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Date Due 
 
 TTr— ■ £-6^ 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 PA 6308.ESJ43 1887 
 
 Life and letters of Marcus Tullius Cicer 
 
 3 1924 026 480 347 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026480347 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 BEING 
 
 A NEW TRANSLATION OF THE LETTERS INCLUDED IN 
 MR. WATSON'S SELECTION 
 
 WITH HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL NOTES 
 
 BY Ti}E 
 
 •K jo"* " 
 REV. QT ETJEANS, M.A., 
 
 FELLOW OF HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD ; 
 
 AND RECTOR OF MOTTISTON -CUM-SHORWELL, ISLE OF WIGHT; 
 
 LATE ASSISTANT MASTER IN HAILEYBURY COLLEGE 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 3LonDon 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO, . « vi;/,' : 
 
 c 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 
 l88 7 f ; l tuu. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
o 
 
 
 UNSVERSJTYr 
 
 LI3RARV 
 
 First printed, Demy 8vol August 1SS0. 
 
 Reprinted and stereotyped by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh, Crown 8vo, 
 
 October 18S7. 
 
 ,,S 
 
 *V ..(.,. 
 
 V ),/•), u s '" 
 
 33 
 
TO 
 
 T. C. BARING, ESQ., M.A., 
 
 M.P. FOR THE CITY OF LONDON, 
 
 THE MUNIFICENT BENEFACTOR OF HERTFORD COLLEGE, 
 OXFORD : 
 
 WHOSE LIBERALITY 
 
 HAS GIVEN TO A COLLEGE OF ANCIENT NAME 
 
 THE PROSPECT OF 
 
 A USEFUL AND DISTINGUISHED FUTURE 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE attempted what I now know to be the difficult 
 task of steering a middle course between a critical 
 translation of Cicero's Letters for the scholar, and a 
 Life of Cicero, told mainly by himself, for the English 
 reader, and perhaps the long time which this work has 
 required has caused some inconsistency of method. 
 That a translation on entirely new lines was really 
 needed seems to me beyond a doubt. The wordy 
 paraphrase of the Letters ' Ad Familiares ' by Melmoth, 
 much resembling those that are given in Middleton's 
 once famous Life, the heavy but uncritical render- 
 ing of those to Atticus by Heberden, and the almost 
 unknown version of the latter by Guthrie, are the 
 only complete ones of either set in English ; while 
 the French rendering of the Letters to Atticus 
 by the Abbe" Mongault glides indeed with French 
 neatness round most of the difficulties, but never 
 even attempts to surmount one. And yet so frequent 
 are these difficulties, that even when following in the 
 track of so careful and scholarly an editor as Mr. 
 Watson, I have constantly been obliged to support my 
 own version with a minute critical discussion of the 
 text or its renderings, which to an English reader must, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I fear, be intolerably dull. Neither is there such a 
 Life of Cicero told by means of his Letters as I have 
 here contemplated. Dean Merivale's translation of 
 Abeken's ' Cicero in seinen Briefen ' was in its day a 
 most useful work, but in it the whole or any large part 
 of a letter is seldom given, and an English reader would 
 gain very little idea from it of the style of Cicero. My 
 object has rather been to make an accurate reflex of his 
 correspondence the principal part, connected together by 
 just so much of the intervening history as is necessary 
 to form an intelligible, continuous narrative of his life. 
 
 And to almost any reasoning and reasonable 
 narrative of Cicero's life I should attach the highest 
 value, irrespective of the conclusions it led to. There 
 is no other classical work to be compared to his Letters 
 for teaching that the Romans were real living men and 
 women, and not mere paper characters, or school- 
 masters' puppets. The time in which he lived, too, was 
 to us almost the central time of the world's history ; 
 and there were giants on the earth in those days. 
 Moreover, the often noticed parallel of Cicero's age with 
 oUr own, though strained by Mr. Froude beyond what 
 it will bear, 1 is yet at once plausible and penetrating, 
 and gives to the story of this age an interest and value 
 not resting entirely on the skill of the narrator. 
 
