Cicero’s Letters to his Friends, Book 3

Translated by Evelyn Shuckburgh

CLXXX (F III, I)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA)

ROME

Cicero to Appius, imperator.¹ Could the Republic itself speak and tell you of its state, you would not learn it more easily from its own lips than from your freedman Phania: he is a man of such clear insight, as well as (in a good sense) of such keen curiosity! Wherefore he shall explain everything to you: for that will suit me best by enabling me to curtail my letter, and will be more prudent for me in view of other circumstances. But in regard to my good feeling towards you, though you can learn it from this same Phania, yet I think that I also have personally something I ought to say on the subject. For assure yourself of this--that you are exceedingly dear to me, from the many attractions of your character, your kindness, and the goodness of your heart, but also because from your letter, as well as from the remarks of many, I understand that all my conduct towards you has been most warmly appreciated by you. And since that is so, I will take means to make up for the great loss of time, which we have sustained from this interruption of our intercourse, by the liberality, the frequency, and the importance of my services; and that I think I shall do, since you would have it be so, by no means against the grain, or as the phrase is, "against the will of Minerva"--a goddess by the [p. 364] way whom, if I shall chance to get possession of a statue of her from your stock, I shall not simply designate "Pallas," but "Appias." ² Your freedman Cilix was not well known to me before, but when he delivered me your kind and affectionate letter, he confirmed the courteous expressions of that letter by his own words. I was much gratified by his speech, when he described to me your feelings and the remarks which you were daily making about me. In short, within two days he became my intimate friend, without, how ever, my ceasing to regret Phania deeply. When you send the latter back to Rome, which I imagine you intend speedily to do, pray give him instructions as to all matters which you wish to be transacted or looked after by me.

I commend L. Valerius the lawyer to you very strongly; not, however, in his capacity of lawyer: for I wish to take better precautions for him than he does for others. I am really fond of the man: he is one of my closest and most intimate friends. In a general way he expresses nothing but gratitude to you; but he also says that a letter from me will have very great influence with you. I beg you again and again that he may not find himself mistaken.

CLXXXII (F III, 2)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA)

ROME (BEFORE MAY)

Though, contrary to my own wishes, and to my surprise, it has turned Out that I am obliged to go to a province with imperium, in the midst of many various anxieties and reflexions one consolation occurs to me, that you could have no more friendly successor than I am to you, nor I take over a province from anyone more inclined to hand it over in good order and free from difficulties. And if you, too, entertain the same expectation as to my goodwill towards you, you will certainly never find yourself mistaken. In the name of our intimate union and of your own extraordinary kindness, I again and again beg and beseech you most earnestly, in whatever particulars shall lie in your power--and there are very many in which you will be able to do so--to provide and [p. 2] take measures for my interests. You see that by the decree of the senate I am forced to take a province. If you will, as far as you have the power, hand it over to me as free as possible from difficulties, you will greatly facilitate what I may call the running of my official course. What it may be in your power to do in that direction I leave to you: I confine myself to earnestly begging you to do what occurs to you as being in my interest, I would have written at greater length to you, had either such kindness as yours looked for a longer address, or the friendship between us admitted of it, or had it not been that the matter spoke for itself and required no words. I would have you convinced of this--that if I shall be made aware that my interests have been consulted by you, you will yourself receive from that circumstance a great and abiding satisfaction. [Farewell.]

CXC (F III, 3)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA)

BRUNDISIUM, 24 MAY

UPON my arrival at Brundisium on the 22nd of May, your legate Q. Fabius Vergilianus was awaiting me, and by your [p. 14] direction put before me what had already occurred, not to me, whom it chiefly concerned, but to the whole Senate--that the province you are holding required a stronger garrison. In fact, nearly all the senators expressed themselves in favour of a reinforcement being enlisted in Italy for my legions and those of Bibulus. Upon Sulpicius declaring that he would not allow that measure, we protested indeed at great length, but so unanimous was the wish of the senate for our early start, that we were obliged to conform to it; and we did so accordingly. As things are now, I beg you, as I did in the letter I gave to your letter-carriers at Rome, that you will make it your object, in consideration of the very intimate union of our sentiments, to bestow attention and care on those details wherein an out-going provincial governor can consult for the advantage of a successor, who is joined to him by the closest ties of interest and affection; so that the whole world may see that I could not have succeeded anyone more kindly disposed to me, nor you have handed over the province to a warmer friend.

From the despatch intended to be read in the senate, of which you have sent me a copy, I had gathered that a large number of soldiers had been dismissed by you; but this same Fabius has pointed out that you had thought of doing so, but at the moment of his leaving you, the number of soldiers was still intact. If that is so, you will be doing me a very great favour if you make as small a reduction as possible in the scanty forces you already have : and I imagine that the decrees of the senate passed on this subject have been sent to you. For myself, so highly do I esteem you, that I shall approve of whatever you have done; but I feel confident that you also will do what you will perceive to be most in my interest. I am waiting for my legate C. Pomptinus at Brundisium, and I presume that he will arrive there before the 1st of June. And as soon as he has come I shall avail myself of the first opportunity of sailing that is offered me. [p. 15]

CXCIII (F III, 4)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA)

BRUNDISIUM, 5 JUNE

ON the 4th of June, being at Brundisium, I received your letter stating that you had instructed L. Clodius with what you wished him to say to me. I am much looking forward to his arrival, that I may learn at the earliest possible moment the message he is bringing from you. My warm feeling and readiness to serve you, though I hope they are already known to you by many instances, I shall yet manifest in those circumstances above all others, in which I shall be able to give the most decisive proof that no one's reputation and position is dearer to me than yours. On your side, both Q. Fabius Vergilianus and C. Flaccus, son of Lucius, and--in stronger terms than anyone else--M. Octavius, son of Gneius, have shewed me that I am highly valued by you. This I had already judged to be the case on many grounds, but above all from that book on Augural Law, of which, with its most affectionate dedication, you have made me a most delightful present. On my part, all the services which belong to the closest relationship shall be ever at your command. For ever since you began feeling attachment to me, I have learnt daily to value you more highly, and now there has been added to that my intimacy with your relations--for there are two of them of different ages whom I value very highly, Cn. Pompeius, father-in-law of your daughter, and M. Brutus, your son-in-law ¹ --and, lastly, the membership [p. 20] of the same college, especially as that has been stamped by such a complimentary expression of your approval, ² seems to me to have supplied a bond of no ordinary strength towards securing a union of feeling between us. But I shall not only, if I come across Clodius, write you at greater length after talking with him, but shall also take pains myself to see you as soon as possible. Your saying that your motive for staying in the province was the hope of having an interview with me, to tell you the honest truth, is very agreeable to me.

