He is bright, happy, witty, frivolous, and doubtless lovable.

It is amusing to see how Cicero himself now and again catches the infection, and tries (in vain) to write in the same frivolous manner.[196] Caelius has some political insight; he sees civil war approaching, but he takes it all as a game, and on the eve of events which were to shake the world he trifles with the symptoms as though they were the silliest gossip of the capital.[197] In none of these letters is there the smallest vestige of principle to be found.

On the very eve of civil war he tells Cicero[198] that as soon as war breaks out the right thing to do is to join the stronger side.

Judging Caesar's side to be the stronger, he joined it accordingly, and did his best to induce Cicero to do the same.

As M.Boissier happily says, he never cared to "menager ses transitions." He had, however, to discover that if to change over to Caesar was the safer course, to turn a political somersault once more, to try and undermine the work of the master, meant simply ruin.