 But Cicero must be used only with caution and 
 knowledge as a historian. When Mr. Forsyth, 2 for 
 
 1 Mr. Froude, for example, p. 143, in his desire to be modern, calls 
 Caesar ' Pope of Rome ' because he was Pontifex Maximus I 
 
 2 Forsyth, pp. 496, 181 ; compare Beesly, Catiline, Clodius, and 
 Tiberius, p. 70. 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 example, describes the tortures of Trebonius, or states 
 that ' twenty thousand of the noblest youths in Rome 
 testified their attachment for him by changing their 
 dress,' because Cicero does so in a speech or a letter, he 
 very justly exposes himself to the sarcasms of Professor 
 Beesly. But though few would commit themselves so 
 far as this, it is much too confidently asserted that we 
 always have in the Letters a genuine record of Cicero's 
 feelings. We are told, for example, in a review of Mr. 
 Froude's book that ' the modern world is Cicero's 
 ' valet. Every trait of personal vanity, every passing 
 ' impulse of self-interest, every momentary vacillation of 
 ' purpose, is laid bare before us, to be studied with the 
 * same leisurely attention which we devote to Caesar's 
 ' narrative.' 3 Now this can never have applied to any 
 but the purely private letters written without thought 
 of publication. Which are these letters ? A broad 
 line must be drawn, to begin with, between most of the 
 letters to Atticus, and most of the letters to less inti- 
 mate friends. Many of the latter, like the long letter 
 to Lentulus (No. xxix.), are in no sense private docu- 
 ments any more than a speech or an election address. 
 Many again were written in order to be ' published ' 
 by circulation. See Letter viii. 8, where this pro- 
 ceeding is expressly excluded. And, thirdly, we know 
 from Cicero himself that he intended to revise and edit 
 a collection of his own letters, which was then in the 
 hands of Tiro (Ad Att. xvi. 5). Now even on the 
 doubtful theory that this did not include any of the 
 
 3 Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1879 ; compare Forsyth, p. 54. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 correspondence with Atticus, it seems to me in the 
 highest degree improbable that Cicero should not have 
 known that Atticus was preserving his letters for pub- 
 lication (Cornelius Nepos, Life of Atticus, 16). This 
 certainly does not make the letters one whit less valu- 
 able, probably indeed it makes them far more valuable, 
 but surely it greatly affects the light in which they 
 should be regarded. 
 
 And therefore I have endeavoured to connect these 
 letters together by a brief narrative involving as little 
 as possible of doubtful theory, or of any particular view 
 as to the character of Cicero or Caesar. It will no 
 doubt be obvious from this narrative that I hold the 
 downfall of the Roman Senate and the triumph of 
 Caesar to be an immense step forward in the history of 
 the world, but it has surely been shown already, that it 
 is quite possible for one who accepts this view to 
 respect the character and ability of Cicero, without 
 feeling it necessary to deny his errors, or to gloss over 
 all his graver lapses from his better standard. The 
 constant references given here to his most accessible 
 biographers — Forsyth and Abeken, as well as M'erivale 
 and Mommsen — will put any one who refers to them 
 in possession of various sides of each question. I have 
 also added references here and there to Long's Decline 
 of the Roman Republic, Trollope's Cicero, Froude's 
 Caesar, Boissier's ' CiceVon et ses Amis,' and various 
 articles in Dr. Smith's Dictionaries of Biography and 
 Geography. 
 
 Mr. Watson's selection has now so thoroughly 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 established itself that a choice of it in preference to any 
 other needs no justification, unless I was prepared to 
 translate — as perhaps I may hereafter do — the whole 
 collection of the Letters. I should myself have 
 admitted, had I been selecting, a somewhat larger 
 element from Cicero's private correspondence, such as 
 would make Letter liii., for example, seem less of 
 an excrescence than it does now, but for the political 
 history of the time it is as nearly complete as possible. 
 Of editions I have used principally, of course, Mr. 
 Watson's, to which I owe obligations on almost every 
 line of my work. The more I know his edition the 
 more I appreciate its thoroughness and skill in dis- 
 entangling the twisted threads of Roman political 
 history. Boot's Letters to Atticus (Amsterdam, 1875) 
 is also a very valuable piece of work. I have also 
 consulted, I believe, all the English editions, but few 
 of them are of more than schoolboy standard. Mr. 
 Pretor's edition of Book I. of the Letters to Atticus is a 
 marked exception. It coincides with this collection in 
 five letters only, but these are among the most difficult 
 of all. Of Professor Tyrrell's important edition of all 
 the Letters in chronological order, two volumes only, 
 down to the year 52 B.C., have as yet been published. 
 This work has been received with a general chorus of 
 praise which appears to me to be amply justified, and 
 it promises when completed to be one of the few monu- 
 mental works of English scholarship. 
 
