Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Translators' Note
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- PART I FROM SULLA TO CATILINE
- PART II FROM THE TRIUMVIRATE TO THE CONQUEST OF GAUL
- PART III THE LONG CIVIL WAR
- 16 Towards the Crisis
- 17 Striving after Tyranny?
- 18 Attacking the World with Five Cohorts
- 19 Caesar's ‘Programme’: In Search of Consensus
- 20 ‘Amicitia’
- 21 From the Rubicon to Pharsalus
- 22 Against Subversion
- 23 Alexandria
- 24 Caesar Saved by the Jews
- 25 From Syria to Zela
- 26 The Long Civil War
- 27 The Shoot of a Palm Tree: The Young Octavius Emerges
- 28 ‘Anticato’
- PART IV FROM THE CONSPIRACY TO THE TRIUMPH OF CAESARISM
- Chronology
- Bibliography
- Index
19 - Caesar's ‘Programme’: In Search of Consensus
from PART III - THE LONG CIVIL WAR
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Translators' Note
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- PART I FROM SULLA TO CATILINE
- PART II FROM THE TRIUMVIRATE TO THE CONQUEST OF GAUL
- PART III THE LONG CIVIL WAR
- 16 Towards the Crisis
- 17 Striving after Tyranny?
- 18 Attacking the World with Five Cohorts
- 19 Caesar's ‘Programme’: In Search of Consensus
- 20 ‘Amicitia’
- 21 From the Rubicon to Pharsalus
- 22 Against Subversion
- 23 Alexandria
- 24 Caesar Saved by the Jews
- 25 From Syria to Zela
- 26 The Long Civil War
- 27 The Shoot of a Palm Tree: The Young Octavius Emerges
- 28 ‘Anticato’
- PART IV FROM THE CONSPIRACY TO THE TRIUMPH OF CAESARISM
- Chronology
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Caesar to Oppius and Cornelius Balbus, Greetings. I am very glad to hear from your letters how strongly you approve of what happened at Corfinium. I shall follow your advice with pleasure – with all the more pleasure, because I had myself made up my mind to act with the greatest moderation, and to do my best to effect a reconciliation with Pompey.
Let us see if by moderation we can win all hearts (omnium voluntatem recuperare) and secure a lasting victory, since by cruelty others have been unable to escape from hatred and to maintain their victory for any length of time except L. Sulla, whose example I do not intend to follow.
This is a new way of conquering, to strengthen one's position by kindness and generosity. As to how this can be done, some ideas have occurred to me and many more can be found. I should like you to turn some attention to the matter.
I have taken N. Magius, a prefect of Pompey. Of course I kept to my policy and set him free at once. So now two of Pompey's prefects of engineers have fallen into my hands and I have set them free. If they have any gratitude, they ought to exhort Pompey to prefer my friendship to that of men who were always the bitterest enemies both to him and to me. […]
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- Julius CaesarThe People's Dictator, pp. 150 - 158Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2007