1And mark, conscript fathers, how widely this judgement of Gaius Caesar extends. 1For all of us who were driven to those arms by some wretched and deadly destiny of the commonwealth, even if we are held guilty of some fault of human error, have certainly been cleared of crime. 1For when he preserved Marcus Marcellus for the commonwealth at your entreaty, and restored me to myself and likewise to the commonwealth with no one interceding, and the rest of these most distinguished men to themselves and to their country, whose number and dignity you see in this very assembly, he did not bring enemies into the senate house, but judged that the war had been undertaken by most men from ignorance and false and empty fear rather than from greed or cruelty.
14In that war I always thought that proposals for peace should be heard, and I always grieved that not only peace but even the words of citizens demanding peace were rejected. 14For neither did I ever follow those or any civil arms, and my counsels were always allied with peace and the toga, not with war and arms. 14I followed a man out of private obligation, not public, and the faithful memory of a grateful heart counted for so much with me that, not only with no desire but without even any hope, I rushed knowingly and deliberately, as it were, to a self-chosen death. 15And this purpose of mine was by no means hidden.
15For both in this order, while matters were still undecided, I said much about peace, and in the war itself I held the same views even at the risk of my life. 15From this no one will be so unjust a judge of affairs as to doubt what Caesar's attitude to the war was, since he at once decided that the advocates of peace should be preserved, while he was angrier with the rest. 15And that was perhaps less remarkable at the time, when the outcome was uncertain and the fortune of war in the balance: but he who as victor cherishes the advocates of peace surely declares that he would have preferred not to fight rather than to conquer.