 I must now ask for an unprejudiced consideration 
 of the two points — both of them admitted and practised 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 by scholars, but never hitherto carried out completely — 
 in which, to reproduce the form of the different letters, 
 I have deliberately varied from the conventional type 
 of translation of a classic. These are (i) the variation 
 of style adopted according to the writer or the general 
 tone of a letter ; (2) the rendering of all Greek phrases 
 by a foreign, not an English equivalent. In both 
 respects, I am happy to find myself in full agreement 
 with Professor Tyrrell. 
 
 The first ought to need no insisting upon, but for 
 a curious superstition, rather analogous to the way in 
 which some people would read the Bible, that ancient 
 writers were always standing on their dignity. But any 
 one who is in the least alive to the nuances of the Latin 
 language, will see that Cicero, Caelius, Metellus, and 
 the rest of the correspondents differ from each other 
 just as a number of English gentlemen might differ. 
 And further, one of the great merits of Cicero is his 
 extreme flexibility., A letter of his to Paetus is no 
 more like a letter, to Lentulus than a letter of Thackeray 
 is like a letter of Addison ; and to translate all alike 
 into well-meant Addisonian English is entirely to 
 destroy this merit. No letter-writer who was capable 
 of the severer style ever stood less upon his dignity, 
 when he knew his correspondent well. He makes 
 puns of appalling badness, and derives the usual 
 pleasure of bad punsters from them ; he has not the 
 smallest horror of ' slang ' Latin, or very Roman Greek ; 
 he will even repeat jokes at which the cautious Atticus 
 might well be excused for lifting his eyebrows (ix. 5). 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 And therefore, in order to give any reproduction of 
 the original, a translation of Cicero's letters, above all 
 other works, must aim at flexibility. 
 
 The second variation from the conventional type 
 that I have made is based on the same principle. It 
 is to translate all quotations by quotations, and all 
 foreign phrases by foreign phrases. It is really quite 
 astonishing at this time of day to find any critics left 
 who think that to introduce a quotation from Vergil 
 or Horace in a translation of Cicero is an ' anachronism.' 
 What do they suppose that English is ? Macaulay's 
 schoolboy would hardly need the explanation that all 
 translation of an ancient classic must be an anachronism. 
 The place which Homeric phrases occupied with Cicero 
 is taken by Latin poetical phrases with us, and these 
 are therefore their proper rendering ; and it is really 
 surprising, on grappling closely with this question, to 
 find how many of the Homeric phrases are reproduced 
 in Latin almost word for word. 
 
 The other application of this principle, the render- 
 ing of all foreign phrases by foreign phrases, is a little 
 less obvious, but quite as sound. The .meaning of any 
 Greek phrase can be given by an English translator 
 generally as well in English as in French, and nearly 
 always more easily. But this is simply shirking the 
 trouble, if a translator adopts the second, essential 
 canon, that he is to reproduce his author's form as well 
 as his meaning. Hence it is gravely to be regretted 
 that even such a scholar as Professor Nettleship 4 should 
 4 Academy, gth October 1880, review of the first edition of this work. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 make the misleading criticism, that the use of French 
 phrases in translating Cicero sometimes suggests the 
 style of a ' modern novelist.' Of course it does, and 
 ought to do ; where Cicero deliberately writes, as he 
 often does, in the style, say of Ouida, we have no 
 business to translate him into the style of Addison. 
 