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¹ Cn. Pompeius, elder son of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, married a daughter of Appius Claudius M. Brutus married, first, Claudia, daughter of Appius Claudius; and, secondly, Porcia, daughter of Cato and widow of Bibulus.

² By the dedication of the liber auguralis, after Cicero's election into the college of augurs (B.C. 52).

CCIV (F III, 5)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA)

TRALLES, 28 JULY

I ARRIVED at Tralles on the 27th of July. There I 'found L. Lucilius waiting for me with your letter and message ; than whom you could have sent no man either more friendly to me, or, as I think, better suited to give the information I wanted, or endowed with more practical wisdom himself. For myself, I read your letter with great pleasure, and also listened carefully to Lucilius. For two reasons all mention of past services is now superfluous: first, because you think so--for you say in your letter that you thought what I wrote to you about our mutual services, though gratifying to you, was unnecessary, considering how far back they go--and, secondly, because our friendship is well established and our fidelity tried: I will therefore pass over that subject, though I will yet express the thanks which I owe you. For I have observed and learnt from your letter that in all your proceedings you kept in view the object of consulting for my interests, and of settling beforehand and, so to speak, prearranging everything which would make my administration easier and less complicated. When I tell you that this [p. 39] kindness on your part excites the liveliest gratitude in me, it naturally follows that I wish you to think that it will ever be and is now an object dear to me, that first of all you and your friends, and then all the rest of the world also, should know that I am your very warm friend. If there are any people who are not clear on that point as yet, I think it is rather that they don't wish us to entertain such feelings than that they are-ignorant of our doing so. But I am sure they will not be ignorant of it: for the persons taking part in our drama will not be obscure, nor its action unimportant. But I wish all this to be shewn in performance rather than in anything said or written.

You say that the route I have planned out makes you somewhat doubtful whether you are likely to see me in the province. The facts are these. When talking to your freedman Phania at Brundisium, I remarked in the course of conversation that I should be glad to go to that part of the province first, which I thought would best meet your wishes. Whereupon he informed me that, as it was your wish to leave by sea, it would be very convenient to you if I approached the maritime portion of the province on board ship. I said I would do so: and so I should have done, had not our friend L. Clodius told me at Corcyra that I must by no means do so: that you would be at Laodicea to meet me when I arrived. That was a much shorter and more convenient route for me, especially as I thought that it was your preference. Your plans were afterwards changed. In these circumstances it will be easiest for you to arrange what is to be done: I will lay before you what my plan is. On the 31st of July I expect to be at Laodicea: I shall remain there for a very few days to get in some money due to me on an exchequer bill of exchange. I shall then direct my course to the army, so as to be at Iconium, as I think, about the 13th of August. But if I am now making any mistake in thus writing--for I am at some distance both from my sphere of duty and the localities--as soon as I have begun my farther progress, I will employ the swiftest messengers, and write as often as I possibly can, to put before you the whole scheme of my days and routes. I have neither the courage nor the right to lay any burden upon you. Yet, as far as it may be so without inconvenience to you, it is [p. 40] really of great importance to both of us that I should see you before you leave. If any accident, however, makes this impossible, you may yet feel certain of all the services that I can render you, exactly as if I had seen you. As to my own affairs, I shall not give you any written commissions until I have given up all hope of a personal interview. You tell me that you asked Scaevola ¹ to take charge of the province in your absence until my arrival. I saw him at Ephesus, and he spent the three days of my stay at Ephesus with me in a very cordial manner ; but I did not hear a word from him indicating any commission given him by you. I only wish he could have obeyed your wishes: for I don't think he was unwilling to do so.

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¹ Perhaps Q. Mucius Scaevola, who was with Quintus Cicero in Asia. He was tribune in B.C. 54, and was therefore possibly a legatus of Appius

CCXII (F III, 6)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCUER (AT TARSUS)

WITH THE ARMY IN CAPPADOCIA (29 AUGUST)

When I compare my course of action with yours, though in maintaining our friendship I do not allow myself greater credit than I do you, yet I am more satisfied with my conduct [p. 53] than with yours. For at Brundisium I asked Phania--and I imagined that I saw clearly his fidelity to you and knew what a high place he had in your confidence--to tell me to what part of the province he thought you would like me to come in taking over the succession. Having been answered by him that I could not please you more than by going by sea to Sida, ¹ although the arrival there was not very dignified ² and much less convenient for me on many accounts, I yet said that I would do so. Again, having met L. Clodius in Corcyra--a man so closely attached to you, that in talking to him I seemed to be talking to you--I told him that I meant to arrange for my first arrival to be at the point at which Phania had requested that it should be. Thereupon, after thanking me, he begged me very strongly to go straight to Laodicea: that you wished to be on the very frontier of the province, in order to quit it at the first moment: nay, that, had I not been a successor whom you were anxious to see, you would most likely have quitted before you were relieved. And this last agreed with the letter which I had received in Rome, from which I thought that I perceived how much in a hurry you were to depart. I answered Clodius that I would do so, and with much greater pleasure than if I had had to do what I had promised Phania. Accordingly, I changed my plan and at once sent a letter in my own writing to you; and this, I learnt from your letter, reached you in very good time. With my conduct I am, for my part, quite satisfied; for nothing could be more cordial. Now, on the other hand, consider your own. Not only were you not at the place where you might have seen me earliest, but you had gone such a distance as made it impossible for me to overtake you even, within the thirty days fixed by, I think, the Cornelian law. ³ Such a course of action on your part [p. 54] must appear to those who are ignorant of our feelings to each other to indicate one who, to put it at the mildest, is a stranger and desirous of avoiding a meeting, while mine must seem that of the most closely united and affectionate of friends. And, after all, before reaching my province, I received a letter from you, in which, though you informed me that you were starting for Tarsus, you yet held out no uncertain hope of my meeting you. Meanwhile, certain persons, I am ready to believe out of spite--for that is a vice widely spread and to be found in many--yet who had managed to get hold of some plausible grounds for their gossip, being unacquainted with the constancy of my feelings, tried to alienate my affection from you, by saying that you were holding an assize at Tarsus, were issuing many enactments, deciding actions, delivering judgments, though you might have guessed that your successor had by this time taken over your province--things (they remarked) not usually done even by those who expect to be relieved shortly. I was not moved by the talk of such persons; nay, more, I assure you, that if you performed any official act, I was prepared to consider myself relieved from trouble, and to rejoice that from being a government of a year, which I regarded as too long, it had been reduced nearly to one of eleven months, if in my absence the labour of one month were subtracted. One thing, however, to speak candidly, does disturb me--that, considering the weakness of my military force, the three cohorts which are at their fullest strength should be absent, and that I should not know where they are. But what causes me most annoyance of all is that I do not know where I am likely to see you, and have been the slower to write to you, because I was expecting you in person. from day to day ; and meanwhile I did not receive so much as a letter to tell me what you were doing or where I was to see you. Accordingly, I have sent you the commander of my reserve--men, Decimus Antonius, a gallant officer and possessed of my fullest confidence, to take over the cohorts, if you think well, in order that, before the suitable season of the year is gone, I may be able to accomplish something practical. It was in that department that I had hoped, both from our friendship and your letter, to have the advantage of your advice, of which I do not even now despair. But the truth [p. 55] is that, unless you write to me, I cannot even guess when or where I am to see you. For my part, I will take care that friends and enemies alike understand that I am most warmly attached to you: of your feelings towards me you do appear to have given the ill-disposed some grounds for 'thinking differently: if you will put that straight I shall be much obliged to you. That you may also be able to calculate at what place you may meet me without a breach of the Cornelian law, note this--I entered the province on the last day of July: I am on my way to Cilicia through Cappadocia: I break up the camp from Iconium on this last day of August. ⁴ With these facts before you, if you think by reckoning days and routes you may meet me, please settle at what place that may be most conveniently done, and on what day. ⁵

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¹ In Pamphylia, modern Esky Adalia, then possessing a good harbour, much used by the pirates before Pompey¹s war.

² An arrival by sea must necessarily prevent much of the state and outward show that the governor would like to have round him on entering his province. Caesar had the same thought apparently, when he gives as a motive for building his bridge on the Rhine that crossing by boats was hardly consonant with the "dignity" of the Roman people.

³ The lex Cornelia of Sulla de ordinandis provinciis, one of the provisions of which was that a retiring governor must leave his province within thirty days of the arrival of his successor.

⁴ Going to Cybistra, in Cappadocia, where he pitched his camp.

⁵ As the thirty days within which the outgoing governor was required by the law to quit his province were now expired, it is difficult to see an sincerity in this suggestion.

CCXLIII (F III, 7)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME)

LAODICEA (FEBRUARY)

I will write to you at greater length when I have got more leisure. I write this in haste, Brutus's messengers having come to me at Laodicea and told me that they are hurrying off to Rome. Accordingly, I am giving them no letters except for you and Brutus. Commissioners from Appia have handed me in a roll from you full of most ill-founded complaints of my having hindered their building by a rescript. Moreover, in the same letter you ask me to grant them permission to go on building as soon as possible, lest they should be stopped by winter; and at the same time you complain of my forbidding them to raise a tax till I granted them leave to do so after investigation: for you say that it was tantamount to stopping the work, seeing that I could not hold such investigation till after my return from Cilicia at winter time. ¹

Hear my answer to all these charges, and see how much fairness there is in your expostulation. In the first place, on my being approached by persons professing that unbearable exactions were being made upon them, what unfairness was there in my writing to forbid their proceeding till I had investigated the facts and the merits of the case? In my not being able to do so till winter? For that is what you say in your letter. As though for purposes of investigation I must go to them, and not they come to me! "Such a long way off;" you say. What! at the time you delivered that letter to them, in which you remonstrated with me against preventing them from finishing their building before winter, did you [p. 118] suppose that they would not come to me? However, on that point, at least, they made a ridiculous blunder: for the letter they brought with them asking to be allowed to carry on the work in the summer, they delivered to me after midwinter. But let me tell you, first, that the number of those appealing against the tax is far in excess of those who wish it levied; and, second, that I will, nevertheless, do what I may suppose you to wish. So much for the Appiani.

I have been informed by Pausanias, Lentulus's freedman and my marshal, that you had complained to him of my not having gone to meet you. I treated you with contempt, you think,' and my conduct was the height of arrogance! Your servant having come to me nearly at midnight and announced that you intended coming to meet me at Iconium before daybreak, and it being uncertain by which of the two roads (for there were two), I sent your most intimate friend Varro to meet you by one, and Q. Lepta, my captain of engineers, by the other. I charged them both to hasten back to me first, in order that I might start to meet you. Lepta came hurrying back and told me that you had already passed my camp. I came in all haste to Iconium. The rest you already know. Was I likely not to try and meet you? You-- an Appius Claudius--an imperator--in spite of immemorial custom-- lastly (and this is the strongest point of all) a friend t Considering, too, that in such matters of etiquette I am usually even too precise for my official rank and position. But enough of this. Pausanias also told me that you said, "What an Appius went to meet a Lentulus, a Lentulus an Ampius, and a Cicero refuse to meet an Appius?" Heavens! do even you--a man, in my opinion, of supreme good sense, of great learning, of the widest knowledge of affairs, and I may add a man of politeness (which the Stoics are quite right in counting among the virtues)--do you, I say, suppose that any Appiusism or Lentulusism has more influence with me than the distinctions bestowed by virtue? Before I had earned what are held by mankind to be the most splendid honours, I yet was never dazzled by those high-sounding names of yours: it was the men who had bequeathed them to you that I regarded as great. But when I had so obtained and so administered the highest offices of state, as to make me think that there was nothing left for [p. 119] me to acquire in furtherance of my honour or glory, I hoped that I had become, never indeed the superior, but at least the equal of you nobles. Nor, by Hercules, did I perceive that Pompey, whom I put above anybody who has ever lived, nor P. Lentulus, whom I put above myself, take any other view. If you think otherwise, you will not go wrong if, in order to understand what high birth and nobility are, you would study somewhat more carefully what Athenodorus, ² son of Sardon, says on this subject. But to return to the point--I would have you believe that I am not only your friend, but your very warm friend. I will assuredly by every act of kindness in my power make it possible for you to judge that to be unmistakably the case. As for yourself, however, if your object is to be thought, in my absence, to be under a less heavy obligation to me, I free you from that anxiety:

For by my side are those To honour me, and, chief, right-counselling Zeus.

³ If, however, you are by nature prone to spy out faults, you will not, indeed, succeed in making me less zealous for you; but you will succeed in making me rather more indifferent as to how you take my goodwill. I write this to you with some candour, relying on the consciousness of my services and my friendly feeling, which, as it was deliberately adopted, I shall preserve as long as you are willing that I should do so.

