As to Vedius and Satronius, I was vividly aware of their state of mind and
acutely wretched over it.
Only nineteen days before I had seen my _triclinium_ walled and floored
with flowers presented by the local leader of one clan; had seen my dinner
table groan under the fruit sent me by the local leader of the other clan,
had known that both clans were competing for my favor and that I was high
in the good graces of each.
Now I felt that all men of both clans must be bitterly incensed with me,
for I knew their clan-pride. No man of either clan would weigh the facts:
that neither fight had been of my seeking; that both fights had been
forced on me; that I could not by any exercise of ingenuity have avoided
either, once the onset began; that each had been the result of the
headlong impetuosity and self-deception of my assailants, that both were
the outcome of conditions which I could not be expected to recognize as
dangerous beforehand, of a mistake not of my causing, for which I was in
no way to blame. I knew that every man of both clans, and most of all the
head of each clan, would consider nothing except that I had participated
in a roadside brawl in which men of their clan had been roughly handled,
some of them by me personally, and from which their men had fled in
confusion, routed partly by my participation.
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