 The whole subject of the use of Greek in Latin 
 writers deserves close examination. I know of no 
 writer but Professor Tyrrell who has as yet given this 
 at all ; and he has come to exactly the same conclusion 
 that I did independently. (See his Introduction, i. 
 66.) To put it down merely as a fashion of the 
 day — though even this would have to be reckoned with 
 in translation — is entirely refuted by the facts. For 
 example, of the 200 times that Greek occurs in this 
 selection, no less than 190 occur in the letters to 
 Atticus. This enormous disproportion plainly shows, 
 I think, that the abundant use was not a general fashion, 
 but was a kind of plaisanterie between the two friends. 
 Atticus was literally doctus sermones utriusque linguae, 
 and probably often wrote wholly in Greek ; Cicero 
 was evidently rather proud of his Greek (though it was 
 far from perfect), much as a travelled Englishman may 
 be proud of his easy, if incorrect, French. Apart from 
 this habit, which applies to the majority of cases, the 
 reasons for the use of Greek on each occasion vary. 
 They may, I think, be classified as follows : — 
 
 1. By far the largest class is where a Greek 
 word was naturalised to supply a want in Latin, just 
 as we often use French : e.g. vir6fj,v7]fia, a re'sume' ; 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 oBov irdpepyov, en passant ; (rvyyv<Ti<; t»)? iro'K.ireia';, a 
 coup d'etat. Some of these Professor Tyrrell prefers to 
 render by slang phrases, such as •KoXirevp.a, ' platform,' 
 apopcpov, ' bad form.' I think, however, without dis- 
 puting his view, that the use of a foreign word is safer. 
 
 2. Cicero almost always uses Greek for technical 
 terms, especially medical (see Letter lxxv., note i). 
 For this, Latin would often be the best equivalent. 
 Similarly he uses it of logical terms (Letter vii. 4). 
 
 3. In a few cases {e.g. Letter cxvii. § 8) Cicero 
 seems to be merely quoting the words used by Atticus, 
 who wrote as freely in Greek as in Latin. 
 
 This second and stereotyped edition I have revised 
 throughout with all possible care, and have added con- 
 siderably to the notes and references. I must here 
 express my thanks to the numerous and mostly able 
 reviewers of the first edition, who gave the book as 
 a whole a very kindly and discriminating welcome. 
 I have in all cases considered, and, as far as I found 
 myself on reflection able to do, have adopted all serious 
 suggestions. 
 
 I must also repeat my thanks to many friends foi 
 kind help in a very laborious task. The carrying out 
 in full of the principle I have maintained above — to 
 render all foreign phrases by foreign phrases — would 
 have been impossible without the assistance of two 
 accomplished French scholars, former colleagues of 
 mine at Haileybury — A. Messervy, Esq., Rector of 
 the Royal College at Mauritius, and J. D. Whyte, Esq., 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 of Haileybury College. I owe the first suggestion of 
 many renderings of disputed passages to the profound 
 and accurate scholarship of my former college tutor, 
 A. T. Barton, Esq., of Pembroke College. I must also 
 thank Mr. Watson, the Principal of Brasenose College, 
 for the help he has always readily given to a work 
 which is subsidiary, and not, I hope, unhelpful to his 
 own. And finally, I must thank my old pupil, A. C. 
 Clark, Esq., Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford ; the 
 Rev. W. D. Fenning, of Haileybury College, and G. A. 
 Macmillan, Esq., for many useful notes on various 
 parts of the book. 
 
 The edition of Mommsen referred to is the English 
 translation by Professor Dickson (the paging is the same 
 in both editions, but the fourth volume is not now 
 divided into two) ; of Merivale, the Library Edition in 
 eight volumes, 1865 ; of Forsyth, the third edition, 
 1869 (still very inaccurate); of Froude's Caesar, the 
 Popular Edition, the chapters of which, but not the 
 paging, are the same as in the larger. 
 
 G. E. J. 
 
 Shorwell Vicarage, I. W. 
 September 1887. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Order of the Letters in comparison with other Editions xix 
 
 Tabular Life of Cicero ....... xxiii 
 
 PART I. 
 THE CONSULSHIP OF CICERO AND ITS RESULTS. 
 
 Letters i.-xix. (65-58 B.C.) . . 1 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE. 
 
 Letters xx.-xlv. (57-50 B.C.) ... • • 75 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THE CIVIL WAR. 
 
 Letters xlyi.-lxxviii. (49-48 B.C.) ... • 173 
 
 T 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 THE REIGN OF CAESAR. 
 
 Letters lxxix.-civ. (48-45 B.C.) ..... 249 
 
 \ PART V. 
 
 * THE CLOSE OF CICERO'S LIFE. 
 