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¹ Appia or Apia was in Phrygia in the "diocese" of Synnada. The Control thus exercised by the proconsul on local expenditure in building, etc., is well illustrated by Pliny's letters to Trajan (see ad Trai. 37, 38, etc.). The "tax" (tributa) here alluded to is not the tributum to Rome, but a local tax or rate for the public work mentioned.

² A Stoic philosopher of Tarsus, one of the teachers of Augustus.

³ Hom. 51.1.174-175.

CCXXI (F III, 8)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME)

CILICIA, 8 OCTOBER

ALTHOUGH, as far as I have been able to gather from your letter, I see that you won't read this till you are at the gates of Rome, ¹ when the extremely reckless gossip of provincials will have become quite stale, yet, as you have written to me at such length about what unprincipled men are saying, I thought I ought to be careful to give your letter a brief answer. Two clauses of your epistle, however, must in a manner be passed over in silence: for they contain nothing that is definite or precise, beyond saying that alike by my looks and my silence I had shown that I was no friend to you: and that this had been made unmistakable both on my judicial seat, when business was going on, and at certain social parties. I can well understand that there is nothing in all this; yet, though there is nothing in it, I fail to understand even what the allegation is. I know thus much, indeed--that many observations of a very marked character, made by me both from the high official seat and on the level of private intercourse, which were exceedingly complimentary to you, and indicated an anxious desire to acknowledge the close ties between us, might have with strict truth been reported to you. For as to the legates, ² what could I have done in better taste or with greater regard to equity, than to diminish the expenses of states that were in great financial distress, and yet at the same time to detract nothing from your honour, especially as it was in answer to the petition of the states themselves? For [p. 69] I had not been aware of the scale on which deputations were being sent on your account. When I was at Apamea, the head men of many states informed me that large sums were being voted for legates, though the states were insolvent At this, many thoughts occurred to me at once. First, I did not think that you--a man of wisdom, and, to use the jargon of the day, a man of "culture "--took any pleasure in deputations of that sort: and I believe I argued to that effect at some length in court at Synnada. In the first place (I said) Appius Claudius was commended to the senate and people of Rome, not by the evidence of the people of Midaeium (for it was in that state that the subject was started), but in the natural course of things: and, in the second place, I had seen many cases in which deputations ³ had come to Rome to commend certain persons, but I never remembered any instance of a hearing being granted them, to deliver their panegyric at any particular time or place I was pleased (I said) with their display of feeling in being grateful to you for your services; but their whole idea appeared to me quite superfluous. If, however, they wished by that measure to show their zeal, I should commend any man who did it at his own expense; should allow of it if the expense to the state did not exceed the law; should refuse permission if it were unlimited. Well, what fault can be found with that? The only possible one is what you go on to say--that certain persons considered my edict to have been expressly framed with a view to hinder these deputations of yours. Really, I think it is not so much those who argue thus who do me a wrong, as he who opens his ears to such a proposition. I drew up my edict at Rome: I never added a word to it except a clause which the publicani in their interview with me at Samos, asked me to transfer word for word from your edict to my own. The clause referring to the diminishing the expenses of the states was very carefully worded; and in that clause there are some new provisions advantageous to the states, with which I am greatly pleased: but this clause, which has given birth to the suspicion of [p. 70] my elaborating something meant to be offensive to you, is taken from former edicts. For I was not so foolish as to hold that men were being deputed on their own private affairs, who were being sent, in the first place, in your interests while you were still in possession of imperium; and, in the second place, were being sent to deliver a vote of thanks, not in any private assembly, but in the council chamber of the whole world, the senate. Nor when I ordered that no one was to go without my leave, did I exclude those from doing so who might be unable to follow me to the camp and across the Taurus. That, in fact, is the most ridiculous thing in your letter: for what need was there for their following me to the camp or crossing the Taurus, when I arranged my journey from Laodicea as far as Iconium, with the express object of the magistrates and legates of all the dioceses north of Taurus, ⁴ and of all the states there, meeting me? Unless you suppose that no deputations were arranged till I had crossed the Taurus! That is certainly not so. For when I was at Laodicea, at Apamea, at Synnada, at Philomelium, at Iconium, in all of which towns I made some stay, there were ready waiting for me all the deputations of that kind. And yet I would have you know this, that I made no decree about diminishing or wholly remitting the expense of embassies, except such as the head men of the states asked for--that quite unnecessary expenses should not be added to the selling of the contract for the tribute, ⁵ and the very galling exaction (as you know) of the poll-tax and door-tax. Now, when at the instigation not only of justice but of pity, I undertook to relieve from their distress the states that had been ruined, and ruined, too, chiefly through their own magistrates, I could not be indifferent to that source of unnecessary expense. For your part, if observations of that nature were reported to you in regard to me, you ought not to have believed them. But if you like this way of attributing to others whatever occurs to your own mind, you are introducing [p. 71] a style of conversation between friends which is not very courteous. Whereas if I had ever had any thought of casting a slur on your reputation in the province, I should not have referred to your son-in-law, nor to your freedman at Brundisium, nor to your prefect of engineers at Corcyra, as to where you wished me to come. ⁶ Wherefore, on the advice of the greatest philosophers, who have written most brilliantly on the conduct of friendship, you may banish all expressions such as "they argued," "I maintained in opposition," "they said so," "I denied it." Do you suppose that I have never been told anything about you? Not even this--that, after having desired me to come to Laodicea, you yourself crossed the Taurus? That on the same days as I was holding assizes at Apamea, Synnada, and Philomelium you were doing so at Tarsus? I will say no more, lest I should seem to be doing exactly what I blame in you. I will only say this, and I feel it: if you feel in your own heart what you say that others are remarking, you are much to blame: but if others say these things to you, you are not entirely without fault in listening to them. My conduct in every particular of our friendship will be found to be consistent and sincere. But if anyone tries to make out that I had some ulterior object in view, could there be a better example of my supposed cunning than that, having always defended you while abroad--and that though I had no idea of ever requiring your defence while abroad myself--I should now give you the best possible excuse for abandoning me in my absence from town? I except from this denial one species of conversation, in which on very many occasions something is said, such as I presume you would prefer not being said--I mean when any abusive remark is made about any of your legates, prefects, or military tribunes. But even in regard to this nothing, by Hercules, has occurred in my hearing of a graver character, or reflecting on more persons, than what Clodius mentioned to me at Corcyra, when under that head he made a very loud complaint that you had been unfortunate in the dishonesty of others. Such observations as these, seeing that they are frequently [p. 72] made, and do not reflect, in my opinion, on your personal honour, I have never provoked, but neither have I exerted myself to repress them. If there is anyone who thinks that no man is ever sincerely reconciled with another, he does not prove our want of sincerity, but betrays his own, and at the same time shows that he thinks no worse of me than he does of you. But if, again, there is anyone who dislikes my administration in the province, and considers himself injured by a certain dissimilarity between my arrangements and yours--the fact being that we have both acted conscientiously, though we took different lines--such a man I do not care to have for a friend. Your liberality, as became a great noble, was on a larger scale in the province; if mine is somewhat more restricted--though your second year, owing to the hardness of the times, somewhat clipped the wings of your generous and bountiful nature--men ought not to be surprised, since I have always been naturally disinclined to be lavish at the expense of others, and am influenced by the same hard times as others are, That I am sour to them to keep my conscience sweet. Your giving me information about affairs in the city was pleasant to me, both for its own sake, and because you showed your intention of keeping all my commissions in mind. Among them there is one that I beg you to regard as supreme--see that to the business in which I am now engaged there should be no addition made either of responsibility or time; and to ask Hortensius, our fellow augur and friend, if ever he has thought or done anything for my sake, to give up this two-year proposal of his also, than which nothing could be more unfriendly to me. To give you the information you want about my proceedings, I left Tarsus on the 7th of October for Amanus. I write this on the day after that in camp, in the territory of Mopsuhestia. Whatever I do I will write and tell you, nor will I ever send a letter home to my family without adding one directed to be delivered to you. As to your question about the Parthians, I think they were not Parthians at all. The Arabs who were there with a semi-Parthian equipment, are said to have all gone back. People say that there is no [p. 73] enemy in Syria. ⁷ Pray write to me as often as possible about both your own and my affairs, and on the state of the Republic generally. About the last I am the more anxious, because I gather from your letter that our friend Pompey is about to go to Spain. ⁸

