At this action the followers of Antony also took courage.  And since it did not seem safe for them to refuse to encamp together, they brought the three divisions together to one spot and into one stronghold.  While the opposing forces were facing each other sallies and excursions took place on both sides, as chance dictated.  For some time, however, no ordered battle was joined, although Caesar and Antony were exceedingly anxious to bring on a conflict.  Their forces stronger than those of their adversaries, but they were not so abundantly supplied with provisions, because their fleet was away fighting Sextus and they were therefore not masters of the sea.

[-38-] Hence these men for the reasons specified and because of Sextus, who held Sicily and was making an attempt on Italy, were excited by the fear that while they delayed he might capture Italy and come into Macedonia.  Cassius and Brutus had no particular aversion to a battle,—­they had the advantage in the number of soldiers, though the latter were deficient in strength,—­but some reflection on their own condition and that of their opponents showed them that allies were being added to their own numbers every day and that they had abundant food by the help of the ships; consequently they put off action in the hope of gaining their ends without danger and loss of men.  Because they were lovers of the people in no pretended sense and were contending with citizens, they consulted the interests of the latter no less than those of their own associates, and desired to afford preservation and liberty to both alike.  For some time, therefore, they waited, not wishing to provoke a contest with them.  The troops, however, being composed mostly of subject nations, were oppressed by the delay and despised their antagonists who, apparently out of fear, offered within the fortifications the sacrifice of purification, which regularly precedes struggles.  Hence they urged a battle and spread a report that if there should be more delay, they would abandon the camp and disperse; and at this the leaders, though against their will, went to meet the foe.

[-39-] You might not unnaturally guess that this struggle proved tremendous and surpassed all previous civil conflicts of the Romans.  This was not because these contestants excelled those of the old days in either the number or the valor of the warriors, for far larger masses and braver men than they had fought on many fields, but because on this occasion they contended for liberty and for democracy as never before.  And they came to blows with one another again later just as they had previously.  But the subsequent struggles they carried on to see to whom they should belong:  on this occasion the one side was trying to bring them into subjection to sovereignty, the other side into a state of autonomy.  Hence the people never attained again to the absolute right of free speech, in spite of being vanquished by no foreign nation (the subject population and the allied