 Letters cv.-cxlviii. (44-43 B.C.) . . . . 313 
 
 Index of Matters referred to in the Notes . . 405 
 
 Index of Proper Names . . . . . .411 
 
 b 
 
ERRATA 
 
 P. 127, note 5, for xxxviii. read xxviii. 
 P. 190, note 6, for 82 B.C. read 8 j B.C. 
 P. 279, note 2, for 52 B.C. read 53 B.C. 
 
ORDER OF THE LETTERS 
 IN COMPARISON WITH OTHER EDITIONS. 
 
 Selection. 
 
 Ordinary Numbering. 
 
 Chronological Order 
 
 
 
 Schiitz. 
 
 Tyrrell. 
 
 i 
 
 . —Ad Att. I. 1 . 
 
 IO 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 . _Ad Att. I. 2 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 3' • 
 
 . ^AdFam. V. f ~"V\ . 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 4 ■ 
 
 Ad Fam. V.I -. ' . 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 y . 
 
 Ad Fam. V. 2 . 
 
 14 
 
 IS 
 
 ^6 . 
 
 Ad Att. I. 13 . 
 
 18 
 
 19 
 
 7 • 
 
 Ad Att. I. 14 . 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 8 . 
 
 . -Ad Att. I. 16 . 
 
 21 
 
 22 
 
 9 ■ 
 
 . Ad Att. II. i . 
 
 26 
 
 27 
 
 >/ IO 
 
 . Ad Att. It 16 . 
 
 42 
 
 43 
 
 A' 1 1 . 
 
 . Ad Att. II. 18 . 
 
 44 
 
 45 
 
 12 
 
 —Ad Att. II. 19 . 
 
 45 
 
 46 
 
 <^i3 
 
 Ad Att. II. 24 . 
 
 So 
 
 Si 
 
 14 . 
 
 Ad Att. II. 25 . 
 
 Si 
 
 52 
 
 IS 
 
 . Ad Q. F. I. 2 ; 
 
 52 
 
 53 
 
 16 
 
 . Ad Att.: Ilf Y5 . 
 
 70 
 
 73 
 
 -»»7 
 
 . _^AdFam. XIV. 2 
 
 76 
 
 79 
 
 18 
 
 Ad Fam. XIV. "1 
 
 79 
 
 82 
 
 19 
 
 Ad Att. III. '23 
 
 80 
 
 83 
 
 1^20 
 
 . ^ Ad Att. IV. 1 . 
 
 87 
 
 90 
 
 21 
 
 Ad Fam. I. r* . 
 
 92 
 
 9'5 
 
 22 
 
 Ad Fam. I. 2 . 
 
 93 
 
 96 
 
 23' . 
 
 AdQ. F. II. 3 — 
 
 99 
 
 102 
 
 2 4 . 
 
 Ad Q. F. II. 4 . 
 
 102 
 
 i°5 
 
 ^25 . 
 
 . Ad Att. IV." 5 . 
 
 106 
 
 108 
 
 26 . 
 
 Ad Fam. I. 7 . 
 
 "3 
 
 114 
 
 .27 . 
 
 .^ Ad Fam, Vlt 5 
 
 133 
 
 134 
 
 28 
 
 Ad Att.' IV." 1 5 . 
 
 142 
 
 I43 1 
 
 ^29 . 
 
 Ad Fam. I. 9 . 
 
 148 
 
 153 
 
 3° ■ 
 
 Ad Fam. II. 6 . 
 
 11M he iAi ' see Prof.' Tyrrell's Int 
 
 178 
 rod. vol, ii. 
 
 177 
 
 p. xvi. 
 
ORDER OF THE LETTERS. 
 
 This Selection. 
 
 Ordinary Numbering. Chronological Order. 
 
 
 
 Schiitz. 
 
 3i • 
 
 Ad Att. V. 11 . 
 
 198 
 
 32 ■ 
 
 Ad Att. V. 16 . 
 
 208 
 
 "33 • 
 
 Ad Fam. VIII. 4 
 
 206 
 
 *34 • 
 
 Ad Fam. VIII. 8 
 
 223 
 
 "35 • 
 
 Ad Fam. VIII. 6 
 
 242 
 
 36 • 
 
 Ad Att. V. 21 
 
 250 
 
 '37 • 
 
 Ad Fam. II. 13 . 
 
 257 
 
 38 • 
 
 Ad Att. VI. 2 . 
 
 256 
 
 39 • 
 
 .—Ad Fam. -XV. 5 . 
 
