previous next

In their absence, their soldiers found frequent opportunities of conversing with our men, and sought out every one his fellowcitizen and acquaintance. They began by thanking them for having spared them the day before, owning they were indebted to them for their lives. Afterwards they asked them, if they might trust to Caesar's honour; testifying much grief at being obliged to fight with their countrymen and relations, with whom they were united by the strictest ties. At last they stipulated even for their generals, whom they would not seem to betray: and promised, if the lives of Petreius and Afranius were granted them, to change sides. At the same time they sent some of their principal officers to negotiate with Caesar; and these preliminaries to an accommodation being settled, the soldiers of both armies went into one another's tents, so that the two camps were now in a manner one. A great number of centurions and military tribunes came to pay their court to Caesar, and beg his protection. The Spanish chiefs, who had been summoned to attend Afranius, and were detained in the camp as hostages, followed their example. Every man sought out his acquaintance and friend, who might recommend and procure him a favourable reception from Caesar. Things were carried to such a length, that Afranius's son, a young gentleman, treated with Caesar, by the mediation of Sulpicius, to desire he would give his word for his life, and that of his father. The joy was general; they mutually congratulated each other; the one, in that they had escaped so imminent a danger; and the other, in that they had brought to a happy conclusion so important an enterprise, without striking a blow. Caesar, in the judgment of all, was upon the point of amply reaping the fruits of his wonted clemency, and every body applauded his late conduct.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Latin (Renatus du Pontet, 1901)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (8 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: