I love treason but hate a traitor.

The line expresses a cynical distinction between enjoying the advantages of betrayal (treason as a useful tactic) and despising the person who commits it (the traitor as morally contemptible or politically dangerous). It captures a common theme in power politics: disloyalty can be instrumentally valuable to a ruler, yet the disloyal individual remains untrustworthy and therefore disposable. In quotation history, the saying is often used to describe leaders who exploit defectors or conspirators and then punish or discard them once they have served their purpose. However, because the attribution to Caesar is doubtful, this interpretation is best treated as an analysis of the proverb-like sentiment rather than a securely Caesar-authored remark.