n taking vengeance. Now how could he better
be proven to be hostile, yes, most hostile toward us than from what he
has done? I sent to him in a friendly way to have him come to me and
deliberate in my company about present conditions, and he neither came
nor promised that he would appear. And yet what did I do that was unfair
or unfitting or arrogant in summoning him as a friend and ally? What
insolence and wantonness rather, has he omitted in refusing to come? Is
it not inevitable that he did this from one of two reasons, either that
he suspected he should suffer some harm or that he felt contempt for me?
Well, if he had any suspicions he convicted himself most clearly of
conspiring against us. For no one that has not endured any injury is
suspicious toward us nor does one become so as a result of an upright
and guileless mind: no, it is those who have prepared to wrong others
that are ready to be suspicious of them because of their own conscience.
If, again, nothing of this sort was at the bottom of his action, but he
merely looked down on us and insulted us with overweening words, what
must we expect him to do when he lays hold of some real project? For
when a man has shown such disdain in matters where he was not going to
gain anything, how has he not been convicted of entire injustice in
intention and in performance?

"Still, he was not satisfied with this, but further bade me come to him,
if I wanted anything of him. [-43-] Do not, I beg of you, regard this
addition as slight. It is really a good indication of his disposition.
That he should have refused to visit me a person speaking in his defence
might refer to shrinking and sickness and fear. But that he should send
a summons to me admits of no excuse, and furthermore proves him to have
acted from no other impulse than a readiness to yield me obedience in no
point and a determination to impose corresponding demands in every case.
With now much insolence and abuse does this very course of his teem! The
proconsul of the Romans summons a man and the latter does not come: then
one of the Allobroges [_sic_] summons the proconsul of the Romans. Do
not think this a small matter and of little moment in that it was I,
Caesar, whom he failed to obey, or because he called me Caesar. It was not
I that summoned him, but the Roman, the proconsul, the rods, the
dignity, the legions: it was not I that was summoned by him, but all of
these. Privately I have no dealings with him,