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¹ Appius remained outside the gates (ad urbem, not in urbe) because he claimed a triumph, of which, however, Dolabella baulked him. See Letter CCXLI.

² Legates sent, as was often the case, to commend Appius at Rome and support his claim to a triumph. They were sent at the expense of their own cities, and the system was often much abused and became a heavy burden on the states.

³ These complimentary legationes, he means, were not heard in the senate. Their number created a certain effect, just as petitions are not noticed in the House of Commons, though if numerous they may form some ground for action.

⁴ He means the three dioceses--properly belonging to the province of Asia, and afterwards reunited to it-Cibyra, Apamea, and Synnad. See p. 45.

⁵ The tributum in Cilicia, unlike the taxes in Asia, was not sold to publicani, but left to each state to collect. If; however the states fell into arrears, a contract for its collection was sold to publicani, who put the screw on more tightly than the local tax-gatherers.

⁶ See Letters CCIV, CCXII. The only explanation of the reference to Appius's son-in-law must be that Cicero saw Gnaeus Pompeius at his father's villa at Tarentum But most editors would omit ad generum.

⁷ Of course this information is subsequent to the public despatch preceding; hut neither that nor this appears to be accurate. The Parthians had crossed the Euphrates and had been repulsed by Cassius, as we shall see; but Cicero is always unwilling to give credit either to Cassius or Bibulus in this matter.

⁸ To his province, to which, however, he never went.

CCXLVIII (F III, 9)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME)

LAODICEA, FEBRUARY

AT last! A letter worthy of Appius Claudius, full of kindness, cordiality, and consideration! No doubt the sight of the city restored your old city-bred courtesy. For the letters which you sent me on your journey before leaving Asia--one about my forbidding legates to start for Rome, the other about stopping the building operations at Appia--were very unpleasant reading for me. Accordingly, conscious of my unbroken friendliness to you, I wrote back with some little irritation. However, when I read the letter you gave to my freedman Philotimus, I saw and understood that there were many persons in the province who did not wish us to entertain the feelings towards each other which we actually were entertaining; but that as soon as you approached the city, or rather as soon as you saw your relatives, you ascertained [p. 123] from them how loyal I had been to you in your absence, how careful and unremitting in fulfilling all my obligations to you. Accordingly, you can imagine how much I value that sentence in your letter, "If anything occurs affecting your position, though that is hardly possible, yet, if it does, I will return your favours in full." That, however, will be an easy task for you: for there is nothing impossible for zeal and kindness, or rather affection. For my part, though I always myself thought that it would be so, and was frequently assured of it in letters, I yet was extremely delighted by the announcement in your letter of your strong, or rather certain, hope of a triumph. And, indeed, it was not because it made it the easier for me to obtain one--for that would be a motive truly Epicurean ¹ --but, by Hercules, because the splendour of your position is dear to me in itself and for itself Wherefore, as you have more people than others have whom you know to be starting for this province--for they nearly all come to you to ask if you have any commands--you will very greatly oblige me if you will send me a letter, as soon as you have obtained what you confidently expect and I heartily wish. If the process of making up their minds and the dilatory proceedings of the long bench, ² as our friend Pompey calls it, deprive you of this or that particular day (for what more can they do?), yet your high claims will hold the field. But if you care for me, if you wish me to care for you, write to me, that I may enjoy the delight as soon as possible. I should wish you also to pay me the promised addition to your former present. ³ I am both anxious to complete my knowledge of augural law, [p. 124] and am also, by Hercules, incredibly delighted with attentions and presents from you. As for the wish you express for something of the same sort from me, I certainly must consider the best style of composition to repay you for your gift: for it is assuredly not my way--putting as I do, and as you often observe with surprise, so much energy into the task of writing--to let myself be thought to have been slack about it, especially in a case involving a charge not simply of slackness, but of ingratitude as well. However, I will see about it. The promise you make, I beg you, in the name of your good faith and energetic character, as well as in that of our friendship--no affair of yesterday, but now a thoroughly established fact--to take measures to fulfil, and to exert yourself to secure a supplicatio being voted in my honour in as complimentary terms and at as early a date as possible. I certainly sent my despatch later than I could have wished, in regard to which the difficulty of navigation was not the only irritating circumstance: I believe, in fact, that my despatch arrived just when the senate was in vacation. ⁴ But this I did under your influence and by your advice, and I think I was quite right not to send a despatch the very moment I was greeted as imperator, but only when other services had been performed and the summer campaign was concluded. You will then, I hope, see to these matters, as you profess your intention of doing, and will regard myself, my affairs, and my friends as recommended to your care. [p. 125]

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¹ For friendship, according to the Epicureans, was founded on utility, it was cultivated for its advantages--though in practice their friendships were particularly close. How they made their theory square with their practice cannot be discussed here.

