Cicero’s Letters to his Friends, Book 5

Translated by Evelyn Shuckburgh

XIII (F V, 1)

Q. METELLUS CELER TO CICERO

CISALPINE GAUL

Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul, greets M. Tullius Cicero. ¹ If you are well I am glad. I had thought, considering our mutual regard and the reconciliation effected between us, that I was not likely to be held up to ridicule in my absence, nor my brother attacked by you in his civil existence and property for the sake of a mere word. If his own high character was not a sufficient protection to him, yet either the position of our family, or my own loyal conduct to you and the Republic ought to have been sufficient to support him. As it is I see that he has been ruined and I abandoned by the last people in the world who ought to have done so. I am accordingly in sorrow and wearing mourning dress, while actually in command of a province and army and conducting a war. And seeing that your conduct in this affair has neither been reasonable nor in accordance [p. 20] with the milder methods of old times, you must not be surprised if you live to repent it. I did not expect to find you so fickle towards me and mine. For myself, meanwhile, neither family sorrow nor ill-treatment by any individual shall withdraw me from the service of the state.

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¹ Q Metellus Celer had been praetor in B.C. 63 and was now (B.C. 62), as proconsul in Gallia Cisalpina, engaged against the remains of the Catilinarian Conspiracy. Meanwhile his brother (or cousin) Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos, a tribune after trying in vain to bring Cicero to trial for the execution of the conspirators at last proposed to summon Pompey to Rome to prevent danger to the lives of citizens. This attempt led to riots and contests with Cato, and Nepos finally fled from Rome to Pompey. By leaving Rome he broke the law as to the tribunes, and the senate declared his office vacant, and this letter would even seem to show that the senate declared him a public enemy. This letter of remonstrance is peremptory if not insolent, in tone, and the reader will observe that the formal sentences, dropped in more familiar letters, are carefully used.

XIV (F V, 2)

TO Q. METELLUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL)

ROME

M. Tullius, son of Marcus, to Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul wishes health. If you and the army are well I shall be glad. You say in your letter that you "thought, considering our mutual regard and the reconciliation effected between us, that you were not likely to be held up to ridicule by me." To what you refer I do not clearly understand, but I suspect that you have been informed that, while arguing in the senate that there were many who were annoyed at my having saved the state, I said that your relations, whose wishes you had been unable to withstand, had induced you to pass over in silence what you had made up your mind you ought to say in the senate in my praise. But while saying so I also added this--that the duty of supporting the Republic had been so divided between us that I was defending the city from internal treachery and the crime of its own citizens, you Italy from armed enemies and covert conspiracy ¹ yet that this association in a task so noble and so glorious had been imperilled by your relations, who, while you had been complimented by me in the fullest and most laudatory terms, had been afraid of any display of mutual regard on your part being put to my credit. As this sentence betrayed how much I had looked forward to your speech, and how mistaken I had [p. 21] been in that expectation, my speech caused some amusement, and was received with a moderate amount of laughter; but the laugh was not against you, it was rather at my mistake, and at the open and naive confession of my eagerness to be commended by you. Surely it cannot but be a compliment to you that in the hour of my greatest triumph and glory I yet wished for some testimony of approval from your lips. As to your expression, "considering our mutual regard "--I don't know your idea of what is "mutual" in friendship; mine is an equal interchange of good feeling. Now if I were to mention that I passed over a province for your sake, you might think me somewhat insincere; for, in point of fact, it suited my convenience, and I feel more and more every day of my life the advantage and pleasure which I have received from that decision. But this I do say--the moment I had announced in public meeting my refusal of a province, I began at once thinking how I might hand it on to you. I say nothing as to the circumstances of your allotment: I only wish you to suspect that nothing was done in that matter by my colleague without my cognizance. Recall the other circumstances: how promptly I summoned the senate on that day after the lots had been drawn, at what a length I spoke about you. You yourself said at the time that my speech was not merely complimentary to you, but absolutely a reflection on your colleagues. Further, the decree of the senate passed on that day has such a preamble that, so long as it is extant, there can never be any doubt of my services to you. Subsequently, when you had gone out of town; I would have you recall my motions in the senate, my speeches in public meetings, my letters to yourself. And having reviewed all these together, I would like you to judge yourself whether you think that your approach to Rome the last time you came quite showed an adequate return for all these services. ² Again, as to your expression, "the reconciliation effected between us "--I do not understand why you speak of "reconciliation" in the case of a friendship that had never been broken. As to what you say, that your brother Metellus ought not "to have been [p. 22] attacked by me for a mere word," in the first place I would like to assure you that your feeling and fraternal partiality--so full of human kindness and natural affection--meet with my warmest approbation; in the next place I must claim your indulgence if I have in any matter opposed your brother in the interests of the Republic, for my devotion to the Republic is paramount. If however, it is my personal safety that I have defended against a most ruthless assault of his, I think you should be content that I make no complaint even to you of your brother's injurious conduct. Now, when I had become aware that he was deliberately making every preparation to use his tribunician office to my ruin, I appealed to your wife Claudia ³ and your sister Mucia ⁴ (of whose kindness to me for the sake of my friendship with Pompey I had satisfied myself by many instances) to deter him from that injurious conduct. And yet, as I am sure you have heard, on the last day of December he inflicted upon me--a consul and the preserver of my country--an indignity such as was never inflicted upon the most disloyal citizen in the humblest office : that is to say, he deprived me when laying down my office of the privilege of addressing the people--an indignity, however, which after all redounded to my honour. For, upon his forbidding me to do anything but take the oath, I pronounced an oath at once the most absolutely true and the most glorious in a loud voice--an oath which the people swore also in a loud voice to be absolutely true. Though I had actually suffered this signal indignity, I yet on that same day sent common friends to Metellus to persuade him to alter his resolution; to whom he answered that he was no longer free to do so. And, in fact, a short time previously he had said in a public meeting that a man who had punished others without trial ought not himself to be allowed the privilege of speech. What a model of consistency! What an admirable citizen! So he deemed the [p. 23] man who had saved the senate from massacre, the city from the incendiary, Italy from war, deserving of the same penalty as that inflicted by the senate with the unanimous approval of all loyal citizens, upon those who had intended to set fire to the city, butcher magistrates and senate, and stir up a formidable war! Accordingly, I did withstand your brother Metellus to his face: for on the 1st of January, in the senate, I maintained a debate with him on the state of the Republic, such as taught him that he had to contend with a man of courage and firmness. On the 3rd of January, ⁵ on again opening the debate, he kept harping on me and threatening me at every third word of his speech; nor could any intention be more deliberate than his was to overthrow me by any means in his power, not by calm and judicial argument, but by violence and mere browbeating. If I had not shown some boldness and spirit in opposing his intemperate attack, would not everyone have concluded that the courage I had displayed in my consulship was the result of accident rather than design? If you did not know that Metellus was contemplating these measures in regard to me you must consider that you have been kept in the dark by your brother on matters of the utmost importance: if, on the other hand, he did entrust any part of his designs to you, then surely I ought to be regarded by you as a man of placable and reasonable temper for not addressing a word of reproach to you even on such occurrences as these Understanding then that it was by no "mere word" (as you express it) of Metellus that I was roused, but by his deliberate policy and extraordinary animosity towards me next observe my forbearance--if "forbearance" is the name to be given to irresolution and laxity under a most galling indignity. I never once delivered a vote in a speech against your brother every time a motion was before the house I assented without rising to those whose proposal appeared to me to be the mildest. I will also add that, though in the circumstances there was no obligation upon me to do so, yet so far from raising objections I actually did my best to secure that my enemy, [p. 24] because he was your brother, should be relieved from penalties by a decree of the senate. ⁶ Wherefore I have not "attacked" your brother, but only defended myself from your brother's attack; nor have I been "fickle" (to quote your word), but, on the contrary, so constant, that I remained faithful to my friendship to you, though left without any sign of kindness from you. For instance, at this moment, though your letter amounts almost to a threat, I am writing back an answer such as you see. I not only pardon your vexation, I even applaud it in the highest degree; for my own heart tells me how strong is the influence of fraternal affection. I ask you in your turn to put a liberal construction upon my vexation, and to conclude that when attacked by your relatives with bitterness, with brutality, and without cause, I not only ought not to retract anything, but, in a case of that kind, should even be able to rely upon the aid of yourself and your army. I have always wished to have you as a friend: I have taken pains to make you understand that I am a warm friend to you. I abide by that sentiment, and shall abide by it as long as you will let me; and I shall more readily cease to be angry with your brother for love of you, than I shall from anger with him abate in the smallest degree my kindness for you.

