Cicero, Letters to his Friends

ToposText · Cicero · 460 sections

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§ Fam.13.29 CDLV (Fam. XIII, 29) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN AFRICA) ROME (?) I have no doubt of your knowing that, among the connexions bequeathed to you by your father, there was no one more closely united to you than myself, not only for the reasons which give an appearance of close attachment, but also for those which are kept in operation by actual intimacy and association, which you know to have existed between me and your father in the highest degree and with the greatest mutual gratification. Starting from that origin my personal affection enhanced the ancestral friendship, and the more so that I perceived, as soon as your time of life admitted of your forming an independent judgment as to the value you should attach to this or that person, that I at once began to receive from you marks of respect, regard, and affection. To this was added the bond — in itself no slight one — of common studies, and of such studies and accomplishments as, in their very nature, serve to bind together men who have the same tastes in close ties of intimacy also. I imagine you must be waiting to see to what this elaborate prelude is tending. To begin with, let me assure you that this resume' of facts has not been made by me without good and sufficient reason. I am exceedingly intimate with C. Ateius Capito. You know what the ups and downs of my fortunes have been. In every position of honour or of difficulty of mine, Capito's courage, active assistance, influence, and even money were ever at my service, supplied my occasions, and were ready for every crisis. He had a relation named Titus Antistius. While this man was serving in Macedonia as quaestor, according to the lot, and had had no successor appointed, Pompey arrived in that province at the head of an army. Antistius could do nothing. For if he had had things his own way, there is nothing he would have preferred to going back to Capito, for whom he had a filial affection, especially as he knew how much he valued Caesar and had always done so. But, being taken by surprise, he only engaged in the business as far as he was unable to refuse. When money was being coined at Apollonia, I cannot say that he presided at the mint, nor can I deny that he was engaged in it; but it was not for more than two or three months. After that he held aloof from the camp: he avoided official employment of every sort. I would have you believe me on this point as an eye-witness: for he used to see my melancholy during that campaign, he used to talk things over with me without reserve. Accordingly, he withdrew into hiding in central Macedonia at as great a distance as he could from the camp, so as to avoid not only taking command in any department, but even being on the spot. After the battle he retired to Bithynia to a friend's house named Aulus Plautius. When Caesar saw him there he did not say a single rough or angry word to him; and bade him come to Rome. Immediately after that he had an illness from which he never recovered. He arrived at Corcyra ill, and there died. By a will which he had made at Rome in the consulship of Paulus and Marcellus [50 BCE], Capito was made his heir to five-sixths of his estate: as regards the other sixth, the heirs were men whose share may be confiscated without a word of complaint from anyone. That amounts to thirty sestertia. This is a matter for Caesar to consider. But in the name of our ancestral friendship, in the name of our mutual affection, in the name of our common studies and the close identity in the whole current of our existence, I do ask and entreat you, my dear Plancus, with an anxiety and warmth beyond which I cannot go in any matter, to exert yourself, to put out your best energies, and to secure that by my recommendation, your own zeal, and Caesar's indulgence, Capito may obtain possession of his kinsman's legacy. Everything that I could possibly have got from you in this your hour of highest favour and influence, I shall regard you as having voluntarily bestowed upon me, if I obtain this object. There is a circumstance, of which Caesar has the best means of judging, which I hope will assist you- Capito always showed respect and affection for Caesar. But Caesar can himself bear witness to this: I know the excellence of his memory: so I don't give you any instructions. Do not pledge yourself to Caesar on Capito's behalf, any farther than you shall perceive that he remembers. For my part, I will submit to you what I have been able to put to the test in my own case: you must judge of its importance for yourself. You are not ignorant of the side and the cause which I have supported in politics, by the aid of what individuals and orders I have maintained myself, and by whom I have been fortified. Believe me when I say this: if I have done anything in the late war itself which was not quite to Caesar's taste — though I am well aware that Caesar knows me to have done so quite against my will — I have done it by the advice, instigation, and influence of others. But in so far as I have been more moderate and reasonable than anyone else of that party, I have been so by the influence of Capito more than anyone else: and if my other connexions had been like him, I should perhaps have done the State some good, certainly I should have done a great deal to myself. If you accomplish this object, my dear Plancus, you will confirm my expectations as to your kind feeling towards myself, and you will by your eminent service have bound Capito himself to you as a friend — a man of the most grateful and obliging disposition, and of the most excellent character.
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§ Fam.5.21 CDLVI (Fam. V, 21) TO L. MESCINIUS RUFUS ROME, APRIL: I was gratified by your letter which told me, what I thought to be the case even without any letter, that you were inspired with a very eager desire to see me. I gladly accept the compliment, but I do not yield to you in the strength 9f the wish: for may I have all my heart's desire, as I ardently long to be with you! Even at the time when I had a greater wealth of good citizens, agreeable men, and attached friends about me, there was yet no one whose Society I enjoyed more than yours, and few whose I enjoyed as much. But at the present time, since some have died, others are away, and others changed in feeling, upon my honour, a single day devoted to you will bring a richer return of pleasure than all this time given to most of those with whom I am forced to live. For do not imagine that solitude — and even that, after all, I am not allowed to en-joy — is not pleasanter than the talk of those who crowd my house, with one or at most two exceptions. Accordingly, I fly to that refuge, which I think you should also seek — my darling studies: and, in addition to them, the consciousness of the principles I have maintained. For I am a man, as you will have no difficulty in conceiving, who have never acted for my own interests in preference to those of my fellow citizens: a man of whom, if he whom you never loved — for you loved me — had not been jealous, he would now have been in prosperity, and so would all the loyalists. I am he whose wish was that no man's brute force should be preferred to peace with honour. And again, when I perceived that the very appeal to arms, which I had always dreaded, was to influence the result more than that union of all loyalists (of which I again was the author), I preferred accepting a peace on any terms whatever that were safe to a combat with the stronger. But all this and much else when we meet, as we soon shall. For after all there is nothing to keep me at Rome except the expectation of news from Africa: for the campaign there seems to me to have come to a point when the decisive stroke cannot be far off. Now whatever that news may be, I suppose it is of some importance to me that I should not be out of the way of consulting my friends: I don't, indeed, see clearly what the precise importance is, but nevertheless it must be of some. In fact, it has come to this, that though there is a wide difference between the merits of the two contending sides, I should imagine there will not be much difference between the way they will use their victory. But my courage, which has perhaps been somewhat weak while the result was undecided, now that all is lost, has greatly recovered its tone. You, too, did much to strengthen it by your previous letter, from which I learnt how bravely you were bearing your injurious treatment: and it was helpful to me to find that your lofty character, as well as your literary studies, had stood you in good stead. For I will be candid: I used to think you somewhat lacking in spirit, as indeed most of us were, who have lived the life of free men in a state that was itself wealthy and free. But as we were moderate in the old prosperity, so ought we to endure now with courage what is not a mere reverse of fortune, but a total loss of it: to the end that we may get this amount of good at least in the midst of the gravest ills, that, while even in prosperity we were bound to disregard death (seeing that it will bring with it an absence of all sensation ), at this time and with these distresses we ought not only to disregard, but even to wish for it. If you have any regard for me, continue to enjoy your leisure and convince yourself that, except misconduct and crime — of which you have been and always will be clear-nothing can happen to a man that can soil his honour or should rouse his fear. For my part, if it shall seem feasible, I will come to see you before long: if anything happens to make a change in my plans necessary, I will at once let you know. Don't allow your eagerness to see me induce you to move in your present weak state of health, without first asking me by letter what I want you to do. Pray go on loving me as before, and devote yourself to your health and peace of mind.
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§ Fam.9.3 CDLVIII (Fam. IX, 3) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (ABOUT THE 18TH OF APRIL) Though I have nothing to say to you, yet I could not let Caninius go to you without taking anything from me. What, then, shall I say for choice? What I think you wish, that I am coming to you very soon. Yet pray consider whether it is quite right for us to be in a place like that when public affairs are in such a blaze. We shall be giving those persons an excuse for talking, who don't know that, wherever we are, we keep the same style and the same manner of life. But what does it matter? Anyhow, we shall give rise to gossip. We ought, forsooth, to take great pains, at a time when society at large is wallowing in every kind of immorality and abomination, to prevent our abstention from active life, whether indulged in alone or together, from being unfavourably remarked upon! For my part, I shall join you, and snap my fingers at the ignorance of these Philistines. For, however miserable the present state of affairs — and nothing can be more so-yet, after all, our studies seem in a way to produce a richer harvest now than of old, whether it is because we can now find relief in nothing else, or because the severity of the disease makes the need of medicine felt, and its virtue is now manifested, which we used not to feel while we were in good health.'But why these words of wisdom to you now, who have them at hand home-grown — “an owl to Athens? ” Only, of course, to get you to write me an answer, and wait for my coming. Pray do so therefore.
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§ Fam.9.2 CDLIX (Fam. IX, 2) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (APRIL, AFTER THE 20TH OF APRIL) Caninius, our common friend, having called upon me very late in the evening, and having told me that he was starting to join you in the morning, I told him that I would have something for him to take, and begged him to Call for it in the morning. I finished my letter in the night, but he never Came: I supposed that he had forgotten. Nevertheless, I should have sent you the letter itself by my own letter-carriers, had I not heard from the same friend next day that you were starting from your Tusculan villa in the morning. But now look at, this! All on a sudden a few days later, when I wasn't in the least expecting it, Caninius called on me in the morning, and said that he was starting to join you at once. Though that letter was now stale, especially considering the importance of the news that have since arrived, yet I was unwilling that my night's work should be thrown away, and gave it as it was to Caninius: but I spoke to him as to a man of learning and one warmly attached to you, and I presume that he has conveyed my words to you. However, I give you the same counsel that I give myself — to avoid men's eyes, if we find it difficult to avoid their tongues. For those who give themselves airs about the victory regard us in the light of defeated enemies: while those who are vexed at our friends' defeat regret that we remain alive. You will ask perhaps why, this being the state of things in the city, I have not left town like yourself? You, I presume, you, who surpass both me and others in the clearness of your perceptions, divined it all! Nothing of course escaped you! Why, who is so much of a Lynceus as, in such pitchy darkness, never to stumble on anything, never to blunder against anything anywhere? For my part, it long ago occurred to my mind how pleasant a thing it would be to go out of town somewhere, so as to avoid seeing and hearing what is being done and said here. But I had certain misgivings: my idea was that everyone who met me on the road would, as it suited his particular point of view, suspect, or, even if he did not suspect it, would say: “This fellow is either frightened, and therefore is running away, or he is meditating some move and has a ship ready prepared.” In fact, even the man whose suspicion was the least malicious, and who perhaps knew me best, would have thought my motive for going was that my eyes could not endure the sight of certain persons. From some such misgivings as these I am as yet staying on at Rome, and after all, long habit has insensibly covered over the wound and deadened my indignation. That is the explanation of my policy. For yourself, then, what I think you should do is this: remain in retirement where you are until such time as this exultation is past boiling point, and at the same time till we hear particulars of the decisive struggle: for decisive I think it was. But it will make all the difference what the feeling of the conqueror is, and how the campaign has ended. Though I am able to make a shrewd guess, still I wait, after all, for information. Nor, indeed, would I have you starting for Baiae until rumour has shouted itself hoarse. For it will be more to our credit, even when we do quit the city, to be thought to have come to that neighbourhood rather to weep than to swim. But you know all this better than I. Only let us abide by our resolve to live together in pursuit of those studies of ours, from which we formerly sought only pleasure, but now seek also the preservation of our lives. And if anyone wishes for our services-not merely as architects, but also as workmen to build up the constitution-let us not refuse to assist, but rather hasten with enthusiasm to the task. And if, on the other hand, no one will employ us, let us compose and read “Republics.” And if we cannot do so in the senate-house and forum, yet at least (after the example of the most learned of the ancients) on paper and in books let us govern the state, and investigate its customs and laws. These are my views. You will very much oblige me if you will write and tell me what you mean to do and what your opinion is.
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§ Fam.9.7 CDLX (Fam. IX, 7) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (MAY) I was dining with Seius when a letter was delivered to each of us from you. Yes, I really think it is high time. For as to the personal motive in what I said before, I will own the cunning of my heart — I wanted you to be somewhere near in case of anything good turning up: “two heads,” you know. At present, seeing that it is all over and done, we should not hesitate to go over, horse, foot, and artillery! For when I heard about L. Caesar the younger, I said to myself: “What will he do for me, his sire?” Accordingly, I do not cease dining out with the members of the party now in power. What else should I do? One must go with the times. But a truce to jesting, especially as we have nothing to laugh at: “With fearsome tumult shakes wild Afric's shore.” Accordingly, there is nothing “undesirable” which I do not fear. But, in answer to your question as to when, by what road, and whither — I as yet know nothing. You suggest Baiae — but some doubt whether he will not come by way of Sardinia. For that particular one of his estates he has not inspected as yet. It is the worst of them all, nevertheless he does not despise it. For my part, I am on the whole more inclined to think that he will come through Sicily to Velia: but we shall know directly; for Dolabella is on his way home: he, I suppose, will be our instructor: “Scholars are often wiser than their teachers.” But nevertheless, if I can ascertain what you have settled, I will accommodate my policy to yours before anyone else's. Wherefore I am anxious for a letter from you.
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§ Fam.9.5 CDLXI (Fam. IX, 5) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (LATE IN MAY) Yes, I think the 5th of next month will be in very good time, both in consideration of the state of public affairs and of the season of the year. Wherefore I approve of that day: and will myself accordingly aim at the same. I should not have thought that we ought to repent of our policy, even if those who did not adopt it were not now repentant. For our guiding star was not advantage, but duty: and what we abandoned was not duty, but a hopeless task. So we showed greater sensitiveness to honour than those who never stirred from home, and greater reasonableness than those who did not return home when all was lost. But nothing irritates me so much as the severe Criticism of the do-nothings, and I am more inclined to feel scrupulous about those who fell in the war, than to trouble myself about those who are angry with us for being alive. If I find a spare moment for coming to Tusculum before the 5th, I will see you there: if not, I will follow you to your Cuman villa, and give you notice beforehand, that the bath may be got ready.
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§ Fam.7.3 CDLXII (Fam. VII, 3) TO M. MARIUS (AT POMPEII) ROME (LATE IN MAY) Very often, as I reflect upon the miseries in which we have all alike been living these many years past, and, as far as I can see, are likely to be living, I am wont to recall that time when we last met: nay, I remember the exact day. Having arrived at my Pompeian villa on the evening of the 12th of May, in the consulship of Lentulus and Marcellus [49 BCE], you came to see me in a state of anxiety. What was making you uneasy was your reflexion both on my duty and my danger. If I remained in Italy, you feared my being wanting to my duty: if I set out to the camp, you were agitated by the thought of my danger. At that time you certainly found me so unnerved as to be unable to unravel the tangle and see what was best to be done. Nevertheless, I preferred to be ruled by honour and reputation, rather than to consider the safety of my life. Of this decision I afterwards repented, not so much on account of the danger I incurred, as because of the many fatal weaknesses which I found on arrival at my destination. In the first place, troops neither numerous nor on a proper war footing; in the second place, beyond the general and a few others — I am speaking of the men of rank — the rest, to begin with, greedy for plunder in conducting the war itself, and moreover so bloodthirsty in their talk, that I shuddered at the idea of victory itself: and, lastly, immense indebtedness on the part of the men of the highest position. In short, there was nothing good except the cause. Despairing of victory when I saw these things, I first began advising a peace, which had always been my policy; next, finding Pompey vehemently opposed to that idea, I proceeded to advise him to protract the war. Of this he at times expressed approval, and seemed likely to adopt the suggestion; and he perhaps would have done so, had it not been that as a result of a certain engagement he began to feel confidence in his soldiers. From that day forth that eminent man ceased to be anything of a general. He accepted battle against the most highly seasoned legions with an army of raw recruits and hastily collected men. Having been shamefully beaten, with the loss also of his camp, he fled alone. This I regarded as the end of the war, as far as I was concerned, nor did I imagine that, having been found unequal to the struggle while still unbeaten, we should have the upper hand after a crushing defeat. I abandoned a war in which the alternatives were to fall on the field of battle, or to fall into some ambush, or to come into the conqueror's hands, or to take refuge with Iuba, or to select some place of residence as practically an exile, or to die by one's own hand. At least there was no other alternative, if you had neither the will nor the courage to trust yourself to the victor. Now, of all these alternatives I have mentioned, none is more en-durable than exile, especially to a man with clean hands, when no dishonour attaches to it: and I may also add, when you lose a city, in which there is nothing that you can look at without pain. For my part, I preferred to remain with my own family — if a man may nowadays call anything his own — and also on my own property. What actually happened I foretold in every particular. I came home, not because that offered the best condition of life, but that after all, if some form of a constitution remained, I might be there as though in my own country, and if not, as though in exile. For inflicting death on myself there seemed no adequate reason: many reasons why I should wish for it. For it is an old saying, “When you cease to be what once you were, there is no reason why you should wish to live.” But after all it is a great consolation to be free of blame, especially as I have two things upon which to rely for support-acquaintance with the noblest kind of learning and the glory of the most brilliant achievements: of which the former will never be torn from me while I live, the latter not even after my death. I have written these things to you somewhat fully, and have bored you with them, because I knew you to be most devoted both to myself and to the Republic. I wished you to be acquainted with my entire views, that in the first place you might know that it was never a wish of mine that any one individual should have more power than the Republic as a whole; but that, when by some one's fault a particular person did become so powerful as to make resistance to him impossible, I was for peace: that when the army was lost, as well as the leader in whom alone our hopes had been fixed, I wished to put an end to the war for the rest of the party also: and, when that proved impossible, that I did so for myself. But that now, if our state exists, I am a citizen of it; if it does not, that I am an exile in a place quite as suited for the position, as if I had betaken myself to Rhodes or Mytilene. I should have preferred to discuss this with you personally, but as the possibility of that was somewhat remote, I determined to make the same statement by letter, that you might have something to say, if you ever fell in with any of my critics. For there are men who, though my death would have been utterly useless to the state, regard it as a crime that I am still alive, and who I am certain think that those who perished were not numerous enough. Though, if these persons had listened to me, they would now, however unfair the terms of peace, have been living in honour; for while inferior in arms they would have been superior in the merits of their cause. Here's a letter somewhat more wordy than perhaps you would have wished; and that I shall hold to be your opinion, unless you send me a still longer one in reply. If I can get through with some business which I wish to settle, I shall, I hope, see you before long.
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§ Fam.6.22 CDLXIII (Fam. VI, 22) TO CN. DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS (IN ITALY) ROME (MAY) It was not the fact of your never having written to me since your arrival in Italy that deterred me from writing to you. The reason was that I could not think of any promise to make you in my present state of complete destitution, or of any advice to give you, being quite at a loss myself as to what policy to pursue, or of any consolation to offer in the midst of such grave disasters. Although things here are in no way improved, and, in fact, are continually becoming more and more desperate, yet I preferred sending you a colourless letter to not sending you one at all. For myself, if I had perceived that you had undertaken a task in the cause of the Republic greater than you were able to make good, I should yet to the best of my ability have counselled you to accept life on such terms as were offered you and were actually available. But since you have decided that to your policy, righteously and courageously adopted, there should be the same limit as fortune herself had laid down as the finishing point of our struggles, I beg and implore you, in the name of our old union and friendship, and in the name of my extreme affection for you and your no less strong one for me, to preserve yourself alive for us, for your mother, your wife, and all near and dear to you, to whom you have ever been the object of the deepest affection. Consult for the safety of yourself and of those who hang upon you. The lessons gathered from the wisest of philosophers, and grasped and remembered by you from your youth up with such brilliant success — all these put in practice at this crisis. Sorrow for those you have lost — so closely connected with you by the warmest affection and the most constant kindness-bear, if not without pain, yet at least with courage. What I can do I know not, or rather I feel how helpless I am; but this, nevertheless, I do promise: whatever I shall conceive to conduce to your safety and honour, I will do with the same zeal, as you have ever shown and practically employed in what concerned my fortunes. I have conveyed this expression of my warm feelings for you to your mother, the noblest of women and the most devoted of mothers. Whatever you write to me I will do, as far as I shall understand your wishes. But even if you fail to write, I shall yet with the utmost zeal and care do what I shall think to be for your interest. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.9.4 CDLXIV (Fam. IX, 4) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (?AT CUMAE) TUSCULUM (JUNE) About things “possible,” let me tell you my opinion agrees with Diodorus. Wherefore, if you are to come, be assured that your coming is “necessary,” but if you are not, then it is “impossible” that you should come. Now see which opinion pleases you the more, that of Chrysippus or the one which our teacher Diodotus could not stomach. But on these points also we will talk when we are at leisure: that too is “possible,” according to Chrysippus. I am much obliged to you about Coctius: for that is just what I had commissioned Atticus to do. Yes, if you don't come to me, I shall take a run to you. If you have a garden in your library, everything will be complete.
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§ Fam.9.6 CDLXVIII (Fam. IX, 6) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (JUNE) Our friend Caninius has brought a message from you bidding me write and tell you whatever I thought you ought to know. Well then, Caesar's arrival of course is occupying men's minds, and of that you are yourself not unaware. However, he having written, I presume, to say that he intended to come to his villa at Alsium, his friends wrote to him not to do so: that many people would annoy him, and he himself annoy many: they thought it would be more convenient for him to land at Ostia. I do not myself understand what difference it makes; but yet Hirtius told me that both he and Balbus and Oppius had written to him to do so-men, as I have reason to know, who are attached to you. I wanted you to learn this, that you might know where to prepare yourself a lodging, or rather that you might do so in both places: for what he is going to do is uncertain. At the same time I have shown you that I am intimate with these men and admitted to their counsels And I don't see any reason for avoiding that. It is one thing to bear what one must bear, another to approve what one ought not to approve. Though for my part I do not know why I should not approve, with the exception of the first steps in the movement: for they were within the control of men's wills. I saw of course (you were abroad) that our friends desired war, whereas Caesar did not so much desire it as not fear it (wherefore the first steps were deliberate, the rest merely consequential), and that it must needs be that either this party or that should win. I know that you always lamented with me, when we saw, first, that frightful alternative — the destruction of one or the other army and leader; and, secondly, that the most dreadful evil of all was victory in a civil war, which indeed I dreaded even if it declared on the side of those whom I had joined. For the veriest do-nothings were uttering bloodthirsty threats, and they were offended both by your feelings and my words. At this moment, indeed, if our men had prevailed, they would have been exceedingly violent; for there were some who were very angry with us, as though forsooth we had adopted any resolution as to our own preservation which we had not decided to be good for them also; or as though it were more for the advantage of the state that they should fly to the protection of the beasts, than either die out of hand, or continue to live, if not with the best prospect, yet at least with some. But, it may be said, we are living in a distracted republic. Who denies it? But this is their look-out, who secured no resources for the various phases of life. Well, it was to arrive at this point that my preface has extended to a greater length than I intended. For as I have ever regarded you as a great man, because in the face of these storms you are nearly the only one safely in port, and are reaping the best fruits of philosophy-namely, to fix your mind upon and handle themes, the study and delight of which are to be preferred to all their employments and pleasures: so I consider these days you are spending at Tusculum to be a specimen of true life, and I would with pleasure resign all the wealth in the world to anybody on condition of being allowed, without the interruption of violence, to live a life like yours. And this, indeed, I imitate to the best of my ability, and with the utmost delight find repose in the studies which we both pursue. For who will grudge us this privilege, that, when our country either cannot or will not employ our services, we should return to that way of life, which many learned men have, perhaps wrongly, but still have thought was to be preferred even to public business? These studies, in the opinion of some eminent men, involve a kind of furlough from public duties: why then, when the state allows it, should we not enjoy them to the full? But I have more than fulfilled Caninius's demand; for he quite legitimately asked me for anything I knew which you didn't: but I am telling you what you know better than I myself who tell it. I will accordingly do what I was asked, that is, prevent your being ignorant of anything that is in your way connected with this crisis which I may hear. 226
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§ Fam.9.16 CDLXX (Fam. IX, 16) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) TUSCULUM (JULY) I was charmed with your letter, in which, first of all, what I loved was the tenderness which prompted you to write, in alarm lest Silius should by his news have caused me any anxiety. About this news, not only had you written to me before — in fact twice, one letter being a duplicate of the other-showing me clearly that you were upset, but I also had answered you in full detail, in order that I might, as far as such a business and such a crisis admitted, free you from your anxiety, or at any rate alleviate it. But since you show in your last also how anxious you are about that matter-make up your mind to this, my dear Paetus: that whatever could possibly be accomplished by art — for it is not enough nowadays to contend with mere prudence, a sort of system must be elaborated-however, whatever could be done or effected towards winning and securing the goodwill of those men I have done, and not, I think, in vain. For I receive such attentions, such politenesses from all Caesar's favourites as make me believe myself beloved by them. For, though genuine love is not easily distinguished from feigned, unless some crisis occurs of a kind to test faithful affection by its danger, as gold in the fire, there are other indications of a general nature. But I only employ one proof to convince me that I am loved from the heart and in sincerity-namely, that my fortune and theirs is of such a kind as to preclude any motive on their part for pretending. In regard, again, to the man who now possesses all power, I see no reason for my being alarmed: except the fact that, once depart from law, everything is uncertain; and that nothing can be guaranteed as to the future which depends on another man's will, not to say caprice. Be that as it may, personally his feelings have in no respect been wounded by me. For in that particular point I have exhibited the greatest self-control. For, as in old times I used to reckon that to speak without reserve was a privilege of mine, since to my exertions the existence of liberty in the state was owing, so, now that that is lost, I think it is my duty to say nothing calculated to offend either his wishes or those of his favourites. But if I want to avoid the credit of certain keen or witty epigrams, I must entirely abjure a reputation for genius, which I would not refuse to do, if I could. But after all Caesar himself has a very keen critical faculty, and, just as your cousin Servius — whom I consider to have been a most accomplished man of letters — had no difficulty in saying: “This verse is not Plautus's, this is — ”because he had acquired a sensitive ear by dint of classifying the various styles of poets and habitual reading, so I am told that Caesar, having now completed his volumes of bons mots, if anything is brought to him as mine, which is not so, habitually rejects it. This he now does all the more, because his intimates are in my company almost every day. Now in the course of our discursive talk many remarks are let fall, which perhaps at the time of my making them seem to them wanting neither in literary flavour nor in piquancy. These are conveyed to him along with the other news of the day: for so he himself directed. Thus it comes about that if he is told of anything besides about me, he considers that he ought not to listen to it. Wherefore I have no need of your Oenomaus, though your quotation of Accius's verses was very much on the spot. But what is this jealousy, or what have I now of which anyone can be jealous? But suppose the worst. I find that the philosophers, who alone in my view grasp the true nature of virtue, hold that the wise man does not pledge himself against anything except doing wrong; and of this I consider myself clear in two ways, first in that my views were most absolutely correct; and second because, when I found that we had not sufficient material force to maintain them, I was against a trial of strength with the stronger party. Therefore, so far as the duty of a good citizen is concerned, I am certainly not open to reproach. What remains is that I should not say or do anything foolish or rash against the men in power: that too, I think, is the part of the wise man. As to the rest — what this or that man may say that I said, or the light in which he views it, or the amount of good faith with which those who continually seek me out and pay me attention may be acting — for these things I cannot be responsible. The result is that I console myself with the consciousness of my uprightness in the past and my moderation in the present, and apply that simile of Accius's not to jealousy, but to fortune, which I hold — as being inconstant and frail — ought to be beaten back by a strong and manly soul, as a wave is by a rock. For, considering that Greek history is full of examples of how the wisest men endured tyrannies either at Athens or Syracuse, when, though their countries were enslaved, they themselves in a certain sense remained free — am I to believe that I cannot so maintain my position as not to hurt anyone's feelings and yet not blast my own character? I now come to your jests, since as an afterpiece to Accius's Oenomaus, you have brought on the stage, not, as was his wont, an Atellan play but, according to the present fashion, a mime. What's all this about a pilot-fish, a denarius, and a dish of salt fish and cheese? In my old easy-going days I put up with that sort of thing: but times are changed. Hirtius and Dolabella are my pupils in rhetoric, but my masters in the art of dining. For I think you must have heard, if you really get all news, that their practice is to declaim at my house, and mine to dine at theirs. Now it is no use your making an affidavit of insolvency to me: for when you had some property, petty profits used to keep you a little too close to business; but as things are now, seeing that you are losing money so cheerfully, all you have to do, when entertaining me, is to regard yourself as accepting a “composition”; and even that loss is less annoying when it comes from a friend than from a debtor. Yet, after all, I don't require dinners superfluous in quantity: only let what there is be first-rate in quality and recherche. I remember you used to tell me stories of Phamea's dinner. Let yours be earlier, but in other respects like that. But if you persist in bringing me back to a dinner like your mother's, I should put up with that also. For I should like to see the man who had the face to put on the table for me what you describe, or even a polypus-looking as red as Iupiter Miniatus. Believe me, you won't dare. Before I arrive the fame of my new magnificence will reach you: and you will be awestruck at it. Yet it is no use building any hope on your hors d'oeuvre. I have quite abolished that: for in old times I found my appetite spoilt by your olives and Lucanian sausages. But why all this talk? Let me only get to you. By all means — for I wish to wipe away all fear from your heart — go back to your old cheese-and-sardine dish. The only expense I shall cause you will be that you will have to have the bath heated. All the rest according to my regular habits. What I have just been saying was all a joke. As to Selicius's villa, you have managed the business carefully and written most wittily. So I think I won't buy. For there is enough salt and not enough savour. 246
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§ Fam.9.18 CDLXXI (Fam. IX, 18) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) TUSCULUM (JULY) Being quite at leisure in my Tusculan villa, because I had sent my pupils to meet him, that they might at the same time present me in as favourable a light as possible to their friend, I received your most delightful letter, from which I learnt that you approved my idea of having begun — now that legal proceedings are abolished and my old supremacy in the forum is lost — to keep a kind of school, just as Dionysius, when expelled from Syracuse, is said to have opened a school at Corinth. In short, I too am delighted with the idea, for I secure many advantages. First and foremost, I am strengthening my position in view of the present crisis, and that is of primary importance at this time. How much that amounts to I don't know: I only see that as at present advised I prefer no one's policy to this, unless, of course, it had been better to have died. In one's own bed, I confess it might have been, but that did not occur: and as to the field of battle, I was not there. The rest indeed-Pompey, your friend Lentulus, Afranius — perished ingloriously. But, it may be said, Cato died a noble death. Well, that at any rate is in our power when we will: let us only do our best to prevent its being as necessary to us as it was to him. That is what I am doing. So that is the first thing I had to say. The next is this: I am improving, in the first place in health, which I had lost from giving up all exercise of my lungs. In the second place, my oratorical faculty, such as it was, would have completely dried up, had I not gone back to these exercises. The last thing I have to say, which I rather think you will consider most important of all, is this: I have now demolished more peacocks than you have young pigeons) You there revel in Haterian law-sauce, I here in Hirtian hot-sauce. Come then, if you are half a man, and learn from me the maxims which you seek: yet it is a case of" a pig teaching Minerva." But it will be my business to see to that: as for you, if you can't find purchasers for your foreclosures and so fill your pot with denarii back you must come to Rome. It is better to die of indigestion here, than of starvation there. I see you have lost money: I hope these friends of yours have done the same. You are a ruined man if you don't look out. You may possibly get to Rome on the only mule that you say you have left, since you have eaten up your pack horse. Your seat in the school, as second master, will be next to mine: the honour of a cushion will come by-and-by.
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§ Fam.7.33 CDLXXII (Fam. VII, 33) TO P. VOLUMNIUS EUTRAPELUS ROME (JULY) You don't lose much by not being present at my oratorical lectures. You say you would have been envious of Hirtius, if you had not loved him: you had no reason for being envious; unless it was of his own eloquence by any chance that you were envious rather than of his being my pupil. The fact is, my dearest Volumnius, I am either a complete failure, or feel myself to be so, now that those members of my set, by whose support (joined with your applause) I once flourished, are lost: so that if I ever did produce anything worthy of my reputation, let us sigh that, as Philoctetes says in Accius, “These arrows now are fleshed On winged not armed forms — all glory lost.” But, after all, things will be more cheerful with me all round if you come: though you will come, as you understand without my telling you, to what I may call an immense bombardment of business. If I can once deal with this as I wish, I will really say a long good-bye to both forum and senate-house, and devote a great deal of time to you and our common friends, I mean your Cassius and our Dolabella — or rather I should call them both ours — who are fascinated with the same studies and find me a very indulgent listener. To carry this on we need your refined and polished judgment, and that deeper tinge of literature by which you often make me feel somewhat diffident of myself while speaking. For I have quite made up my mind, if only Caesar will either allow or order it, to lay aside that role in which I have often won even his approval, and to throw myself entirely into the obscurity of literature, and in company of other devotees of it to enjoy the most honourable kind of leisure. For you, I could have wished that you had not felt afraid of my being much bored with reading your letter, if' as you say, you chance to send me a somewhat long one; and I should like you henceforth to make up your mind that the longer a letter from you is, the better I shall like it.
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§ Fam.9.20 CDLXXIII (Fam. IX, 20) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (AUGUST) I was doubly charmed by your letter, first because it made me laugh myself' and secondly because I saw that you could still laugh. Nor did I in the least object to being overwhelmed with your shafts of ridicule, as though I were a light skirmisher in the war of wits. What I am vexed at is that I have not been able, as I intended, to run over to see you: for you would not have had a mere guest, but a brother-in-arms. And such a hero! not the man whom you used to do for by the hors d'oeuvre. I now bring an unimpaired appetite to the egg, and so the fight is maintained right up to the roast veal. The compliments you used to pay me in old times — “What a contented person!” “What an easy guest to entertain! ” — are things of the past. All my anxiety about the good of the state, all meditating of speeches to be delivered in the senate, all getting up of briefs I have cast to the winds. I have thrown myself into the camp of my old enemy Epicurus — not, however, with a view to the extravagance of the present day, but to that refined splendour of yours — I mean your old style when you had money to spend (though you never had more landed estate ). Therefore prepare! You have to deal with a man, who not only has a large appetite, but who also knows a thing or two. You are aware of the extravagance of your bourgeois gentilhomme. You must forget all your little baskets and your omelettes. I am now so far advanced in the art that I frequently venture to ask your friend Verrius and Camillus to dinner — what dandies! how fastidious! But think of my audacity: I even gave Hirtius a dinner, without a peacock however. In that dinner my cook could not imitate him in anything but the hot sauce. So this is my way of life nowadays: in the morning I receive not only a large number of “loyalists,” who, how ever, look gloomy enough, but also our exultant conquerors here, who in my case are quite prodigal in polite and affectionate attentions. When the stream of morning callers has ebbed, I wrap myself up in my books, either writing or reading. There are also some visitors who listen to my discourses under the belief of my being a man of learning, because I am a trifle more learned than themselves. After that all my time is given to my bodily comfort. I have mourned for my country more deeply and longer than any mother for her only son. But take care, if you love me, to keep your health, lest I should take advantage of your being laid up to eat you out of house and home. For I am resolved not to spare you even when you are ill.
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§ Fam.7.27 CDLXXIV (Fam. VII, 27) TO TITUS FADIUS GALLUS (IN EXILE) ROME (?) I am surprised at your finding fault with me, when etiquette forbids it. Even if there had been no such obstacle, you ought not to have done it. “Why I showed you attention in your consulship” — and then you go on to say that Caesar will certainly recall you. Well, you have a great deal to say, but nobody believes you. You allege that you stood for the tribuneship for my sake. I wish you had always been a tribune, then you would not have wanted anyone to intervene! You say that I dare not speak what I think, on the ground that I did not give a sufficiently spirited answer to a shameless request of yours. I write thus to show you that even in that peculiar style of composition, in which you desire to be forcible, you are nil. But if you had presented your grievance to me in a reasonable spirit, I should have cleared myself in your eyes with readiness and ease: for I am not ungrateful for what you have done, but vexed with what you have written. Now I do wonder that you think me, the cause of everyone else's freedom, to be but a slave. For if the information — as you call it — which you gave me was false, what do I owe you? If true, you are the best witness of what the Roman people owe me.
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§ Fam.7.28 CDLXXV (Fam. VII, 28) TO MANIUS CURIUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME (AUGUST) I remember the time when I thought you foolish for associating with your friends over there rather than with us: for a residence in this city — while it was still a city at all — was much better suited to your culture and refinement than all the Peloponnesus put together, to say nothing of Patrae. Now, however, on the contrary you seem to me to have been long-sighted for having settled in Greece when things here were in a desperate condition, and at the present crisis not only to be wise for being abroad, but happy as well. And yet what man of any discernment can be happy at present? But what you, who could do so, have secured by the use of your feet-removal to a place “Where of the Pelopidae ” (you know the rest)-I am getting by a different method. For, after giving myself up to the reception of my friends which is more crowded than it used to be, precisely because they imagine that in a citizen of honest sentiments they see a rare bird of good omen, I bury myself in my library. Accordingly, I am completing works of an importance which you will perhaps appreciate. For in a certain talk I had with you at your house, when you were finding fault with my gloom and despair, I understood you to say, that you could not recognize the old high spirit in my books. But, by Hercules, at that time I was mourning for the Republic — which by its services to me, and no less by mine to it, was dearer to me than my life. And even now, though not only is reason (which ought to be more powerful than anything) consoling me, but also time which cures even fools, yet I am nevertheless grieving that the general interests are in such a state of collapse, that no hope even is left of any future improvement. Not that in the present instance the fault is his, in whose power everything is — unless by any chance that very fact is not as it should be — but some things by accident and others by my own fault also have so fallen out, that complaint on my part for the past is barred. Hope for the future I see none. Therefore I return to what I said at first: you have left all this wisely, if you did so by design; luckily, if by accident.
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§ Fam.9.19 CDLXXVI (Fam. IX, 19) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (AUGUST) What I you don't budge from your mischievous humour? You hint that Balbus was contented with very plain fare: your insinuation seems to be that when kings are so abstemious, much more ought mere consulars to be so. You don't know that I fished everything out of him; for he came straight from the city gate to my house — and I am not surprised that he did not prefer going to his own house, but that he didn't go to his own belle amie! However, my first three words were “How's our Paetus?” In answer he swore that he had never had a pleasanter visit anywhere. If you earned that compliment by your conversation, I will bring you a pair of ears no less discriminating: but if by your dainty fare, I beg you not to think stutterers worth more than men of eloquence. One thing after another stops me every day. But if I ever get myself sufficiently free to be able to come to your parts, I won't let you think that you haven't sufficient notice from me.
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§ Fam.9.26 CDLXXVII (Fam. IX, 26) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (AUGUST?) I have just lain down to dinner at three o'clock, when I scribble a copy of this note to you in my pocket-book. You will say, “where?” With Volumnius Eutrapelus. One place above me is Atticus, one below Verrius, both friends of yours. Do you wonder that our slavery is made so gay? Well, what am I to do? I ask your advice as the pupil of a philosopher. Am I to be miserable, to torment myself? What should I get by that? And, moreover, how long? “Live with your books,” say you. Well, do you suppose that I do anything else? Or could I have kept alive, had I not lived with my books? But even to them there is, I don't say a surfeit, but a certain limit. When I have left them, though I care very little about my dinner — the one problem which you put before the philosopher Dion — still, what better to do with my time before taking myself off to bed I cannot discover. Now listen to the rest. Below Eutrapelus lay Cytheris. At such a party as that, say you, was the famous Cicero, “To whom all looked with reverence, on whose face Greeks turned their eyes with wonder?” To tell you the truth, I had no suspicion that she would be there. But, after all, even the Socratic Aristippus himself did not blush when he was taunted with having Lais as his mistress: “Yes,” quoth he, “ Lais is my mistress, but not my master.” It is better in Greek; you must make a translation yourself, if you want one. As for myself, the fact is that that sort of thing never had any attraction for me when I was a young man, much less now I am an old one. I like a dinner party. I talk freely there, whatever comes upon the tapis, as the phrase is, and convert sighs into loud bursts of laughter. Did you behave better in jeering at a philosopher and saying, when he invited anyone to put any question he chose, that the question you asked the first thing in the morning was: “Where shall I dine?” The blockhead thought that you were going to inquire whether there was one heaven or an infinite number! What did you care about that? “Well, but, in heaven's name — you will say to me — ”was a dinner a great matter to you, and there of all places?" Well then, my course of life is this. Every day something read or written: then, not to be quite churlish to my friends, I dine with them, not only without exceeding the law, but even within it, and that by a good deal. So you have no reason to be terrified at the idea of my arrival. You will receive a guest of moderate appetite, but of infinite jest.
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§ Fam.9.17 CDLXXVIII (Fam. IX, 17) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (AUGUST) Aren't you a ridiculous fellow for asking me what I think will be done about those municipal towns and lands, when our friend Balbus has been staying with you? As though I were likely to know what he doesn't, and as though, when I do know anything, it is not from him that I always learn it. Nay rather, if you love me, tell me what is going to be done about us: for you have had in your power one from whom you could have learnt it either sober or at any rate drunk. But for myself, I do not ask you for such information: in the first place, because I put it down as so much gain that I have been left alive for the last four years, if gain it is to be called, and if it is life to survive the Republic; and, in the second place, because I think that I myself know what is going to happen. For whatever the stronger chooses will be done, and the stronger will always be the sword. We ought, accordingly, to be content with any concession made to us, whatever it is; the man who was unable to endure this ought to have died. They are measuring the territory of Veii and Capena. This is not far from my Tusculan property. However, I don't at all alarm myself. I enjoy while I may: I only wish it may last. If that does not turn out to be the case, yet, since I in my courage and philosophy thought that nothing was better than to remain alive, I cannot but love the man by whose kindness I gained that object. But even if he should desire the continuance of a republic, such as perhaps he wishes and we ought all to pray for, he yet does not know how to do it: so completely has he entangled himself with many other people. But I am going too far. I forgot that I am writing to you. However, let me assure you of this, that not only I, who am not in his confidence, but even the leader himself is unable to say what is going to happen. For, while we are his slaves, he is a slave to circumstances: and so neither can he possibly be sure of what circumstances will demand, nor we of what he is designing. The reason that I did not send you this answer before was not because I am usually idle, especially in the matter of writing, but because, as I had no certainty about anything, I did not choose to cause you either anxiety from the hesitation, or hope from the confidence of my words. However, I will add this, which is the most absolute truth, that during the present crisis I have not heard a word about the danger you mention. In any case you will be bound, like the man of sense that you are, to hope for the best, prepare yourself for the worst, and bear whatever happens.
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§ Fam.9.15 CDLXXIX (Fam. IX, 15) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I will answer two letters of yours: one which I received four days ago from Zethus, a second which your letter-carrier Phileros brought. From your former letter I gathered that you were much gratified by my anxiety about your health, and I rejoice that you have been convinced of it. But, believe me, you will never see it in its full reality from a letter. For though I perceive that I am being sought out and liked by a considerable number of people — a thing it is impossible for me to deny — there is not one of them all nearer to my heart than yourself. For that you love me, and have done so for a long while and without interruption, is indeed a great thing, or rather the greatest, but it is shared with you by many: but that you are yourself so lovable, so gracious, and so delightful in every way — that you have all to yourself. Added to that is your wit, not Attic, but more pungent than that of the Attics, good Roman wit of the true old city style. Now I — think what you will of it — am astonishingly attracted by witticisms, above all of the native kind, especially when I see that they were first infected by Latinism, when the foreign element found its way into the city, and now-a-days by the breeched and Transalpine tribes also, so that no trace of the old-fashioned style of wit can be seen. Accordingly when I see you, I seem — to confess the truth — to see all the Granii, the Lucilii, as well as the Crassi and Laelii. Upon my life, I have no one left but you in whom I can recognize any likeness of the old racy cheerfulness. And when to these Graces of wit there is added your strong affection for me, do you wonder that I have been so severely alarmed at so grave a blow to your health? In your second letter you say in self-defence that you did not advise me against the purchase at Naples, but recommended caution. You put it politely, and I did not regard it in any other fight. However, I gathered the same idea as I do from this letter, that you did not think it open to me to take the course which I thought I might-namely, to abandon politics here, not indeed entirely, but to a great extent. You quote Catulus and all that period. Where is the analogy? I did not myself at that time desire to absent myself for any length of time from the guardianship of the constitution: for I was sitting at the helm and holding the rudder; whereas now I have scarcely a place in the hold. Do you suppose the number of senatorial decrees will be any the less if I am at Naples? While I am at Rome and actually haunting the forum, senatorial decrees are written out in the house of your admirer, my intimate friend. And whenever it occurs to him, I am put down as backing a decree, and am informed of its having reached Armenia and Syria, professing to have been made in accordance with my vote, before any mention has been made of the business at all. And, indeed, I would not have you think that I am joking about this; for I assure you I have had letters from kings at the other end of the earth, thanking me for having voted for giving them the royal title, as to whom I was not only ignorant of their having been called kings, but of their very existence even. What, then, am I to do? After all, as long as this friend of ours — this guardian of morals — is here, I will follow your advice: but directly he goes away I am off to your mushrooms. If I have a house there, I will make the expenses allowed for a day by the sumptuary law last over ten days. But if I don't find anything to suit me, I have made up my mind to reside with you: for I know I could not please you more. I am beginning to despair of Sulla's house, as I told you in my last, but I have not, after all, quite given it up. Pray do what you suggest, inspect it with some builders. If there is no defect in walls or roof, the rest will meet my views very well.
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§ Fam.13.68 CDLXXX (Fam. XIII, 68) TO P. SERVILIUS ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I was exceedingly obliged by your letter giving me an account of your voyages. For you indicated your recollection of our friendship, than which nothing could be more grateful to my feelings. For the future you will oblige me still more if you will write to me in a friendly way about public affairs, that is, the state of your province, and the details of your administration. Although I shall be sure to hear of these things from many people, considering your distinguished position, nevertheless I should be extremely glad to learn them from a letter of your own. For my part, I shall not often write to you my sentiments on imperial politics owing to the risk of a letter of that kind; but of what is actually being done I will frequently inform you Still I seem to hope that our colleague Caesar will be careful to see that we have a constitution of some kind. It was of great importance that you should take part in his deliberations: but if it is more for your interests, that is, better for your reputation, that you should govern Asia and protect a part of the empire which has suffered from misgovernment, I also am bound to prefer that course which will best serve you and your glory. For my part, I will attend with the greatest zeal and activity to whatever I think likely to be of importance to your position; and first and foremost I will guard with every kind of respectful attention your most illustrious father, as I am bound to do in view of our long standing friendship, of the kindnesses received by me from your family, and of his own noble character.
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§ Fam.4.13 CDLXXXI (Fam. IV, 13) TO P. NIGIDIUS FIGULUS (IN EXILE) ROME (? SEPTEMBER) Though I have for some time past been on the look-out as to what I had best write to you, not only does no definite subject occur to me, but even the usual style of letter seems impossible. For of one department and habitual element in those letters, which we used to write in the days of our prosperity, the state of the times has violently deprived us, and fortune has ordained that I should be unable to write or so much as to think of anything of the sort. There only remained a certain gloomy and wretched style of letter, and one suited to the state of the times: that, too, fails me. In it there is bound to be either a promise of some assistance, or some consolation for your sorrow. I had no such promise to give: for, cast down by a similar blow of fortune, I am myself supporting my disasters by the aid of others, and it more frequently occurs to my mind to complain that I am living as I do, than to rejoice that I am alive. For although no signal injury has been inflicted upon me personally apart from others, and although it has never occurred to my mind to wish for anything in such circumstances which Caesar has not spontaneously offered me, yet nevertheless I am being so worn out with anxieties, that I regard myself as doing wrong in the mere fact of remaining alive. For I have lost not only many very intimate associates whom either death has snatched from me, or exile torn away, but also all the friends whose affection my former successful defence of the Republic, accomplished with your aid, had gained for me. I am in the very midst of their shipwrecked fortunes and the confiscation of their property; and I not only hear — which in itself would have been bad enough — but I have before my very eyes the sharpest of all pangs, the actual sight of the ruin of those men by whose aid in old times I quenched that conflagration. And in the city in which I once enjoyed such popularity, influence, and glory, I am now entirely deprived of all these. I retain, indeed, Caesar's supreme kind-ness: but that cannot make up for violence and a complete upset of the established order of things. Therefore, being shorn of all to which nature and taste and habit had accustomed me, I present no pleasant object either to others, as it seems to me, or to myself. For, being inclined by nature to be always actively employed in some task worthy of a man, I have now no scope, not merely for action, but even for thought. And I, who in old times was able to help men, who were either obscure or even guilty, am now unable to make even a kind promise to Publius Nigidius — the most eminent man of the day for learning and purity of character, who formerly enjoyed the highest popularity, and at any rate was a most affectionate friend to me. Therefore from that kind of letter I am forcibly debarred. The only thing left is to console you and to put before you some considerations by which I may endeavour to distract your thoughts from your afflictions. But, if anyone ever had, you have the gift in the highest degree of consoling either yourself or another. Therefore upon that part of the subject which proceeds from profound reason and philosophy I will not touch: I will leave it entirely to you. What is becoming to a brave and wise man, what solidity of character, what a lofty mind, what a past such as yours, what studies and accomplishments, in which you have been eminent from boyhood, demand of you — that you will see for yourself. I only undertake to assure you of what I am able to gather and perceive, from being at Rome and watching affairs anxiously and with attention: it is that you will not be long in the distressing circumstances in which you are at present; but that in those, nevertheless, which I share with you, you will perhaps be permanently. I think I perceive, to begin with, that the mind of him who is now all-powerful is inclined to grant your restoration. I am not writing at random. The less familiar I am with him, the more minute am I in my inquiries. It is in order that he may feel less difficulty in returning a sterner answer to those with whom he is still more angry, that he is as yet slower than he otherwise would have been in releasing you from your distressing position. His close friends, indeed, and those who are most liked by him, both speak and think of you with surprising kindness. Then there is in your favour the wish of the common people, or I should rather say a consensus of all classes. Even that which for the present, indeed, is most powerless of all, but which hereafter must necessarily be powerful, I mean the Republic itself, will with all the strength it may possess enforce your claim before long, believe me, upon those very men by whom it is now held in bondage. I come round, then, to the point of even making you a promise, which in the first instance I refrained from doing. For I will both open my arms to his most familiar friends, who are very fond of me and are much in my society, and will worm my way into his intimacy, which up to this time my scruples have closed to me, and I will at least follow up all the paths by which I shall think it possible to arrive at the object of our wishes. In all this department I will do more than I venture to write. And other things, which I know for certain to be at your service at the hands of many, are in the highest state of preparation on my side. There is no one article of property belonging to me which I would choose to have my own rather than yours. On this point, and indeed on the whole subject, I write the less liberally, because I prefer your hoping, what I feel sure will be the case, that you will be in the enjoyment of your own again. It remains for me to beg and beseech you to keep up your spirits to the highest pitch, and not to remember those maxims only which you have learnt from other great men, but those also which you have yourself produced by your genius and industry. If you review these, you will at once hope for the best, and endure philosophically what happens, of whatsoever kind it may be. But you know this better than I, or rather than anyone. For my part, whatever I understand to be to your interests I will attend to with the greatest zeal and activity, and will preserve the memory of what you did for me at the saddest period of my life.
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§ Fam.4.15 CDLXXXII (Fam. IV, 15) TO GNAEUS PLANCIUS (EXILE IN CORCYRA) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I have received your very short note, from which I was not able to learn what I wanted to know, but did learn what I was sure of already. For I did not gather with how much courage you were bearing our common misfortunes: while the strength of your affection for me I had no difficulty in seeing. But the latter I had known before. If I had known the former,'I would have adapted my letter to it. However, though I have already written all that I thought ought to be written, I yet considered that at such a crisis as this I ought briefly to warn you not to think that you are in any danger special to yourself. We are all in great danger, but yet in one that is common to us all. So you ought neither to demand a position peculiar to yourself and distinct, nor to refuse one in which we all share. Wherefore let us keep the same mutual regard as we always had; which I may hope in your case and guarantee in my own.
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§ Fam.4.8 CDLXXXIII (Fam. IV, 8) TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AT MITYLENE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I do not venture to advise a man of your consummate wisdom, nor to offer encouragement to a man of the highest spirit and the most conspicuous gallantry-certainly not to console him in any way whatever. For if you bear what has happened as lam told you do, I ought rather to congratulate you on your manliness than console your sorrow. But if these great disasters to the state are breaking your heart, I have no ingenuity to spare for finding consolations for you, when I cannot console myself. All that remains, therefore, for me to do is at every point so to display and guarantee my services, and to be in such a way ready to undertake whatever your friends may wish, as to show that I hold myself your debtor not only for everything that is within my power to do, but also for what is beyond it. Nevertheless, please to consider that in what follows I have given you a warning, or (if you like) expressed an opinion, or from affection for you have been unable to refrain from saying — that you, as I do myself, should make up your mind, if there is to be a republic at all, that the first place in it is your due in everybody's judgment as well as in actual fact, though you are necessarily yielding to the circumstances of the hour: but if there is none, that after all this is the place best fitted for living even in exile. For if we are seeking freedom, what place is free from the master's hand? But if all we want is Some place, no matter of what sort, what residence is pleasanter than one's own home? But believe me, even the man who now dominates everything favours men of talent: moreover, he opens his arms to high birth and lofty position, as far as circumstances and his own party needs allow. But I have said more than I intended. I return, therefore, to that one fact — that I am yours, and will be by the side of your friends, always provided that they are yours: if not, I will in any case satisfy the claims of our attachment and affection in all particulars. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.4.7 CDLXXXIV (Fam. IV, 7) TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AT MITYLENE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Though I am aware that as yet you have maintained a policy of a nature that I do not venture to rebuke-not that I do not myself disagree with it, but because I judge you to be so wise a man, that I do not presume to prefer my view to yours-nevertheless, both the antiquity of our friendship and your eminent affection for me, which I have known from your childhood, have urged me to write to you what I believed would make for your personal security, and thought was not inconsistent with your honour. I have a vivid recollection that you were wise enough to discern the first signs of these disasters long before they occurred, and that you administered the consulship with the utmost splendour and in the most loyal spirit. But I also was conscious of this — that you were not satisfied with the policy of the civil war, nor with Pompey's forces, nor the nature of his army, and were always deeply distrustful of it: in which sentiment I think you remember that I also shared. Accordingly, you did not take much part in active service, and I always strove not to do so. For we were not fighting with the weapons with which we might have prevailed-deliberation, weight of character, and the righteousness of our cause, in all of which we had the superiority — but with muscles and brute force, in which we were not his equals. Accordingly, we were beaten, or, if worth cannot really be beaten, at least we were crushed and rendered powerless. And in this no one can do otherwise than highly praise your resolution, in that with all hope of victory you cast aside all desire of keeping up the contest also; and showed that a wise man and a good citizen takes the first steps in a civil war with reluctance, but with pleasure declines taking the last. Those who did not adopt the same course as yourself I perceive to have split up into two classes. Either they endeavoured to renew the war — and these have betaken themselves to Africa: or, like myself, they trusted themselves to the victor. Your course was a kind of compromise between the two, since you perhaps regarded the second as cowardice, the first as blind obstinacy. I confess that by most people, or I should say by everybody, your plan has been judged to be wise, by many even magnanimous and courageous. But your policy, as it seems to me at least, has a certain limit, especially as in my opinion nothing is wanting to your being able to keep your entire fortune, except your own willingness to do so. For I have gathered that there is nothing else which causes him who is now all-powerful to feel any hesitation, except the fear that you would not regard it as a favour at all. As to which there is no occasion for me to say what I think, since my conduct speaks for itself. However, even if you had already made up your mind, that you preferred being absent from Rome to seeing what was repugnant to your feelings, yet you ought to have reflected that, wherever you were, you would be in the power of the man from whom you were fleeing. And even if he were likely to make no difficulty about allowing you to live in peace and freedom while deprived of property and country, you ought yet to have reflected whether you preferred living at Rome and in your own house, whatever the state of affairs, to living at Mitylene or Rhodes. But seeing that the power of the man whom we fear is so widely extended, that it has embraced the whole world, do you not prefer being in your own house without danger to being in another man's with danger? For my part, if I must face death, I would rather do so at home and in my native country, than in a foreign and alien land. This is the sentiment of all who love you, of whom the number is as great as your eminent and shining virtues deserve. We have also regard for your property, which we are unwilling to see scattered. For, though it can receive no injury destined to be lasting, because neither the present master of the Republic, nor the Republic itself, will allow it, yet I don't want to see an attack made by certain banditti upon your possessions: and who these are I would have ventured to write, had I not felt sure that you understand. Here the anxieties, nay, the copious and perpetual tears of one man, your excellent brother Gaius Marcellus, plead for your pardon: I come next him both in anxiety and sorrow, but in actual prayers am somewhat slow, because I have not the right of entree to Caesar, being myself in need of intercession. We have only the influence which the conquered have, yet in counsel and zeal we are not wanting to Marcellus. By your other relations my help is not asked. I am prepared for anything.
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§ Fam.4.9 CDLXXXV (Fam. IV, 9) TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AT MITYLENE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Though it is only a very few days ago that I gave Quintus Mucius a letter for you written at considerable length, in which I set forth in what state of mind I thought you ought to be, and what I thought you ought to do, yet, since your freedman Theophilus was starting, of whose fidelity and affection to you I had satisfied myself, I was unwilling that he should reach you without a letter from me. On the same considerations, then, as I did in my previous letter, I again and again exhort you, to make up your mind to become a resident member of the Republic, whatever its nature may be, at the earliest possible time. You will perhaps see many things disagreeable to your feelings, but not more after all than you daily hear. Moreover, you are not the man to be affected by the sense of sight alone, and to be less afflicted when you learn the same things by the ear, which indeed are usually even magnified by imagination. But — you object — you will yourself be obliged to say something you do not feel, or to do something you do not approve. To begin with, to yield to circumstances, that is to submit to necessity, has ever been held the part of a wise man: in the next place, things are not — as matters now stand at least — quite so bad as that. You may not be able, perhaps, to say what you think: you may certainly hold your tongue. For authority of every kind has been committed to one man. He consults nobody but himself, not even his friends. There would not have been much difference if he whom we followed were master of the Republic. Can we think that the man who in a time of war, when we were all united in the same danger, consulted only himself and a certain clique of wholly incompetent persons, was likely to be more communicative in the hour of victory, than he had been when the result was still uncertain? And do you think that a man who in your consulship would never be guided by your consummate wisdom, nor, when your brother was administering the consulship under your inspiration, ever condescended to consult you two, would now, if he were in sole power, be likely to want suggestions from us? Everything in civil war is wretched; of which our ancestors never even once had experience, while our generation has now had it repeatedly: but nothing, after all, is more wretched than victory itself, which, even if it fall to the better men, yet renders them more savage and ruthless, so that, even if they are not such by nature, they are compelled to become so by the necessity of the case. For a conqueror is forced, at the beck of those who won him his victory, to do many things even against his inclination. Were you not wont to foresee simultaneously with myself how bloody that victory was likely to be? Well, would you at that time also have absented yourself from your country for fear of seeing what you disapproved? “No,” you will say, “for then I should have been in possession of wealth and my proper position.” Ah, but it had been consistent with a virtue such as yours to regard your personal interests as among the most insignificant concerns, and to be more profoundly affected by those of the state. Again, what is to be the end of your present policy? For up to now your conduct is approved, and, as far as such a business admits of it, your good fortune also is commended: your conduct, because while you engaged in the first part of the war under compulsion, you showed your wisdom by refusing to follow it to the bitter end: your good fortune, because by an honourable retirement you have maintained both the dignity and the reputation of your character. Now, however, it is not right that you should feel any place more to your taste than your native land; nor ought you to love it less because it has lost some of its comeliness, but rather to pity it, and not deprive it of the light of your countenance also, when already bereft of many illustrious sons. Finally, if it was the sign of high spirit not to be a supplicant to the victor, is it not perhaps a sign of pride to spurn his kindness? If it was the act of a wise man to absent himself from his country, is it not perhaps a proof of insensibility not to regret her? And, if you are debarred from enjoying a public station, is it not perhaps folly to refuse to enjoy a private one? The crowning argument is this: even if your present mode of life is more convenient, you must yet reflect whether it is not less safe. The sword owns no law: but in foreign lands there is even less scruple as to committing a crime. I am personally so anxious for your safety, that in this respect I take rank with your brother Marcellus, or at any rate come next to him. It is your business to take measures for your own interests, civil rights, life, and property.
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§ Fam.6.6 CDLXXXVI (Fam. VI, 6) TO AULUS CAECINA (IN EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I am afraid you may think me remiss in my attentions to you, which, in view of our close union resulting from many mutual services and kindred tastes, ought never to be lacking. In spite of that I fear you do find me wanting in the matter of writing. The fact is, I would have sent you a letter long ago and on frequent occasions, had I not, from expecting day after day to have some better news for you, wished to fill my letter with congratulation rather than with exhortations to courage. As it is, I shall shortly, I hope, have to congratulate you: and so I put off that subject for a letter to another time. But in this letter I think that your courage — which I am told and hope is not at all shaken-ought to be repeatedly braced by the authority of a man, who, if not the wisest in the world, is yet the most devoted to you: and that not with such words as I should use to console one utterly crushed and bereft of all hope of restoration, but as to one of whose rehabilitation I have no more doubt than I remember that you had of mine. For when those men had driven me from the Republic, who thought that it could not fall while I was on my feet, I remember hearing from many visitors from Asia, in which country you then were, that you were emphatic as to my glorious and rapid restoration. If that system, so to speak, of Tuscan augury which you had inherited from your noble and excellent father did not deceive you, neither will our power of divination deceive me; which I have acquired from the writings and maxims of the greatest savants, and, as you know, by a very diligent study of their teaching, as well as by an extensive experience in managing public business, and from the great vicissitudes of fortune which I have encountered. And this divination I am the more inclined to trust, from the fact that it never once deceived me in the late troubles, in spite of their obscurity and confusion. I would have told you what events I foretold, were I not afraid to be thought to be making up a story after the event. Yet, after all, I have numberless witnesses to the fact that I warned Pompey not to form a union with Caesar, and afterwards not to sever it. By this union I saw that the power of the senate would be broken, by its severance a civil war be provoked. And yet I was very intimate with Caesar, and had a very great regard for Pompey, but my advice was at once loyal to Pompey and in the best interests of both alike. My other predictions I pass over; for I would not have Caesar think that I gave Pompey advice, by which, if he had followed it, Caesar himself would have now been a man of illustrious character in the state indeed, and the first man in it, but yet not in possession of the great power he now wields. I gave it as my opinion that he should go to Spain; and if he had done so, there would have been' no civil war at all. That Caesar should be allowed to stand for the consulship in his absence I did not so much contend to be constitutional, as that, since the law had been passed by the people at the instance of Pompey himself when consul, it should be done. The pretext for hostilities was given. What advice or remonstrance did I omit, when urging that any peace, even the most inequitable, should be preferred to the most righteous war? My advice was overruled, not so much by Pompey — for he was affected by it — as by those who, relying on him as a military leader, thought that a victory in that war would be highly conducive to their private interests and personal ambitions. The war was begun without my taking any active part in it; it was forcibly removed from Italy, while I remained there as long as I could. But honour had greater weight with me than fear: I had scruples about failing to support Pompey's safety, when on a certain occasion he had not failed to support mine. Accordingly, overpowered by a feeling of duty, or by what the loyalists would say, or by a regard for my honour — whichever you please — like Amphiaraus in the play, I went deliberately, and fully aware of what I was doing, “to ruin full displayed before my eyes.” In this war there was not a single disaster that I did not foretell. Therefore, since, after the manner of augurs and astrologers, I too, as a state augur, have by my previous predictions established the credit of my prophetic power and knowledge of divination in your eyes, my prediction will justly claim to be believed. Well, then, the prophecy I now give you does not rest on the flight of a bird nor the note of a bird of good omen on the left — according to the system of our augural college — nor from the normal and audible pattering of the corn of the sacred chickens. I have other signs to note; and if they are not more infallible than those, yet after all they are less obscure or misleading. Now omens as to the future are observed by me in what I may call a two fold method: the one I deduce from Caesar himself, the other from the nature and complexion of the political situation. Caesar's characteristics are these: a disposition naturally placable and clement — as delineated in your brilliant book of “Grievances ” — and a great liking also for superior talent, such as your own. Besides this, he is relenting at the expressed wishes of a large number of your friends, which are well-grounded and inspired by affection, not hollow and self-seeking. Under this head the unanimous feeling of Etruria will have great influence on him. Why, then — you may ask — have these things as yet had no effect? Why, because he thinks if he grants you yours, he cannot resist the applications of numerous petitioners with whom to all appearance he has juster grounds for anger. “What hope, then,” you will say, “from an angry man?” Why, he knows very well that he will draw deep draughts of praise from the same fountain, from which he has been already — though sparingly-bespattered. Lastly, he is a man very acute and farseeing: he knows very well that a man like you — far and away the greatest noble in an important district of Italy, and in the state at large the equal of any one of your generation, however eminent, whether in ability or popularity or reputation among the Roman people-cannot much longer be debarred from taking part in public affairs. He will be unwilling that you should, as you would sooner or later, have time to thank for this rather than his favour. So much for Caesar. Now I will speak of the nature of the actual situation. There is no one so bitterly opposed to the cause, which Pompey undertook with better intentions than provisions, as to venture to call us bad citizens or dishonest men. On this head I am always struck with astonishment at Caesar's sobriety, fairness, and wisdom. He never speaks of Pompey except in the most respectful terms. “But,” you will say, “in regard to him as a public man his actions have often been bitter enough.” Those were acts of war and victory, not of Caesar. But see with what open arms he has received us! Cassius he has made his legate; Brutus governor of Gaul; Sulpicius of Greece; Marcellus, with whom he was more angry than with anyone, he has restored with the utmost consideration for his rank. To what, then, does all this tend? The nature of things and of the political situation will not suffer, nor will any Constitutional theory — whether it remain as it is or is changed — permit, first, that the civil and personal position of all should not be alike when the merits of their cases are the same; and, secondly, that good men and good citizens of unblemished character should not return to a state, into which so many have returned after having been condemned of atrocious crimes. That is my prediction. If I had felt any doubt about it I would not have employed it in preference to a consolation which would have easily enabled me to support a man of spirit. It is this. If you had taken up arms for the Republic — for so you then thought — with the full assurance of victory, you would not deserve special commendation. But if; in view of the uncertainty attaching to all wars, you had taken into consideration the possibility of our being beaten, you ought not, while fully prepared to face success, to be yet utterly unable to endure failure. I would have urged also what a consolation the consciousness of your action, what a delightful distraction in adversity, literature ought to be. I would have recalled to your mind the signal disasters not only of men of old times, but of those of our own day also, whether they were your leaders or your comrades. I would even have named many cases of illustrious foreigners: for the recollection of what I may call a common law and of the conditions of human existence softens grief. I would also have explained the nature of our life here in Rome, how bewildering the disorder, how universal the chaos: for it must needs cause less regret to be absent from a state in disruption, than from one well-ordered. But there is no occasion for anything of this sort. I shall soon see you, as I hope, or rather as I clearly perceive, in enjoyment of your civil rights. Meanwhile, to you in your absence, as also to your son who is here — the express image of your soul and person, and a man of unsurpassable firmness and excellence — I have long ere this both promised and tendered practically my zeal, duty, exertions, and labours: all the more so now that Caesar daily receives me with more open arms, while his intimate friends distinguish me above everyone. Any influence or favour I may gain with him I will employ in your service. Be sure, for your part, to support yourself not only with courage, but also with the brightest hopes.
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§ Fam.6.13 CDLXXXVII (Fam. VI, 13) TO Q. LIGARIUS (IN EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Although in your present circumstances I was bound, in view of our friendship, to write you some word either of consolation or support, yet up to this time I had omitted doing so, because I did not think myself able by mere words either to soften or remove your grief. When, however, I began to entertain a strong hope that it would not be long before we had you here in full enjoyment of your civil rights, I could not refrain from declaring my opinion and wishes to you. To begin with, then, I will say this, of which I have a clear knowledge and full perception — that Caesar will not be very obdurate to you. For circumstances, as well as the lapse of time and public opinion, and — as it seems to me — even his own natural disposition, daily render him more indulgent. And that I not only perceive in the case of others, but I am also told it in regard to yourself by his most intimate friends, to whom, ever since the news from Africa first arrived, I have never ceased in conjunction with your brothers to make representations. Thanks indeed to their virtue and piety and their unique affection for you, their constant and unremitting care for your safety are having such good effect, that I think there is now no indulgence that Caesar himself will not grant you. But if this comes to pass somewhat less quickly than we wish, the reason is that, owing to the multiplicity of his business, interviews with him have been somewhat difficult to obtain. At the same time, being unusually angered at the resistance in Africa, he seems resolved to keep those in suspense somewhat longer, by whom he considers himself to have been involved in the worry of a more protracted struggle. But even this, I understand, he daily regards in a more forgiving and placable spirit. Wherefore, believe me, and remember that I said so to you, that you will not be much longer in your distressing position. Having told you my opinion, I will show what my wishes are in regard to you by deeds rather than by words. If I were as powerful as I ought to be in a Republic, to which my services have been such as you estimate them, you certainly would not have now been in your present disadvantageous position: for the same cause has ruined my influence which has brought your safety into danger. But nevertheless, whatever the shadow of my old position, whatever the remains of my popularity shall be able to effect, all my zeal, advice, efforts, and fidelity shall be ever at the service of your most excellent brothers. Be sure, on your part, to keep the brave spirit which you have always kept. First, for the reasons which I have mentioned: and, secondly, because your wishes and sentiments about the Republic have ever been such as not only to warrant a hope of prosperity now, but even, if everything goes wrong, to make it after all incumbent on you, from a consciousness of your actions and policy, to bear whatever happens with the greatest resolution and spirit.
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§ Fam.6.12 CDLXXXVIII (Fam. VI, 12) TO T. AMPIUS BALBUS (RECALLED FROM EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I congratulate you, my dear Balbus, and with sincerity. Yet I am not so foolish as to wish you to indulge in a passing and groundless exultation, and then to be suddenly depressed and rendered so prostrate, that nothing could afterwards raise your spirits or restore your equanimity. I have pleaded your cause with greater openness than was quite consistent with my present position. For the unfortunate fact itself of my influence having been weakened was overcome by my affection for you and my unbroken love towards you, which has always been most carefully cultivated by yourself. Everything that was promised in regard to your return and restoration has been fulfilled, and is now secure and fully ratified. I have seen it with my own eyes, have had full information, have been personally a witness to it. For very opportunely I have all Caesar's intimate friends so closely knit to me by association and kindly feeling, that next to him they look upon me as first. Pansa, Hirtius, Balbus, Oppius, Matius, all make it clear in this matter that they have a unique regard for me. But if I had had to do it by my own exertions, I should not have regretted having made the attempt in whatever way the exigencies of the situation demanded. But I have not, in fact, made any special concessions to the situation: my old intimacy with all these men comes in here, with whom I have never ceased urging your claims. But Pansa, who is exceedingly zealous on your behalf and anxious to oblige me, I have regarded as my mainstay in this business, as being influential with Caesar no less from his character than from personal predilection. Tillius Cimber, again, has quite satisfied me. Yet, after all, the petitions which have weight with Caesar are not those which proceed from personal considerations, but those which are dictated by duty: and, as that was the case with Cimber, he had more influence than he could have had in anyone else's behalf. The passport has not been issued at once, owing to the amazing rascality of certain persons, who would have been bitterly annoyed at a pardon being granted to you, whom that party call the “bugle of the civil war” — and a good many observations to the same effect are made by them, as though they were not positively glad of that war having occurred. Wherefore it seemed best to carry on the business with Some secrecy, and by no means to let it get abroad that your affair was settled. But it will be so very shortly, and I have no doubt that by the time you read this letter the matter will have been completed. The fact is that Pansa, a man whose character and word can be trusted, not only assured me of it, but also undertook that he would very quickly get the passport. Nevertheless, I resolved that this account should be sent you, because from Eppuleia's report and Ampia's tears I gathered that you were less confident than your letter would suggest Moreover, they thought that in their absence from your side you would be in much more serious anxiety. Wherefore I thought it of very great importance, for the sake of alleviating your pain and sorrow, that you should have stated for certain what was in fact certain. You know that hitherto it has been my habit to write to you rather in the tone of one consoling a man of courage and wisdom, than as holding out any sure hope of restoration beyond that which, in my opinion, was to be expected from the Republic itself as soon as the present excitement died down. Remember your writings, in which you always showed me a spirit at once great and firmly prepared to endure whatever might happen. Nor was I surprised at that, since I remembered that you had been engaged in public affairs from your earliest youth, and that your terms of office had coincided with the most dangerous crises in the safety and fortunes of the community, and that you entered on this very war not solely with the idea of being in prosperity if victorious, but also, if it so happened, of bearing it philosophically if beaten. In the next place, since you devote your time to recording the deeds of brave men, you ought to think yourself bound to abstain from doing anything to prevent your showing yourself exactly like those whom you commend. But this is a style of talk better suited to the position from which you have now escaped: for the present merely prepare yourself to endure with us the state of things here. If I could find any remedy for that, I would impart the same to you.. But our one refuge is philosophy and literature, to which we have always been devoted. In the time of our prosperity these seemed only to be an enjoyment, now they are our salvation also. But, to return to what I said at first, I have no doubt of everything having been accomplished in the matter of your restoration and return.
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§ 46.489 CDLXXXIX (Fam. VI, 10a) TO TREBIANUS (IN EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I would have sent you a letter before, if I had been able to hit upon the best sort to write: for at such a crisis the duty of friends is either to console or to make promises. I did not offer consolation, because I was told by many of the fortitude and wisdom with which you were bearing the hardship of the present situation, and how thoroughly you were consoled by the consciousness of your actions and policy. If that is the case, you are reaping a rich reward of your excellent studies, in which I know that you have ever been engaged, and I exhort you again and again to continue this line of conduct. At the same time, see here! You are a man deeply versed in what is recorded not only of particular examples, but in ancient history generally, while I am not quite ignorant of them either; but, though less deeply read than I could wish, I have had an even greater experience than I could have desired in actual affairs and practical business. Well, I pledge my word to you, that this indignation and this injurious treatment will not last long. For, in the first place, the man himself who has the chief power appears to me to be daily inclining insensibly towards just views and natural equity; and, in the second place, the merits of our cause itself are of such a kind, that It must necessarily revive and be renewed along with the Republic, which cannot possibly be kept down for ever. In fact, every day something is done in a spirit of greater Clemency and liberality than we feared would be the case. And since such things depend upon shifting circumstances, often minute, I will look out for every chance, and will not pass over any opportunity of helping and relieving you. Accordingly, that second style of letter which I mentioned will daily, I hope, become easier to adopt-enabling me to make promises also. That I should prefer doing practically rather than in mere words. I would have you be convinced of this — that you have more friends than others who are and have been in the same misfortune as yourself, as far at least as I have been able to ascertain; and that I yield to no one of them. Be sure you keep up a brave and lofty spirit. That depends on yourself alone: what depends on fortune will be guided by circumstances and provided for by prudent measures on our part.
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§ 46.490 CDXC (Fam. VI, 10b) TO TREBIANUS (IN EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Of the value I feel and always have felt for you, and of the value which I know you feel for me, I am myself the witness. Two things cause me as much anxiety as my misfortunes always caused you. The first is your policy, or perhaps I should say your misfortune, in remaining too long in the prosecution of a civil war; the second, that the recovery of your property and position is slower than is fair and than I could have wished. Accordingly, I have opened my whole heart to Postumulenus, Sestius, and (most frequently) to our friend Atticus, and recently to your freedman Theudas, and have repeated to them separately on several occasions, that by whatever means I could I desired to do all that you and your sons could wish. And I would have you write and tell your family that, as far at least as it lies in my power, they should regard my efforts, advice, property, and fidelity as at their service for all purposes. If my influence and favour were as great as they ought to be in a state which I have served so well, you too would now be what you were, worthy in the highest degree of any rank, and at least easily first of your own ordo. But, since at the same time and in the same cause we have both of us lost our position, the things mentioned above, which are still mine to promise, and those also which I seem to myself to be partially retaining as reliques, so to speak, of my old rank-these I hereby promise you. For Caesar himself; as I have been able to gather by many circumstances, is not estranged from me, and nearly all his most intimate friends, bound to me as it happens by important services rendered by me in the past, are constant in their attentions and visits to me. Accordingly, if I find any opening for mooting the subject of your fortunes, that is, of your restoration to civil rights, on which everything depends — and I am daily more induced to hope for it from what these men say — I will do so personally and exert myself to the uttermost. It is not necessary to enter into details: I tender you my zeal and goodwill without reserve. But it is of great importance to me that all your friends should — as they may by a letter from you — know this, that everything which is Cicero's is at the service of Trebianus. To the same effect is it that they should believe that there is nothing too difficult for me to undertake with pleasure for you.
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§ Fam.12.17 CDXCI (Fam. XII, 17) TO Q. CORNIFICIUS (IN THE EAST) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Cicero's compliments to his colleague Cornificius. I am exceedingly gratified by your remembrance of me as indicated by your letter. I beg you to retain it, not because I have any doubt of your constancy, but because such is the customary request. We have had news of some disturbances in Syria; and as they are nearer you than me, I am more concerned at them for your sake than for my own. At Rome, though there is the most profound tranquillity, you would prefer to have some salutary business of the right sort on foot. And I hope it will be so, for I see that Caesar is anxious for it. Allow me to inform you that, seizing upon what I venture to call the opportunity of your absence and the greater freedom that it gives me, I am writing with more than usual boldness: and the rest, indeed, are perhaps such as even you would allow to pass; but the last thing I wrote was “On the best Style of Speech,” on which subject I have often suspected that your taste differed somewhat from mine, though not more than a learned man might differ somewhat from another who was also not without some learning. To this book I should like you to give the support of your approval, if possible from a sincere feeling, but if not at least out of friendship. I will tell your people that, if they choose, they may copy it out and send it to you. For I think that, even if you don't quite agree with its contents, yet, in the lonely spot in which you now are, whatever is produced by me will give you some pleasure. You recommend your reputation and political position to my care. You follow the general fashion in so doing; but I would have you believe both that I consider the affection between us, which I understand to be mutual, to have a supreme claim upon me; and that my opinion as to your supreme ability, your devotion to the highest learning, and your prospect of the most exalted rank is such that I class no one above you and put very few on an equality with you.
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§ Fam.4.3 CDXCII (Fam. IV, 3) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME (OCTOBER OR NOVEMBER) Many daily report to me that you are in a state of great anxiety, and in the midst of miseries affecting all alike are suffering, as it were, a special personal sorrow. Though not surprised at this, and to a certain extent sharing in it myself, yet I am sorry that a man of your all but unequalled wisdom does not rather feel pleasure in his own blessings, than vexation at other people's misfortunes. For myself; though I do not yield to anyone in sorrow experienced from the ruin and destruction of the constitution, yet I now find many Sources of consolation, and above all in the consciousness of the policy which I pursued. For far in advance I foresaw the coming storm, as it were from a watchtower, and that not altogether spontaneously, but much more owing to your warnings and denunciations. For, though I was absent during the greater part of your consulship, yet in spite of that absence I was well informed of your sentiments in taking precautions against and predicting this disastrous war, and I was myself present in the first period of your consulship, when, after passing in review all the civil wars, you warned the senate in the most impressive terms, both to fear those they remembered, and to feel assured, since the last generation had been so cruel — to an extent up to that time unprecedented in the Republic — that whoever thenceforth overpowered the Republic by arms would be much more difficult to endure. For what is done on a precedent, they Consider as even legally justifiable: but they add and Contribute something, or rather a great deal, of their own to it. Wherefore you must remember that those who have not followed your authority and advice have fallen by their own folly, when they might have been saved by prudence like yours. You will say: “What consolation is that to me in the midst of such gloom and what I may call the ruins of the Republic?” Certainly it is a sorrow scarce admitting of consolation: so complete is the loss and the hopelessness of recovery. But, after all, both in Caesar's judgment and the people's estimate your righteousness, wisdom, and lofty character shine out like some torch when all the rest have gone out. This ought to go a long way towards alleviating your unhappiness. As to absence from your family, that should be the less distressing to you from the fact that you are at the same time absent from many severe annoyances. All of these I would have now mentioned in detail, had I not scrupled to enlighten you on certain particulars, from not seeing which you appear to me to be in a happier position than we who see them. I think that any consolation from me is properly confined to your being informed by a very affectionate friend of those facts by which your uneasiness could be relieved. Other sources of consolation, not unknown to me nor the least significant-indeed, as I think, by far the greatest — are centred in yourself: and by daily testing them I so completely recognize their soundness that they seem to me to be positively life-giving. Again, I recall the fact that from the earliest dawn of manhood you have been most absolutely devoted to all kinds of philosophical study, and have with the utmost zeal and care learnt all the maxims of the wisest men which concern a right conduct of life. These indeed are useful as well as delightful, even in the highest state of prosperity: but in such times as these we have nothing else to give us peace of mind. I will not be in any way presumptuous, nor exhort a man so richly endowed with professional knowledge and natural ability, to return to those arts to which, from the earliest period of your life, you have devoted your industry. I will only say, what I hope you think to be right, that for myself, seeing that for the art to which I had devoted myself there was now no place either in forum or senate-house, I have bestowed my every thought and every effort on philosophy. For your professional knowledge — eminent and unrivalled as it is — no sphere much better has been left than for mine. Wherefore, though I do not presume to advise you, I have persuaded myself that you also were engaged in pursuits which, even if they were not exactly profitable yet served to withdraw the mind from anxiety. Your son Servius indeed is engaged in all liberal studies, and especially in those in which I have mentioned that I find peace of mind, with conspicuous success. In my affection for him in fact I yield to no one in the world but yourself, and he repays me with gratitude. In this matter he thinks, as one may easily see, that in showing me attention and regard, he is at the same time doing what will give you the greatest pleasure.
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§ Fam.4.4 CDXCIII (Fam. IV, 4) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME (OCTOBER) I ACCEPT your excuse for having frequently sent me a letter in duplicate, but I accept it only so far as you attribute to the carelessness or untrustworthiness of those who take them from you that they do not reach me: that part of your excuse in which you say that you frequently send me letters containing the same words from “poverty of language” — that is your expression — I neither understand nor acknowledge. And I myself, whom you declare in joke (as I take it) to possess a rich store of language, admit that I am not very badly off for words: for there is no occasion for “mock-modesty”: yet I too — and that without “mock-modestly” — easily yield to the refinement and dainty simplicity of your style. As to your policy, mentioned in your letter, in not de clining this command of Achaia, as I always had approved of it, much more did I do so after reading your last letter. For all the reasons which you mention are thoroughly sound, and in the highest degree worthy of your character and wisdom. As to your thinking that the matter has turned out otherwise than you expected, in that I do not at all agree with you. The fact is this: the disorganization and confusion are so great, the general dilemma and collapse caused by a most shocking war are so complete, that each man thinks the place where he happens to be the most wretched in the world. That is why you feel dissatisfied with your policy, and why only we who are still at home appear to you to be happy: while on the contrary to us you seem, not indeed entirely free from distress, but happy in comparison with ourselves. And in fact your lot is better than ours in this: you venture to say in your letter what is giving you pain; we cannot do even that much safely. Nor is this the fault of the victor, whose moderation cannot be surpassed, but of the victory itself, which in the case of civil wars is always offensive. In one point I have had the better of you — that I knew of the recall of your colleague Marcellus a little before you did; and also, by Hercules, that I saw how that matter was actually managed. For be assured that since these unhappy events, that is, since the appeal to arms was begun, nothing else has been transacted with any proper dignity. For, in the first place, Caesar himself, after inveighing against the “bitter spirit” shown by Marcellus — for that was the term he used — and having commended in the most complimentary terms your fairness as well as your wisdom, all on a sudden unexpectedly concluded by saying that “he would not refuse a request of the senate for Marceflus, even in view of the character of the individual.” In the next place, the senate had arranged, as soon as the case of Marcellus had been mentioned by L. Piso, and Gaius Marcellus had thrown himself at Caesar's feet, that it should rise en masse and approach Caesar in a suppliant attitude. Ask no questions: this day appeared to me to be so fair that I seemed to be seeing some shadow of a reviving Republic. Accordingly, when all who were called up before had moved a vote of thanks to Caesar, except Volcatius — for he said that if he had been in Caesar's place he would not have done it-I, when called on, abandoned my resolution. For I had determined, not, by Hercules, from lack of interest, but because I missed my old position in the house, to maintain unbroken silence. This resolution of mine gave way before Caesar's magnanimity and the senate's display of devotion. I therefore delivered a speech of thanks to Caesar at some length, and I am afraid that I have robbed myself of an honourable abstention from business in other cases as well, which was my one consolation in misfortune. However, since I have avoided offending him, who perhaps would have thought, if I never opened my mouth, that I regarded the constitution as in abeyance, I will do this without transgressing the bounds of moderation; or rather I shall keep some way this side of them, so as to satisfy his wishes without infringing upon my literary employments. For, though from my earliest youth every branch of study and liberal learning, and above all philosophy has been a delight to me, yet this taste grows stronger daily: partly, I presume, because my time of life is, now at its full maturity for wisdom, and partly owing to the.corruption of the times, which makes everything else incapable of relieving my mind of its sorrows. From a similar pursuit I gather from your letter that you are being distracted by business. But, after all, by this time the night hours will help you somewhat. Your, or rather our, Servius is exceedingly attentive to me; and I am charmed not only with his universal integrity and the remarkable excellence of his character, but also by his devotion to study and learning. He often discusses with me whether you should stay where you are or quit your province. At present my opinion is that we should do nothing except Just what Caesar appears to wish. Things are in such a state that, supposing you to be at Rome, nothing could possibly give you any pleasure except your own family. As for the rest, the best feature in the situation is Caesar himself: all else is of such a kind, that, if you must do one or the other, you would prefer hearing to seeing them. This advice of mine is not at all consonant with my feelings, for I long to see you, but I am consulting for your own interests.
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§ Fam.4.11 CDXCIV (Fam. IV, 11) MARCUS MARCELLUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) MITYLENE (OCTOBER) That your influence has ever had the greatest weight with me everything that has occurred has given you reason to know, but nothing so clearly as the recent transaction. For though C. Marcellus, my very affectionate cousin, not only advised me, but besought me in moving terms, he failed to persuade me. It was only your letter that induced me to follow the advice that you and he gave in preference to every other. Your letters describe to me the nature of the debate in the senate. Though your congratulation is exceedingly acceptable to me, because it proceeds from the kindest of hearts, yet there is one thing still more delightful and gratifying to me — namely, that while I have so few friends, relations, or connexions to take a sincere interest in my safety, I have had reason to know that you desire my company and have shown in a practical way an unparalleled devotion to my interest. Everything else is as you say. And considering the state of the times, I was well content to be out of it ill. I take the truth, indeed, to be that without the kind-ness of such gallant men and true friends no one, whether in adversity or prosperity, can live a real life. Accordingly, I congratulate myself on this. But for yourself, I will prove to you in a practical manner that you have been loyal to a man who loves you most deeply.
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§ Fam.9.21 CDXCV (Fam. IX, 21) TO PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (ABOUT OCTOBER) You don't say so! You think yourself a madman for imitating the thunder of my eloquence, as you call it? You certainly would have been beside yourself if you had failed to do so: but since you even beat me at it, you ought to jeer at me rather than at yourself. So you had no need of that quotation from Trabea, rather the fiasco was mine. But, after all, what do you think of my style in letters? Don't I talk with you in the vulgar tongue? Why, of course one doesn't write always in the same style. For what analogy has a letter with a speech in court or at a public meeting? Nay, even as to speeches in court, it is not my practice to handle all in the same style. Private causes and such as are of slight importance we plead in simpler language; those that affect a man's civil existence or reputation, of course, in a more ornate style: but letters it is our custom to compose in the language of everyday life. Well, but letting that pass, how did it come into your head, my dear Paetus, to say that there never was a Papirius who was not a plebeian? For, in fact, there were patrician Papirii, of the lesser houses, of whom the first was L. Papirius Mugillanus, censor with L. Sempronius Atratinus — having already been his colleague in the consulship — in the 312th year of the city. But in those days they were called Papisii. After him thirteen sat in the curule chair before L. Papirius Crassus, who was the first to drop the form Papisius. This man was named dictator, with L. Papirius Cursor as Master of the Horse, in the 415th year of the city, and four years afterwards was consul with Kaeso Duilius. Cursor came next to him, a man who held a very large number of offices; then comes L. Masso, who rose to the aedileship; then a number of Massones. The busts of these I would have you keep — all patricians. Then follow the Carbones and Turdi. These latter were plebeians, whom I opine that you may disregard. For, except the Gaius Carbo who was assassinated by Damasippus, there has not been one of the Carbones who was a good and useful citizen. We knew Gnaeus Carbo and his brother the wit: were there ever greater scoundrels? About the one who is a friend of mine, the son of Rubrius, I say nothing. There have been those three brothers Carbo — Gaius, Gnaeus, Marcus. Of these, Marcus, a great thief, was condemned for malversation in Sicily on the accusation of Publius Flaccus: Gaius, when accused by Lucius Crassus, is said to have poisoned himself with cantharides; he behaved in a factious manner as tribune, and was also thought to have assassinated Publius Africanus. As to the other, who was put to death by my friend Pompey at Lilybaeum, there was never, in my opinion, a greater scoundrel. Even his father, on being accused by M. Antonius, is thought to have escaped condemnation by a dose of shoemaker's vitriol. Wherefore my opinion is that you should revert to the patrician Papirii: you see what a bad lot the plebeians were.
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§ Fam.6.14 CDXCVI (Fam. VI, 14) TO Q. LIGARIUS (IN EXILE) ROME, 26 NOVEMBER: I assure you that I am employing every effort and all my care and zeal in securing your recall. For, to say nothing of the fact that I have always been deeply attached to you, the signal loyalty and love of your brothers, who have the same place as yourself in the warmest feelings of my heart, suffer me to neglect no task or opportunity of displaying my fidelity and zeal towards you. But what I am doing and have done for you, I prefer your learning from their letters rather than from mine. But what my hopes are, or what I feel confident of, and consider as certain in regard to your recall, that I wish you to be informed of by myself. For if there is anyone who is nervous in matters of moment and danger, and who is always more inclined to fear a reverse than to hope for success, I am that man, and if it is a fault, I confess that I am not without it. However, on the fifth day before the Kalends of the first intercalary month, I went at the request of your brothers to wait on Caesar at his morning reception, and endured all the humiliation and bore of securing an entree and an inter-view with him. When your brothers had thrown themselves at his feet, and I had said what the merits of the case and your position demanded, I went away with a conviction — gathered not only from the tone of Caesar's reply, which was gentle and courteous, but also from his eyes and expression, and many other signs besides, which it was easier to observe than it is to write — that I need have no doubt about your recall. Wherefore be sure you keep up your spirit and courage, and as you bore the stormiest times with philosophy, meet calmer weather with cheerfulness. However, I will attend to your business as though it were one of the most difficult possible: and on your behalf, as I have already done, I will with all the pleasure in life present my supplications not only to Caesar, but also to all his friends, whom I have learnt to be warmly attached to myself. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.7.4 DI (Fam. VII, 4) TO M. MARIUS (AT HIS VILLA NEAR STABIAE) CUMAE, 16 NOVEMBER: ON the 16th I came to my Cuman villa along with your friend Libo, or rather I should say our friend. I think of going on at once to my Pompeian, but I will give you notice beforehand. I always wish you to be in good health, but especially while I am here. For you see how much we are likely to be together. Wherefore, if you have an appointment with the gout, pray defer it to another day. So take care to be well and expect me in two or three days' time.
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§ Fam.9.23 DII (Fam. IX, 23) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) CUMAE, 17 NOVEMBER: I ARRIVED yesterday at my Cuman villa, tomorrow I shall perhaps come to see you. But as soon as I know for certain, I will send you word a little beforehand. However, M. Caeparius, who met me on the road at the Gallinarian wood, told me you were in bed with the gout. I was sorry to hear it, as in duty bound; nevertheless, I resolved to come to you, for the sake not only of seeing you and paying you a visit, but even of dining with you: for I don't suppose you have a cook who is gouty also. Expect therefore a guest, who is far from being a gourmet, and is a foe to extravagant dinners.
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§ Fam.13.66 DIV (Fam. XIII, 66) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: I SHOULD not have undertaken to recommend Aulus Caecina to you, who is a client of your family in a very special sense, as I was fully aware how loyal to your friends and how indulgent to men in exile you were ever wont to be, had not both the memory of his father, with whom I was exceedingly intimate, and his own misfortune affected me as that of a man most closely united to me by mutual interests and good services of every kind was bound to do. I ask with all my might as a favour from you — with an earnestness indeed and heartfelt anxiety beyond which I cannot go in asking anything — that you would allow a letter from me to add a finishing stroke to what, without anyone's recommendation, you would have spontaneously done for a man of such high and noble character, labouring under so heavy a calamity. Let it induce you to be even more zealous in assisting him in whatever ways you may have the power of doing so. If you had been at Rome, we should — as I think — have even secured Aulus Caecina's recall by your assistance. Of this, after all, I still have a strong hope, relying on the forgiving nature of your colleague. For the present, as in reliance on your sense of justice he has concluded your province to be his safest harbour of refuge, I beg and beseech you again and again to assist him in collecting the remnants of his old business, and to protect and watch over him in all other matters. You can do nothing that will oblige me more.
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§ Fam.13.67 DV (Fam. XIII, 67) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: IN all my province of Cilicia, to which, as you know, were joined three Asiatic dioceses, I was not more intimate with anyone than with Andron, son of Artemon, of Laodicea, and in that city I regarded him both as a guest and as a man eminently adapted to my way of life and habits. I learnt, Indeed, to value him at a much higher rate, after I left the province, because I discovered by many instances that he was grateful and did not forget me. Accordingly, I was most delighted to see him at Rome. For it does not escape your observation, having done favours to a great number of people in that province, what proportion of them are found to show gratitude. My object in writing, therefore, is both that you should understand that I do not take this trouble without good reason, and that you should yourself decide that he is worthy of being admitted to your society. You will therefore have done me a very great favour, if you make it clear to him how highly you value me, that is, if you accord him your patronage and assist him in whatever matter you can consistently with your own honour and convenience. This will be a very great gratification to me, and I ask you again and again to do so.
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§ Fam.13.69 DVI (Fam. XIII, 69) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: C. Curtius Mithres is in fact, as you know, a freedman of my very intimate friend Postumus, but he pays me as much attention and respect as he does his own patron himself. At Ephesus, as often as I was in that town, his house was as open to me as my own, and many things occurred which gave me occasion to learn his affection and fidelity to myself. Accordingly, if either I or any of my friends had occasion for anything in Asia, it has been my habit to write to him, and to use his services and fidelity as well as his house and means as though they were my own. I tell you this at the greater length, to make you understand that I am not writing conventionally or for unworthy motives, but as I should do for a man with whom I am intimate and have very close ties. My request to you, therefore, is that in the lawsuit in which he is engaged with a certain Colophonian as to the possession of an estate, you should in compliment to me afford him every assistance in your power, as far as your honour and convenience will allow: though my knowledge of his reasonable character assures me that he will never be an embarrassment to you. If by means of my recommendation and his own uprightness he secures your good opinion, he will think that he has gained all he desires. I therefore earnestly beg you again and again to accord him your patronage and put him on the list of your friends. On my side, whatever I think that you wish or is to your interest, I will see to with zeal and activity.
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§ Fam.13.70 DVII (Fam. XIII, 70) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: YOUR affection for me is so notorious that many seek to be recommended to you by my means. Now I grant that favour at times indiscriminately, but generally only to close friends, as in the present instance: for I am very intimate and very closely connected with T. Ampius Balbus. His freedman T. Ampius Menander, a man of strict morals, good conduct, and highly thought of both by his patron and myself, I commend to you with no common warmth. You will do me a very great favour, if you will oblige him in any matters consistent with your own convenience. I earnestly ask you again and again to do so.
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§ Fam.13.71 DVIII (Fam. XIII, 71) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: IT is inevitable that I should recommend many persons to you, for everyone knows our intimacy and your kindly feeling towards me. Nevertheless, though I am bound to wish well to all whom I recommend, yet I have not the same reason to do so in the case of all. Titus Agusius was by my side during the most miserable time of my life, and was the companion of all my journeys, voyages, labours, and dangers: nor would he now have left my side, had I not granted him permission. Therefore I recommend him to you as one of my own household and of those most closely united to me. You will very much oblige me if you make him feel by your treatment of him that this recommendation has been of great service and assistance to him.
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§ Fam.13.72 DIX (Fam. XIII, 72) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: IN an interview with you in your suburban villa I commended to you the property, investments, and estates in Asia of my friend Caerellia as earnestly as I could, and you promised me with the greatest liberality to do everything possible in a manner consonant with your unbroken and eminent services to me. I hope you remember the fact: I know that it is your habit to do so. Nevertheless, Caerellia's agents have written to me to say that, Owing to the wide extent of your province and the multiplicity of your engagements, you need to be frequently reminded. I ask you, therefore, to remember that you promised me in the amplest terms that you would do everything your honour would allow. In my opinion — but it is a matter for yourself to consider and decide-you have now an excellent opportunity of obliging Caerellia in accordance with the decree of the senate passed in regard to the heirs of C. Vennonius. That decree you. will interpret in the light of your own wisdom. For I know that the authority of that order has always been great in your eyes. For the rest, please believe that in whatever particulars you may have done kindnesses to Caerellia, you will be very greatly obliging me.