² Probably the bench of the tribunes, who might veto the proposal (Willems, Le Sénat, 2.173). Mommsen objects that a special bench of the tribunes is not mentioned till imperial times; but as one of the first honours voted to Iulius, as to Augustus, was that he should sit on the tribunician bench, this implies the existence of such a bench before. See Dio, 42.20; lix,15, epi tôn autôn bathrôn.

³ Appius's work on the ius augurale, referred to before (see p. 20). Apparently it was only a first part that had come out, and more was expected.

⁴ Though, according to Willems (ii. 148), there were no regular days for the meeting of the senate (though some on which it could not meet), yet the Kalends and Ides seem to have been the days on which there generally was such a meeting; but April was a month full of holidays, and we have seen that Cicero and others were generally out of town during that month, during which the consuls from custom (though not ftom law) generally did not summon the senate.

CCLX (F III, 10)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME)

LAODICEA, MAY

WHEN information reached me of the rash measure of those who were causing you trouble, ¹ although I was at first greatly disturbed at the news, since nothing could have happened more contrary to my expectation, yet when I had collected my thoughts, the sequel seemed to me to present no difficulty, because I felt great confidence in you and your friends, and many reasons occurred to me for thinking that this trouble would redound to your honour. One thing I was really sorry for, when I saw that a most certain and most thoroughly deserved triumph had been snatched from you by this step on the part of your jealous rivals. But if you rate it at the value which I have always thought should be put upon it, you will be acting wisely and will come off victorious, the chagrin of your enemies furnishing you with the most complete of triumphs. For I see clearly that the effect of your energy, power, and wisdom will be to make your enemies bitterly repent their ill-considered measure. As for myself, I solemnly promise and vow before heaven that in support of your dignity--I prefer that word to "safety "--I will in this province, which you once governed, undertake and carry through the duties and role of an intercessor by my entreaties, of a relation by my exertions, of a man beloved (I hope) among the states by the exertion of my influence, of an imperator by using the full weight of my [p. 160] office. I would have you both demand and expect everything of me: I shall surpass your expectations by my services. Q. Servilius delivered me a very short letter from you, which yet seemed to me unnecessarily long: for I think myself wronged in being asked. I could have wished that no such occasion had arisen for you to see how highly I, how highly Pompey (who, as is only right, is ever the first of men to me), how highly Brutus values you: though you might have perceived it in our daily intercourse, as you will now. But since the occasion has arisen, if I omit anything in my power, I shall confess to a crime and a disgrace. Pomptinus, who has been treated by you with eminent and exemplary good faith, and of whose obligations to you I am a witness, has shewn that he remembers you with all the affection which you can justly claim. He left me, much against my will, under the pressure of urgent private affairs, yet, when he saw that it was of importance to you, though on the point of embarking at Ephesus, he returned to Laodicea. When I see that you are likely to command innumerable instances of similar zeal in your service, I can have no manner of doubt that your present anxiety will eventually strengthen your position. If, indeed, you succeed in getting censors elected, and if you conduct your censorship as you both ought and can, I am convinced that you will be for all time a tower of strength not only to your-self, but to all your family. Pray fight and strive that there be no prolongation of my office, so that, when I have done all you want for you here, I may have the opportunity there also of giving practical expression to my goodwill to you. What you tell me of the support offered you by all men and all ranks does not at all surprise me, and is exceedingly grateful to my feelings: the same account has reached me from my various friends. Accordingly, it gives me great satisfaction, not only that a proper tribute is paid to you--whose friendship to me is a source of pleasure as well as honour--but also, in truth, that there is still left in our country an almost unanimous feeling of affection for gallant and energetic men: which in my eyes has ever been the one reward for my own days of labour and nights of toil. It has, I confess, caused me great surprise that this young man--whom I have twice defended to [p. 161] the utmost of my power on capital charges--should be so headstrong as, when entering on a course of hostility to you, to forget the patron of his fortunes and whole career; especially considering that you had enough and to spare of every kind, whether of honour or material support, while he himself, to put it at the lowest, has large deficiencies in these respects. Some silly and childish talk of his had been already reported to me by our friend M. Caelius; about which talk also I have had many communications from you. For myself, I should have been much more inclined to break off an old connexion with a man who had entered on a course of hostility to you, than to make a new one. For you ought not to doubt the warmth of my feelings towards you: it is notorious to everyone in the province, and was not less so in Rome. Nevertheless, a certain suspicion is hinted at in your letter, and a doubt on your part, in regard to which the present is not a suitable time to remonstrate with you, yet the occasion requires that I should clear myself. For when, pray, did I hinder any embassy being sent to Rome to convey an encomium upon you? Or, supposing me to be your declared enemy, how could I have done anything less likely to injure you, or how, if your secret enemy, have more openly betrayed my hostility? But if I had been as perfidious as those who attribute these motives to us, yet I at least should not have been such a fool as to betray either an enmity which I wished to conceal, or a burning desire to wound where it was impossible to damage you. I remember certain persons coming to me from Phrygia Epictetos, to inform me that some excessive sums were being voted for the expenses of some legates. To them I expressed an opinion, rather than gave an order, that votes for such expenses should conform as closely as possible to the lex Cornelia. And that I did not insist even on that is testified by the accounts of the boroughs, in which each entered as paid to your legates what they severally chose. But what a pack of lies has been foisted on you by a set of the most untrustworthy of men! Not only that the votes were cancelled, but that, when the legates had actually started, the money was demanded and forcibly recovered from their agents, and that many were thus prevented from going at all! I should have expressed [p. 162] some discontent and expostulated with you, had it not been, as I before observed, that I preferred at the present juncture to clear myself rather than accuse you, and thought this the more proper course. So not a word about you and your having believed it: but about myself I will say a few words as to why you ought not to have believed it. For if you hold me to be a good man, if you hold me to be worthy of the studies and philosophy to which I have devoted myself from boyhood, if you hold it proven in circumstances of the greatest gravity that my courage is fairly high and my wisdom none of the worst, you ought to know that there is nothing in my conduct as a friend--I don't say treacherous, designing, or deceitful--but even mean or cold. But if you choose to imagine me to be dark and mysterious, what could be less consonant with such a character than to disdain the friendship of a man in the highest possible position, or to attack his reputation in a province, after defending his credit at home? Or to display one's hostility where it was impossible to damage him, or to select for an occasion of treachery what would give the clearest indication of dislike, but would be the least effectual in inflicting a blow upon him? What reason, moreover, was there for my being so implacable to you, when my own brother had informed me that you had not been really hostile to me, even at a time when the assumption of such a part had almost been forced upon you? ² When, however, we had by mutual desire renewed our friendship, can you mention any request which you made to me during your consulship ³ in vain, whether it was something you wished me to do, or a vote you wished me to support in the senate? What charge did you give me as I was seeing you off at Puteoli, in which I have not more than fulfilled your expectation by my energetic exertions? Again, if it is above everything the mark of selfish cunning to judge everything by the standard of one's own advantage, what could better suit my interests than the close alliance with a man of the highest rank and greatest official dignity, whose wealth, ability, sons, marriage connexions, blood-relations, could all greatly promote my [p. 163] honour, or, I may say, my security? All these advantages, after all, I did aim at in seeking your friendship--which I did not seek from any selfish cunning, but rather because I had some sound sense. Again, how powerful are those bonds in which I am the most willing of prisoners !--sympathy of tastes, charm of social intercourse, the refined pleasures of our life and its environment, our interchange of ideas in conversation, our deeper studies. And these all belong to private life. What about public ties between us? Our famous reconciliation, in which any inadvertence even is impossible without a suspicion of perfidy; our colleagueship in the most illustrious priesthood--in which, in the opinion of our ancestors, not only was no breach of friendship possible without impiety, but no election even into the college was permissible, if a man were on had terms with any of the existing members. But to pass over these ties, numerous and important as they are, was there ever anyone who valued another, or could or ought to value another, as highly as I do Cu. Pompeius, your daughter's father-in-law? For if services are to count--I consider that I owe him the restoration of country, children, life, rank, and, in a word, of myself. If the charm of social intercourse--what friendship between two consulars in our city was ever closer than ours? If those tokens of affection and kindness-- what confidence has he ever withheld from me? What has he failed to discuss with me? What motion affecting himself in the senate has he wished should, in his absence, be moved by anyone else? What marks of honour has he not desired me to receive in the most complimentary form? Finally, with what courtesy, with what forbearance, did he endure my vehement pleading for Milo, though at times opposed to his own proposals! With what hearty zeal did he take measures to prevent my being reached by the hostile feelings aroused at that juncture, protecting me by his ad vice, his influence, and finally by his arms! ⁴ At that crisis, indeed, such was his steadfastness, such his magnanimity, that, to say nothing of crediting some Phrygian or Lycaonian, as you did in the case of the legates, he would not [p. 164] believe malevolent remarks about me even from men of the highest rank. Therefore, as his son is your son-in-law, and as I am well aware, besides this connexion by marriage, how dear you are to Cn. Pompeius, and how precious in his sight, what ought my feelings towards you to be? Especially as he has written me such a letter that, had I been your enemy, as I am your most affectionate friend, I should have been softened towards you, and have surrendered myself to the wishes and authority of a man to whom I owed so much.