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¹ Metellus had been employed with Antonius against the camp at Faesulae, but was now engaged against some Alpine tribes.

² When Metellus was commanding against Catiline, it is suggested that he marched towards Rome to support his brother, but this is conjecture.

³ Sister of P. Clodius. Of this famous woman we shall hear often again. She is believed to be the Lesbia of Catullus, and she is the Palatine Medea" of the speech pro Caelio. Yet, in spite of Cicero's denunciations of her, he seems at one time to have been so fond of her society as to rouse Terentia's jealousy.

⁴ Wife of Pompey--divorced by him on his return from the East.

⁵ On the next meeting of the senate. The second was a dies comitialis on which the senate usually did not meet (Caes. B. Civ. 1.1).

⁶ For the riots caused by his contests with Cato (on which the senate seems to have passed the senatus consuitum ultimum), and for his having left Rome while tribune.

CXII (F V, 3)

TO CICERO

FROM Q. METELLUS NEPOS (IN SPAIN)

The insults of a most outrageous person, with which he loads me in frequent public speeches, are alleviated by your kind services to me; and as they are of little weight as coming from a man of that character, they are regarded by me with contempt, and I am quite pleased by an interchange of persons to regard you in the light of a cousin. ¹ Him I don't wish even to remember, though I have twice saved his life in his own despite. Not to be too troublesome to you about my affairs, I have written to Lollius as to what I want done about my provincial accounts, with a view to his informing and reminding you. If you can, I hope you will preserve your old goodwill to me.

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¹ Fratris. The mother of Clodius, Caecilia, was a daughter of Q. Caecilius Metellus Balearicus (consul B.C. 123), father of the writer of this letter.

LXXXVIII (F V, 4)

TO Q. METELLUS THE CONSUL (AT ROME)

DYRRACHIUM (JANUARY)

A letter from my brother Quintus, and one from my friend Titus Pomponius, had given me so much hope, that I depended on your assistance no less than on that of your [p. 185] colleague. Accordingly, I at once sent you a letter in which, as my present position required, I offered you thanks and asked for the continuance of your assistance. Later on, not so much the letters of my friends, as the conversation of travellers by this route, indicated that your feelings had undergone a change; and that circumstance prevented my venturing to trouble you with letters. Now, however, my brother Quintus has sent me a copy which he had made of your exceedingly kind speech delivered in the senate. Induced by this I have attempted to write to you, and I do ask and beg of you, as far as I may without giving you offence, to preserve your own friends along with me, rather than attack me to satisfy the unreasonable vindictiveness of your connexions. You have, indeed, conquered yourself so far as to lay aside your own enmity for the sake of the Republic : will you be induced to support that of others agaznst the interests of the Republic? But if you will in your clemency now give me assistance, I promise you that I will be at your service henceforth: but if neither magistrates, nor senate, nor people are permitted to aid nie, owing to the violence which has proved too strong for me, and for the state as well, take care lest--though you may wish the opportunity back again for retaining all and sundry in their rights-you find yourself unable to do so, because there will be nobody to be retained. ¹ [p. 186]

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¹ This intentionally enigmatical sentence is meant to contain a menace against Clodius, who is hinted at in the word omnium, just as he is earlier in the letter in the word tuorum. Clodius was a connexion by marriage of Metellus (through his late brother, the husband of Clodia), and Cicero assumes that Metellus is restrained from helping him by regard for Clodius. He knows, however, by this time, that one of the new tribunes, Milo, is prepared to repel force by force, and he hints to Metellus that if he countenances Clodius's violence he may some day find that there is no Clodius to save--if that is his object. In Letter LXXXIX he shews how early he had contemplated Clodius being killed by Milo (occisum iri ab ipso Milone video).

XVII (F V, 5)

TO C. ANTONIUS (IN MACEDONIA)

ROME, JANUARY

M. Cicero wishes health to Gaius Antonius, son of Marcus, Imperator. Though I had resolved to write you nothing but formal letters of introduction (not because I felt that they had much weight with you, but to avoid giving those who asked me for them an idea that there had been any diminution in our friendship), yet since Titus Pomponius is starting for your province, who knows better than anyone else all that I feel and have done for you, who desires your friendship and is most devotedly attached to me, I thought I must write something, especially as I had no other way of satisfying Pomponius himself. Were I to ask from you services of the greatest moment, it ought not to seem surprising to anyone: for you have not wanted from me any that concerned your interests, honour, or position. That no return has been made by you for these you are the best witness : that something even of a contrary nature has proceeded from you I have been told by many. I say "told," for I do not venture to say "discovered," ¹ lest I should chance to use the word which people tell me is often falsely attributed to me by you. But the story which has reached my ears I would prefer your learning from Pomponius (who was equally hurt by it) rather than from my letter. How singularly loyal my feelings have been to you the senate and Roman people are both witnesses. How far you have been grateful to me you may yourself estimate: how much you owe me the rest of the world estimates. I was induced to do what I did for you at first by affection, and afterwards by consistency. Your future, believe me, stands in need of much greater zeal on my part, [p. 29] greater firmness and greater labour. ² These labours, unless it shall appear that I am throwing away and wasting my pains, I shall support with all the strength I have; but if I see that they are not appreciated, I shall not allow you--the very person benefited ³ --to think me a fool for my pains. What the meaning of all this is you will be able to learn from Pomponius. In commending Pomponius to you, although I am sure you will do anything in your power for his own sake, yet I do beg that if you have any affection for me left, you will display it all in Pomponius's business. You can do me no greater favour than that.

