led those of the old days in
either the number or the valor of the warriors, for far larger masses
and braver men than they had fought on many fields, but because on this
occasion they contended for liberty and for democracy as never before.
And they came to blows with one another again later just as they had
previously. But the subsequent struggles they carried on to see to whom
they should belong: on this occasion the one side was trying to bring
them into subjection to sovereignty, the other side into a state of
autonomy. Hence the people never attained again to the absolute right
of free speech, in spite of being vanquished by no foreign nation (the
subject population and the allied nations then present on both sides were
merely a kind of complement of the citizen army): but the people at once
gained the mastery over and fell into subjection to itself; it defeated
itself and was defeated; and in that effort it exhausted the democratic
element and strengthened the monarchical. I do not say that the people's
defeat at that time was not beneficial. (What else can one say regarding
those who fought on both sides than that the Romans were conquered and
Caesar was victorious?) They were no longer capable of concord in the
established form of government; for it is impossible for an unadulterated
democracy that has grown to acquire domains of such vast size to have
the faculty of moderation. After undertaking many similar conflicts
repeatedly, one after another, they would certainly some day have been
either enslaved or ruined.

[-40-] We may infer also from the portents which appeared to them on that
occasion that the struggle between them was clearly tremendous. Heaven,
as it is ever accustomed to give indications before most remarkable
events, foretold to them accurately both in Rome and in Macedonia all the
results that would come from it. In the City the sun at one time appeared
diminished and grew extremely small, and again showed itself now huge,
now tripled in form, and once shone forth at night. Thunderbolts
descended on many spots, and most significantly upon the altar of Jupiter
Victor; flashes darted hither and thither; notes of trumpets, clashing of
arms, and cries of camps were heard by night from the gardens of Caesar
and of Antony, located close together beside the Tiber. Moreover a dog
dragged the body of a dog to the temple of Ceres, where he dug the earth
with his paws and buried it. A child was born with