The tale has often been told, with an inevitability of events and culmination, either melancholy or exultant. […] Pollio had powerful enemies on either side. […] He hoped to employ the leading nobiles to destroy Caesar, whether it came to war or not, in either way gaining the mastery. […] Yet these were individual communities, either colonies of old or states till recently independent, endowed with wide territories, a venerable history and proud traditions. […] No mention of either by Cicero their mere names would have been a damaging revelation.