gaul in this state, I recovered the city of Agrippina on the Rhine, which had fallen some ten months before, and the fortress of Argentoratum nearby, at the foothills of the Vosges itself, and fought not ingloriously. Perhaps that battle has come to your ears too. There, when the gods gave the king of the enemy into my hands as a captive, I did not begrudge Constantius the success. And yet, though I might not lead a triumph, I was master to slay the enemy, and indeed to lead him through the whole of Celtic land and display him to the cities and, as it were, exult over the misfortunes of Chnodomarius. Nothing of this did I think I ought to do, but sent him straightway to Constantius himself, then returning from the Quadi and Sarmatians. It came to pass, therefore, that, though I had done the fighting and he had merely marched and met in friendly fashion with the nations dwelling by the Ister, it was not we but he who triumphed. Then, in the second and third year after this, all the barbarians had been driven out of Gaul, very many of the cities recovered, and a great multitude of ships brought over from Britain. I brought up a fleet of six hundred ships, of which I built four hundred in not even ten whole months, and brought them all into the Rhine — no small task, on account of the barbarians who pressed upon us and dwelt nearby. Indeed Florentius thought this so impossible that he undertook to pay the barbarians two thousand pounds of silver in fee for the passage; and Constantius, learning of this — for Florentius communicated with him concerning the payment — wrote to me bidding me do the same, unless it should seem to me utterly shameful. But how was it not shameful, when it appeared such even to Constantius, who was greatly wont to court the barbarians? Yet nothing was given them; but, having taken the field against them, with the gods aiding me and standing by, I received the submission of a portion of the Salian nation, and drove out the Chamavi, capturing many cattle and women with children. And so greatly did I terrify all and dispose them to cower before my advance, that I straightway took hostages and secured safe conveyance for the grain transport. It would be a long task to enumerate everything and write of each thing, all that I did in four years; but the chief points are these. A third time, while still Caesar, I crossed the Rhine; I demanded back from the barbarians twenty thousand captives who were beyond the Rhine; from two battles and one siege I took and made prisoner a thousand — not the useless of age, but men in their prime; I sent to Constantius four units of the best infantry, three others of the lesser, and two of the most honoured squadrons of cavalry; cities I recovered — now, indeed, by the gods' will, all of them, but at that time I had recovered a little fewer than forty. I call to witness Zeus and all the gods, both guardians of the city and gods of kindred, concerning my purpose toward him and my fidelity, that I bore myself toward him such as I should have chosen a son to be toward me. I honoured him, then, as no Caesar ever honoured any of the emperors before him. He has, at any rate, to this day no charge against me concerning those matters, even though I have spoken frankly to him, but he fabricates ridiculous pretexts for his anger. "You detained Lupicinus," he says, "and three other men." Yet even had I slain them, when they had plainly plotted against me, he ought to have let go his anger on behalf of the victims, for the sake of concord. But these men, having done them no injury, I detained as turbulent by nature and makers of war, spending very much on them out of the public funds, and taking nothing of what was theirs. See how Constantius lays down the law for proceeding against such men. For does not he who is angry on behalf of those in no way related to him thereby reproach me and mock my folly, that I should have so courted, to this end, the murderer of my father, brothers, and cousins — the executioner, one may say, of our whole common hearth and kindred? And consider how, even after becoming emperor, I still bore myself toward him obsequiously, as you may judge from the letters I sent.

And what manner of man I was toward him even before this, you shall learn from what follows. Perceiving that of the faults committed I should myself inherit the ill repute and the danger, while the most part would be wrought by others, I first besought him, if it seemed good to him to do these things and it had been altogether resolved to address me as Caesar, to give me good and worthy men as my ministers; but he first gave me the most villainous. And when the one most wicked of them very gladly obeyed, but none of the others was willing, he gave me, against his will, a man both very good, Sallust, who on account of his virtue straightway became suspect to him. Not content with such a one, but looking to the difference of their characters, and perceiving that he trusted the one excessively but gave the other no heed at all, I laid hold of his right hand and his knees and said: "Of these men none is my familiar, nor has been before; but knowing them by report, at your bidding, I count them my comrades and friends, honouring them on equal terms with those long known to me. Yet it is not just either that my affairs be entrusted to these men, or that theirs should share the danger with us. What, then, do I beseech? Give us written laws, as it were, of what we must abstain from and what you permit us to do. For it is plain that you will praise the obedient and punish the disobedient — although I am very sure that no one will disobey."

