Into the Crossroads, Whither Next?

Confessing indirectly to a "like" for Cicero, Lily Ross Taylor indicates her bias in the long-running divide of opinion betwixt Cicero and Caesar. My own affinity toward his amiability is evident—having come through the letters to Atticus unscathed.

Concomitant with that would be a antipathy against Sallust, I presume. Having read his history (long ago), I knew he was of the party of Caesar; but, with my historical knowledge still imperfect, I am trying to keep my mind open. (Even Cicero recognized Caesar's fine qualities.)

A tough sentence or two in the letter (a "letter of suggestion" I might call it) that Sallust wrote to Caesar: "Men like Lucius Postumius and Marcus Favonius are like the supercargo of a big ship. When they arrive safe they are useful, but if something goes wrong they are the ones to be thrown overboard because they have the least value."

The news gives evidence every day that this line of reasoning remains popular among many.

Chapter 7 (the penultimate) closes with this paragraph:

The optimates had succeeded in their efforts to detach Pompey from Caesar, and they were now in alliance with Pompey. It was an unholy alliance, unholy for Pompey because, in his jealousy, his unwillingness to brook an equal, he had gone back on an ally whose unconstitutional deeds he had aided and abetted. It was unholy for the optimates too, the upholders of the old constitution; for in defying the man they considered the greater threat, they were depending on a leader who, while giving lip service to the constitution, had held himself above all laws. No wonder Cicero kept telling Atticus that there were no good men left. But Caesar knew better than that. There was one man in the senate whom he hated and feared more than all the rest. Perhaps Caesar realized more fully than the senators the power of moral leadership that Cato could wield. Cato had joined his optimate colleagues in entrusting the defense of the state to Pompey. Yet in his selfless devotion to the state he was in a position of isolation, a leader, as Seneca later pictures him, of a third party of which the other member was the Res Publica.

One last chapter to go. As I indicated in a post earlier today, I don't expect to post here with high frequency. But expectations often fail. If I can, I will work on the essay I mention (unless it derails itself as the previous attempts did), but other non-literary pursuits require attention. Tempting as it is to slide from Party Politics in the Age of Caesar into something contiguous, like Caesar's Civil War, or at least a rereading of Sallust (of whom I remember little), wanderlust is beginning to get the best of me: if I do pick something off the shelf, it may well be China next.