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26“Yet I myself was so devoted to him at the beginning that I gave him a share in our command, married my sister to him, and granted him legions. 2After that I felt so kindly, so affectionately, towards him, that I was unwilling to wage war on him merely because he had insulted my sister, or because he neglected the children she had borne him, or because he preferred the Egyptian woman to her, or because he bestowed upon that woman’s children practically all your possessions, or for any other cause. 3My reason was, first of all, that I did not think it proper to assume the same attitude toward Antony as toward Cleopatra; for I adjudged her, if only on account of her foreign birth, to be an enemy by reason of her very conduct, but I believed that he, as a citizen, might still be brought to reason. 4Later I entertained the hope that he might, if not voluntarily, at least reluctantly, change his course as a result of the decrees passed against her. Consequently I did not declare war upon him at all. He, however, has looked haughtily and disdainfully upon my efforts, and will neither be pardoned though we would fain pardon him, nor be pitied though we try to pity him. He is either heedless or mad— 5for, indeed, I have heard and believed that he has been bewitched by that accursed woman—and therefore pays no heed to our generosity or kindness, but being a slave to that woman, he undertakes the war and its self-chosen dangers on her behalf against us and against his country. In view of all this, what is left to us but the duty of fighting him, together with Cleopatra, and repelling him?
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