Читать книгу Yale Classics (Vol. 2) - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 183

For these reasons every thing was done in a hasty and disorderly manner, and neither was time given to Caesar's relations to inform him of the state of affairs nor liberty to the tribunes of the people to deprecate their own danger, nor even to retain the last privilege, which Sulla had left them, the interposing their authority; but on the seventh day they were obliged to think of their own safety, which the most turbulent tribunes of the people were not accustomed to attend to, nor to fear being called to an account for their actions, till the eighth month. Recourse is had to that extreme and final decree of the senate (which was never resorted to even by daring proposers except when the city was in danger of being set on fire, or when the public safety was despaired of). "That the consuls, praetors, tribunes of the people, and proconsuls in the city, should take care that the state received no injury." These decrees are dated the eighth day before the ides of January; therefore, in the first five days, on which the senate could meet, from the day on which Lentulus entered into his consulate, the two days of election excepted, the severest and most virulent decrees were passed against Caesar's government, and against those most illustrious characters, the tribunes of the people. The latter immediately made their escape from the city, and withdrew to Caesar, who was then at Ravenna, awaiting an answer to his moderate demands; to see if matters could be brought to a peaceful termination by any equitable act on the part of his enemies.