What is going on you will learn from Pollio,[466] who not only was engaged in all the transactions, but was the leader in them. In my own deep distress, occasioned by the course your business has taken,[467] I am chiefly consoled by the hope which makes me strongly suspect that the dishonest practices of men will be defeated both by the measures of your friends and by mere lapse of time, which must have a tendency to weaken the plans of your enemies and of traitors. In the second place, I derive a ready consolation from the memory of my own dangers, of which I see a reflexion in your fortunes. For though your position is attacked in a less important particular than that which brought mine to the ground, yet the analogy is so strong, that I trust you will pardon me if I am not frightened at what you did not yourself consider ought to cause alarm. But shew yourself the man I have known you to be, to use a Greek expression, "since your nails were soft."[468] The injurious conduct of men will, believe me, only make your greatness more conspicuous. Expect from me the greatest zeal and devotion in everything: I will not falsify your expectation. [Footnote 466: The famous C. Asinius Pollio.] [Footnote 467: The postponement of the Egyptian commission.] [Footnote 468: ἐξ ἀπαλῶν ὀνύχων, _i.e._, "from your earliest youth." Others explain it to mean "from the bottom of your heart," or "thoroughly," from the idea that the nerves ended in the nails. ἔξ αὐτῶν τῶν ὀνύχων, "thoroughly," occurs in late Greek, and similar usages in the Anthology.] CIV (Q FR II, 4 AND PART OF 6) TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN SARDINIA) ROME, MARCH [Sidenote: B.C. 56, ÆT. 50] Our friend Sestius was acquitted on the 11th of March, and, what was of great importance to the Republic--that there should be no appearance of difference of opinion in a case of that sort--was acquitted unanimously. As to what I had often gathered from your letters, that you were anxious about--that I should not leave any loophole for abuse to an unfriendly critic on the score of my being ungrateful, if I did not treat with the utmost indulgence his occasional wrong-headedness--let me tell you that in this trial I established my character for being the most grateful of men. For in conducting the defence I satisfied in the fullest manner possible a man of difficult temper, and, what he above all things desired, I cut up Vatinius (by whom he was being openly attacked) just as I pleased, with the applause of gods and men. And, farther, when our friend Paullus[469] was brought forward as a witness against Sestius, he affirmed that he would lay an information against Vatinius[470] if Licinius Macer hesitated to do so, and Macer, rising from Sestius's benches, declared that he would not fail. Need I say more? That impudent swaggering fellow Vatinius was overwhelmed with confusion and thoroughly discredited.