The senate has officially lost its mind. With Dolabella having been sent out to “stop” me with one legion, the senate considers his lack of success in that endeavor to constitute treason. It was sheer idiocy to send him out so ill equipped. It would have been sheer suicide for him to engage me, and he knows this well. These senators seem to think that this wise inaction is his own personal fault, though. Will they next deride the accomplishments of Fabius “Cunctor”? How would they have defeated me, outnumbered five to one in my own lands nonetheless? Your fear must be clouding your judgment, O senators, if you think that a lack of unwise action is indicative of duty having been failed to the point of treason.

So now they strip all the provinces of armies to try and marshal troops against me. Have they forgotten why those troops were there in the first place? Do they not see how this will only cause far greater uprisings all throughout the abandoned lands? And they think they are fighting my cause through such actions. Fools! They put me where I am and they have done nothing since except unknowingly support my cause. Do they think I am just sitting around enjoying a little vacation?

As I have said before, the senate is acting in the truest manner of insanity. To repeat the same action and expect different results is insane. We must learn from the past or we are doomed to repeat it, yet they have repeated their previous mistakes in their treatment of Caesar once already since his death, which caused me to necessarily pursue my present course of action. Yet they still did not see what they were doing and why I did what I did. Now they are demented enough to try it again in the case of young Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus! They think that he is out pursuing their ends just because that is what they want to think. They think they can just send out a messenger and he will apologize, give up control of his legions, and come home like a scolded child. Do they forget how they were at 19 years old? I would have killed a man for calling me a child then, and from my knowledge of young Caesar, these senators are digging themselves early graves. I hear of the most ignorant comment ever uttered since the Marian Reforms. Apparently Lucius Julius Caesar has never had any experience with the army, and has been living in a cave for the last 50 years, because he is foolish enough to think that their loyalty lies “not with Lepidus, or with Octavius, but with the senate.” Such ignorance is comical in these times. Did my troops ask you for permission when I gave them orders? Did Octavius’ troops do so? Did Caesar’s troops do so? Did Pompey ask for senatorial permission to raise a private army to fight for Sulla? I didn’t think so. As an army officer, I know that troops loyalty lies with the man who fights shoulder-to-shoulder with them, with the man who eats, sleeps, and marches with them every day, with the man who does not commit them to foolish ventures, so that they know to follow him in whatever he orders, with the man who provides them with food in the field and suitable reward after the campaign is over. They do not care which old fools are discussing strategy in Rome. They do not care about temporarily elected officers. Their loyalty lies with whoever is loyal to them every day and every night. But these senators know nothing of that.

It is laughable that they call Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus a child while they cower in their senate and make wild and fearful speculations about Gaius, Dolabella, and me as if we are Gorgons who are ready at any time to swoop in and eat them. Dolabella is a consul of Rome, by Jupiter! Yet they speak of him like an incompetent traitor. Why ever did they elect him then?
The senate has no idea what it is doing. They are inviting rebellion into their provinces. They question even their most powerful magistrates. They do not know how an army works, much less what to do with it if they found themselves in control of one. They make my search for allies so much easier through their insane incompetence, yet they are so unaware of it that they feel justified in accusing others of incompetence. Do you remember how I always used to say that good comedies were no longer being put in Rome? Maybe they should start charging admission to senate meetings.