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47“That he did all this, moreover, from inherent goodness and not for appearances or to reap any advantage, as many others have displayed humaneness, there is this further very strong evidence, that everywhere and in all circumstances he showed himself the same: anger did not brutalize him, nor good fortune corrupt him; power did not alter, nor authority change him. 2Yet it is very difficult when tested in so many enterprises of such magnitude, in enterprises, moreover, that follow one another in rapid succession, when one has been successful in some, is still engaged in conducting others, and only surmises that others are yet to come, to prove equally good on all occasions and to refrain from wishing to do anything harsh or terrible, if not out of vengeance for the past, at least as a measure of safeguard for the future. 3This alone is enough to prove his goodness; for he was so truly a scion of gods that he understood but one thing, to save those who could be saved. But there is also this further evidence, that he took care not to have those who warred against him punished even by anyone else, and that he won back those who had met with misfortune earlier. 4For he caused amnesty to be granted to all who had been followers of Lepidus and Sertorius, and next arranged that safety should be afforded to all the survivors of those whom Sulla had proscribed; somewhat later he brought them home from exile and bestowed honours and offices upon the sons of all who had been slain by Sulla. 5Greatest of all, he burned absolutely all the secret documents found in the tent of either Pompey or Scipio, neither reading nor yet keeping any of them, in order that no one else any more than he himself should use them for mischievous ends. And that this was not only what he said he had done, but what he actually did, the facts show clearly; at any rate, no one as a result of those letters was even frightened, much less suffered any harm. 6Hence no one even knows those who escaped this danger except the men themselves. This is a most astonishing fact and one without a parallel, that they were spared before they were accused and saved before they encountered danger, and that not even he who saved their lives learned who it was he pitied.
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