Before long the Italian allies were dragged into Roman dissensions. […] Porcius Cato (cos. 89), was defeated and killed by the Italian insurgents in the Marsic territory (Livy, Per. 75). […] But Caesar seemed different: he had consistently advocated the cause of the oppressed, whether Roman, Italian or provincial. […] That it can have been neither rapid nor easy is demonstrated by the facts of geography and communications, and by the study of Italian ethnography and Italian dialects. […] Before peace came another civil war supervened, into which Etruria was dragged along with the stubborn remnants of the Italian insurgents.