" So again, as soon as he had begun the war, we see what
Cicero saith of him, Alter (meaning of Caesar) non recusat, sed
quodammodo postulat, ut (ut est) sic appelletur tyrannus. So we may
see in a letter of Cicero to Atticus, that Augustus Caesar, in his
very entrance into affairs, when he was a darling of the senate, yet
in his harangues to the people would swear, Ita parentis honores
consequi liceat (which was no less than the tyranny), save that, to
help it, he would stretch forth his hand towards a statue of
Caesar's that was erected in the place: and men laughed and
wondered, and said, "Is it possible?" or, "Did you ever hear the
like?" and yet thought he meant no hurt; he did it so handsomely and
ingenuously. And all these were prosperous: whereas Pompey, who
tended to the same ends, but in a more dark and dissembling manner
as Tacitus saith of him, Occultior non melior, wherein Sallust
concurreth, Ore probo, animo inverecundo, made it his design, by
infinite secret engines, to cast the state into an absolute anarchy
and confusion, that the state might cast itself into his arms for
necessity and protection, and so the sovereign power be put upon
him, and he never seen in it: and when he had brought it (as he
thought) to that point when he was chosen consul alone, as never any
was, yet he could make no great matter of it, because men understood
him not; but was fain in the end to go the beaten track of getting
arms into his hands, by colour of the doubt of Caesar's designs: so
tedious, casual, and unfortunate are these deep dissimulations:
whereof it seemeth Tacitus made this judgment, that they were a
cunning of an inferior form in regard of true policy; attributing
the one to Augustus, the other to Tiberius; where, speaking of
Livia, he saith, Et cum artibus mariti simulatione filii bene
compostia: for surely the continual habit of dissimulation is but a
weak and sluggish cunning, and not greatly politic.
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