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¹ The word (comperisse) used by Cicero in regard to the Catilinarian conspiracy; it had apparently become a subject of rather malignant chaff.

² Cicero is hinting at the danger of prosecution hanging over the head of Antonius.

³ Reading tibi ipsi (not ipse), with Tyrrell.

XV (F V, 6)

TO P. SESTIUS (IN MACEDONIA)

ROME, DECEMBER

¹ Decius the copyist has been to see me, and begged me to try and secure that no successor should be appointed to you this turn. Though I regarded him as a man of good [p. 25] character and attached to you, yet, remembering the tenor of your previous letter to me, I could not feel certain that the wishes of a cautious man of the world like yourself had undergone so complete a change. But after your wife Cornelia had called on Terentia, and I had had a conversation with Q. Cornelius, I took care to be present at every meeting of the senate, and found that the greatest trouble was to make Fufius the tribune, and the others to whom you had written, believe me rather than your own letters. The whole business has, after all, been postponed till January, but there is no difficulty about it. Roused by your congratulations--for in a letter sometime ago you wished me good luck on the completion of my purchase of a house from Crassus--I have bought that very house for 3,500 sestertia, a good while subsequent to your congratulation. Accordingly, you may now look upon me as being so deeply in debt as to be eager to join a conspiracy if anyone would admit me! But, partly from personal dislike they shut their doors in my face and openly denounce me as the punisher of conspiracy, partly are incredulous and afraid that I am setting a trap for them! Nor do they suppose that a man can be short of money who has relieved the money-lenders from a state of siege. In point of fact, money is plentiful at six per cent., and the success of my measures has caused me to be regarded as a good security. Your own house, and all the details of its construction, I have examined and strongly approve. As for Antonius, ² though everyone notices his want of attention to my interests, I have nevertheless defended him in the senate with the utmost earnestness and persistence, and have made a strong impression on the senate by my language as well as by my personal prestige. Pray write to me more frequently. [p. 26]

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¹ P. Sestius was serving as proquaestor in Macedonia under Gaius Antonius. As tribune in B.C. 57 he worked for Cicero's recall, but was afterwards prosecuted de vi and defended by Cicero.

² Gaius Antonius, Cicero's colleague in the consulship. He had the province of Macedonia after the consulship, Cicero having voluntarily withdrawn in his favour to secure his support against Catiline. Scandal said that he had bargained to pay Cicero large sums from the profits of the province. He governed so corruptly and unsuccessfully that he was on his return condemned of majestas.

XII (F V, 7)

TO CN. POMPEIUS MAGNUS

ROME

M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets Cn. Pompeius, son of Cneius, Imperator.

If you and the army are well I shall be glad. From your official despatch I have, in common with everyone else, received the liveliest satisfaction; for you have given us that strong hope of peace, of which, in sole reliance on you, I was assuring everyone. But I must inform you that your old enemies--now posing as your friends--have received a stunning blow by this despatch, and, being disappointed in the high hopes they were entertaining, are thoroughly depressed. Though your private letter to me contained a somewhat slight expression of your affection, yet I can assure you it gave me pleasure: for there is nothing in which I habitually find greater satisfaction than in the consciousness of serving my friends; and if on any occasion I do not meet with an adequate return, I am not at all sorry to have the balance of kindness in my favour. Of this I feel no doubt--even if my extraordinary zeal in your behalf has failed to unite you to me--that the interests of the state will certainly effect a mutual attachment and coalition between us. To let you know, however, what I missed in your letter I will write with the candour which my own disposition and our common friendship demand. I did expect some congratulation in your letter on my achievements, for the sake at once of the ties between us and of the Republic. This I presume to have been omitted by you from a fear of hurting anyone's feelings. But let me tell you that what I did for the salvation of the country is approved by the judgment and testimony of the whole world. You are a much greater man than Africanus, but I am not much inferior to Laelius either; and when you come home you will recognize that I [p. 19] have acted with such prudence and spirit, that you will not be ashamed of being coupled with me in politics as well as in private friendship.

CXXX (F V, 8)

TO M. LICINIUS CRASSUS (ON HIS WAY TO SYRIA)

ROME (JANUARY)

I have no doubt all your friends have written to tell you what zeal I displayed on the ---- ¹ in the defence, or you might call it the promotion, of your official position. For it was neither half-hearted nor inconspicuous, nor of a sort that could be passed over in silence. In fact, I maintained a controversy against both the consuls and many consulars with a vehemence such as I have never shewn in any cause before, and I took upon myself the standing defence of all your honours, and paid the duty I owed to our friendship--long in arrears, but interrupted by the great complexity of events--to the very utmost. Not, believe me, that the will to shew you attention and honour was ever wanting to me; but certain pestilent persons--vexed at another's fame--did at times alienate you from me, and sometimes changed my feelings towards you. But I have got the opportunity, for which I had rather wished than hoped, of shewing you in the very height of your prosperity that I remember our mutual kindness and am faithful to our friendship. For I have secured not only that your whole family, but that the entire city should know that you have no warmer friend than myself. Accordingly, that most [p. 264] noble of women, your wife, as well as your two most affectionate, virtuous, and popular sons, place full confidence in my counsel, advice, zeal, and public actions; and the senate and Roman people understand that in your absence there is nothing upon which you can so absolutely count and depend as upon my exertions, care, attention, and influence in all matters which affect your interests. What has been done and is being done in the senate I imagine that you are informed in the letters from members of your family. For myself, I am very anxious that you should think and believe that I did not stumble upon the task of supporting your dignity from some sudden whim or by chance, but that from the first moment of my entering on public life I have always looked out to see how I might be most closely united to you. And, indeed, from that hour I never remember either my respect for you, or your very great kindness and liberality to me, to have failed. If certain interruptions of friendship have occurred, based rather on suspicion than fact, let them, as groundless and imaginary, be uprooted from our entire memory and life. For such is your character, and such I desire mine to be, that, fate having brought us face to face with the same condition of public affairs, I would fain hope that our union and friendship will turn out to be for the credit of us both. Wherefore how much consideration should in your judgment be shewn to me, you will yourself decide, and that decision, I hope, will be in accordance with my position in the state. I, for my part, promise and guarantee a special and unequaled zeal in every service which may tend to your honour and reputation. And even if in this I shall have many rivals, I shall yet easily surpass them all in the judgment of the rest of the world as well as that of your sons, for both of whom I have a particular affection; but while equally well-disposed to Marcus, I am more entirely devoted to Publius for this reason, that, though he always did so from boyhood, he is at this particular time treating me with the respect and affection of a second father.