But enough of this: it has been expressed already, perhaps, at greater length than was necessary. Let me now tell you what I have actually done and arranged. ⁵ . .. And these things I am doing, and shall continue to do, rather in support of your dignity, than as a means of averting danger from you. For I shall soon, I hope, hear of your being censor; ⁶ and the duties of that office, which require the greatest resolution and tact, I think you should meditate upon with greater earnestness and care than upon what I am doing here on your behalf.

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¹ His prosecution by Dolabella.

² In taking part with his brother Clodius B.C. 58-56.

³ B.C. 54.

⁴ This is all very well: Cicero now speaks of the guard round the Court during Milo's trial as meant for his protection; but at the time he was so alarmed, that he broke down utterly in his speech.

⁵ The statement of the measures taken by Cicero is apparently omitted, perhaps by the original editor of the letters, though there does not seem any reasonable motive for doing so.

⁶ As censor he would be practically, though not legally, safe from prosecution.

CCLXIV (F III, 11)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME)

CILICIA, JUNE

M. CICERO to Appius Pulcher, (as I hope) censor. Being in camp on the river Pyramus, ¹ I received two letters from you at the same time, forwarded by Q. Servilius from Tarsus. One of them was dated 5th of April, the other, which seemed to me the more recent, was not dated. I will therefore answer the former first, in which you tell me about your acquittal on the charge of lèse majesté. I had, indeed, been long ago informed of this by letters, messages, and in fine by common rumour, for nothing could be more notorious--not because anyone had expected a different result, but because, as a rule, no report about men of illustrious [p. 172] reputation gets out without making a stir--yet your letter increased the satisfaction I felt in the news, not only because it spoke in clear terms and with greater fullness than the talk of the common people, but also because I felt more really like congratulating you when I heard your own story from yourself. Accordingly, I embraced you in imagination, since you were not here, and, kissing the actual letter, I also congratulated myself. For compliments paid by the whole people, the senate, and the jurors to ability, energy, and virtue (perhaps I flatter myself in imagining myself possessed of these) I look upon as paid to myself also. Nor is it the splendid result of your trial so much as the perverted intelligence of your enemies that excites my wonder. "Bribery or maiestas," you will say, "what does it matter which?" Nothing substantially: for the former you have never touched, and the latter you have promoted rather than injured. But the fact is that maiestas (in spite of Sulla) is of such a vague nature as to permit of the safe denunciation of anyone: while bribery is a word of such definite meaning that either the accusation or the defence must be discreditable. ² For how can there be any doubt as to whether bribery has been employed or not? Now, who ever suspected your successive elections? How unlucky that I wasn't there! What roars of laughter I would have caused! But as to the trial for malestas, there were two things that gave me very great pleasure in your letter: one was your saying that you were defended by the Republic itself--for even if good and gallant citizens were as plentiful as possible, it still ought to preserve men like you; while in the actual state of affairs it is more [p. 173] bound than ever to do so, when there is such a dearth of such men in every office and every age, that a state so bereaved ought to welcome guardians like you with open arms: the other is your wonderfully high praise of the good faith and good feeling of Pompey and Brutus. I am delighted at their honourable conduct and cordial kindness, both because they are your relations and my very dear friends, and also because one of them is the first of men of every age and country, while the other has long been the first of our younger men, and will soon, I hope, be first of all the citizens. As to having the witnesses who took bribes punished with ignominy by their several states, unless something has already been done by the agency of Flaccus, it shall be done by mine on my return journey through Asia.

