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5While this was going on Caesar tried in every way to draw Scipio into conflict. Baffled in this, he made friendly overtures to the latter’s soldiers, and distributed among them pamphlets, 2in which he promised to the native that he would preserve his possessions unharmed and leave the people themselves free, and to the Roman that he would grant him pardon and the same prizes he had offered to his followers. In this way he gained over a goodly number. 3Scipio in like manner undertook to circulate both pamphlets and verbal offers among his opponents, with a view to winning some to himself; but he was unable to induce them to change sides. This was not because some of them would not have chosen his cause by preference, if any offers similar to Caesar’s had been made; 4it was due rather to the fact that he did not promise them any prize, but merely urged them to liberate the Roman people and the senate. And so, inasmuch as he chose the course that was more becoming to acknowledge rather than the one that was more expedient for the situation in which he found himself, he failed to gain over any of them.
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