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§ Fam.13.17 DX (Fam. XIII, 17) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: Manius Curius, who has a bank at Patrae has given me many weighty reasons for being attached to him. My friendship with him is of very old standing, dating from his first entrance into public life: and at Patrae on many previous occasions, and particularly during the late unhappy war, his house was put entirely at my disposal, and if there had been any occasion, I should have used it as my own. But my strongest tie to him is of what I may call a more sacred, obligation- is that he is a very close friend of my friend Atticus, and distinguishes him above everybody by his attentions and affection. If you are by any chance already acquainted with him, I think that I am too late in doing what I am now doing. For he is so cultivated and polite a man, that I should regard him as already sufficiently recommended to you by his own Character. Yet, if this is so, I beg you earnestly that any inclination, which you have already conceived for him before getting my letter, may be enhanced to the highest possible degree by my recommendation. But if; owing to his retiring character, he has not put himself in your way or you have not yet become sufficiently acquainted with him, or if there is any reason of any sort for his wanting a warmer recommendation, I hereby recommend him to you, with a zeal as great and for reasons as sound as I could have for recommending anyone in the world. And I shall be acting in this as those are bound to act who recommend conscientiously and disinterestedly: for I shall be pledging my word to you, or rather I do hereby pledge my word and take upon me to promise, that the character of Manius Curius, and his culture no less than his honesty, are of such a nature that, if once he becomes known to you, you will think him deserving of your friendship and of such an earnest recommendation. I, at any rate, shall be exceedingly gratified, if I find that this letter has had the weight with you which, as I write, I feel confident that it will have.
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§ Fam.13.18 DXI (Fam. XIII, 18) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I WILL not allow that your most kind and courteous letter to Atticus — whom I see to be transported with delight-was more gratifying to him than to myself. For, though it was almost equally pleasing to us both, yet I was the more struck with admiration of the two. You would, of course, have made a courteous answer to Atticus if asked, or at least reminded: but (as for my part I never doubted that you would do) you spontaneously wrote to him, and, without his expecting it, offered him so warm an expression of goodwill. On this subject not only ought I not to ask you to be more zealous in that respect for my sake also — for nothing could go beyond your promises — but I should be wrong even to thank you, since you have acted for his own sake and on your own initiative. However, I will say this, that I am exceedingly gratified at what you have done. For such appreciation on your part of a man who has a place apart in my affections cannot fail to be supremely delightful to me: and, that being so, it of course excites my gratitude. But all the same, since considering our intimacy a faux pas in writing to you is allowable to me, I will do both the things that I said that I ought not to do. In the first place, to what you have shown that you will do for the sake of Atticus I would have you make as large an addition as our mutual affection can suggest: in the second place, though I said just now that I feared to thank you, I now do so outright: and I would wish you to believe that, under whatever obligations you place Atticus, whether in regard to his affairs in Epirus or elsewhere, I shall consider myself to be equally bound to you by them.
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§ Fam.13.19 DXII (Fam. XIII, 19) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: WITH Lyso of Patrae I have indeed a long-standing tie of hospitality — a tie which, I think, ought to be conscientiously maintained. That is a position shared by many others: but I never was so intimate with any other foreigner, and that intimacy has been so much enhanced both by many services on his part and by an almost daily intercourse, that nothing could now be closer than ours is. He stayed a year at Rome almost living in my house, and though we were in great hopes that, in consequence of my letter and recommendation, you would take great pains in doing what you have actually done, namely, protect his property and fortune in his absence; yet, as everything was in the power of one man, and as Lyso had been engaged on our side and was under our protection, we were in daily dread of something happening. However, his own brilliant character, and the zeal of myself and others of his hosts, have secured all that we wished from Caesar, as you will learn from Caesar's despatch to you. In view of this, I not only do not in any way abate the earnestness of my recommendation to you, on the ground of having now got everything we wanted, but I rather urge all the more strongly that you should admit him to your confidence and intimacy. When his position was less secure I pressed you on the point with rather less boldness, being afraid that something might happen to him of a nature beyond even your power to remedy. Now that his pardon is secured, I ask you with the greatest earnestness and anxiety to do all you can. Not to go into details, I commend his whole establishment to you, and among them his young son, whom. my client Cn. Maenius Gemellus, having been during his exile made a citizen of Patrae, adopted according to the laws of the town. Pray therefore support his legal claim to the inheritance. The main point is that you should admit Lyso, whom I have found to be a most excellent and grateful man, to your society and friendship. If you do so, I do not doubt that, in showing him affection and in afterwards recommending him to other people, you will come to the same conclusion about him and entertain the same feeling towards him that I do. I am very eager that you should do this, but I am also afraid lest, if you shall appear to have done less than the very best for him in some particular, he should think that I have not written earnestly enough, rather than that you have forgotten me. How much you value me he has had the opportunity of learning both from our everyday conversations and from your letters.
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§ Fam.13.20 DXIII (Fam. XIII, 20) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I am intimate with the physician Asciapo of Patrae. I found his society very agreeable, as well as his medical skill, which I have had experience of in the illnesses of my household. He gave me every satisfaction both by his knowledge of his profession and by his kindness. I therefore commend him to you, and beg you to see that he understands that I have written cordially about him, and that my recommendation has been of great service to him. It will be doing me a great favour.
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§ Fam.13.21 DXIV (Fam. XIII, 21) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: M. Aemilius Avianius has always from his earliest manhood shown me attention and affection. He is both a good and cultivated man, and worthy of your favour in every kind of employment. If I had thought that he was at Sicyon, and had I not been told that he was still staying where I left him at Cibyra, there had been no necessity for my writing at any greater length to you about him. For he would of himself have secured your affection by his own character and culture without anyone's recommendation, in as great a degree as he enjoys mine and that of all his other friends. But as I suppose him to be away, I commend with more than common earnestness his family at Sicyon and his property, especially his freedman C. Avianius Hammonius, whom indeed I commend to you on his own account also. For, while he has earned my esteem by his remarkable loyalty and fidelity to his patron, he has also done me personally some valuable services, and stood by me in the time of my greatest distress with a fidelity and affection as great as though I had myself liberated him. Accordingly, I beg you to support Hammonius for himself; as well as in his patron's business, and to go so far as to like and reckon among your friends both his agent, whom I am commending to you, and Avianius himself. You will find him modest and serviceable, and worthy of your affection. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.13.22 DXV (Fam. XIII, 22) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I am very fond of T. Manlius, a banker at Thespiae; for he always paid me respect, and was most constant in his attentions, and has besides some taste for our branch of learning. I may add that Varro Murena is very desirous that everything should be done for him; who yet thought that, though he felt confidence in a letter of his own in which he had commended Manlius to you, some additional advantage would be gained by a recommendation from me. For myself; both my intimacy with Manlius and Varro's eagerness have induced me to write to you as seriously as I could. You will therefore do me a very great favour, if you will regard this recommendation as one calling for your utmost consideration, that is, if you will assist and honour Titus Manlius in the highest degree in every way consistent with your honour and character. Finally, from his exceedingly grateful and cultivated character, I undertake that you will reap all the benefit you are accustomed to expect from good men's services.
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§ Fam.13.23 DXVI (Fam. XIII, 23) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I am very intimate with L. Cossinius, your friend and fellow tribesman. For not only is there a long-standing acquaintance between us personally, but my friend Atticus has caused my relations with Cossinius to become still closer. Accordingly, the whole family of Cossinius is attached to me, and especially his freedman L. Cossinius Anchialus, a man who possesses the high esteem both of his patron and his patron's friends, of whom I am one. I recommend him to you as I would a freedman of my own, and as though he held the same position with me as he does with his patron. If he did I could not recommend him with greater warmth. Wherefore you will do me a very great favour, if you will admit him to your friendship and assist him in anything in which he may need your help, as far as you can do so without inconvenience. That will be both very gratifying to me and hereafter a source of pleasure to yourself: for you will find that he is eminently honest, cultivated, and attentive.
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§ Fam.13.24 DXVII (Fam. XIII, 24) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: As it gave me great pleasure before to find that you had remembered my earnest recommendation of Lyso, my host and friend, so also, when I found from his letter that he had been the object of your undeserved suspicion, I was exceedingly rejoiced that I had been so earnest in recommending him. For he writes me word that my recommendation has been of the greatest assistance to him, as he says that a report had been brought you of his being in the habit of speaking disrespectfully of you at Rome. And though he writes word that your good nature and kindness of heart have enabled him to clear himself on that point, yet, first of all, as in duty bound, I thank you warmly that my letter has had such influence with you as to cause you on its perusal to lay aside all that irritating suspicion which you had entertained of Lyso. In the next place, I would have you believe me, when I assert that I write this not more in the name of Lyso than of everybody else — that no one has ever mentioned you except in the terms of the highest respect. As for Lyso, indeed, while he was with me every day and almost lived with me, not only because he thought that I liked hearing it, but also because it gave him still more pleasure to say it himself; he used to speak to me in praise of everything you did and said. Wherefore, though he is now being treated by you in a way that makes a recommendation from me unnecessary, and makes him think that he has got all he wants by means of one letter from me, yet I do beg of you with no common earnestness to continue to receive him with kindness and liberality. I would have written a description of his character, as I did in my previous letter, had I not thought that by this time he was sufficiently well known to you by his own merits.
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§ Fam.13.25 DXVIII (Fam. XIII, 25) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: Hegesaretus of Larisa, who was honoured by signal favours from me in my consulship, was not unmindful or ungrateful, and treated me afterwards with very great respect. I recommend him to you with great earnestness as my guest-friend, as my intimate acquaintance, as a grateful person, as a man of high character, as holding the chief position in his own state, and, lastly, as being worthy in the highest degree of your intimacy. I shall be very grateful if you take the trouble to make him understand that this recommendation of mine has had great weight with you.
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§ Fam.13.26 DXIX (Fam. XIII, 26) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: My connexion with L. Mescinius is that which arises from the fact that he was my quaestor. But this tie — which I, in accordance with the usage of antiquity, have ever regarded as a strong one — he has rendered more complete by his personal excellence and kindness. Accordingly, nothing could more intimate and more pleasant to myself than my intercourse with him. Now, although he seemed to feel certain that you would be pleased to do all you honourably could for him for his own sake, he yet hoped that a letter from me would also have great weight with you. He judged that to be the case for himself; but as he was very intimate with me he had also often heard me say how delightful and close our union was. I ask you, therefore, with all the earnestness with which you understand that I ought to ask on behalf of a man so near and dear to me, to facilitate and settle the business matters which he has in Achaia arising from the fact'of his being the heir of his cousin M. Mindius, late a banker at Elis, not only by your legal prerogative and authority, but also by your influence and advice. For I have directed those to whom I have intrusted my business, that in all'points which give rise to dispute, they were to appeal to you as arbitrator and — so far as was consistent with your convenience — as final judge. That you should in compliment to me undertake that business, I earnestly and repeatedly beg of you. There is one other point in which you will particularly oblige me, if you don't think it inconsistent with your position; it is that, as the controversy is with a senator, you should refer to Rome such of the parties as prove too stubborn to allow the business to be settled without an issue being tried. That you might be able to do that with the less hesitation, I have secured a despatch to you from the consul M. Lepidus, not conveying any order — for that I did not think consonant with your position — but to a certain extent and in a manner commendatory. I would have mentioned how well invested such a favour is sure to be in the case of Mescinius, had I not, in the first place, felt certain that you knew, and had I not also been asking for myself: for I would have you believe that I am quite as anxious about his interests as he is himself. But while I am eager that he should come by his own without difficulty, I am also anxious that he should think that he owes his success in no small degree to my recommendation.
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§ Fam.13.27 DXX (Fam. XIII, 27) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I FREQUENTLY send you letters of this kind, which are replicas of each other, in thanking you for paying such prompt attention to my letters of introduction. I have done so in the cases of others and shall often, as I see, have occasion to do so again. Nevertheless I will not spare labour, and, as you jurisconsults are in the habit of doing in your formulae, I will in my letters “state the same case in a different manner.” Well then, C. Avianius Hammonius has written to me with profuse thanks in his own name and in.that of his patron Aemilius Avianius, saying that neither he him self; who was on the spot, nor the property of his absent patron, could have been treated with greater liberality or consideration. That was gratifying to me for the sake of those whom I had recommended to you, induced thereto by our very close friendship and union — for M. Aemilius is one of my most intimate and closest friends, a man eminently attached and bound to me by great services on my part, and about the most grateful of all those who appear to be under some obligation to me. But it is much more gratifying that you should be so disposed towards me as to do more for my friends than I perhaps could have done if I had been on the spot, I presume, because I should have been more doubtful what to do for their sake, than you are what to do for mine. But this I do not doubt — that you feel that you have obliged me. I only ask you to believe that those persons also are grateful: I pledge you my word and solemnly assert that it is so. Wherefore pray do your best that, whatever business they have on hand, they may get it settled whilst you still governing Achaia. I am living on the pleasantest and most harmonious terms with your son Servius, and derive great pleasure from his natural abilities and signal industry, as well as from his virtuous and straightforward character.
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§ 46.521 DXXI (Fam. XIII, 28a) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: THOUGH I take pleasure in asking you for anything that any one of my friends requires, yet I take much greater in thanking you, when you have done something on my recommendation, as you are always doing. For it is beyond belief what thanks I get from all, even from those who have been recommended by me to you with only moderate warmth. Every instance gives me gratification, but none 30 much as that of L. Mescinius. For he told me that directly you had read my letter you promised his agents all they wanted, and have in fact been much better than your word. In that matter therefore — for I think I ought to say it again and again — I would have you believe that I am excessively obliged to you. I am, indeed, all the more delighted at this, because I see clearly that you will get the highest pleasure from Mescinius himself. For he is not only a man of virtue and uprightness, very serviceable and exceedingly attentive, but he has also the same literary pursuits as ourselves, which in old times were our recreation, but now are life itself. For the future I would have you supplement your kindnesses to him in all things consonant with your character. There are two things which I ask of you specifically: first, that if any undertaking has to be given “against farther claims on that head,” you would see to its being given on my security: and, in the second place, seeing that his inheritance consists almost entirely of the property appropriated by Oppia, who was once Mindius's wife, that you should give your assistance and concert measures for bringing her over to Rome. If she thinks that is going to be done, in my opinion, we shall settle the business. I beg you again and again to enable us to do that. What I said above I now solemnly confirm and take upon myself to guarantee — that you will find what you have done in the past and are going to do in the future for the sake of Mescinius so well invested, as to convince you that you have bestowed your kindness on the most grateful, the most delightful man in the world. For this is the addition which I desire to what you have done for my sake.
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§ 46.522 DXXII (Fam. XIII, 28b) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I DO not think, on the one hand, that the Lacedemonians doubt being sufficiently recommended to your honour and justice by their own and their ancestors' reputation, and I, on the other, knowing you as well as I do, had no doubt of the rights and deserts of the several nations being thoroughly well known to you. Accordingly, when Philippus the Lacedemonian begged me to recommend the city to you, though I remembered that I was under all sorts of obligations to it, I nevertheless answered that Lacedemonians needed no recommendation with you. Accordingly, I would have you believe that, considering the disturbed state of the times, I look upon all the cities of Achaia as being happy in having you as their governor; and that I also think that, knowing thoroughly as you do not only our own records but also all those of Greece, you are and will be a friend to the Lacedemonians. Wherefore I only ask this of you, that, when you do for the Lacedemonians what your honour, high position, and justice shall demand, you should let them know — if you think it right — that you are not other-wise than glad to find that what you are doing is gratifying to me also. For it affects my loyalty that they should think that I am attentive to their interests. I again and again urge this upon you with warmth.
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§ Fam.13.78 DXXIII (Fam. XIII, 78) TO AULUS ALLIENUS (IN SICILY) ROME: DEMOCRITUS of Sicyon is not only my guest-firend, but also very intimate with me, as is not often the case with such men, especially if they are Greeks. For his honesty and virtue are of the highest kind, and he is exceedingly liberal and attentive to his guest-friends, and distinguishes me above the rest by his respect, attentions, and affection. You must regard him as the leading man not only of his fellow citizens, but almost of all Achaia. For such a man I do no more than open the door and pave the way to an acquaintance with you: when you once know him, your natural disposition is such that you will decide him to be worthy of your friendship and society. What I ask of you, then, is that on reading this letter you should accord him your patronage, and promise to do everything for him for my sake. For the rest, if; as I feel sure will be the case, you ascertain him to be deserving of your friendship and society, I ask you to receive him with open arms, to love him, and to regard him as one of your own family. That will be a more than common favour to me. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.13.79 DXXIV (Fam. XIII, 79) TO AULUS ALLIENUS (IN SICILY) ROME: I THINK, in the first place, that you know the value I have for C. Avianius Flaccus, and, in the next place, I have heard from himself — a most excellent and grateful man-with what liberality he has been treated by you. His sons-quite worthy of their father and close friends of my own, occupying a special place in my affection — I recommend to you with an earnestness beyond which I cannot go in recommending anyone. Gaius Avianius is in Sicily; Marcus is with us. I beg you to promote the social standing of the former, who is with you, and to defend the property of both. You cannot oblige me more by anything you do in your province. I beg you warmly and repeatedly to do so.
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§ Fam.6.8 DXXV (Fam. VI, 8) TO AULUS CAECINA (IN SICILY) ROME, DECEMBER: LARGUS, who is devoted to you, having told me that the 1st of January was the limit fixed for you, and having my-self noticed that any ordinance made by Balbus and Oppius in Caesar's absence was usually ratified by him, I urged upon them with warmth to grant me as a favour that you should be permitted to remain in Sicily as long as we wished. Though they have been in the habit of freely promising me anything which was not calculated to hurt the feelings of that party, or even of refusing it and giving a reason for their refusal, to this request or rather demand of mine they gave no immediate answer. However, they came to see me again the same day: they granted me permission for you to remain in Sicily as long as you chose: they said that they would answer for your not prejudicing your interests at all by doing so. Now, since you know what you have licence to do, I think you ought to know what my Opinion is. After this business had been settled I received a letter from you asking my advice as to whether you should settle in Sicily, or go to look after the remains of your business in Asia. This deliberation on your part did not appear to me to tally with the words of Largus. For in his conversation with me he had implied that you were forbidden to stay in Sicily: you, on the other hand, are deliberating, as though the permission had been given. But, for my part, whether the former or the latter is the case, I am for your staying in Sicily. The nearness of the locality is of advantage, either for securing your recall, because of the frequency of letters and messengers, or for a rapid return, when either that point, as I hope it will be, is gained or some other plan arranged. Therefore I am strongly in favour of your staying. I will be very earnest in recommending you to T. Furfanius Postumus, who is a friend of mine, and to his legates, who are also friends, when they come here: at present they are all at Mutina. They are excellent men, fond of men like you, and on intimate terms with me. Whatever occurs to me that I think likely to be to your advantage, I will do without being asked: if there is anything I don't know, at the first hint of it I will surpass the zeal of everybody. Although I shall speak to Furfanius personally about you in such a way as to render a letter from me to him quite unnecessary for you, yet, as your relations have decided that you should have a letter of mine to give him, I have complied with their wish. I append a copy of the letter.
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§ Fam.6.9 DXXVI (Fam. VI, 9) TO T. FURFANIUS (PROCONSUL IN SICILY) ROME: No intimacy or friendship could be closer than that which I have always had with Aulus Caecina. For I was constantly in the society of that illustrious and gallant man his father: and my affection for this man also from his childhood has been such as to make the intimacy between us close as it is possible to have with anyone-partly because he seemed to me to give great promise of supreme excellence, honesty, and eloquence; and partly because he lived with me in the most complete sympathy, not only from our mutual services of friendship, but also from a community of literary tastes. I need not write at greater length. How bound I am to protect his safety and property by every means in my power you see. It only remains, since I know from many circumstances what your sentiments are as to the fortune of the loyalists and the disasters to the Republic, that I should beg nothing of you except that to the goodwill, which you are sure spontaneously to entertain towards him, there may be added a supplement proportionate to the value which I know you have for me. You cannot oblige me more than by doing this. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.5.16 DXXVII (Fam. V, 16) TO TITIUS (ROME) Though of all the world I am by far the least fitted to offer you consolation, because your sorrow has caused me so much pain that I needed consolation myself; yet since my sorrow was farther removed from the acuteness of the deepest grief than your own, I have resolved that our close connexion and my warm feelings for you make it incumbent on me not to be so long silent in what causes you such deep mourning, but to offer some reasonable consolation such as may suffice to lighten, if it could not wholly heal your sorrow. Now there is a source of consolation — hackneyed indeed to the last degree — which we ought ever to have on our lips and in our hearts: we should remember that we are men, born under the conditions which expose our life to all the missiles of fortune; and we must not decline life on the conditions under which we were born, nor rebel so violently under mischances which we are unable to avoid by any precautions; and by recalling what has happened to others we should reflect that nothing strange has betided us. But neither these, nor other sources of consolation, which have been employed by the greatest philosophers and have been recorded in literature, ought, it seems, to be of so much avail, as the position of the state itself and the disruption of these evil times, which make those the happiest who have never had children, and those who have lost them at such a crisis less miserable than if they had done so when the Republic was in a good state, or indeed had any existence at all. But if your own loss affects you, or if you mourn at the thought of your own position, I do not think that you will find that grief easy to remove in its entirety. If on the other hand what wrings your heart is grief for the miserable fate of those who have fallen — a thought more natural to an affectionate heart — to say nothing of what I have repeatedly read and heard, that there is no evil in death, after which if any sensation remains it is to be regarded as immortality rather than death, while if it is all lost, it follows that nothing must be regarded as misery which is not felt-yet this much I can assert, that confusions are brewing, disasters preparing and threatening the Republic, such that whoever has left them cannot possibly, as it seems to me, be in the wrong. For what place is there now, I don't say for conscience, uprightness, virtue, right feeling, and good qualities, but for bare freedom and safety? By Heaven, I have never been told of any young man or boy having died in this most unhealthy and pestilent year, who did not seem to me to be rescued by the immortal gods from the miseries of this world and from a most intolerable condition of life. Wherefore, if this one idea can be removed from your mind, so as to convince you that no evil has happened to those you loved, your grief will have been very much lessened. For there will then only be left that single strain of sorrow which will not be concerned with them, but will have reference to yourself alone: in regard to which it is not consonant with a high character and wisdom such as you have displayed from boyhood, to show excessive sorrow for a misfortune that has befallen you, when it does not at all involve misery or evil to those whom you have loved. In fact, the qualities you have displayed both in private and public business entail the necessity of preserving your dignity and supporting your character for consistency. For that which length of time is sure to bring us of itself — which removes the bitterest sorrows by the natural process of decay — we ought to anticipate by reflexion and wisdom. Why, if there never was a woman so weak-minded on the death of her children, as not sooner or later to put a period to her mourning, certainly we men ought to anticipate by reflexion what lapse of time is sure to bring, and not to wait for a cure from time, when we can have it on the spot from reason. If I have done you any good by this letter, I think that I have accomplished a desirable object: but if by chance it has been of no avail, I hold that I have done the duty of one who wishes you all that is best and loves you very dearly. Such a one I would have you think that I have been, and believe that I shall be to you in the future.
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§ Fam.13.77 DXXVIII (Fam. XIII, 77) TO P. SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ILLYRICUM) ROME (AUTUMN) Marcus Cicero sends warmest greeting to Publius Sulpicius, imperator. Though in these times it is not my custom to appear often in the senate, yet, when I read your letter, I made up my mind that I could not omit supporting the honour proposed for you, with due regard to the claims of our old friendship and of the many acts of kindness that have passed between us. Accordingly, I attended and had great pleasure in voting for the supplicatio in your honour, nor in the future will I at any time fail to support your interests, character, or public position. So, that your family may be aware of this feeling of mine towards you, pray write and tell them that in anything you need they should not hesitate to inform me of it as a matter of right. I strongly commend Marcus Bolanus to you as an excellent and gallant man, highly accomplished in every way, and an old friend of my own. You will much oblige me if you will take care to make him understand that this introduction has been of great service to him. He will himself convince you of his excellent character and grateful disposition: and I promise you that you will reap great pleasure from his friendship. Once more I beg you with more than common earnestness, in the name of our friendship and your unbroken zeal in my service, to bestow some pains on the following matter also. Dionysius, a slave of mine who had the care of my library, worth a large sum of money, having purloined a large number of books, and thinking that he could not escape punishment, absconded. He is in your province: my friend Marcus Bolanus and many others saw him at Narona; but they believed his assertion that I had given him his freedom. If you would take the trouble to restore this man to me, I can't tell you how much obliged I shall be to you. It is a small matter in itself; yet my vexation is serious. Bolanus will inform you where he is and what can be done. If I recover the man by your means, I shall consider myself to have received a great kindness at your hands.
