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The Civil War.
[49 B.C.
By the 1st of March the news of Cæsar's great success at Corfinium and of the generosity he showed to his prisoners has caused a 49 B.C.strong revulsion in his favour.[1] "Just see what a man this is into whose power the commonwealth has fallen, how keen, how Mar. 1.watchful, how well prepared! I declare that if he puts no one to death and robs no one of his goods, he will become the object of affection to those who were most in dread of him. I have much conversation with men from the borough-towns and with the country people. They care for absolutely nothing except their farms, and their bits of houses and money." The threatening language reported from the Republican headquarters, and the determination which the Optimates expressed, to regard all neutrals as enemies, heightened by contrast the impression made by Cæsar's moderation. "The one, alas that it should be so, earns applause in the worst of causes; the other in the best of causes nothing but reproach."[2] By the 4th of March we find this current of opinion in full flood. "The Mar. 4.country towns," writes Cicero,[3] "hold Cæsar for a god; and there is no pretence about their feelings, as there was when they made vows for Pompey in his sickness. It comes to this; whatever mischief this Pisistratus refrains from committing, they are as grateful to him as if he had stopped