All that Pentadius straightway attempted to innovate, there is no need to tell; I withstood his innovations, and thence he became my enemy. Then, having taken another, and prepared a second and a third — Paul, Gaudentius, hiring against me those notorious informers — he contrived that Sallust, as my friend, should be removed, and that Lucillianus should at once be given as his successor. And a little later Florentius too was my enemy, on account of the acts of greed that I opposed. These men persuaded Constantius — perhaps stung also somewhat by jealousy of my successes — to take from me all the armies; and he wrote a letter full of much dishonour toward me, and threatening the Celts with ruin. For I all but say that he ordered the whole soldiery, the most warlike, to be led away indiscriminately from Gaul, enjoining this task upon Lupicinus and Gintonius, and wrote to me that I should oppose them in nothing. But here, in what manner could I tell you the works of the gods? I had purposed — and they themselves are witnesses — to cast off all the royal magnificence and equipage, and to keep quiet, and to do nothing at all. I waited for Florentius and Lupicinus to arrive; for the one was about Vienna, the other in the Britains. Meanwhile there was great tumult among all the people and the soldiers, and someone wrote an anonymous letter to the city neighbouring me, addressed to these Petulantes and the Celts — for so the regiments are named — in which much was written against him, and many laments over the betrayal of the Gauls; and indeed the writer of the letter bewailed also my dishonour. This, when it was brought, stirred all who were chiefly minded toward Constantius to set upon me most vigorously, that I might at once send forth the soldiers before the like should be cast among the other units. For there was no one else present of those who seemed well-disposed toward me, but Nebridius, Pentadius, Decentius, who had been sent by Constantius for this very purpose. And when I said that we must still wait for Lupicinus and Florentius, no one listened, but all said the contrary — that I must act, unless I wished to add this very thing, as it were a proof and token, to the suspicions already conceived. Then they added: "Now, if they are sent forth, the deed is yours; but when these men arrive, Constantius will reckon it not to you but to them, and you will fall under blame." So they persuaded me, or rather forced me, to write to him; for he is persuaded who may also not be persuaded, but those who use force where they may need not persuasion at all; and so the forced are not among the persuaded but among the compelled. We considered then by which road the soldiers ought to march, there being two. I thought fit to turn by the other; but they again compelled me to take that one, lest this very thing should furnish the soldiers, as it were, an occasion of mutiny, and become the cause of some disturbance, and then, once they had begun to mutiny, they should throw all into sudden confusion.

The men's fear seemed not altogether without reason. The regiments came; I went to meet them according to custom, and urged them to keep to their road. They remained one day, up to which I knew nothing of what they had resolved; let Zeus, Helios, Ares, Athena, and all the gods know, that no such suspicion came even near me until that very afternoon. But late, about sunset, it was reported to me; and at once the palace was surrounded, and all were shouting, while I was still pondering what I ought to do and not yet quite believing it. For it chanced that, my wife being still alive, I had gone up to the neighbouring upper chamber to rest privately. Then from there — for the wall was open — I made obeisance to Zeus. And as the shouting grew still greater, and all in the palace were in tumult, I begged the god to give me a sign. Then he showed it me and bade me yield and not set myself against the soldiers' zeal. Yet even when these signs were given me, I did not yield readily, but held out as long as I could, and would accept neither the salutation nor the crown. But since, being one, I could not prevail over many, and the gods who willed this to come to pass goaded the soldiers on and softened my judgement, about the third hour, some soldier — I know not who — having given me a collar, I put it about my head and came into the palace, groaning, as the gods know, from my very heart. And yet I ought surely, trusting the god who had shown the sign, to have taken courage; but I was dreadfully ashamed and shrank into myself, lest I should seem not to have obeyed Constantius faithfully to the end. There being, then, great dejection about the palace, the friends of Constantius, minded to snatch this occasion, straightway stitched together a plot against me, and distributed money to the soldiers, expecting one of two things: either to set them at variance with one another, or even to set upon me openly altogether. One of those appointed to my wife's escort, perceiving that this was being secretly contrived, first reported it to me; and when he saw that I gave no heed, becoming frantic like men god-possessed, he began to shout publicly throughout the marketplace: "Men, soldiers and strangers and citizens, do not betray the emperor!" Then fury fell upon the soldiers, and all ran with their weapons to the palace. And finding me alive, and rejoicing as men do who behold friends seen again beyond hope, they embraced and enfolded me from this side and that, and bore me upon their shoulders; and the affair was somehow worth seeing, for it resembled a divine frenzy. And when they had surrounded me on every side, they demanded all the friends of Constantius for punishment. How great a struggle I struggled, wishing to save them, all the gods know.

But how, after this, did I deal with Constantius? Even to this day, in my letters to him, I have not used the title given me by the gods, but have written myself Caesar, and have persuaded the soldiers to swear to me that they would desire nothing, if only he would permit us to dwell unmolested in Gaul, consenting to what had been done. All the regiments with me sent letters to him, beseeching concord between us with one another. But in return for these things he set the barbarians upon us, proclaimed me their enemy among them, and paid fees that the Gallic nation might be ravaged; and writing to those in Italy, he urged them to watch the men coming from Gaul, and ordered to be made ready about the Gallic borders, in the neighbouring cities, some three hundred thousand bushels of dressed wheat in Brigantia, and as much again about the Cottian Alps, as one about to march against me. And these are not words, but plain deeds. For I received the letters he wrote, brought by the barbarians, and seized the provisions made ready, and the letters of Taurus. Besides these, even now he writes to me as to a Caesar, and has never yet undertaken to make terms with me, but sent a certain Epictetus, a bishop of Gaul, to give me, as it were, pledges concerning my own safety; and this he harps upon throughout all his letters, that he will not deprive me of life, but concerning the honour he makes no mention. For my part, I think his oaths must, as the proverb says, be written in ashes, so trustworthy are they; but the honour I cling to, not only for the sake of what is noble and fitting, but also for the safety of my friends; and I do not yet speak of the bitterness practised everywhere on earth.

These things persuaded me; these seemed to me just. And first I laid them before the gods who see and hear all things. Then, having sacrificed concerning my expedition, and the offerings proving favourable on that very day on which I was to address the soldiers concerning the march hither, on behalf both of my own safety and, far more, of the prosperity of the common cause and the freedom of all men and of the very Celtic nation — which he has now twice handed over to the enemy, not even sparing the ancestral tombs, he who pays exceeding court to strangers — I thought I ought both to win over the most powerful nations and to provide the justest resources of money from the silver and gold mines; and that, if he should even now at last be content with concord toward us, I should remain within my present bounds; but if he should be minded to make war and relax nothing of his former resolve, I should suffer or do whatever might be dear to the gods — since it is more shameful, through cowardice of soul and ignorance of mind, than through the mere number of his forces, to appear weaker than he. For now, if he should prevail by numbers, the deed is not his but his host's; whereas if, while I waited in Gaul, clinging to life and shunning the danger, he should hem me in and seize me on every side — encircled by the barbarians, and met face to face by his own armies — I think that, besides suffering the uttermost, there would attach to me also the shame of the affair, no less a penalty, at least to men of sense. Having considered these things, men of Athens, I have set them forth both to my fellow soldiers and now write them to the common citizens of all the Greeks. And may the gods, the lords of all, grant us their alliance to the end, as they have undertaken, and grant that Athens may be well treated by us so far as lies in our power, and may have forever such emperors as will most of all and above all reverence and cherish her.