I would have you believe that this letter will have the force of a treaty, not of a mere epistle; and that I will most sacredly observe and most carefully perform what I hereby promise and undertake. The defence of your [p. 265] political position which I have taken up in your absence I will abide by, not only for the sake of our friendship, but also for the sake of my own character for consistency. Therefore I thought it sufficient at this time to tell you this that if there was anything which I understood to be your wish or for your advantage or for your honour, I should do it without waiting to be asked; but that if I received a hint from yourself or your family on any point, I should take care to convince you that no letter of your own or any request from any of your family has been in vain. Wherefore I would wish you to write to me on all matters, great, small, or indifferent, as to a most cordial friend; and to bid your family so to make use of my activity, advice, authority, and influence in all business matters--public or private, forensic or domestic, whether your own or those of your friends, guests, or clients--that, as far as such a thing is possible, the loss of your presence may be lessened by my labour.

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¹ The date has been lost.

DCXXXVI (F V, 9)

P. VATINIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME)

NARONA, II JULY

Vatinius¹ 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? [p. 303] 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, ² 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. ³ You gave me no instructions about him ; ⁴ 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, ⁵ and even thence I will extract him sooner or later. Be sure you maintain your affection for me. Good-bye.

11 July, Narona. [p. 304]

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¹ For Cicero's previous relations with Vatinius, see vol. i., pp. 219, 311, sq.

² Of a supplicatio for successes in Illyricum.

³ The Vardaei or Ardiaei were a tribe living south of the Naro, on which Narona stands. They had been subdued in B.C. 135 by Fulvius Flaccus, but were probably imperfectly obedient (Livy, Ep. 56).

⁴ Cicero had asked Vatinius's predecessor, Sulpicius Rufus, to see after Dionysius in the previous year (see Letter DXXVIII, p. 172), but apparently had not written to Vatinius on the subject.

⁵ That is, apparently, into the interior; for Narona is in Dalmatia in one interpretation of the term.

DCXCIII (F V, 10)

P. VATINIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME)

NARONA (JANUARY)

If you are well I am glad; I am also well. I have not yet fished out anything about your Dionysius; ¹ and the less so, because the Dalmatian cold, which forced me out of that country, has again frozen me here. However, I will not give up till I have sooner or later got hold of him. Yet after all you are always setting me some hard task. You wrote something or other to me about Catilius ² --earnestly pleading for his pardon. Don't talk about our friend Sextus Servilius, for by heaven I am as fond of him as you are. But are these the sort of clients, and these the sort of causes which you undertake? Catilius--the cruellest fellow in the world, who has murdered, abducted, ruined so many free-born men, matrons, citizens of Rome! Who has laid waste so many countries! The fellow--half-ape and not worth twopence--took up arms against me, and I have taken him prisoner in war. But after all, my dear Cicero, what can I do? I swear to you that I desire to do anything you ask. My sentence upon him and this punishment which I was going to inflict on him as my prisoner, I freely remit in deference to your request. But what am I to say to those who demand his punishment for the plunder of their property, the capture of their ships, the murder of their brothers, sons, and parents? Even if I had, by Jove, the impudence of Appius, into whose place in the college I was elected, I could not face that out. What is to be done then? I will do my best to carry out anything that I know you wish. He is being defended by Q. Volusius, a pupil of your own, if that fact may chance to rout his enemies. That is his best hope. [p. 361]

Pray defend me at Rome if there is any occasion for it. Caesar is still treating me unfairly. He still doesn't bring any motion before the senate about the supplication in my honour, or about my Dalmatian campaign: as though my operations in Dalmatia did not in truth most thoroughly deserve a triumph! For if I have to wait until I finish the whole war, there are thirty ancient cities in Dalmatia; those which the Dalmatians have themselves annexed are more than sixty. If no supplication is to be decreed in my honour unless I storm all these, then I am on a very different footing from all other commanders. ³

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¹ See pp. 303, 344.

² Some man who had been acting as a pirate on the coasts of Illyricum, perhaps an old Pompeian officer.

³ Vatinius, after being consul for a few days in B.C. 47, was sent to Illyricum at the end of that year, and was still there in B.C. 44, when he handed over his troops to M. Brutus, whether voluntarily or under compulsion is not certain. Anyhow he got his triumph at the end of B.C. 43.

DCLXXV (F V, 10 a)

P. VATINIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME)

NARONA, 5 DECEMBER.

AFTER the thanksgiving had been decreed in my honour I started for Dalmatia. I stormed and took six fortified towns. The largest of them, indeed, I have had practically to storm four times ¹ for I took four towers and four walls and their entire citadel, which snow, cold, and rain forced me to evacuate. It was mortifying to be obliged thus to abandon a town already taken and a war practically finished. Wherefore I beg you, if there is any occasion for it, to plead my cause with Caesar, and to regard it as your duty to defend my character in every respect, with the full Conviction that you have no more devoted friend than myself. Good-bye.

5 December, Narona. [p. 346]

DCLXXIII (F V, II)

TO PUBLIUS VATINIUS (IN ILLYRICUM)

ROME (OCTOBER OR NOVEMBER)

I am not surprised that you appreciate my services, for I know you to be the most grateful man in the world, and that I have never ceased to declare. For you have not [p. 344] merely felt grateful, you have shewn it in practice also by the most complete return possible. Therefore, in all your remaining concerns, you shall find that I have the same zeal and the same goodwill to you.

You commend to me that most honourable lady your wife Pompeia. I therefore at once spoke to Sura on reading your letter, and bade him tell her from me to let me know anything she wanted done, and to say that I would do it with the greatest zeal and assiduity. And this I will do, and if it seems necessary I will call upon her personally. Please write and tell her not to consider anything to be so great or so small, as to seem to me difficult or beneath my notice. Everything which I may do in your interest will appear to me at once unlaborious and honourable.

As to Dionysius, ¹ as you love me, settle the business. Whatever pledge you give him I will make good. If; however, he shews himself the villain that he is, you will lead him captive in your triumph. Confound the Dalmatians who are giving you all this trouble! But, as you say, they will soon be taken prisoners, and will add a lustre to your campaign, for they have always been considered a warlike people.

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¹ Cicero's runaway slave. See p.172.