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§ Fam.15.18 DXXIX (Fam. XV, 18) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (AT BRUNDISIUM) ROME (JANUARY?) MY letter would have been longer, had not the messenger come for it when he was just on the point of starting for you. It would have been longer also if it had any persiflage in it, for we cannot be serious with safety. “Can we laugh, then?” you will say. No, by Hercules, not very easily. Yet other means of distraction from our troubles we have none. “Where, then,” you will say, “is your philosophy?” Yours indeed is in the kitchen, mine in the schools. For I am ashamed of being a slave. Accordingly, I pose as being busy about other things, to avoid the reproach of Plato. We have no Certain intelligence from Spain as yet — in fact, no news at all. For my sake I am sorry that you are out of town, for your own I am glad. But your letter-carrier is getting clamorous. Good-bye then, and love me as you have done from boyhood.
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§ Fam.15.16 DXXX (Fam. XV, 16) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (AT BRUNDISIUM) ROME (JANUARY) I think you must be a little ashamed at this being the third letter inflicted on you before I have a page or a syllable from you. But I will not press you: I shall expect, or rather exact, a longer letter. For my part, if I had a messenger always at hand, I should write even three an hour. For somehow it makes you seem almost present when I write anything to you, and that not “by way of phantoms of images,” as your new friends express it, who hold that “mental pictures” are caused by what Catius called “spectres” — for I must remind you that Catius Insuber the Epicurean, lately dead, calls “spectres” what the famous Gargettius, and before him Democritus, used to call “images.” Well, even if my eyes were capable of being struck by these “spectres,” because they spontaneously run in upon them at your will, I do not see how the mind can be struck. You will be obliged to explain it to me, when you return safe and sound, whether the “spectre” of you is at my command, so as to occur to me as soon as I have taken the fancy to think about you; and not only about you, who are in my heart's core, but supposing I begin thinking about the island of Britain — will its image fly at once into my mind? But of this later on. I am just sounding you now to see how you take it. For if you are angry and annoyed, I shall say more and demand that you be restored to the sect from which you have been ejected by “violence and armed force.” In an injunction of this sort the words “within this year” are not usually added. Therefore, even if it is now two or three years since you divorced Virtue, seduced by the charms of Pleasure, it will still be open for me to do so. And yet to whom am I speaking? It is to you, the most gallant of men, who ever since you entered public life have done nothing that was not imbued to the utmost with the highest principle. In that very sect of yours I have a misgiving that there must be more stuff than I thought, if only because you accept it. “How did that come into your head?” you will say. Because I had nothing else to say. About politics I can write nothing: for I don't choose to write down my real opinions.
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§ Fam.6.7 DXXXI (Fam. VI, 7) AULUS CAECINA TO CICERO (AT ROME) SICILY (JANUARY) FOR my book not having been delivered to you so quickly, forgive my timidity, and pity my position. My son, I am told, was very much alarmed at the book being put in circulation, and with reason — since it does not matter so much in what spirit it is written, as in what spirit it is taken — for fear lest a stupid thing like that should stand in my light, and that too when I am still suffering for the sins of my pen. In that matter my fate has been a strange one: for whereas a slip of the pen is cured by erasure, and stupidity is punished by loss of reputation, my mistake is corrected by exile: though my greatest crime is having spoken ill of the enemy when engaged in active service. There was no one on our side, I presume, who did not pray for victory for himself; no one who, even when offering sacrifice for something else, did not breathe a wish for Caesar's speedy defeat. If he imagines that not to be the case, he is a very fortunate man. If he does know it, and has no delusion on the subject, why be angry with a man who has written something against his views, when he has pardoned all those who offered every sort of petition to the gods against his safety? But to return to my subject, the cause of my fear was this. I have written about you, on my honour, sparingly and timidly, not merely checking myself, but almost beating a retreat. Now everyone knows that this style of writing ought not merely to be free, but even vehement and lofty. One is thought to have a free hand in attacking another, yet you must take care not to fall into mere violence: it is not open to one to praise oneself, lest the result should be the vice of egotism: there is no other course than to praise the man, on whom any blame that you may cast is necessarily set down to weakness or jealousy. And I rather think that you will like it all the better, and think it more suited to your present position. For what I could not do in good style, it was in my power first of all not to touch upon, and, as next best, to do so as sparingly as possible. But after all I did check myself: I softened many phrases, cut out many, and a very large number I did not write down at all. Then, as in a ladder, if you were to remove some rounds, cut out others, leave some loosely fastened, you would be contriving the means of a fall, not preparing a way of ascent, just so with a writer's genius: if it is at once hampered and frustrated by so many disadvantages, what can it produce worth listening to or likely to satisfy? When, indeed, I come to mention Caesar himself, I tremble in every limb, not from fear of his punishing, but of his criticising me. For I do not know Caesar thoroughly. What do you think of a courage that talks thus to itself? “He will approve of this: that expression is open to suspicion.” “What if I change it to this? But I fear that will be worse.” Well, suppose I am praising some one: “Shan't I offend him?” Or when I am criticising some one adversely: “What if it is against his wish?” “He punishes the pen of a man engaged in a campaign: what will he do to that of a man conquered and not yet restored?” You yourself add to my alarm, because in your Orator you shield yourself under the name of Brutus, and try to make him a party to your apology. When the universal “patron” does this, what ought I to do — an old client of yours, and now everyone's client? Amidst such misgivings therefore created by fear, and on the rack of such blind suspicion, when most of what one writes has to be adapted to what one imagines are the feelings of another, not to one's own judgment, I feel how difficult it is to come off successfully, though you have not found the same difficulty, because your supreme and surpassing genius has armed you for every eventuality. Nevertheless, I told my son to read the book to you, and then to take it away, or only to give it to you on condition that you would promise to correct it, that is, if you would give it a totally new complexion. About my journey to Asia, though the necessity for my making it was very urgent, I have obeyed your commands. Why should I urge you to exert yourself for me? You are fully aware that the time has come when my case must be decided. There is no occasion, my dear Cicero, for you to wait for my son. He is a young man: he cannot from his warmth of feeling, or his youth, or his timidity, think of all necessary measures. The whole business must rest on you: you is all my hope. Your acuteness enables you to hit upon the measures which Caesar likes, and which win his favour. Everything must originate with you, and be brought to the desired conclusion by you. You have great influence with Caesar himself, very great with all his friends. If you will convince yourself of this one thing, that your duty is not merely to do what you are asked — though that is a great and important thing — but that the whole burden rests on you, you will carry it through: unless — which I don't believe — my misfortunes make me too inconsiderate, or my friendship too bold, in placing this burden upon you. But your lifelong habits suggest an excuse for both: for from your habit of exerting yourself for your friends, your intimates have come not so much to hope for that favour at your hands, as to demand it as a right. As for my book, which my son will give you, I beg that you will not let it out of your hands, or that you will so correct it as to prevent it doing me any harm.
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§ Fam.6.5 DXXXII (Fam. VI, 5) TO AULUS CAECINA (IN SICILY) ROME (JANUARY) EVERY time I see your son — and that is nearly every day — I promise him my zealous and active support, without any reserve as to labour, prior engagement, or time: but the exertion of my interest or favour with this reservation, “as far as I have the opportunity or power.” Your book has been read and is still being read by me with attention, and kept under lock and key with the greatest care. Your prospects and fortunes are of the highest concern to me. They seem to me to grow brighter and less complicated every day: and I can see that many are much interested in them, of whose zeal,'as well as of his own hopes, I feel certain that your son has written fully to you. But as to those particulars, in which I am reduced to conjecture, I do not take upon myself to profess greater foresight than I am convinced that your own eyes and your own intelligence give you: but all the same, as it may. very well be that your reflexions on those points are somewhat agitated, I think it is incumbent upon me to explain my opinions. It is neither in the nature of things nor the ordinary revolutions of time that a position such as either your own or that of the rest should be protracted, or that so outrageous an injustice should be persistently maintained in so good a cause and in the case of such good citizens. In which matter, in addition to the hope which your own case gives me to a degree beyond the common — I don't mean only from your high position and admirable character, for these are distinctions which you share with others-there are the claims which brilliant genius and eminent virtue make peculiar to yourself. And to these, by Hercules, he in whose power we are allows much weight. Accordingly, you would not have remained even a moment in your present position, had it not been that he thought himself to have been insulted by precisely that accomplishment of yours, in which he takes delight. But this feeling is softening every day, and those who live with him hint to me, that this very opinion which he entertains of your genius will do you a great deal of good with him. Wherefore, in the first place, keep up your spirits and courage: for your birth, education, learning, and character in the world demand that you should do so. In the next place, entertain the most certain hopes for the reasons which I have given you. On my side, indeed, I would have you feel sure that everything I can do is most completely at your service and at that of your sons: for this is no more than our longstanding friendship, and my invariable conduct to my friends, and your many kindnesses to me demand.
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§ Fam.6.18 DXXXIII (Fam. VI, 18) TO QUINTUS LEPTA ROME (JANUARY) Immediately on the receipt of the letter from your servant Seleucus I sent a note to Balbus asking him what the provision of the law was. He answered that auctioneers in actual business were excluded from being municipal counsellors, retired auctioneers were not excluded. Wherefore certain friends of yours and mine need not be alarmed, for it would have been intolerable, while those who were now acting as haruspices were put on the roll of the senate at Rome, all who had ever been auctioneers should be excluded from becoming counsellors in the municipal towns. There is no news from Spain. However, it is ascertained to be true that Pompey has a great army: for Caesar has himself sent me a copy of a despatch from Paciaecus, in which the number was reckoned as eleven legions. Messalla has also written to Quintus Salassus to say that his brother Publius Curtius has been put to death by Pompey's order in the presence of the army, for having, as he alleged, made a compact with certain Spaniards, that if Pompey entered a particular town to get corn, they should arrest him and take him to Caesar. As to your business in regard to your being a guarantee for Pompey, when your fellow guarantor Galba — a man generally very careful in money matters-comes back to town, I will at once consult with him to see whether anything can be done, as he seems inclined to have confidence in me. I am much delighted that you approve so highly of my Orator. My own view of it is that I have put into that book all the critical power I possessed in the art of speaking. If the book is such as you say that you think it to be, then I too am somewhat. If not, then I do not decline to allow the same deduction to be made from my reputation for critical judgment as is to be made from the book. I am desirous that our dear Lepta should take pleasure in such writings. Though his age is not yet ripe for them, yet it is not unprofitable that his ears should ring with the sound of such language. I am kept at Rome in any case by Tullia's confinement; but when she gets as well again as I can wish, I am still detained till I can get the first instalment of the dowry out of Dolabella's agents. Besides, by Hercules, I am not so much of a traveller as I used to be. My building and my leisure satisfy me entirely. My town house is now equal to any one of my villas: my leisure is more complete than the loneliest spot in the world could supply. So I am not hindered even in my literary employments, in which I am plunged without interruption. Wherefore I think that I shall see you here before you see me there. Let our dearest Lepta learn his Hesiod by heart, and have ever on his lips: “On virtue's threshold god sets sweat and toil.” 372
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§ Fam.4.14 DXXXIV (Fam. IV, 14) TO GNAEUS PLANCIUS (IN CORCYRA) ROME (JANUARY) I have received two letters from you, dated Corcyra. In one of these you congratulated me because you had heard, as you say, that I was enjoying my former position; in the other you said that you wished what I had done might turn out well and prosperously. Well, certainly, if they entertain honest sentiments on public affairs and to get good men to agree with them constitute a “position,” then I do hold my position. But if “position” depends upon the power of giving effect to your opinion, or in fine of supporting it by freedom of speech, then I have not a trace of my old position left: and it is great good fortune if I am able to put sufficient restraint upon myself to endure without excessive distress what is partly upon us already and partly threatens to come. That is the difficulty in a war of this kind: its result shows a prospect of massacre on the one side, and slavery on the other. In this danger it affords me no little consolation to remember that I foresaw all this at the time when I was feeling greatly alarmed even at our successes — not merely at our reverses — and perceived at what immense risk the question of constitutional right was to be decided in arms. And if in that appeal to arms those had conquered, to whom, induced by the hope of peace and not the desire for war, I had given in my adhesion, I nevertheless was well aware how bloody the victory of men swayed by anger, rapacity, and overbearing pride was certain to be: while if they had been conquered, what a clean sweep would be surely made of citizens, some of the highest rank, some too of the highest character, who, when I predicted these things and advised the measures best for their safety, preferred that I should be considered over-timid rather than moderately wise. For your congratulations on what I have done, I am sure you speak your real wishes: but at such an unhappy time as this I should not have taken any new step, had it not been that at my return I found my domestic affairs in no better order than those of the state. For when, owing to the misconduct of those, to whom, considering my never-to-be-forgotten services, my safety and my fortune ought to have been their dearest object, I saw nothing safe within the walls of my house, nothing that was not the subject of some intrigue, I thought it was time to protect myself by the fidelity of new relations against the treachery of the old. But enough, or rather too much, about my own affairs. As to yours, I would have you feel as you ought to do, namely, that you have no reason to fear any measure directed specially against yourself. For if there is to be some constitution, whatever it may be, I see clearly that you will be free of all danger: for I perceive that the one party is reconciled to you, the other has never been angry with you. However, of my disposition towards you I would have you make up your mind that, whatever steps I understand to be required — though I see my position at this time and the limits of my powers — I will yet be ready with my active exertions and advice, and at least with zeal, to support your property, your good name, and your restoration. Pray be exceedingly careful on your part to let me know both what you are doing and what you think of doing in the future.
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§ Fam.4.10 DXXXV (Fam. IV, 10) TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AT MITYLENE) ROME (JANUARY) THOUGH I have nothing fresh to say to you, and am now beginning more to expect a letter from you, or rather to see you in person, yet, as Theophilus was starting, I could not refrain from giving him some sort of letter. Do your best, then, to come at the earliest opportunity: your coming, believe me, will be welcomed not only by us, I mean by your personal friends, but by absolutely everybody. I say this because it occurs to me sometimes to be a little afraid that you have a fancy for postponing your departure. Now, had you had no other sense than that of eyesight, I should have sympathized with you in your shrinking from the sight of certain persons: but since what is heard is not much less distressing than what is seen, while I suspected that your early arrival much concerned the safety of your property, and was of importance in every point of view, I thought I ought to give you a hint on the subject. But as I have shown you my opinion, I will leave the rest to your own wisdom. Still, pray let me know about when to expect you.
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§ Fam.9.10 DXXXVI (Fam. IX, 10) TO P. CORNELIUS DOLABELLA (IN SPAIN) ROME (JANUARY) I DID not venture to allow our friend Salvius to go without a letter to you; yet, by Hercules, I have nothing to say except that I love you dearly: of which I feel certain that you do not doubt without my writing a word. In any case I ought rather to expect a letter from you, than you one from me. For there is nothing going on at Rome such as you would care to know: unless it would interest you to know that I am acting as arbitrator between our friend Nicias and Vidius! The latter puts forward in two lines, I think, a claim for money advanced to Nicias: the former, like a second Aristarchus, obelizes them. I am to be in the position of a critic of old days, and to judge whether they really are the poet's or are interpolations. I imagine you putting in here: “Have you forgotten, then, those mushrooms which you had at Nicias's dinner, and the big dishes joined to Septima's learned talk?” What! do you think my old preciseness so entirely knocked out of me, that there is no trace of my former regard for appearances to be seen even in the forum? However, I will see our delightful boon companion through his little trouble, nor will I, by securing his condemnation, give you the opportunity of re storing him, that Plancus Bursa may have some one to teach him his rudiments. But what am I doing? Though I have no means of knowing whether you are in a quiet state of mind, or, as generally happens in war, are involved in some more important anxiety or occupation, yet I drift on farther and farther. So when I shall have ascertained for certain that you are in the vein for a laugh, I will write at greater length. However, I want you to know this, that the people have been very anxious about the death of Publius Sulla before they knew it for certain. Since then they have ceased to inquire how he perished: they think in knowing that they know enough. For the rest I bear it with equanimity: the only thing I fear is lest Caesar's auctions should have received a blow. 378
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§ Fam.6.1 DXXXVII (Fam. VI, 1) TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS) ROME (JANUARY) Though the universal upset is such that each man thinks his position the worst possible, and that there is no one who does not wish to be anywhere but where he is, yet I feel no doubt that at the present moment the most miserable place for a good man to be in is Rome. For though wherever any man is, he must have the same feeling and the same pang from the ruin that has overtaken the fortunes both of himself and of the state, yet, after all, one's eyes add to the pain, which force us to see what others only hear, and do not allow us to turn our thoughts from our miseries. Therefore, though you must necessarily be pained by the absence of many objects, yet from that particular sorrow, with which I am told that you are specially overpowered — that you are not at Rome — pray free your mind. For though you must feel great uneasiness at being without your family and your surroundings, yet, after all, the objects of your regret are maintaining all their rights. They could not maintain them better, if you were here, nor are they in any special danger. Nor ought you, when thinking of your family, to demand any special favour of fortune for yourself, or to refuse to bear what is common to all. In regard to yourself personally, Torquatus, your duty is to think over everything, but not to take counsel with despair or fear. For it is not the case that the man, who has as yet been harsher to you than your character deserved, has given no signs of softened feeling towards you. But, after all, that person himself, of whom your safety is being asked, is far from having the way to secure his own clear and plain before him. And while the results of all wars are uncertain, I perceive that from the victory of the one side there is no danger for you, seeing that such danger has nothing to do with the general overthrow, while from the victory of the other I feel sure that you yourself have never had any fear. I must therefore conclude that the very thing which I count as a consolation — the common danger to the state — is what is chiefly torturing you. That is an evil so great that, however philosophers may talk, I fear it admits of no real consolation being found, except that which is exactly proportioned to the strength and mettle of each man's mind. For if right thinking and right doing are sufficient to secure a good and happy life, I fear that it is impious to call a man miserable who can support himself by the consciousness of having acted on the best motives. For neither do I consider that we abandoned country and children and property at that time from the hope of the rewards of victory on the contrary, I think we were following a just and sacred duty, due at once to the Republic and our own honour-neither, at the time we did so, were we so mad as to feel certain of victory. Wherefore, if that has happened, of which, when we were entering upon the cause, the possibility was fully before us, we ought not to be crushed in spirit, as though something had happened which we never contemplated as possible. Let us then take the view, which reason and truth alike enjoin, that in this life we should not feel ourselves bound to guarantee anything except to do nothing wrong: and that, since we are free from that imputation, we should bear every misfortune incident to humanity with calmness and good temper. And so my discourse amounts to this, that, though all be lost, virtue should show that she can after all support herself. But if there is some hope of a public recovery, you certainly ought not to be without your share in it, whatever the constitution of the future is to be. And yet, as I write this, it occurs to me that I am the man whose despair you were wont to blame, and whom you used your influence to rouse from a state of hesitation and anxiety. It was at a time, indeed, when it was not the goodness of our cause, but the wisdom of our policy with which I was dissatisfied. For I saw that, when too late, we were opposing arms which had long before been rendered formidable by ourselves, and I grieved that a constitutional question should be settled by spears and swords, not by consultation and the weight of our influence. Nor, when I said that those things would occur, which actually did do so, was I divining the future. I was only expressing a fear lest what I saw to be possible and likely to be ruinous, if it did occur, should happen; especially as, if I had to promise one way or the other about the result and end of the campaign, what did actually occur would have been the more obvious promise for me to make. For the points in which we had the advantage were not those which appear on the field of battle, while in the use of arms and the vigour of our soldiers we were at a disadvantage. But pray show the spirit now which you thought that I ought to have shown then. I write this because on my making all sorts of inquiries about you from your freedman Philargyrus, he told me with feelings, as I thought, of the utmost devotion to you, that at times you were apt to be excessively anxious. You ought not to be so, nor to doubt either that, if any form of constitution is restored, you will have your due place in it, or that, if it is gone for ever, you will be in no worse position than the rest. The present position, indeed, which is one of alarm and suspense for us all, you ought to bear with the greater calm-ness of spirit from the fact that you are living in a city which gave birth to and fostered a systematic rule of life, and that you have with you in Servius Sulpicius one for whom you have always had a singular affection: one who no doubt consoles you by his kindness and wisdom; whose example and advice, if we had followed, we should have remained at peace under Caesar's supremacy, rather than have taken up arms and submitted to a conqueror. But perhaps I have treated these points at too great a length: the following, which are more important, I will express more briefly. There is no one to whom I owe more than to yourself. Those, to whom I was indebted to an extent of which you are aware, the result of this war has snatched from me. My position at the present moment I fully understand. But since there is no one so utterly prostrate as not to be able, if he gives his whole attention to what he is doing, to accomplish and carry out something, I should wish you to consider as deservedly at the service of yourself and your children, of course all my zeal, but also all my powers of counsel and action.
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§ Fam.6.3 DXXXVIII (Fam. VI, 3) TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS) ROME (JANUARY) IN my former letter I was somewhat lengthy, more from warmth of affection than because the occasion demanded it. For neither did your virtue require fortifying by me, nor were my own case and position of such a nature as to allow of my encouraging another when in want of every source of encouragement myself. On the present occasion I ought to he briefer. For if there was no need of so many words then, there is no more need of them now, or if there was need of them then, what I said is enough, especially as there has been nothing new to add. For though I am every day told some items of news, which I think are conveyed to you, yet the upshot is the same, as is also the result: a result which I see as clearly in my mind as what I actually see with my eyes; and yet in truth I see nothing that I am not well assured that you see also. For though no one can prophesy the result of a battle, yet the result of a war I can see: and if not that, yet at least this — since one or the other side must win — how victory on the one side or the other will be used. And having a clear grasp of this, what I see convinces me that no evil will occur, if that shall have happened to me, even before, which is held out as the most formidable of all terrors. For to live on the terms on which one would then have to live, is a most miserable thing, while no philosopher has asserted death to be a miserable thing even for a prosperous man. But you are in a city in which the very walls of the houses seem capable of telling you these things, even at greater length and in nobler style. I assure you of this — though the miseries of others supply but a poor consolation — that you are now in no greater danger than anyone else, either of those who went away, or of those who remained. The one party are now in arms, the other in terror of the conqueror. But this, I repeat, is a poor consolation. There is another, which I hope you use, as I certainly do: I will never, while hive, let any-thing give me pain, so long as I have done nothing wrong: and if I cease to live, I shall cease to have any sensation. But to write this to you is again a case of “an owl to Athens.” To me both you and your family and all your interests are, and while I live will be, the subject of the greatest concern. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.6.4 DXXXIX (Fam. VI, 4) TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS) ROME (JANUARY) I have no news to give you, and if there is some after all, I know that you are usually informed of it by your family. About the future, however, difficult as it always is to speak, you may yet sometimes get nearer the truth by conjecture, when the matter is of the kind whose issue admits of being foreseen. In the present instance I think that I perceive thus much, that the war will not be a protracted one, though even as to that there are some who think I am wrong. For myself, even as I write this, I believe that something decisive has occurred, not that I know it for certain, but because the conjecture is an easy one. For while all chances in war are open, and the results of all battles are uncertain, yet on this occasion the forces on both sides are so large, and are said to be in such a state of preparation for a pitched battle, that whichever of the two conquers it will be no matter of surprise. It is an opinion that grows daily stronger that even if there is considerable difference in the merits of the causes of the combatants, there will yet be little difference in the way in which they will use their victory. Of the one side we have now had a pretty full experience: of the other there is no one that does not reflect how much reason there is to fear an armed victor inflamed with rage. On this point, if I appear to increase your anxiety while I ought to have been lightening it by consolation, I confess that I can find no consolation for our common disasters except that one, which after all — if you can avail yourself of it — is the highest and the one to which I have daily greater recourse: namely, that the consciousness of good intentions is the greatest consoler of misfortune, and that there is no serious evil except misconduct. As from this last we are so far removed, that our sentiments have been absolutely unimpeachable, while it is the result of our policy, not the policy itself, which is criticised: and as we have fulfilled all our obligations, let us bear what has happened without excessive grief. But I do not take upon myself, after all, to console you for misfortunes affecting all alike. Rightly to console them requires a greater intelligence, and to bear them requires unique courage. But anyone can easily show you why you ought not to feel any sorrow peculiar to yourself. For as to Caesar's decision concerning your restoration, though he has been somewhat slower in relieving you than I had thought he would be, I have no doubt whatever. As to the other party, I do not think that you are at a loss to know my sentiments. Finally, there is the pain that you feel at being so long absent from your family. It is distressing, especially considering the character of your sons, than which nothing can be more charming. But, as I said in my last letter, the state of things is such that everyone thinks his own position the most miserable of all, and most dislikes being precisely where he is. For my part, I consider that the most wretched of all are we who are at Rome, not merely because in all misfortunes it is more painful to see than to hear, but also because we are more exposed to all the risks of sudden perils, than if we were out of town. For myself however, who set up to console you, my feelings have become softened, not so much by literature, to which I have always been devoted, as by lapse of time. You remember how keen my sorrow was. In regard to that the first consolation is that I showed greater foresight than the rest, when I desired to have peace on any terms however inequitable. And although this was from chance, and not from any prophetic powers of mine, yet I take pleasure in this poor reputation for wisdom. Another source of consolation common to us both is that, if I am called upon to end my life, I shall not be torn from a republic such as I should grieve to lose, especially as I shall then be beyond all consciousness. An additional consolation is my age and the fact that my life is now all but over, which both gives me pleasure in reflecting upon its honourably accomplished career, and forbids my fearing any violence at a period to which nature herself has now almost brought me. Lastly, considering what a great man, or rather what great men, fell in that war, it seems shameless to decline to share the same fortune, if circumstances render it necessary. For my part, I regard everything as possible for myself, nor is there any evil too great for me to believe to be hanging over my head. But since there is more evil in fear than in the thing itself which is feared, I cease to indulge in it, especially as that now hangs over me, in which there will not only be no pain, but also the end of all pain. But I have said enough, or rather more than was needed. It is not love of talking, however, but affection for you that makes my letters too long. I was sorry to hear that Servius had left Athens; for I do not doubt that your daily meeting, and the conversation of a man at once most intimate and of the highest character and wisdom have been a great alleviation to you. Pray keep up your spirits, as you ought and are accustomed to do, by your own virtue. For myself, I shall look after everything with zeal and diligence which I may think to be in accordance with your wishes or for the interests of your self and your family. In doing so I shall imitate your goodness to me, I shall never equal your services.