 266 
 
 40 . 
 
 ^_ Ad Fam. XV. 6 . 
 
 278 
 
 "41 • 
 
 Ad Fam. VIII. 14 
 
 280 
 
 42 . 
 
 Ad Att. VI. 6 . 
 
 276 
 
 43 • 
 
 Ad Fam. XIV. S . 
 
 283 
 
 -44 • 
 
 Ad Att. VIL 7 . 
 
 298 
 
 "45 • 
 
 Ad Att. VII. 9 
 
 300 
 
 ■-46 
 
 Ad Att. VII. 10 . 
 
 3°3 
 
 -47 • 
 
 Ad Att. VII. 1 1 . 
 
 304 
 
 48 . 
 
 Ad Att. VII. 13 . 
 
 307 
 
 49 • 
 
 Ad Att. VIII. 1 1. A 
 
 ' 334 
 
 5° 
 
 Ad Att. VIII. 11 B 
 
 ^34 
 
 ^51 • 
 
 Ad Att. VIII. ' 12 D 
 
 336 
 
 52 . 
 
 Ad Fam. XVI. 12 
 
 310 
 
 53 • 
 
 Ad Fam. XVI. 15 
 
 664 
 
 54 • 
 
 «» Ad Att. Vll't. 3 
 
 326 
 
 55 • 
 
 Ad Att. VIII. 9 . 
 
 332 
 
 56 • 
 
 Ad Att. VIII. 11. 
 
 334 
 
 57 • 
 
 Ad Att. VIII. 13. 
 
 337 
 
 58 . 
 
 Ad Att. VIII. 15 A 
 
 339 
 
 59 • 
 
 Ad Att. VIII. 16. 
 
 340 
 
 60 . 
 
 Ad Att. IX. 6 A . 
 
 347 
 
 61 . 
 ^2 . 
 
 Ad Att. IX. 7 . 
 Ad Att. IX. 9 . 
 
 348 
 35° 
 
 63 • ■ 
 
 Ad Att.'. IX. 10 . 
 
 35i 
 
 64 . 
 
 -vAd Att. IX. 11 A 
 
 352 
 
 65 • 
 
 Ad Att. IX. 12 . 
 
 353 
 
 66 . 
 
 Ad Att. IX. 16 . 
 
 357 
 
 ^67 . 
 
 Ad Att. IX. 18 . 
 
 359 
 
 68 . 
 
 Ad Att. X. 1 
 
 361 
 
 69 .,-- 
 
 Ad Fam. VIII. 16 
 
 . 367 
 
 70 '. 
 
 Ad Fairi. II.' 16 . 
 
 372 
 
ORDER OF THE LETTERS. 
 
 xxi 
 
 This Selection. Ordinary Numbering. 
 
 Chronological Order. 
 
 
 
 Schiltz. 
 
 ^i • 
 
 . Ad Att. X. 8 
 
 374 
 
 72 . 
 
 Ad Att. X. 8 A . 
 
 374 
 
 73 
 
 . Ad Att. X. 8 B . 
 
 374 
 
 74 ■ 
 
 . Ad Att. X. 16 . 
 
 382 
 
 75 • 
 
 Ad Fam. XIV. 7 . 
 
 385 
 
 76 . 
 
 . Ad Fam. VIH,' 1 j 
 
 388 
 
 77 
 
 Ad Fam. IX. 9 
 
 389 
 
 78 . 
 
 Ad Att. XI. 4- r 
 
 392 
 
 79 ■ 
 
 . Ad .Att., XI. 5 
 
 396 
 
 80 . 
 
 . Ad Att. XI. 6 
 
 398 
 
 81 . 
 
 . Ad .Att. XI. 9 
 
 404 
 
 82 . 
 
