And there is no one, until the crossing of the Rubicon that Caesar traversed to arrive at<hr>
Rome and confront its tyrant, there is no one, who acknowledges that the Republic owes much<hr>
to Caesar.<hr>
       Now, Lepidus, I want to show you that the other victories won by Caesar,<hr>
are those for which the Romans are most grateful. I want to show you that<hr>
Caesar never demonstrated his passion for freedom and his hatred of tyranny<hr>
so clearly as when he fought and defeated Pompey. But one must accuse Pompey to justify Caesar and<hr>
prove that one has always shown his support for freedom, while the other has always <hr>
incited tyranny. Everyone knows that Pompey has done so much to seize<hr>
power that he was declared sole consul to prevent him from doing more. The Romans preferred to<hr> 
satisfy his vanity rather than to oppose him directly. As for Caesar, they did not treat him in the same way,<hr>
for far from granting him new rights, they rudely refused the favors he requested. Lentulus, a supporter of Pompey,<hr>
shamelessly drove out Marc Antony and Curio, who were forced to disguise themselves as slaves to safely return <hr>
to Caesar. All this, Lepidus, because Caesar asked them to continue governing the Gauls he had conquered. Despite/hr>
the unjustifiable refusal he received, Caesar did not contemplate malicious intentions. He understood that Pompey<hr> 
was only demanding his return to Rome to defeat him, and considered Pompey as his enemy<hr> 
and as the sole obstacle to his reaching the authority he has coveted for so long. Caesar<hr> 
wanted to reconcile both his person and the public good. He sought to disarm his enemy,<hr> 
Rome’s enemy, and to disarm himself too. As a demonstration of the purity of his intentions, he informed the Senate/hr>
that he was ready to relinquish the governance of Gaul for which he had risked his life many times, ready to lay down/hr>
his arms, to be accountable for his actions, to completely renounce any form of authority, provided that Pompey also/hr> 
laid down his arms and they both lived as simple citizens. It seems to me that these<hr> 
proposals were not tyrannical, for tyrants never expose themselves to such things,<hr> 
and Pompey's behaviour clearly proved what I am saying. If Caesar had suggested sharing/hr>
the supreme power with him, perhaps he would have listened more attentively. But<hr> 
because Caesar wanted to make it impossible for him to become the tyrant, he could not<hr> 
tolerate such a fair proposal that would have pushed him so far from power. He manoeuvred to<hr> 
prevent the Senate from deciding rationally, and to completely exhaust Caesar’s patience, he had Marc Antony and Curio driven out with disgrace. He was treated as an enemy of the common good, and Pompey, who only sought to sow trouble to bring down Caesar and profit from the/hr>
misfortunes of others, would rather see his homeland in ruins than change his plans.<hr>
<hr>
<hr>
<hr>
<hr>
                                                      107<hr>