CVIII (F V, 12)

TO L. LUCCEIUS

ARPINUM (APRIL)

I have often tried to say to you¹ personally what I am about to write, but was prevented by a kind of almost clownish bashfulness. Now that I am not in your presence I shall speak out more boldly: a letter does not blush. I am inflamed with an inconceivably ardent desire, and one, as I [p. 227] think, of which I have no reason to be ashamed, that in a history written by you my name should be conspicuous and frequently mentioned with praise. And though you have often shewn me that you meant to do so, yet I hope you will pardon my impatience. For the style of your composition, though I had always entertained the highest expectations of it, has yet surpassed my hopes, and has taken such a hold upon me, or rather has so fired my imagination, that I was eager to have my achievements as quickly as possible put on record in your history. For it is not only the thought of being spoken of by future ages that makes me snatch at what seems a hope of immortality, but it is also the desire of fully enjoying in my lifetime an authoritative expression of your judgment, or a token of your kindness for me, or the charm of your genius. Not, however, that while thus writing I am unaware under what heavy burdens you are labouring in the portion of history you have undertaken, and by this time have begun to write. But because I saw that your history of the Italian and Civil Wars was now all but finished, and because also you told me that you were already embarking upon the remaining portions of your work, I determined not to lose my chance for the want of suggesting to you to consider whether you preferred to weave your account of me into the main context of your history, or whether, as many Greek writers have done-Callisthenes, the Phocian War; Timaeus, the war of Pyrrhus; Polybius, that of Numantia; all of whom separated the wars I have named from their main narratives-you would, like them, separate the civil conspiracy from public and external wars. For my part, I do not see that it matters much to my reputation, but it does somewhat concern my impatience, that you should not wait till you come to the proper place, but should at once anticipate the discussion of that question as a whole and the history of that epoch. And at the same time, if your whole thoughts are engaged on one incident and one person, I can see in imagination how much fuller your material will be, and how much more elaborately worked out. I am quite aware, however, what little modesty I display, first, in imposing on you so heavy a burden (for your engagements may well prevent your compliance with my request), and in the second place, in asking [p. 228] you to shew me off to advantage. What if those transaCtions are not in your judgment so very deserving of Cornmendation? Yet, after all, a man who has once passed the border-line of modesty had better put a bold face on it and be frankly impudent. And so I again and again ask you outright, both to praise those actions of mine in warmer terms than you perhaps feel, and in that respect to neglect the laws of history. I ask you, too, in regard to the personal predilection, on which you wrote in a certain introductory chapter in the most gratifying and explicit terms--and by which you shew that you were as incapable of being diverted as Xenophon's Hercules by Pleasure--not to go against it, but to yield to your affection for me a little more than truth shall justify./ But if I can induce you to undertake this, you will have, I am persuaded, matter worthy of your genius and your wealth of language. For from the beginning of the conspiracy to my return from exile it appears to me that a moderate-sized monograph might be composed, in which you will, on the one hand, be able to utilize your special knowledge of civil disturbances, either in unravelling the causes of the revolution or in proposing remedies for evils, blaming lishing the righteousness of what you approve by explaining meanwhile what you think deserves denunciation, and estabthe principles on which they rest: and on the other hand, if you think it right to be more outspoken (as you generally do), you will bring out the perfidy, intrigues, and treachery of many people towards me. For my vicissitudes will supply you in your composition with much variety, which has in itself a kind of charm, capable of taking a strong hold on the imagination of readers, when you are the writer. For nothing is better fitted to interest a reader than variety of Circumstance and vicissitudes of fortune, which, thought he reverse of welcome to us in actual experience, will make very pleasant reading: for the untroubled recollection of a past sorrow has a charm of its own. To the rest of the world, indeed, who have had no trouble themselves, and who look upon the misfortunes of others without any suffering of their own, the feeling of pity is itself a source of pleasure. For what man of us is not delighted, though feeling a certain c6mpassion too, with the death-scene of Epa minondas at Mantinea? He, you know, did not allow [p. 229] the dart to be drawn from his body until he had been told, in answer to his question, that his shield was safe, so that in spite of the agony of his wound he died calmly and with glory. Whose interest is not roused and sustained by the banishment and return of Themistocles? ² Truly the mere chronological record of the annals has very little charm for us-little more than the entries in the fasti: but the doubtful and varied fortunes of a man, frequently of eminent character, involve feelings of wonder, suspense, joy, sorrow, hope, fear: if these fortunes are crowned with a glorious death, the imagination is satisfied with the most fascinating delight which reading can give. 'Therefore it will be more in accordance with my wishes if you come to the resolution to separate from the main body of your narrative, in which you embrace a continuous history of events, what I may call the drama of my actions and fortunes: for it includes varied acts, and shifting scenes both of policy and circumstance. Nor am I afraid of appearing to lay snares for your favour by flattering suggestions, when I declare that I desire to be complimented and mentioned with praise by you above all other writers. For you are not the man to be ignorant of your own powers, or not to be sure that those who withhold their admiration of you are more to be accounted jealous, than those who praise you flatterers. Nor, again, am I so senseless as to wish to be consecrated to an eternity of fame by one who, in so consecrating me, does not also gain for himself the glory which rightfully belongs to genius. For the famous Alexander himself did not wish to be painted by Apelles, and to have his statue made by Lysippus above all others, merely from personal favour to them, but because he thought that their art would be a glory at once to them and to himself. And, indeed, those artists used to make images of the person known to strangers: but if such had never existed, illustrious men would yet be no less illustrious. The Spartan Agesilaus, who would not allow a portrait of himself to be painted or a statue made, deserves to be quoted as an example quite as much as those [p. 230] who have taken trouble about such representations: for a single pamphlet of Xenophon's in praise of that king has proved much more effective than all the portraits and statues of them all. And, moreover, it will more redound to my present exultation and the honour of my memory to have found my way into your history, than if I had done so into that of others, in this, that I shall profit not only by the genius of the writer--as Timoleon did by that of Timaeus, Themistocles by that of Herodotus--but also by the authority of a man of a most illustrious and well-established character, and one well known and of the first repute for his conduct in the most important and weighty matters of state; so that I shall seem to have gained not only the fame which Alexander on his visit to Sigeum said had been bestowed on Achilles by Homer, but also the weighty testimony of a great and illustrious man. For I like that saying of Hector in Naevius, who not only rejoices that he is "praised," but adds, "and by one who has himself been "praised." But if I fail to obtain my request from you, which is equivalent to saying, if you are by some means prevented --for I hold it to be out of the question that you would refuse a request of mine--I shall perhaps be forced to do what certain persons have often found fault with, wnte my own panegyric, a thing, after all, which has a precedent of many illustrious men. But it will not escape your notice that there are the following drawbacks in a composition of that sort: men are bound, when writing of themselves, both to speak with greater reserve of what is praiseworthy, and to omit what calls for blame. Added to which such writing carries less conviction, less weight; many people, in fine, carp at it, and say that the heralds at the public games are more modest, for after having placed garlands on the other recipients and proclaimed their names in a loud voice, when their own turn comes to be presented with a garland before the games break up, they call in the services of another herald, that they may not declare themselves victors with their own voice. I wish to avoid all this, and, if you undertake my cause, I shall avoid it: and, accordingly, I ask you this favour. But why, you may well ask, when you have already often assured me that you intended to record in your book with the utmost minuteness the policy and events of [p. 231] my consulship, do I now make this request to you with such earnestness and in so many words? The reason is to be found in that burning desire, of which I spoke at the beginning of my letter, for something prompt: because I am in a flutter of impatience, both that men should learn what I am from your books, while I am still alive, and that I may myself in my lifetime have the full enjoyment of my little bit of glory. What you intend doing on this subject I should like you to write me word, if not troublesome to you. For if you do undertake the subject, I will put together some notes of all occurrences: but if you put me off to some future time, I will talk the matter over with you. Meanwhile, do not relax your efforts, and thoroughly polish what you have already on the stocks, and continue to love me.