Now I come to your second letter. You send me a sketch-plan, so to speak, of the state of things affecting us both, and of the whole condition of politics: in this I am much relieved by the sagacity of your letter. For I perceive that the dangers ahead are at once less formidable than I feared, and the safeguards greater, if; as you say, all the real strength of the state has devoted itself to Pompey as its leader: and I perceived at the same time that your spirit was alert and keen in the defence of the Republic, and I experienced a wonderful pleasure from the energy which made you determine, in spite of very pressing engagements, that the state of the Republic should be known to me by your means. Certainly: keep the books on the augural science for the time when we take a holiday together; for when I wrote dunning you for the performance of your promise, I thought of you as being outside the walls and enjoying the most complete leisure. As it is, however, instead of your augural books, I shall expect all your speeches complete. Decimus Tullius, to whom you gave a message for me, has not yet been to see me, nor have I at present any of your friends with me; only my own, who, however, are all yours. I don't understand what you mean by my "somewhat angry letter." I have written to you twice, clearing myself carefully, and only gently finding fault with you for having been too ready to believe things about me. This is a kind of expostulation which seems to me proper for a friend; but if you don't like it, I won't employ it again. [p. 174] But if, as you say, the letter was ill expressed, be sure it was not mine. For as Aristarchus denies any verse he doesn't like to be Homer's, so pray do you (excuse the joke) consider nothing that is ill expressed to be mine. Farewell, and in your censorship, if you are now censor, as I hope you are, think often of your ancestor. ³

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¹ The modern Seikun.

² The first maiestas is used in the proper sense of "majesty of the people." As a crime it is a wide term, covering all kinds of actions, and may therefore be brought against anyone without obvious injustice; whereas ambitus is a definite charge, which must either be groundless, in which case it is discreditable to bring it, or well grounded, when it is discreditable to the defendant. It must be one thing or the other; it can't be vague, or partly true and partly false, as majestas may. Maiestas is used briefly for crimen laesae maiestatis populi Romani, and might include not only acts of treason, but ill-management of any sort, whereby the interests of the people suffered. It took the place (with extended meaning) of the ancient perduellio. It seems first to have been used as a legal term in the law of Saturninus (B.C. 102), and it was afterwards more fully developed by Sulla's lex Cornelia dc maiestate (B.C. 80). (Cic. in Pis. § 50.)

³ The famous App. Claudius Caecus, censor B.C. 312-308.

CCLXXIV (F III, 12)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME)

SIDA, 3 AUGUST

I WILL first congratulate you--for that is what the order of events demands: and then I will speak of myself. I do warmly congratulate you on the result of the trial for bribery, and not on what nobody ever had any doubt about--your acquittal--but on the fact which, the better citizen, the more illustrious man, the more loyal friend you are, the greater the marks of virtue and industry distinguishing you, is the -more to be wondered at, namely, that no secret ill-will was found lurking even in the concealment of the ballot bold enough to attack you. It is a fact scarcely consistent with the circumstances, the men, and the morals of our day. I have not been so much struck by anything for a long time past.

Now as to myself--for a moment put yourself in my place, and imagine yourself to be just what I am. If you have no difficulty in finding something to say, don't excuse my hesitation. I, indeed, would hope for myself and my Tullia, as you most kindly and politely express your wishes, that what has been done by my family without my knowledge may turn out to our happiness. But that the marriage happened to take place at that particular time--I hope and desire that it may not be wholly without happiness, yet after all it is your wisdom and kindness which gives me more ground for that hope than the opportuneness of it. ¹ [p. 189] Accordingly, I cannot think how to end what I have begun to say; for I ought not to make any gloomy remark on an event which you honour with your felicitations, and yet after all there is something in it which stings me. But in this matter there is one thing of which I am not afraid of your not being fully aware that what was done was done by others, to whom I have left a charge that during my absence they should not refer to me, but should act on their own judgment. Here I am met by the question, "What would you have done if you had been at home?" I should have approved of the match; as to the time, I should have done nothing without your consent, or without consulting you. You see how I have all this time been sweating under the hard task of finding how to maintain what I am bound to maintain, and yet not offend you. ² Relieve me, then, of this burden: for I think I have never handled a more difficult cause. Be sure of this in any case: had I not at that very time already completed the whole business with the greatest zeal for the maintenance of your highest reputation--although I think my old affection for you admits of no addition--yet when this marriage was announced to me, I should have defended your honour, not indeed with greater zeal, but more keenly, openly, and markedly.

On my way from my province, after the conclusion of my year of command, as I was approaching Sida on board ship, accompanied by Q. Servilius, a letter from home was delivered to me on the 3rd of August. I at once told Servilius--for he seemed somewhat put out-- that he might expect greater exertions on my part in all ways. In short: I have not become at all better disposed to you than I was, but I have become much more energetic in declaring my good disposition. For as our old difference made me more on my guard against giving any ground for thinking our reconciliation feigned, so this new marriage connexion gives me fresh anxiety to avoid the appearance of any diminution of my extreme affection for you. [p. 190]

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¹ Cicero is trying to excuse the fact that Dolabella's marriage to Tullia was just at the time that he was prosecuting Claudius.

² Cicero feels that the case is an awkward one; and his style becomes laboured and involved in trying to put it pleasantly.

CCLXXVI (F III, 13)

TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME)

ASIA (AUGUST)

JUST as though I divined that some day or other I should have to ask for your zealous support, I worked hard for your reputation when the question of your actions was on the tapis. However, I will not disguise the truth: you have given more than you got. For every single person has written to tell me that, not only by the weight of your eloquence and your senatorial vote--which from such a man were quite enough for me--but also by personal exertion, by offer of advice, by coming to my house and calling on my friends, you left nothing, however troublesome, for anyone else to do. All this is a much greater honour to me than the thing itself for which the trouble is being taken. For the outward rewards of virtue many have attained without possessing virtue: but such great zeal from such men as you virtue alone' can secure. Accordingly, I set before my-self as the profit to be derived from our friendship that friendship itself, than which nothing can be more fruitful, especially in those studies to which we have both devoted ourselves. For I profess myself to be both your ally in politics, on which our sentiments agree, and closely united in daily life, which we devote to such accomplishments' and studies. I could have wished that fate had so ordained it that you could value all my family as highly as I do yours. Even as to this, however, I have a sort of intuition which prevents my despairing. But this does not touch you: the burden is wholly mine. I wish you to clearly understand that in this change of circumstances something has been added to my affection towards you--to which no addition seemed [p. 193] possible--rather than anything detracted from it. when I write this I hope you are already censor. My letter is all the shorter and more modest as being addressed to a "director of morals." ¹

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¹ Magister morum, i.e., censor. In the de Prov. Cons. § 46, he describes the censorship as magisterium morum, for the censors had the right to inquire in many respects into the private life of citizens.