Remetente desconhecido → Marcus Tullius Cicero

I no longer offer you thanks; for the man whom I can scarcely repay in deed, the situation does not permit me to satisfy with words. I want you to pay attention to what is at hand; for with your wisdom, nothing will escape you if you read my letters carefully. I could not pursue Antonius immediately for these reasons, Cicero: I was without cavalry, without pack animals; I did not know Hirtius had perished; I did not trust Caesar until I had met and spoken with him. This day passed in that manner. The next day in the morning I was summoned by Pansa to Bononia. While on the road, word was brought to me that he had died. I hurried back to my meager forces, for I may truly call them that: they are worn to the bone and treated most badly by a lack of everything. Antonius got two days'ahead of me, covering much longer marches in flight than I did in pursuit; for he went in disorder, I in formation. Wherever he went, he freed chain-gangs, seized men, and did not stop until he came to Vada, a place I want you to know about. It lies between the Apennines and the Alps, a most difficult region for marching. When I was thirty miles from him and Ventidius had already joined him, a transcript of his address was brought to me, in which he began to ask the soldiers to follow him across the Alps; he had, he said, an understanding with Marcus Lepidus. Frequent shouts came back from the Ventidian soldiers -- for his own are very few -- that they must either perish or conquer in Italy, and they began to beg him to march toward Pollentia. Since he could not hold them back, he postponed his march to the next day. When this was reported to me, I immediately sent five cohorts ahead to Pollentia and directed my own march there. My garrison reached Pollentia an hour before Trebellius with his cavalry. I was very pleased indeed, for I think victory depends on this ****. They had come to hope, because they thought Plancus's four legions were no match for all their forces, nor did they believe an army could be brought across from Italy so quickly. Up to now the Allobroges and all the cavalry that had been sent ahead by us were holding them off with some arrogance, and we are confident that with our arrival they can be held off more easily. Nevertheless, if by some chance they cross the Isara, I shall take the greatest care that no harm comes to the republic. I want you to have great courage and the best hope for the republic as a whole, since you see both us and our armies joined together in remarkable harmony, prepared for everything on your behalf. But you must not relax your diligence and must take care that we may fight, as fully prepared as possible in army and other resources, for your safety against the most criminal conspiracy of the enemy -- men who suddenly turned the forces they had long assembled under the pretense of serving the republic to the endangerment of their country.