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§ Fam.15.17 DXL (Fam. XV, 17) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (AT BRUNDISIUM) ROME (JANUARY) YOU have most unreasonable letter-carriers, though I am not personally angry with them. But, after all, when they are leaving me they demand a letter, when they come to me they bring none. And even as to the former, they would have consulted my convenience better if they had given me some interval for writing; but they come to me with their travelling caps on, declaring that their company is waiting for them at the city gate. Therefore you must pardon me: you shall have here another short note, but expect full details presently. Yet why should I apologize to you, when your men come to me with empty hands and return to you with letters. Here — for after all I will write something to you — we have the death of P. Sulla the elder: according to some from an attack of footpads, according to others from an attack of indigestion. The people don't trouble themselves, for they are assured that he is dead and burnt. Your philosophy will enable you to bear this; though we have lost a well-known “feature of the city.” People think that Caesar will be vexed for fear of his auctions becoming flat. Mindius Marcellus and Attius the paintseller are delighted at having lost a rival bidder. There is no news from Spain, and a very great anxiety for some: the rumours are rather gloomy, but are not authenticated. Our friend Pansa left town in military array on the 29th of December. It is enough to convince anyone of what you have recently begun to doubt, that “the good is desirable for its own sake.” For because he has relieved many of their misfortunes, and has shown humanity in these evil times, he was attended by an extraordinary display of affection on the part of good men. I very much approve of your having stayed on at Brundisium, and I am very glad you have done so, and, by Hercules, I think that you will act wisely if you don't trouble yourself about vain things. Certainly I, who love you, shall be glad if it is so. And pray, next time you are sending a packet home, don't forget me. I will never allow anyone, if I know it, to go to you without a letter from me.
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§ Fam.15.19 DXLI (Fam. XV, 19) C. CASSIUS LONGINUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM (JANUARY) If you are well, I am glad. There is nothing, by Hercules, that I more like doing on this tour of mine than writing to you: for I seem to be talking and joking with you in person. Nor does this Come to pass owing to Catius's “images”: for which expression I will in my next retort on you by quoting such a number of ill-educated Stoics, that you will acknowledge Catius to have been a true-born Athenian. That our friend Pansa left the city in military array with such expressions of goodwill from everybody, I rejoice both for his own sake and also, by Hercules, for the sake of all our party. For I hope that people will understand how odious cruelty is to everybody, and how attractive honesty and clemency: and that the objects which bad men seek and desire above everything come spontaneously to the good. For it is difficult to persuade men that “the good is desirable for its own sake”: but that “pleasure” and “peace of mind” are obtained by virtue, justice, and “the good” is both true and convincing. In fact, Epicurus himself says-from whom all your Catiuses and Amafiniuses, those poor translators of his words, proceed — “to live pleasantly is impossible without living well and justly.” So it is that Pansa, whose summum bonum is “pleasure,” keeps his virtue; and those too who are called by you “pleasure-lovers” are “lovers of the good” and “lovers of the just,” and practise and maintain all the virtues. Accordingly Sulla, whose judgment we are bound to respect, seeing that philosophers disagreed, did not ask what was good, but bought up all goods indifferently: whose death, by Hercules, I have borne with some fortitude! Nor will Caesar, after all, allow us to feel his loss very long: for he has plenty of condemned persons to restore for us in his place, nor will he be without some one to bid at his auctions as long as Sulla's son is in his sight. Now for public affairs. Write and tell me what is going on in Spain. Upon my life I feel anxious, and prefer to have our old and merciful master rather than a new and bloodthirsty one. You know what a fool Gnaeus is: you know how he thinks cruelty is courage: you know how he always thinks that we laugh at him. I am afraid he will want to retort the joke in rustic fashion with a blow of the sword. If you love me, write and say what is happening. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew whether you read this with an anxious or a quiet mind! For then I should at the same time know what it becomes me to do. Not to be too wearisome, I will say good-bye. Love me as ever. If Caesar has conquered, expect me with all speed.
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§ Fam.9.13 DXLII (Fam. IX, 13) TO P. CORNELIUS DOLABELLA (IN SPAIN) (ROME, FEBRUARY) C. SUBERNIUS of Cales is both my friend and very closely connected with Lepta, who is a very intimate friend of mine. Having for the express purpose of avoiding the war one to Spain with M. Varro before it began, with a view of being in a province in which none of us had thought that there was likely to be any war after the defeat of Afranius, he found himself plunged into the precise evils which he had done his very best to avoid. For he was overtaken by a sudden war, which being set in motion by Scapula was afterwards raised to such serious proportions by Pompey, that it became impossible for him to extricate himself from that unhappy affair. M. Planius Heres, also of Cales, and also a very close friend of our friend Lepta, is in much the same position. These two men, therefore, I commend to your protection with a care, zeal, and heartfelt anxiety beyond which I cannot go in commending anyone. I wish it for their own sake, and in this matter I am also strongly influenced by motives of humanity no less than by friendship. For since Lepta is so anxious that his fortunes would seem to be at stake, I cannot but be in a state of anxiety next or even equal to his. Therefore, although I have often had proof of how much you loved me, yet I would have you be convinced that I shall have no better opportunity than this of judging that to be so. I therefore ask you, or, if you allow it, I implore you to save from disfranchisement two unhappy men, who owe their loss of citizenship to fortune — which none can avoid-rather than to any fault of their own. Be so good as to allow me by your help to bestow this favour both on the men themselves, who are my friends, and also on the municipium of Cales, with which I have strong ties, and lastly upon Lepta, whom I regard more than all the rest. What I am going to say I think is not much to the point, yet, after all, there is no harm in saying it. The property of one of them is very small, of the other scarcely up to the equestrian standard. Wherefore, seeing that Caesar, with his usual high-mindedness, has granted them their lives, and since there is very little else that can be taken from them, do secure these men their return, if you love me as much as I am sure you do. The only possible difficulty is the long journey; which their motive for not shirking is their desire to be with their families and to die at home. That you do your best and exert yourself, or rather that you carry it through — for as to your ability to do it I have no doubt — I strongly and repeatedly entreat you.
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§ Fam.13.16 DXLIII (Fam. XIII, 16) CICERO TO CAESAR (IN SPAIN) ROME (FEBRUARY) OF all our men of rank there is no one of whom I have been fonder than of Publius Crassus the younger; and though I have had very great hopes of him from his earliest years, I began at once to entertain brilliant ideas of his abilities when I was informed of your high opinion of him. His freedman Apollonius I always valued and thought well of even when Crassus was alive: for he was very attentive to Crassus and extremely well suited to promote his best tastes: and, accordingly, was much liked by him. But after the death of Crassus he seemed the more worthy of admission to my confidence and friendship, because he regarded it as his duty to be attentive and polite to those whom the late Crassus had loved and by whom he had been beloved. Accordingly, he came to stay with me in Cilicia, and in many particulars his fidelity and good sense were of great use to me; and, as I think, he rendered you all the service in the Alexandrine war that was within the range of ability and fidelity. Hoping that you would think the same, he has started to join you in Spain — chiefly indeed on his own initiative, but also on my advice. I did not promise him a letter of recommendation, not because I doubted its weight with you, but because he did not seem to want any, for he had been on active service in your army, and had been put on your staff from respect to the memory of Crassus. And if he did choose to avail himself of introductions, I saw that he could accomplish that by means of others. It is a testimony to my opinion of him, which he values highly and which I also have found to have weight with you, that I hereby give him with pleasure. Well, then, I have found him to be well instructed and devoted to the highest pursuits, and that from a boy. For he lived much at my house from his boyhood along with the Stoic Diodotus, a man in my opinion of the most profound learning. At present, fired with admiration of your achievements, he desires to write a history of them in Greek. I think he is capable of doing it. He has great genius: great experience: for a long time past he has been engaged in that branch of study and literature: he is wonderfully eager to do justice to the immortal fame of your glorious achievements. You have here the record of my opinion, but your supreme wisdom will enable you to decide with much greater ease upon this point. Yet, after all, though I said I would not do so, I recommend him to you. Whatever favour you show him will be more than ordinarily gratifying to me.
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§ Fam.4.5 DLIV (Fam. IV, 5) SERVIUS SULPICIUS TO CICERO (AT ASTURA) ATHENS (MARCH) WHEN I received the news of your daughter Tullia's death, I was indeed as much grieved and distressed as I was bound to be, and looked upon it as a calamity in which I shared. For, if I had been at home, I should not have failed to be at your side, and should have made my sorrow plain to you face to face. That kind of consolation involves much distress and pain, because the relations and friends, whose part it is to offer it, are themselves overcome by an equal sorrow. They cannot attempt it without many tears, so that they seem to require consolation themselves rather than to be able to afford it to others. Still I have decided to set down briefly for your benefit such thoughts as have occurred to my mind, not because I suppose them to be unknown to you, but because your sorrow may perhaps hinder you from being so keenly alive to them. Why is it that a private grief should agitate you so deeply? Think how fortune has hitherto dealt with us. Reflect that we have had snatched from us what ought to be no less dear to human beings than their children-country, honour, rank, every political distinction. What additional wound to your feelings could be inflicted by this particular loss? Or where is the heart that should not by this time have lost all sensibility and learn to regard everything else as of minor importance? Is it on her account, pray, that you sorrow? How many times have you recurred to the thought — and I have often been struck with the same idea — that in times like these theirs is far from being the worst fate to whom it has been granted to exchange life for a painless death? Now what was there at such an epoch that could greatly tempt her to live? What scope, what hope, what heart's Solace? That she might spend her life with some young and distinguished husband? How impossible for a man of your rank to select from the present generation of young men a son-in-law, to whose honour you might think yourself safe in trusting your child! Was it that she might bear children to cheer her with the sight of their vigorous youth? who might by their own character maintain the position handed down to them by their parent, might be expected to stand for the offices in their order, might exercise their freedom in supporting their friends? What single one of these prospects has not been taken away before it was given? But, it will be said, after all it is an evil to lose one's children. Yes, it is: only it is a worse one to endure and submit to the present state of things. I wish to mention to you a circumstance which gave me no common consolation, on the chance of its also proving capable of diminishing your sorrow. On my voyage from Asia, as I was sailing from Aegina towards Megara, I began to survey the localities that were on every side of me. Behind me was Aegina, in front Megara, on my right Piraeus, on my left Corinth: towns which at one time were most flourishing, but now lay before my eyes in ruin and decay. I began to reflect to myself thus: “Hah! do we mannikins feel rebellious if one of us perishes or is killed — we whose life ought to be still shorter — when the corpses of so many towns lie in helpless ruin? Will you please, Servius, restrain yourself and recollect that you are born a mortal man?” Believe me, I was no little strengthened by that reflexion. Now take the trouble, if you agree with me, to put this thought before your eyes. Not long ago all those most illustrious men perished at one blow: the empire of the Roman people suffered that huge loss: all the provinces were shaken to their foundations. If you have become the poorer by the frail spirit of one poor girl, are you agitated thus violently? If she had not died now, she would yet have had to die a few years hence, for she was mortal born. You, too, withdraw soul and thought from such things, and rather remember those which become the part you have played in life: that she lived as long as life had anything to give her; that her life outlasted that of the Republic; that she lived to see you — her own father-praetor, consul, and augur; that she married young men of the highest rank; that she had enjoyed nearly, every possible blessing; that, when the Republic fell, she departed from life. What fault have you or she to find with fortune on this score? In fine, do not forget that you are Cicero, and a man accustomed to instruct and advise others; and do not imitate bad physicians, who in the diseases of others profess to understand the art of healing, but are unable to prescribe for themselves. Rather suggest to yourself and bring home to your own mind the very maxims which you are accustomed to impress upon others. There is no sorrow beyond the power of time at length to diminish and soften: it is a reflexion on you that you should wait for this period, and not rather anticipate that result by the aid of your wisdom. But if there is any consciousness still existing in the world below, such was her love for you and her dutiful affection for all her family, that she certainly does not wish you to act as you are acting. Grant this to her-your lost one! Grant it to your friends and comrades who mourn with you in your sorrow! Grant it to your country, that if the need arises she may have the use of your services and advice. Finally — since we are reduced by fortune to the necessity of taking precautions on this point also — do not allow anyone to think that you are not mourning so much for your daughter as for the state of public affairs and the victory of others. I am ashamed to say any more to you on this subject, lest I should appear to distrust your wisdom. Therefore I will only make one suggestion before bringing my letter to an end. We have seen you on many occasions bear good fortune with a noble dignity which greatly enhanced your fame: now is the time for you to convince us that you are able to bear bad fortune equally well, and that it does not appear to you to be a heavier burden than you ought to think it. I would not have this be the only one of all the virtues that you do not possess. As far as I am concerned, when I learn that your mind is more composed, I will write you an account of what is going on here, and of the condition of the province. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.13.15 DLXX (Fam. XIII, 15) TO C. IULIUS CAESAR (IN SPAIN) ASTURA (MARCH) Cicero to Caesar, imperator. I recommend Precilius to your special favour, the son of a connexion of your own, a very intimate friend of mine, and a most excellent man. For the young man himself I have an extraordinary affection on account of his rectitude, culture, and the spirit and affection he has displayed to myself: but of his father also I have had practical reason to know and thoroughly learn what a warm friend he has ever been to me. Now see! — this is the man that more than anyone else has been used to ridicule and chide me for not attaching myself to you, especially when invited to do so by you in the most Complimentary manner: “But in my breast my heart he ne'er could move.” For I heard our nobles shouting: “Be staunch, and unborn men shall speak thee fair. He spake, and on him fell black clouds of woe.” However, these same men give me consolation also: they wish even now — though once singed — to inflame me with the fire of glory, and speak thus: “Nay, not a coward's death nor shorn of fame, But after some high deed to live for aye.” But they move me less than of yore, as you see. Accordingly from the high style of Homer I transfer myself to the true maxims of Euripides: “Out on the sage that cannot guide himself!” This is a verse that the elder Precilius praises to the skies, and says that a man may be able to see both “before and behind,” and yet “Still may excel and rise above the crowd.” But to return to what I began with: you will greatly oblige me, if you give this young man the benefit of the kindness which so distinguishes you, and will add to what I think you would do for the sake of the Precilii themselves as much as my recommendation may be worth. I have adopted a new style of letter to you, that you might understand that my recommendation is no common one. 430
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§ Fam.5.13 DLXXI (Fam. V, 13) TO L. LUCCEIUS ASTURA (MARCH) Although the consolation contained in your letter is in itself exceedingly gratifying to me — for it displays the greatest kindness joined to an equal amount of good sense-yet quite the greatest profit which I received from that letter was the assurance that you were showing a noble disdain of human vicissitudes, and were thoroughly armed and prepared against fortune. And I assert it to be the highest compliment to philosophy that a man should not depend upon externals, nor allow his calculations as to the happiness or unhappiness of his life to be governed by anything outside himself. Now this conviction, though it had never been altogether lost — for it had sunk deep — had yet by the violence of tempests and a combination of misfortunes been considerably shaken and loosened at its roots. I see that you are for giving it support, and I also feel that by your last letter you have actually done so, and that with considerable success. Therefore, in my opinion, I ought to repeat this often, and not merely hint to you, but openly to declare, that nothing could be more acceptable to me than your letter. But while the arguments which you have collected with such taste and learning help to console me, yet nothing does so more than the clear perception I have got of the unbending firmness and unshaken confidence of your spirit, not to imitate which I think would be an utter disgrace. And so I consider that I am even braver than yourself — who give me lessons in courage — in this respect, that you appear to me still to cherish a hope that things will be some day better: at least “the changes and chances of gladiatorial combats” and your illustrations, as well as the arguments collected by you in your essay, were meant to forbid me entirely to despair of the republic. Accordingly, in one respect it is not so wonderful that you should be braver, since you still cherish hope: in another it is surprising that you should still have any hope. For what is there that is not so weakened as to make you acknowledge it to be practically destroyed and extinct? Cast your eye upon all the limbs of the republic, with which you are most intimately acquainted: you will not find one that is not broken or enfeebled. I would have gone into details, if I had seen things more clearly than you see them, or had been able to mention them without sorrow: though in accordance with your lessons and precepts all sorrow ought to be put away. Therefore I will bear my domestic misfortunes in the spirit of your admonition, and those of the state perhaps with even a little more courage than even you, who admonish me. For you are supported, as you say, by some hope; but I shall keep up my courage though I despair of everything, as in spite of that you exhort and admonish me to do. Yes, you give me pleasant reminders of what my conscience tells me I have done, and of those achievements which I performed with you among my foremost supporters. For I did for my country at least not less than I was bound to do, certainly more than was demanded from the spirit or wisdom of any one human being. Pray pardon my saying something about myself. You wished me to be relieved from my sorrow by thinking over these things. Well, even by mentioning them I obtain alleviation. Therefore, according to your advice, I will withdraw myself to the best of my power from all sorrows and anguish, and fix my mind on those topics by which prosperity receives an added charm, and adversity a support. I will be in your society also exactly as much as our respective age and health will allow; and if we cannot be together as much as we desire, we will so enjoy our union of hearts and community of tastes as to seem never separated.
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§ Fam.6.21 DLXXII (Fam. VI, 21) TO C. TORANIUS (IN CORCYRA) (ROME? MARCH?) Although at the moment of my writing this letter, the end of this most disastrous war appears to be approaching, and already some decisive blow to have been struck, yet I daily mention that you were the one man in that immense army who agreed with me and I with you, and that we two alone saw what terrible evil was involved in that war. For when all hope of peace was shut out, victory itself was likely to be calamitous in its results, since it meant death if you were on the losing, and slavery if on the winning, side. Accordingly I, whom at the time those brave and wise men the Domitii and Lentuli declared to be frightened — and I was so without doubt, for I feared that what actually happened would occur — am now in my turn afraid of nothing, and am prepared for anything that may happen. So long as any precaution seemed possible, I was grieved at its being neglected. Now, however, when all is ruined, when no good can be done by wise policy, the only plan seems to be to bear with resignation whatever occurs: especially as death ends all, and my conscience tells me that, as long as I was able to do so, I consulted for the dignity of the republic and, when that was lost, determined to save its existence. I have written thus much, not with the object of talking about myself, but that you, who have been most closely united with me in sentiment and purpose, might entertain the same thoughts: for it is a great consolation to remember, even when there has been a disaster, that your presentiments were after all right and true. And I only hope we may eventually enjoy some form of constitution, and may live to compare the anxieties which we endured at the time when we were looked upon as timid, because we said that what has actually happened would do so. For your own fortunes I assure you that you have nothing to fear beyond the destruction affecting the republic in general; and of me I would have you think as of one who, to the best of his ability, will ever be ready with the utmost zeal to support your safety and that of your children. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.4.6 DLXXIII (Fam. IV, 6) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) (FICULEA, APRIL) YES, indeed, my dear Servius, I would have wished — as you say — that you had been by my side at the time of my grievous loss. How much help your presence might have given me, both by consolation and by your taking an almost equal share in my sorrow, I can easily gather from the fact that after reading your letter I experienced a great feeling of relief. For not only was what you wrote calculated to soothe a mourner, but in offering me consolation you manifested no slight sorrow of heart yourself. Yet, after all, your son Servius by all the kindnesses of which such a time admitted made it evident, both how much he personally valued me, and how gratifying to you he thought such affection for me would be. His kind offices have of course often been pleasanter to me, yet never more acceptable. For myself again, it is not only your words and (I had almost said) your partnership in my sorrow that consoles me, it is your character also. For I think it a disgrace that I should not bear my loss as you — a man of such wisdom-think it should be borne. But at times I am taken by surprise and scarcely offer any resistance to my grief, because those consolations fail me, which were not wanting in a similar misfortune to those others, whose examples I put before my eyes. For instance, Quintus Maximus, who lost a son who had been consul and was of illustrious character and brilliant achievements, and Lucius Paullus, who lost two within seven days, and your kinsman Gallus and M. Cato, who each lost a son of the highest character and valour;-all lived in circumstances which permitted their own great position, earned by their public services, to assuage their grief. In my case, after losing the honours which you yourself mention, and which I had gained by the greatest possible exertions, there was only that one solace left which has now been torn away. My sad musings were not interrupted by the business of my friends, nor by the management of public affairs: there was nothing I cared to do in the forum: I could not bear the sight of the senate-house; I thought — as was the fact — that I had lost all the fruits both of my industry and of fortune. But while I thought that I shared these losses with you and certain others, and while I was conquering my feelings and forcing myself to bear them with patience, I had a refuge, one bosom where I could find repose, one in whose conversation and sweetness I could lay aside all anxieties and sorrows. But now, after such a crushing blow as this, the wounds which seemed to have healed break out afresh. For there is no republic now to offer me a refuge and a consolation by its good fortunes when I leave my home in sorrow, as there once was a home to receive me when I returned saddened by the state of public affairs. Hence I absent myself both from home and forum, because home can no longer console the sorrow which public affairs cause me, nor public affairs that which I suffer at home. All the more I look forward to your coming, and long to see you as soon as possible. No reasoning can give me greater solace than a renewal of our intercourse and conversation. However, I hope your arrival is approaching, for that is what I am told. For myself, while I have many reasons for wishing to see you as soon as possible, there is this one especially — that we may discuss beforehand on what principles we should live through this period of entire submission to the will of one man who is at once wise and liberal, far, as I think I perceive, from being hostile to me, and very friendly to you. But though that is so, yet it is a matter for serious thought what plans, I, don't say of action, but of passing a quiet life by his leave and kindness, we should adopt. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.6.2 DLXXIV (Fam. VI, 2) TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS) (FICULEA, 20 APRIL) I BEG you not to think that forgetfulness of you is the cause of my writing to you less often than I used to do; but either illness — from which however I am now recovering — or absence from the city, which prevents my knowing who is starting to where you are. Wherefore I would have you make up your mind that I always remember you with the most perfect affection, and regard all your interests as of no less concern to me than my own. That your case has experienced more vicissitudes than people either wished or expected is not, believe me, in these bad times a thing to give you anxiety. For it is inevitable that the republic should either be burdened by an unending war, or should at last recover itself by its cessation, or should utterly perish. If arms are to carry the day, you have no need to fear either the party by whom you are being taken back, nor that which you actually assisted; if — when arms are either laid down by a composition or thrown down from sheer weariness — the state ever recovers its breath, you will be permitted to enjoy your position and property. But if universal ruin is to be the result, and the end is to be what that very clear-sighted man Marcus Antonius used long ago to fear when he suspected that all this misfortune was impending, there is this consolation — a wretched one indeed, especially for such a citizen and such a man as yourself, but yet the only one we can have — that no one may make a private grievance of what affects all alike. If, as I am sure you will, you rightly conceive the meaning of these few words — for it was not proper to trust more to an epistle-you will certainly understand even without a letter from me that you have something to hope, nothing under this or any definite form of the constitution to fear. If there is general ruin, as you would not wish, even if you could, to survive the republic, you must bear your fortune, especially one which involves no blame to you. But enough of this. Pray write and tell me how you are and where you intend to stay, that I may know where to write or come.
