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Caesar sending for fifteen of the principal men of the city, exhorted them not to be the first to begin the war, but to be swayed rather by the authority of all Italy, than the will of one particular person. He forgot not such other considerations as seemed most likely to bring them to reason. The deputies returning into the town, brought back this answer from the senate: "That they saw the Romans divided into two parties, and it did not belong to them to decide such a quarrel: that at the head of these parties were Pompey and Caesar, both patrons of their city, the one having added to it the country of the Vulcae Arecomici and Helvians; the other after the reduction of Gaul, considerably augmented its territories and revenues; that as they were therefore equally indebted to both, it became them not to aid the one against the other; but to remain neuter, and grant neither an admittance into their city nor port."
C. Julius Caesar. The Commentaries of Caesar. William Duncan. St. Louis. Edwards and Bushnell. 1856.
The chapter breaks in this translation have been changed to align with those in the 1901 Latin edition of the De Bello Civili, ed. Renatus du Pontet.
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