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¹ L. Lucceius, of whom we have heard before, as having some quarrel with Atticus. His work has not survived. No letter of the correspondence has brought more adimadversion on Cicero, and yet log-rolling and the appealing to friends on the press to review one's book are not wholly unknown even in our time.

² Cicero appears by a slip to have written Themistocles instead of Aristeides. The dramatic return of the latter just before the battle of Salamis is narrated in Herodotus : whereas the former never returned, though his dead body was said to have been brought to Athens.

DLXXI (F 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 shewing a noble disdain of human vicissitudes, and were thoroughly armed and [p. 230] 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 [p. 231] 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.

DLXXXIV (F 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: ¹ 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 [p. 246] 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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¹ Reading (with Mueller) discesseras. The phrase is rather elaborate and fanciful, but so is the whole style of Lucceius throughout the letter.

DLXXXVI (F 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 [p. 248] 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.

DXXVII (F V, 16)

TO TITIUS

(ROME)

Though of all the world I am by far the least fitted to offer you¹ 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 [p. 170] 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 [p. 171] 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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¹ We cannot tell which of the Titii, of whom several occur in the correspondence, this is, nor when the letter was written. The mention of the pestilential year might tempt us to put it in B.C. 43 (Dio, 45, 17); but then pestilences were frequent in Rome, and the general tone in regard to public affairs seems rather in unison with the other letters of B.C. 46, and one would have expected some allusion to his own loss if it had been written after Tullia's death. The letter has the air of a"commonplace," a sort of model of ordinary condolence: "One writes that 'other friends remain': That 'loss is common to the race': And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain."

CLXXVIII (F V, 17)

TO P. SITTIUS (IN EXILE)

ROME

It was not because¹ I had forgotten our friendship, or had any intention of breaking off my correspondence, that I have [p. 360] not written to you of late years. The reason is that the earlier part of them was a period of depression owing to the disaster which had befallen the Republic and myself, while the later period, with your own most distressing and undeserved misfortune, has made me reluctant to write. Since, however, a sufficiently long period has now elapsed, and I have recalled with greater distinctness your high character and lofty courage, I thought it not inconsistent with my purposes to write this to you. For my part, my dear P. Sittius, I defended you originally, when an attempt was made in your absence to bring you into odium and under a criminal charge; and when a charge against you was involved in the accusation and trial of your most intimate friend, ² I took the very greatest care to safeguard your position and justify you. And, again also, on this last occasion, soon after my return to Rome, though I found that your case had been put on a footing far different from what I should have advised, if I had been there, still I omitted nothing that could contribute to your security. And though on that occasion the ill-feeling arising from the price of corn, the hostility of certain persons, not only to yourself, but to all your friends as well, the unfairness of the whole trial, and many other abuses in the state, had greater influence than the merits of your case or than truth itself, I yet did not fail to serve your son Publius with active assistance, advice, personal influence, and direct testimony. Wherefore, as I have carefully and religiously fulfilled all the other offices of friendship, I thought I ought not to omit that of urging upon you and beseeching you to remember that you are a human being and a gallant man--that is, that you should bear philosophically accidents which are common to all and incalculable, which none of us mortals can shun or forestall [p. 361] by any means whatever: should confront with courage such grief as fortune brings: and should reflect that not in our state alone, but in all others that have acquired an empire, such disasters have in many Instances befallen the bravest and best from unjust verdicts. Oh that I were writing untruly when I say, that you are exiled from a state in which no man of foresight can find anything to give him pleasure! As for your son, again, I fear that, if I write nothing to you, I may seem not to have borne testimony to his high qualities as they deserve; while on the other hand, if I write fully all I feel, I fear that my letter may irritate the smart of your regret. But, after all, your wisest course will be to regard his loyalty, virtue, and steady conduct as being in your possession, and as accompanying you wherever you may be: for, in truth, what we embrace in imagination is no less ours than what we see before our eyes. Wherefore not only ought his brilliant qualities and extreme affection for you to afford you great consolation, but so also ought I and others of your friends who value you, and always will do so, not for your position, but your worth; and so, above all else, ought your own conscience, when you reflect that you have not deserved anything that has befallen you, and when you consider besides that the wise are distressed by guilt, not by mischance--by their own ill-doing, not by the misconduct of others. For my part, I shall omit no opportunity either of consoling or alleviating your present position ; for the recollection of our old friendship, and the high character and respectful attentions of your son, will keep me in mind of that duty. If you, on your part, will mention by letter anything you want, I will take care that you shall not think that you have written in vain. [p. 362]

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¹ The letter in some MSS. is inscribed to Sextius or Sestius. Of P. Sittius of Nuceria we hear in the speech pro Sulla, 56, 58. Sulla (who was accused of assisting Catiline) had sent P. Sittius on a mission to Spain, as it was alleged, to raise a rebellion there in support of Catiline. It does not, however, appear that his condemnation took place then. It seems to have been just previous to Cicero's return from exile (August, B.C. 57), and it is suggested that it was after his aedileship of the previous year, when a scarcity of corn had contributed to his unpopularity. The date of the letter is uncertain.

² P. Sulla. Sittius was not, it seems, brought to trial with Sulla, but his journey to Spain formed part of the allegations against Sulla.

