For as to what you
insinuate--that I ought to provide for my children's interests, by putting
this man judicially out of the way, very frankly I say to you--Perish my
children, if Avidius shall deserve more attachment than they, and if it
shall prove salutary to the State that Cassius should live rather than the
children of Marcus."
This letter affords a singular illustration of fatalism, such certainly as
we might expect in a Stoic, but carried even to a Turkish excess; and not
theoretically professed only, but practically acted upon in a case of
capital hazard. _That no prince ever killed his own successor_, i.e.,
that it was vain for a prince to put conspirators to death, because, by
the very possibility of doing so, a demonstration is obtained that such
conspirators had never been destined to prosper, is as condensed and
striking an expression of fatalism as ever has been devised. The rest of
the letter is truly noble, and breathes the very soul of careless
magnanimity reposing upon conscious innocence. Meantime, Cassius increased
in power and influence: his army had become a most formidable engine of
his ambition through its restored discipline; and his own authority was
sevenfold greater, because he had himself created that discipline in the
face of unequalled temptations hourly renewed and rooted in the very
centre of his head-quarters.
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