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21“Now in case we are to draw any inferences from his decrees, he threatens you openly,—at any rate he has made the majority of you enemies outright,—but against me personally no such declaration has been made, though he is at war with me and is already acting in every way like one who has not only conquered me but also murdered me. 2Hence, when he has treated me in such a way,—me, whom he pretends not even yet at this day to regard as an enemy,—he surely will not keep his hands off you, with whom even he clearly admits that he is at war. 3What in the world does he mean, then, by threatening us all alike with arms, but in the decree declaring that he is at war with some and not with others? It is not, by Jupiter, with the intention of making any distinction among us, or of treating one class in one way and another in another, if he prevails, but it is in order to set us at variance and bring us in collision, and thus render us weaker. 4For of course he is not unaware that while we are in accord, and acting as one in everything, he can never in any way get the upper hand, but that if we quarrel, and some choose one policy and the rest another, he may perhaps prevail; and it is for this reason that he acts as he does toward us.
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