CLXXIX (F V, 18)

TO T. FADIUS (IN EXILE)

ROME

Although I too, who am desirous of consoling you,¹ stand in need of consolation myself--for nothing for a long time past has so deeply afflicted me as your disaster--nevertheless I do strongly not only exhort, but even beg and implore you, with all the earnestness that my affection dictates, to summon all your energies, to shew a manly courage, and to reflect under what conditions all mortals, and in what times we particularly, have been born. Your virtue has given you more than fortune has taken away: for you have obtained what not many "new men" have obtained; you have lost what many men of the highest rank have lost. Finally, a state of legislation, law courts, and politics generally appears to be imminent, such that the man would seem to be the most fortunate who has quitted such a republic as ours with the lightest possible penalty. As for you, however--since you retain your fortune and children, with myself and others still very closely united to you, whether by relationship or affection--and since you are likely to have much opportunity of living with me and all your friends--and since, again, your condemnation is the only one out of so many that is impugned, because, having been passed by one vote (and that a doubtful one), it is regarded as a concession to a particular person's overwhelming power ² --for all these reasons, I say, you ought [p. 363] to be as little distressed as possible at the inconvenience that has befallen you. My feeling towards yourself and your children will always be such as you wish, and such as it is in duty bound to be.

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¹ Titus Fadius Gallus had been a quaestor in Cicero's consulship (B.C. 63), and a tribune in B.C. 58, when Cicero reckoned him among those on whom he depended to resist Clodius. He also, among others, had a motion prepared for Cicero's recall, of which Cicero speaks with approbation (p. 178). We do not know on what charge he had been condemned, but a number of prosecutions followed the death of Clodius and Pompey's legislation as to violence and corruption of juries.

² Pompey. He uses the word potentia, as he generally does, in an invidious sense of "tyrannical, or, unconstitutional power," as opposed to auctoritas, " legitimate influence."

CCCLXXXIX (F V, 19)

TO L. MESCINIUS RUFUS

CUMAE, APRIL (END)

Though I never doubted your great affection for me, yet I learn it better every day of my life, and I never forget what you once said in a letter, that you would be more zealous in shewing me attention than you had been in the province (though, to my mind, nothing could exceed your loyalty in [p. 377] the province), in proportion as your judgment could now be more independent. Accordingly, your former letter gave me great pleasure, because it shewed me that my arrival was affectionately looked forward to by you, and that, when things turned out differently from what you had expected, you were greatly rejoiced at the line I took. So, also, this last letter is extremely valuable to me from the expression at once of your judgment and your affection: of your judgment, because I learn that, as all gallant and good men are bound to do, you hold nothing to be expedient except what is right and virtuous; of your affection, because you promise to stand by me, whatever course of policy I shall adopt. Nothing could be more gratifying to me, nor, as I think, more honourable to yourself. My own course has long been decided. I have not written to tell you of it before, not because you were one to be kept in the dark, but because the communication of a policy at such a time seems in a certain sense to be an exhortation to duty, or rather a summons to share in either danger or labour. Seeing, however, that your goodwill, kindness, and affection for me are what they are, I gladly embrace such a heart. But I do so on this condition, for I will not abandon my habitual modesty in asking favours: if you do what you profess, I shall be grateful; if not, I shall pardon you, and consider that you were unable to deny the latter to your fears, the former to me. For it is in sober earnest an extremely difficult case. The right thing to do is clear: as to the expedient thing, though it is obscure, yet, if we are the men we ought to be, that is, worthy of our philosophical studies, we cannot entertain a doubt that the most advantageous course is the course of strictest honour. Wherefore, if you determine to join me, come at once. But if you wish to act with me and to go to the same place, but cannot do so just yet, I will keep you fully informed on every point. Whichever way you decide I shall look upon you as my friend, but as the closest possible friend if you decide on the course which I desire. [p. 378]

CCCI (F V, 20)

TO MESCINIUS RUFUS

OUTSIDE ROME (JANUARY)

I¹ would have done my very best to meet you, if you had chosen to come to the place arranged. Wherefore, although from regard to my convenience you were unwilling to disturb me, I should wish you to believe that, if you had sent me word, I should have preferred your wish to my own [p. 236] convenience. In reply to your letter, I Should have been able to write to you on the details more conveniently, if my secretary, M. Tullius, had been with me. lie, I feel certain, at any rate in making up the accounts--I cannot speak of other things-did not knowingly do anything adverse to your interest or your reputation. And in the next place I can assure you that, if the old rule and ancient custom as to giving in accounts had been in force, I should never have given them in until I had first checked and made them up with you, as our close official connexion demanded. What I should have done outside Rome, had the old custom remained in force, that I did in the province, because, by the Julian law, it was necessary to leave accounts in the province and to give in a verbatim copy of them at the treasury. I did not do this with a view of forcing you to adopt my calculation; but I put a great confidence in you, and shall never be sorry that I did so. For I handed over my secretary to your entire control--of whom I now see that you entertain suspicions--and you joined your brother M. Mindius with him in the business. The accounts were made up, in my absence, under your eye, to which I did nothing whatever beyond reading them. When I received a copy from my secretary, I regarded it as received from your brother. If that was a compliment, I could not pay you a greater one: if it was an instance of confidence, I have shewn you almost more than I shewed myself: if my duty had been to see that nothing was entered in them that was not for your honour and advantage, there was no one to whom I could have intrusted them in preference to the man to whom I did do so. At any rate, I merely obeyed the law by depositing copies of the accounts made up and audited in two cities, Laodicea and Apamea, which I regarded as the two chief cities (for it had to be the chief cities). So then to this point my first reply is that, though for good and sufficient reasons I have made haste to give in the accounts at the treasury, yet I should have waited for you, had I not considered that depositing the accounts in the province was tantamount to giving them in at the treasury. ² [p. 237]

As to what you say of Volusius, that has nothing to do with the accounts. I have been advised by experts-among them by C Camillus, the best lawyer of the day and a very kind friend of mine-- that the debt (the amount was not 3,000 sestertia, as you say, but 1,900) could not be transferred from Valerius to Volusius, and that the sureties of Valerius were liable. For a sum of money had been paid us in the name of Valerius as purchaser: the balance I entered in the accounts. ³ But your proposal robs me of the fruit of my liberality, of my activity, and even (what, after all, I do not much care about) of a moderate amount of good sense: of my liberality, because you prefer to suppose my legate and my prefect, Q. Lepta, to have been relieved from a most serious calamity by the good offices of my secretary rather than of myself, and that though they ought never to have been made liable: of my activity, because you suppose that in regard to so important a duty, I may say so grave a danger, I neither knew anything nor took any thought--that my secretary made any entry he chose without even going through the form of reading it over to me: of my good sense, because you think that an arrangement, which had been thought out by me with no little acuteness, had been practically not thought of at all. The fact of the matter is that the release of Volusius was my own design, and I also formed the plan for relieving the securities of Valerius and Tit. Marius himself from so heavy a loss. And this scheme has not only the approval of everybody, but their warm commendation, and, if you wish to know the real truth, I perceived that my secretary was the one person who did not like it. But it was my view that, so long as the People got its own, a good man should consult for the interests of so large a number-whether of friends or fellow citizens. As regards Lucceius, the [p. 238] arrangement Come to, at the suggestion of Pompey, was that the money should be deposited in a temple. I acknowledged that as having been done on my order. This money Pompey has employed, as Sestius did that deposited by you. But this, I am aware, does not affect you. I should have been sorry to have omitted to record your having deposited the money in the temple on my order, had not that sum been attested by records of the most solemn and precise nature-- stating to whom it was paid, by what decree of the senate, and in virtue of what written order from you and from myself it had been handed over to P. Sestius. ⁴ Seeing that these facts had been put on record in so many ways, that a mistake in regard to them was impossible, I did not make an entry, which after all had no reference to you. However, I wish now I had made the entry, since I see that you regret its not having been done.

