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[45] After Lucius had thus spoken he relapsed into silence, and Octavius said: "When I saw you, Lucius, approaching without any guarantee I hastened to meet you while you were still outside my intrenchments, so that you might even now be master of your own counsels and be able to say or do whatever you should think best for your own interests. Since you deliver yourself to me (as is customary to those who acknowledge that they are in the wrong), it is not necessary that I should discuss the false accusations that you have brought against me with so much art. You began by injuring me and you continue to do so. If you were here negotiating a treaty, you would be dealing with a victor whom you had wronged. Now that you surrender yourself and your friends and your army without conditions, you take away not only all resentment, but also the power which, under negotiations for a treaty, you would necessarily have given me. There is involved in this question not only what you and your friends ought to suffer, but what it is becoming in me, as a just man, to do. I shall make the latter my chief consideration on account of the gods, on my own account, and on yours, Lucius, and I shall not disappoint the expectation with which you came to me." These things they said to each other, as nearly as it is possible to gather the meaning of the speakers from the Memoirs and translate it into our language.1 They then separated, and Octavius eulogized and admired Lucius because he had said nothing impolite or inconsiderate (as is usual in adversity), and Lucius praised Octavius for his mildness and brevity of speech. The others gathered the meaning of what had been said from the countenances of the speakers.

1 Probably the Memoirs here mentioned are those of Octavius himself, to which reference is made in Illyr. 14, and in B. C. iv. 110.

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