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§ Fam.9.11 DLXXV (Fam. IX, 11) TO P. CORNELIUS DOLABELLA (IN SPAIN) (FICULEA, 20 APRIL) I HAD rather that even my own death had been the cause of your being without a letter from me than the misfortune which has so grievously afflicted me. I should have borne it at least with greater firmness if I had had you; for your wise conversation, no less than your marked affection for me, would have been a support. But since I am about, as I think, to see you before long, you shall find that though much broken I am yet in a state to receive great assistance from you; not that I am so crushed as to be unable to remember my manhood, or to think it right to give in to fortune. But in spite of that the old cheerfulness and gaiety, in which you took more delight than anybody else, have all been taken from me. Nevertheless, you will find in me the same fortitude and firmness — if I ever had these qualities — as you left. You say that you have to fight my battles: I don't so much care about my detractors being refuted by you, as I wish it to be known — as is plainly the case — that I retain your affection. I urge you repeatedly to let it be so, and to pardon the brevity of my letter; for in the first place I think I shall see you very shortly, and in the second place I have not yet sufficiently recovered my calmness for writing.
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§ Fam.5.14 DLXXXIV (Fam. V, 14) L. LUCCEIUS TO CICERO (AT ASTURA) ROME (9 MAY) If you are well, I am glad: I am as usual, or even a little worse than usual. I have often wished to see you. I was surprised to find that you have not been at Rome since your departure: and I am still surprised at it. I don't feel certain as to the exact motive which withdraws you from Rome. If it is solitude that charms you, provided that you write or carry on some of your accustomed pursuits, I rejoice, and have no fault to find with your resolution. For nothing can be pleasanter than that, I don't mean merely in such unhappy and grievous times as these, but even when everything is peaceful and answerable to our wishes. Especially if your mind is either so far wearied as to need repose after heavy engagements, or so richly endowed as ever to be producing something capable of charming others and adding brilliancy to your own reputation. If, however, as you indicate, you have surrendered yourself to tears and melancholy thoughts, I grieve that you are grieving and suffering: I cannot — if you permit me to say what I really think-altogether acquit you of blame. For reflect: will you be the only man not to see what is as clear as day, you whose acuteness detects the most profound secrets? Will you fail to understand that you do no good by daily lamentations? Will you fail to understand that the sorrow is doubled, which your wisdom expects you to remove? Well, if I cannot prevail upon you by persuasion, I put it to you as a personal favour and as a special request, that, if you care to do anything for my sake, you would free yourself from the bonds of that sorrow and return to our society and to your ordinary way of life, whether that which we share in common with you, or that which is characteristic of and peculiar to yourself. My desire is not to worry you, if I cannot give you pleasure, by a display of earnestness on my part: what I desire is to prevent you from abiding by your present purpose. At present these two opposite desires do somewhat puzzle me — I should wish you either in regard to the latter of them to yield to my advice, or in regard to the former not to feel any annoyance with me. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.5.15 DLXXXVI (Fam. V, 15) TO L. LUCCEIUS (AT ROME) ASTURA (MAY) YOUR perfect affection manifests itself in every sentence of the last letter which I received from you: not that it was anything new to me, but all the same it was grateful to my feelings and all that I could desire. I should have called it “delightful,” had not that word been lost to me for ever: and not for that one reason which you imagine, and in regard to which you chide me severely, though in the gentlest and most affectionate terms, but because what ought to have been the remedies for that sorrow are all gone. Well then! Am I to seek comfort with my friends? How many of them are there? You know — for they were common to us both. Some of them have fallen, others I know not how have grown callous. With you indeed I might have gone on living, and there is nothing I should have liked better. Long-standing affection, habit, community of tastes — what tie, I ask, is there lacking to our union? Is it possible then for us to be together? Well, by Hercules, I know not what prevents it: but, at any rate, we have not been so hitherto, though we were neighbours at Tusculum and Puteoli, to say nothing of Rome; where, as the forum is a common meeting-place, nearness of residence does not matter. But by some misfortune our age has fallen upon circumstances, which, just when we ought to be at the very height of prosperity, make us ashamed even of being alive. For what had I to fly to when deprived of everything that could afford me distinction or console my feelings at home or in public life? Literature, I suppose. Well, I devote myself to that without ceasing. But in some indefinable way literature itself seems to shut me out from harbour and refuge, and as it were to reproach me for continuing a life in which there is nothing but extension of utter wretchedness. In these circumstances, do you wonder at my keeping away from the city, in which my own house has no pleasure to offer me, while the state of affairs, the men, the forum, and the senate-house are all utterly repulsive to me? Accordingly, what I seek from literature, on which I spend my whole time, is not a lasting cure but a brief oblivion of pain. But if you and I had done what on account of our daily fears it never occurred to us to do, we should have been always together, and neither would your weak health have annoyed me, nor my sorrow you. Let us aim at securing this as far as it may be possible: for what could suit both of us better? I will see you therefore at an early day.
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§ 45.605 DCV (Att. XIII, 2a) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (27 MAY) Please order the letters to be delivered to Oppius and Balbus; and, by the way, see Piso whenever you can about the gold. If Faberius comes to town, you will please see that I am credited with the right amount, if there is to be any crediting at all. You will learn what it is from Eros. Ariarathes son of Ariobarzanes has come to Rome. He wants, I suppose, to buy some kingdom from Caesar. For, as at present situated, he hasn't a foot of ground to call his own. After all, our friend Sextus — as a sort of official entertainer-has monopolized him, for which I am not sorry. However, as I am very intimate with his brothers, owing to the great services I did them, I am writing to invite him to stay in my house. As I was sending Alexander for that purpose, I have given him this letter to take.
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§ 45.608 DCVIII (Att. XIII, 2b) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM, 29 MAY: So the auction of Peducaeus is tomorrow. Come when you can, therefore. Although perhaps Faberius will delay you; yet as soon as you are free. Our friend Dionysius complains loudly, and with some justice after all, that he is so long away from his pupils. He has written a long letter to me, and I believe also to you. In my opinion he will be still longer away. Yet I could have wished it were otherwise, for I miss him much. I am hoping for a letter from you: that is, not just yet, for I am writing this answer early in the morning.
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§ Fam.4.12 DCXII (Fam. IV, 12) SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (AT TUSCULUM) ATHENS, 31 MAY: Servius sends many good wishes to Cicero. Though I know that I shall be giving you no very pleasant news, yet since chance and nature bear the sway among us men, I thought it incumbent on me to give you information of whatever kind it might be. On the 23rd of May, on sailing into the Piraeus, I met my colleague M. Marcellus, and spent the day there in order to enjoy his society. Next day, when I parted from him with the design of going from Athens to Boeotia, and finishing what remained of my legal business, he told me that he intended to sail round Cape Malea and make for Italy. On the third day after that, just as I was intending to start from Athens, at the tenth hour of the night my friend Publius Postumius called on me with the information that my colleague M. Marcellus just after dinner had been stabbed with a dagger by his friend P. Magius Cilo, and had received two wounds, one in the stomach, a second in the head behind the ear; but that hopes were entertained that he might survive; and that Magius had killed himself afterwards. He added that he had been sent by Marcellus to tell me this, and to ask me to send some physicians. Accordingly, I summoned some physicians, and immediately started just as day was breaking. When I was not far from Piraeus, a slave of Acidinus met me bearing a note containing the information that Marcellus had expired a little before daybreak. So there is a man of most illustrious character cut off in a most distressing manner by the vilest of men. His personal enemies had spared him in consideration of his character; but one of his own friends was found to inflict death upon him. However, I continued my journey to his tent. There I found two freedmen and a few slaves: they said the rest had run away in terror, because their master had been killed in front of the tent. I was obliged to carry him back to the city in the same litter in which I had ridden down and to use my own bearers: and there, considering the means at my disposal at Athens, I saw to his having an honourable funeral. I could not induce the Athenians to grant him a place of burial within the city, as they alleged that they were prevented by religious scruples from doing so; and it is a fact that they had never granted that privilege to anyone. But they allowed us, which was the next best thing, to bury him in any gymnasium we chose. We chose a place in the most famous gymnasium in the world — that of the Academy — and there we burnt the body, and afterwards saw to these same Athenians giving out a contract for the construction of a marble monument over him. So I think I have done all for him alive and dead required by our colleagueship and close connexion. Goodbye. 31 May, Athens.
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§ Fam.6.11 DCXIX (Fam. VI, 11) TO TREBIANUS (IN EXILE) (ROME, JUNE) Hitherto I have felt nothing more than a natural affection for Dolabella: I was under no obligation to him — for it never chanced to be necessary — and he was in my debt for my having stood by him in his hours of danger. Now, however, I have become bound to him by so strong an obligation — for having previously in regard to your property, and on the present occasion in the matter of your recall, gratified me to the fullest possible degree — that I can owe no one more than I do him. In regard to this matter, while I warmly congratulate you, I wish you to congratulate rather than thank me. The latter I do not in the least desire, the former you will be able to do with truth. For the rest, since your high character and worth have secured your return to your family, you will be acting in a manner worthy of your wisdom and magnanimity if you forget what you have lost, and think of what you have recovered. You will be living with your family; you will be living with us; you have gained more in personal consideration than you have lost in property: though of course your recovered position would have been a greater source of pleasure to you, if there had been any constitution left. Our friend Vestorius tells me in a letter that you express very great gratitude to me. This avowal on your part is, of course, very gratifying to me, and I have nothing to say against your making it, whether to others, or by heaven! to our friend Siro: for what one does one likes to have approved most by the wisest men. I desire to see you at the earliest opportunity.
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§ 45.624 DCXXIV (Att. XIII, 13-14) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) ARPINUM (24 JUNE) Under the influence of your letter-because you wrote to me on the subject of Varro — I have taken my Academica bodily from men of the highest rank and transferred it to our friend and contemporary. I have also rearranged it so as to form four books instead of two. They Certainly have a more imposing effect than the previous edition, yet after all a good deal has been cut out. But I should much like you to write and tell me how you discovered that he wished it. This much at any rate I long to know — of whom you perceived him to have been jealous: unless perchance it was Brutus! By heaven, that's the last straw! However, I should be glad to know. The books themselves have left my hands — unless I am deceived by the usual author's self-love — so well elaborated, that there is nothing on the subject even among Greek writers to be compared with them. Pray do not be annoyed at your own loss in having had the treatise on the Academics now in your hands copied out in vain. This second edition, after all, will be much more brilliant, concise, and better. In these circumstances, however, I don't know which way to turn. I wish to satisfy Dolabella's earnest desire. I don't see my way to anything, and at the same time “I fear the Trojans.” Now, even if I do hit on something, shall I be able to escape adverse criticism? I must therefore be idle or strike out some other kind of subject. But why concern ourselves about these trivialities? Pray tell me how my dear Attica is. She causes me deep anxiety. But I pore over your letter again and again: I find comfort in it. Nevertheless, I wait anxiously for a fresh one.
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§ Fam.9.22 DCXXXI (Fam. IX, 22) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) (ROME, JULY?) I like modesty in language: you prefer plain speaking. The latter I know was the doctrine of Zeno, a man by heaven! of keen insight, though our Academy had a serious quarrel with him. However, as I say, the Stoic doctrine is to call everything by its right name. They argue as follows: nothing is obscene, nothing unfit to be expressed: for if there is anything disgraceful in obscenity, it consists either in the thing meant or in the word: there is no third alternative. Now it is not in the thing meant. Accordingly, in tragedies as well as in comedies there is no concealment. For Comedy, take the character in the Demiurgus: you know the monologue beginning “Lately by chance,” and you remember how Roscius recited, “So naked has she left me”: the whole speech is covert in language, in meaning is very immodest. As for tragedy, what do you say to this: “The woman who” — notice the expression — “uses more than one bed.” Or again, “He dared intrude upon her bed, Pheres.” Or again: “A virgin I, and sheer against my will Did Iuppiter achieve his end by force.” “Achieve his end” is a decent way of putting it; and yet it means the same as a coarser word, which however no one would have endured. You see then that though the thing meant is the same, yet, because the words are not so, there is thought to be no impropriety. Therefore obscenity is not in the thing meant: much less is it in the expressions. For if the thing meant by a word is not improper, the word which signifies it cannot be improper. For instance, you call the anus by another name; why not by its own? If mention of it is improper, don't mention it even under another name. If not, do so for choice by its own. The ancients called a tail a penis; whence comes the word penicillus ("paint-brush"), from its similarity in appearance. Nowadays penis is regarded as an obscene word. “But,” you will say, “the famous Piso Frugi in his'Annals' complains of young men being given up to lust (peni).” What you call in your letter by its own name, he, with more reserve, calls penis. Yes; but it is because many use the word in that sense that it has become as obscene as the word you used. Again, suppose we use the common phrase: “When we (cum nos) desired to visit you” — does that suggest obscenity? I remember once in the senate an eloquent consular expressing himself thus: “Am I to say that this or that is the greater culpability?” Could it have been expressed more obscenely? “Not so,” you say, “for he did not mean it in that sense.” Therefore obscenity does not consist in the word used: I have shown that it does not do so in the thing meant: therefore it does not exist anywhere. How entirely decent is the expression: “To exert oneself for children ”? Even fathers beg their sons to do so, though they do not venture to mention the name of the “exertion.” Socrates was taught the lyre by a very famous musician named Connus: do you think the name obscene? When we use the numeral terni there is no suggestion of obscenity: but if I speak of bini there is. “Only to Greeks,” you will say. That shows that there is nothing obscene in a word, for I know Greek and yet use the word bini to you; and you assume that I am speaking Greek and not Latin. Again, we may speak without impropriety of “rue” (ruta) and “mint” (menta); but if I wish to use the diminutive of menta (mentula)-as one can perfectly well use that of ruta (rutula)-that is a forbidden word. So we may, without a breach of good manners, use the diminutive of tectoria (tectoriola); but if you try to do the same with pavimenta (pavimentula), you find yourself pulled up. Don't you see, then, that these are nothing but empty distinctions? That impropriety exists neither in word nor thing, and therefore is non-existent? The fact is that we introduce obscene meaning into words in themselves pure. For instance, is not the word divisio beyond reproach? Yet in it there is a word (visium or visio, “a stench”) which may have an improper meaning, to which the last syllables of the word intercapedo (pedo πέρδω) correspond. Are we, therefore, to regard these words as obscene? Again, we make a ridiculous distinction: if we say, “So-and — so strangled his father,” we don't prefix any apologetic word. But if we use the word of Aurelia or Lollia we must use such an apology. Nay, more, words that are not obscene have come to be considered so. The word “grind,” he says, is shameful; much more the word “knead.” And yet neither is obscene. The world is full of fools. Testes is quite a respectable word in a Court of law: elsewhere not too much so. Again, “Lanuvinian bags” is a decent phrase; not so “bags” of Cliternum. Again, can the same thing be at one time decent, at another indecent? Suppose a man to break wind — it is an outrage on decency. Presently he will be in a bath naked, and you will have no fault to find. Here is your Stoic decision — “The wise man will call a spade a spade.” What a long commentary on a single word of yours! I am pleased that you have no scruple in saying anything to me. For my own part I maintain and shall maintain Plato's modesty: and accordingly, in my letter to you, I have expressed in veiled language what the Stoics express in the broadest: for they say that breaking wind should be as free as a hiccough. All honour then to the Kalends of March! Love me and keep yourself well.
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§ Fam.5.9 DCXXXVI (Fam. V, 9) P. VATINIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) NARONA, II JULY: Vatinius imperator to his friend Cicero greeting. If you are well, I am glad. I and the army are well. If you keep up your old habit of pleading causes for the defence, Publius Vatinius presents himself as a client and wishes a case pleaded on his behalf. You will not, I presume, repulse a man when in office, whom you accepted when in danger. While for myself, whom should I select or call upon in preference to one whose defence taught me how to win? Should I have any fear that he, who in support of my political existence disregarded the coalition of the most powerful men in the state, will fail to hunt down and crush beneath your feet the slanders and jealousies of a set of malignant nobodies? Wherefore, if you retain your old affection for me, undertake me bodily, and look upon this burden and service to whatever it may amount, as what you are bound to undertake and support on behalf of my political position. You know that my success is such as somehow or other easily to find detractors-not, by heaven! from any fault of my own: but what does that matter, if nevertheless by some fatality it does happen? If it turns out that there is anyone who desires to prevent the compliment being paid me, I beg you to let me count upon your usual good feeling to defend me in my absence. I append for your perusal an exact copy of my despatch to the senate on the result of my operations. I am told that your slave — the runaway reader — is with the Vardaei. You gave me no instructions about him; I, however, gave orders by anticipation that he should be hunted down by land and sea, and I shall certainly find him for you, unless he has escaped to Dalmatia, and even thence I will extract him sooner or later. Be sure you maintain your affection for me. Good-bye. 11 July, Narona.
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§ Fam.9.8 DCXXXVIII (Fam. IX, 8) TO M. TARENTIUS VARRO (With a copy of the Academica) TUSCULUM (JULY 11?) To demand a gift, even if a man has promised it, is more than even a nation will generally do, unless under great provocation: nevertheless I have so much looked forward to your present that I venture to remind you of it, though not to press for it. So I have sent you four reminders who are not afflicted with excessive modesty: for you know how brazen-faced the New Academy is. Accordingly, I am sending ambassadors enlisted from its ranks, who I fear may by chance lodge a demand, though I have only commissioned them to ask a favour. I have been waiting in fact for a long time now, and have been holding back, so as not to address any work to you before I had received something from you, in order that I might repay you as nearly as possible in your own coin. But as you were somewhat slow in doing it — that is, as I construe it, somewhat unusually careful — I could not refrain from making manifest by such literary composition as I was capable of producing the union of our tastes and affections. I have therefore composed a dialogue purposing to be held between us in my villa at Cumae, Pomponius being there also. I have assigned to you the doctrines of Antiochus, which I thought I understood to have your approval; I have taken those of Philo for myself. I imagine that when you read it you will be surprised at our holding a conversation, which we never did hold; but you know the usual method of dialogues. At some future time, my dear Varro, we shall — if such is your pleasure-have many a long conversation of our own also. It may perhaps be some time hence: but let the fortune of the state excuse the past; it is our business to secure this ourselves. And oh that we might pursue these studies together in a time of tranquillity and with the constitution established on some basis, which if not good may be at any rate definitely fixed! Though in that case there would be other calls upon us-honourable responsibilities and political activities. As things are now, however, what is there to induce us to live without these studies? In my eyes indeed, even with them, it is barely worth while: when they are withdrawn, not even so much as that. But of this when we meet, and often hereafter. I hope your change of houses and new purchase may turn out everything you can desire. I think you were quite right to make them. Be careful of your health.
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§ Fam.6.20 DCXLII (Fam. VI, 20) TO C. TORANIUS (IN CORCYRA) TUSCULUM (JULY) Three days ago I delivered a letter for you to the servants of Gnaeus Plancius. I shall therefore be briefer, and as I tried to console you before, on the present occasion I shall offer you some advice. I think your wisest course is to wait where you are until you can ascertain what you ought to do. For, over and above the danger of a long voyage in winter and along a coast very ill-furnished with harbours, which you will thus have avoided, there is this point also of no small importance — that you can start at a moment's notice from where you are as soon as you get any certain intelligence. There is besides no reason for your being all agog to present yourself to them on their way home. Several other fears occur to me which I have imparted to our friend Cilo. To cut a long story short: in your present unfortunate position you could be in no more convenient spot from which to transfer yourself with the greatest facility and despatch whithersoever it shall be necessary for you to go. Thus, if Caesar gets home up to time, you will be at hand. But if — for many accidents may happen — something either stops or delays him, you will be in a place to get full information. This I am strongly of opinion is your better course. For the future, as I have repeatedly impressed on you by letter, I would have you convince yourself that in regard to your position you have nothing to fear beyond the calamity common to the whole state. And though that is exceedingly serious, yet we have lived in such a way and are at such a time of life, that we ought to bear with courage whatever happens to us without fault on our part. Here in Rome all your family are in good health, and with the most perfect loyalty regret your absence, and retain their affection and respect for you. Mind you take care of your health and do not move from where you are without full consideration.
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§ Fam.6.19 DCXLV (Fam. VI, 19) TO QUINTUS LEPTA (AT ROME) ASTURA (ABOUT THE END OF JULY) I am glad Macula has done his duty. His Falernian villa always seemed to me suitable for a place of call, if only it is enough roofed in to receive our retinue. In other respects I don't otherwise than like the situation. But I shall not on that account desert your Petrinian villa, for both the house and the picturesqueness of its situation make it suitable for residence rather than for a temporary lodging. As to some official management of these “royal” exhibitions, I have spoken to Oppius; for I have not seen Balbus since you left. He has such a bad fit of the gout that he declines visits. On the whole you would, in my opinion, be certainly acting more wisely if you did not undertake it; for your object in incurring all that labour you will in no wise attain. For the number of his intimate entourage is so great, that it is more likely that some one of them should drop off than that there should be an opening for anyone new, especially for one who has nothing to offer but his active service, in which Caesar will consider himself — if indeed he knows anything about it — to have conferred a favour rather than received one. However, we should look out for something, but something which may give you some distinction; otherwise I think that you not only ought not to seek for it, but should even avoid it. For myself, I think I shall pro-long my stay at Astura until Caesar's return, whenever that may be. Good-bye.
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§ Fam.11.22 DCXLVII (Fam. XI, 22) TO TIRO (AT ROME) ASTURA (27 JULY) I hope from your letter that you are better, at any rate I desire it. Devote your whole energies to that, and don't have any uneasy feeling that you are acting against my wishes in staying away. You are with me if you are taking care of yourself. Therefore I would rather you were doing duty to your health than to my eyes and ears. For though it gives me pleasure both to hear and see you, it will give me much more pleasure If you are well. I am being idle here, because I don't write without an amanuensis; but I find extreme pleasure in reading. As you are on the spot, if there is anything in my handwriting which the copyists can't make out, please instruct them. There is at least one inserted passage somewhat difficult to decipher, which I often find it hard to make out myself-about Cato when he was four years old. Look after the dinner table, as you have been doing. Tertia will come so long as Publius is not there. Your friend Demetrius was never quite a Demetrius of Phalerum, but now he has become a regular Billienus. Accordingly, I appoint you my representative: you will look after him. Although, after all: about those men — you know the rest. However, if you do have any conversation with him, write and tell me, that I may have something to put into a letter, and may have as long a one as possible from you to read. Take care of your health, my dear Tiro: you can't oblige me more than by doing that.
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§ Fam.16.17 DCL (Fam. XVI, 17) TO TIRO (AT ROME) ASTURA (29 JULY) I see what you are about: you want your letters also to be collected into books. But look here! You set up to be a standard of correctness in my writings — how came you to use such an unauthorized expression as “by faithfully devoting myself to my health”? How does fideliter come in there? The proper habitat of that word is in what refers to duty to others — though it often migrates to spheres not belonging to it. For instance: “learning,” “house,” “art,” “land,” can be called fidelis, granting, as Theophrastus holds, that the metaphor is not pushed too far. But of this when we meet. Demetrius called on me, from whose company to Rome I escaped with considerable adroitness. It is plain that you could not have seen him; he will be in town tomorrow, so you will see him. I myself think of starting early the day after. Your ill-health makes me very anxious, but devote yourself to its cure and omit no means. If you do that, consider that you are with me and are giving me the most complete satisfaction. Thank you for attending to Cuspius; for I am much interested in him. Good-bye.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh (1843–1906). Composed ca. 45 BCE. Licence: public domain. Source.