 . Ad Att. XI. 12 
 
 407 
 
 83 
 
 . Ad. Fam. XV.' 15 
 
 424 
 
 84 
 
 . Ad Att. XII. 1 
 
 441 
 
 85 
 
 . Ad Att. XII, 2 
 
 442 
 
 86 
 
 . Ad. Fam. IX. 5 
 
 448 
 
 87 
 
 Ad Fam. IX. 18 
 
 451 
 
 88 
 
 _^Ad Fam. VII. 3 
 
 45 2 
 
 89 
 
 Ad Fam. IX. 17 
 
 455 
 
 90 
 
 Ad Fam. JV. 4 
 
 469 
 
 i-"t)i 
 
 Ad Fam. VI. 6 
 
 470 
 
 92 
 
 . Ad Fam. VI. 7 
 
 478 
 
 93 
 
 . Ad Fam. XIII. 1 
 
 1 . 481 
 
 94 
 
 Ad Fam. IV. 14 
 
 r 516 
 
 95 
 
 Ad Fam. IV. 1 1 
 
 ■v. ■ 4 8 ° 
 
 96 
 
 Ad Att. XII, 21 
 
 . . 538 
 
 97 
 
 . Ad Fam. XIII. 1 
 
 6 • 555 
 
 98 
 
 .^ Ad Fam. IV- 5 
 
 557 
 
 99 
 
 . Ad Fam. IV. 6 "" 
 
 -r . 565 
 
 100 
 
 Ad Fam. VI. 2 
 
 559 
 
 IOI 
 
 Ad Fam.. IV. 12 
 
 . . 566 
 
 102 
 
 . Ad Fam. XIII. 4 
 
 641 
 
 103 
 
 Ad Fam. XII. 1! 
 
 I ■ 645 
 
 ^104 
 
 Ad Att. XIII. 55 
 
 T 650 
 
 105 
 
 . Ad Att. XJIV. 1 
 
 679 
 
 106 
 
 . Ad Att. XIV. 2 
 
 680 
 
 ■^107 
 
 Ad Fam.. XI. 1 
 
 685 
 
 ~io8 
 
 . Ad Att. XIV. ii 
 
 691 
 
 109 
 
 . Ad Att. XIV. 13 
 
 A 692 
 
ORDER OF THE LETTERS. 
 
 This Selection. 
 
 Ordinary Numbering. Chronological Order. 
 
 no 
 
 Ad Att. XIV. 13 B 
 
 Sohiitz. y 
 692 / 
 
 in 
 
 — Ad Fam. IX. 14 . 
 
 699 
 
 V-^12 
 
 Ad Att. XIV. 21 . 
 
 704" 
 
 "3 • 
 
 Ad Fam. XI. 27 . 
 
 715 
 
 114 . 
 
 Ad Fam. XI. 28 . 
 
 716 
 
 11S ■ 
 
 Ad Fam. XII. 1 . 
 
 711 
 
 116 . 
 
 Ad Fam. XI. 3 . 
 
 757 
 
 ^17 
 
 Ad Att. XVI. 7 . 
 
 759 
 
 118 
 
 Ad Fam. XII. 2 . 
 
 762 
 
 119 . 
 
 Ad Fam. XII. 23 
 
 764 
 761 
 
 120 
 
 Ad Fam. XI. 4 . 
 
 121 
 
 Ad Att. XVI-. 8 . 
 
 767 
 
 "5*22 
 
 Ad Att. XVI. 11 . 
 
 769 
 
 ^23 . 
 
 Ad Fam. XI. 5 . 
 
 776 
 
 ^124 . 
 
 Ad Earn. XII. 22 
 Ad Fam. XI. 8 . 
 
 779 
 
 125 . 
 
 790 
 
 126 
 
 Ad Fam. xti. 4 . 
 
 792 
 
 127 
 
 Ad Fam. X,' 28 . 
 
 793 
 
 128 . 
 
 Ad Fam. XII. 5 . 
 
 794 
 
 129 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 31 . 
 
 798 
 
 130 . 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 6 . 
 
 799 
 
 131 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 27 
 
 800 
 
 132 • 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 8 . 
 
 801 
 
 133 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 10 . 
 
 804 
 
 134 • 
 
 Ad Fam. XII. 6 . 
 
 808 
 
 "*35 • 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 30 . 
 
 809 
 
 "136 • 
 
 Ad Fam. XI. 9 . 
 
 811 
 
 137 • 
 
 Ad Fam. XI. 10 . 
 
 813 
 
 138 . 
 
 Ad FairA XII. 12 
 
 816 
 
 139 ■ 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 11 . 
 
 817 
 
 140 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 15 . 
 
 818 
 
 141 . 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 34 . 
 
 825 
 
 142 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 13 . 
 
 830 
 
 143 • 
 
 Ad Fam. XI. 23 . 
 
