[-56-] In these circumstances and by the very cause and purpose of the war a most notable struggle took place. The city of Rome and the entire dominion over it, even then great and mighty, lay before them as a prize: it was clear to all that it would become the slave of him who conquered. When they reflected on this fact and furthermore recalled their former deeds,--Pompey, Africa and Sertorius and Mithridates and Tigranes and the sea: Caesar, Gaul and Spain and the Rhine and Britain,--they were excited to frenzy, thinking that they were facing danger for those conquests too, and each was eager to acquire the other's glory. For the renown of the vanquished no less than his other possessions becomes the property of the victors. The greater and more powerful the antagonist that a man overthrows, to the greater heights is he raised. [-57-] Therefore they delivered to the soldiers also many exhortations, but very much alike on both sides, saying all that is fitting to be mentioned on such occasions with reference both to the immediate nature of the danger and to its future results. As they both came from the same state and were talking to the same subjects and calling each other tyrants and themselves liberators from tyranny, they had nothing of different kinds to say, but stated that it would be the lot of the one party to die, of the other to be preserved, of the one party to be captives, of the other to enjoy the master's lot, to possess everything or to be deprived of everything, to suffer or to inflict a most terrible fate. After giving some such exhortations to the citizens and furthermore leading the subject and allied contingents into hopes for the better and fears for the worse, they hurled at each other kinsmen, sharers of the same tent, those who had eaten together, those who had drunk together. Why should any one then lament the fate of others involved, when those very men, who were all these things to each other, and had shared many secret words, many similar exploits, who had once been concerned in a marriage and loved the same child, one as a father, the other as grandfather, nevertheless fought? All the ties that nature by mingling their blood had created, they now, directed by insatiate lust of power, hastened to break, tear, and cleave asunder. Because of them Rome was forced to encounter danger for herself against herself, and though victor to be worsted.