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35For it seems to me to be particularly instructive, when one takes facts as the basis of his reasoning, investigates the nature of the former by the latter, and thus proves his reasoning true by its correspondence with the facts.
2The reason for Antony’s besieging Decimus in Mutina, to be exact, was that Decimus would not give up Gaul to him, but he pretended that it was because Decimus had been one of Caesar’s assassins. For since the true cause of the war brought him no credit, and at the same time he saw that the feelings of the people were turning toward Caesar to help him avenge his father, he put forward this excuse for the war. 3For that it was a mere pretext for getting control of Gaul he himself made plain when he demanded that Cassius and Marcus Brutus should be appointed consuls. Each of these two pretences, utterly inconsistent as they were, he made with an eye to his own advantage. 4Caesar, now, had begun a campaign against his rival before the command of the war was voted to him, though he had achieved nothing worthy of mention. When, however, he learned of the decrees passed, he accepted the honours and rejoiced, the more so, since, when he was sacrificing at the time of receiving the distinction and the authority of praetor, the livers of all the victims, twelve in number, were found to be double. 5But he was vexed that envoys and proposals had been sent to Antony, also, by the senate instead of their declaring against him at once a war to the finish, 6and most of all because he ascertained that the consuls had forwarded to Antony some private message about harmony, also that when some letters sent by the latter to certain senators had been captured, these officials had handed them to the persons addressed, concealing the matter from him, and that, with the winter as an excuse, they were not carrying on the war zealously or promptly. 7However, as he could not publish these facts, because he did not wish to alienate them and on the other hand was unable to use any persuasion or force upon them, he also remained quiet in winter quarters in Forum Cornelii, until he became alarmed about Decimus.
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