I quite agree as to your being obliged, as you Say, to enter this transaction, and your balance will not differ at all from mine by your doing so. You may add also, "on my authority," which, though I did not add it, I have no reason for denying, nor should deny, had there been any such reason, and had you declined to add it. Again, as to the sum of 900,000 sesterces: that, at any rate, was entered in accordance with your own or your brother's wishes. However, if there is any entry (for the posting of the public [p. 239] ledger is not Completed) which I can correct even now in my accounts, I must consider--since I have not taken advantage of the decree of the senate--what grace the laws allow me. ⁵ Anyhow, you were not bound to make the entry you have made in regard to the amount collected tally with my accounts, ⁶ unless I am mistaken-for there are others with more technical knowledge than myself. But pray do not doubt my doing everything that I think to be for your interests or in accordance with your wish, if I possibly can.

As to what you say about the list for good-service rewards, you must know that I have returned the names of my military tribunes and prefects, and the members of the staff--at least of my own staff. ⁷ In this matter, indeed, I made a mistake. I thought that the time allowed me for giving in their names was unlimited: I was afterwards in-formed that it had to be done within thirty days of handing in my accounts. I am very sorry that this list for good-service rewards was not reserved to enhance your credit rather than mine, since I have no promotion to work for. However, in regard to the centurions and the subalterns of the military tribunes, nothing has yet been done, for good-service rewards of that class have no time limit by law.

The last item is the 100,000 sesterces, in regard to which I remember receiving a letter from you from Myrina acknowledging the mistake to be not mine, but yours. The mistake--if mistake it was-- appeared to have originated with your brother and Tullius. But since it could not be corrected--for I had already deposited my accounts and quitted my province--I believe I answered you as politely [p. 240] as the warmth of my feelings dictated and my financial outlook at the time allowed. ⁸ But I did not either then consider that I was bound by the polite tone of my letter, nor do I now think that I was bound to have regarded your letter about the 100 sestertia in the light in which men regard dunning letters received in times like these. At the same time you ought to take this into consideration. The whole sum of money legally coming to me I deposited with the publicani at Ephesus. It amounted to 2,200,000 sesterces (about £17,600). The whole of it has been appropriated by Pompey. Whether I submit to that with patience or the reverse, you at least ought to take the loss of 100 sestertia (about £800) with equanimity, and to reckon that just so much the less has come into your pocket from your own allowances or my liberality. But even if you had debited me with this 100 sestertia, yet your kindness and affection for me is such that you would not wish to distrain ⁹ on me at such a time as this: for, however much I wished the money paid in cash, I have not the wherewithal. But regard this as a joke, just as I do what you said. However, as soon as Tullius comes back from the country, I will send him to you, if you think that will be any good. I have no reason for wishing this letter not to be torn up. ¹⁰

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¹ Mescinius Rufus had been quaestor in Cilicia during Cicero's government (see p. 167), and was responsible, in part at least, for the accounts.

² Because the two copies, having been deposited in the provincial towns, could not be altered, and the copy in the treasury was bound to be a verbatim copy of them.

³ Apparently Cicero, having satisfied himself that the proportion of the 1,900 sestertia paid by Valerius was sufficient to save the treasury from loss, entered the balance on the debit side as "remitted" or "returned" on his authority as proconsul. We cannot tell what the debt was, perhaps for some contract, for which Volusius had bid too high, and for which Valerius (a banker) gave securities, and because he be-came thereby the purchaser or contractor (manceps) was liable to the state for the whole.

⁴ The two points Cicero answers are: (I) Rufus Complained of an item in the accounts, in which Valerius had been entered as a debtor to the state, and also as having discharged the debt, though he had not paid the full sum. This Cicero explains that he did on professional advice, as Valerius, not Volusius, was liable: he had remitted this balance, because the state did not lose anything. (2) Rufus complains that Cicero made no entry of a certain sum, as to which there was a dispute, having been deposited by him in a temple. Cicero says he might have done so, but that, after all, Rufus was protected by a number of formal receipts and other documents. We have heard of disputed money being put in a temple before (p. 131). Pompey and Sestius (Cicero's successor in Cilicia) took this money in virtue of a senatorial decree passed on the 7th of January, giving Pompey a large number of men and complete command of all public money (App. B.C. 2.34; Dio, 41, 3). It was thus that Caesar was justified in regarding what he found in the hands of Pompeian officers as public money (see Caes. B.C. 1.23). The senate having passed this vote, Rufus and Cicero gave their orders or cheque upon the temple to pay the money to Pompey

⁵ It appears that the senate had granted him an extension of time as to giving in his accounts, but that, having not taken advantage of that, decree, he can only do what the law dictates as to sending in corrections. But the reading and meaning of de logaeo is very uncertain.

⁶ The reading and meaning are alike uncertain. I suppose it to refer to the sum of money just mentioned, as to the entry of which in Cicero's accounts Rufus found some technical objection. Cicero says, "Well, you and your brother agreed as to the item: and in your office as quaestor you were responsible for the account of the amount actually got in, and were not bound to copy my entry in your own accounts."

⁷ Not yours also. The contubernales were young men serving with a magistrate as volunteers, for the sake of experience.

⁸ I. e., considering that I was saving all I Could for my triumph, and that I could ill afford to lose so much (about £800).

⁹ Aestimationem accipere, i.e., to take property in satisfaction of a debt, on a fixed valuation.

¹⁰ Cicero seems to mean that if Rufus thinks the letter against his interest, he is at liberty to destroy it, and so have a freer hand in dealing with his secretary Tullius.

CDLVI (F V, 21)

TO L. MESCINIUS RUFUS

ROME, APRIL ¹

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 [p. 70] 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. ² 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 [p. 71] 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 ³ ), 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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¹ Cicero's quaestor in Cilicia, of whom he elsewhere expresses no good opinion. See vol. ii., pp. 167, 178, 235.

² For Cicero's feelings as to his solitude in a crowd, see vol. i., pp. 49-50.

³ The other alternatives are discussed in the de Senectute.