The words of the passage are as follows: "Hunc primum mortalem esse, deinde etiam multis modis extingui posse cogitabam." "I bethought myself in the first place that this man was mortal, and then that there were a hundred ways in which he might be put on one side." All the latter authorities have, I believe, supposed the "hunc" or "this man" to be Pompey.

I should say that this was proved by the gist of the whole letter--one of the most interesting that was ever written, as telling the workings of a great man's mind at a peculiar crisis of his life--did I not know that former learned editors have supposed Caesar to have been meant.

But whether Caesar or Pompey, there is nothing in it to do with murder.

It is a question--Cicero is saying to his friend--of the stability of the Republic.

When a matter so great is considered, how is a man to trouble himself as to an individual who may die any day, or cease from any accident to be of weight?
Cicero was speaking of the effect of this or that step on his own part.