1Suddenly fortune was reversed. 1When Antony returned to Italy, everyone had thought Atticus in great danger because of his close friendship with Cicero and Brutus. 2And so at the arrival of the generals he had withdrawn from public life, fearing proscription, and was hiding at the house of Publius Volumnius, to whom, as we have shown, he had brought help a little earlier (so great was the fickleness of fortune in those times that now these men, now those, stood either at the height of power or in the greatest danger), and he had with him Quintus Gellius Canus, a man of his own age and very like himself. 3This too is an example of Atticus' goodness, that with this man, whom he had come to know as a boy at school, he lived on such close terms that their friendship grew right up to extreme old age.
4Antony, however, though he was carried along by such hatred of Cicero that he was hostile not only to him but also to all his friends and wanted to proscribe them, with many urging him on, nevertheless remembered Atticus' kindness, and, having asked where he was, wrote to him in his own hand that he should not be afraid and should come to him at once: he had removed him, and for his sake Canus, from the list of the proscribed. 4And so that he should not run into any danger, since this was happening at night, he sent him an escort. 5Thus Atticus, in the midst of the greatest fear, was a protection not only to himself but also to the man he held dearest, so that it was clear that he wanted no fortune separate from his.
6But if a helmsman who saves his ship from a storm and a rocky sea is extolled with special praise, why should the good sense of that man not be thought remarkable who came through to safety out of so many and such severe civil tempests?