 838 
 
 144 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 35 . 
 
 840 
 
 "45 
 
 Ad Fam. XI. 13 (a) 
 
 841 
 
 146 
 
 Ad Fam. X. 23 . 
 
 847 
 
 147 
 
 Ad Fam. XII. 10 
 
 853 
 
 148 . 
 
 _ Ad Fam. X. 24 . 
 
 854 
 
TABULAR LIFE OF CICERO 
 
 AS REFERRED TO IN THESE LETTERS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cicero born .... 3 
 
 Cicero's first speech, on behalf of Publius 
 
 Quinctius or Sextus Roscius . . 3 
 
 Birth of Tullia . . ... 79 
 
 Cicero made quaestor of Lilybaeum 3 
 
 Prosecution of Verres ... .3 
 
 Date of the earliest extant letter 4 
 
 Birth of his son Marcus 7 
 
 Cicero's Consulship . . .8 
 
 Catiline's conspirators strangled in prison 8, in, 222 
 Speech against Metellus . . . . 10 
 Translation of the ' Diosemeia ' of Aratus . 39 
 
 The first Triumvirate ..... 40 
 Cicero goes into exile at Dyrrachium . 62 
 
 He returns from exile ..... 77-80 
 Defence of Fonteius . . . . .103 
 The 'De Oratore' and poem 'De temporibus 
 
 meis ' ... ... 119 
 
 Defeat and death of Crassus . . . 125 
 
 Murder of Clodius, and defence of Milo . 122 
 
 Cicero made Governor of Cilicia . . . 125 
 The ' De re publica ' .... 155, 195 
 
 Outbreak of the Civil War . . 175 
 
 Cicero sails to join Pompeius . . .241 
 
 
 B.C. 
 
 Jan. 3, 
 
 106. 
 
 8 
 
 I or 80. 
 
 Aug. 5, 
 
 79 or 78. 
 
 
 76. 
 
 
 70. 
 
 
 68. 
 
 
 6 S . 
 
 
 63- 
 
 Dec. 5, 
 
 63- 
 
 
 62. 
 
 
 60. 
 
 
 59- 
 
 March, _ 
 
 58. 
 
 Aug. 4, 
 
 57- 
 
 
 54- 
 
 
 54- 
 
 
 S3- 
 
 
 52. 
 
 
 5i- 
 
 
 So. 
 
 Jan., 
 
 49- 
 
 June 7, 
 
 49. 
 
TABULAR LIFE OF CICERO. 
 
 
 B.C. 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Aug. 9, 
 
 48. 
 
 Battle of Pharsalus 
 
 
 251 
 
 Sept. 28, 
 
 48. 
 
 Murder of Pompeius 
 
 
 251 
 
 Aug. 3, 
 
 47- 
 
 Battle, of Zela ... 
 
 
 260 
 
 April 4, 
 
 46. 
 
 Battle of Thapsus 
 
 
 264 
 
 
 46. 
 
 Divorce from Terentia, and marriage 
 Publilia 
 
 with 
 
 287 
 
 Feb., 
 
 45- 
 
 Death of Tullia 
 
 291.. 
 
 . 295 
 
 March 17, 
 
 45- 
 
 Battle of Munda . 
 
 
 293 
 
 
 45- 
 
 Defence of King Deiotarus . 
 
 317, 
 
 , 321 
 
 
 45- 
 
 The ' Academica,' ' De Finibus,' and ' Tusculan 
 
 
 
 
 Disputations' . . . . 
 
 
 332 
 
 March 15, 
 
 44. 
 
 Murder of Caesar 
 
 
 315 
 
 Sept. 1, 
 
 44. 
 
 The First Philippic 
 
 
 345 
 
 October, 
 
 44. 
 
 The Second Philippic published . 
 
 345.' 
 
 1 352 
 
 
 44. 
 
 The 'Topica,' 'De Officiis,' and 'De Gloria 
 
 ' 352: 
 
 . 355 
 
 April 15, 
 
 43- 
 
 Battle of Forum Gallorum . 
 
 
 377 
 
 April 27, 
 
 43- 
 
 Battle of Mutina 
 
 
 379 
 
 July 28, 
 
 43- 
 
 Last of the extant letters (No. cxlviii.) . 
 
 
 400 
 
 October, 
 
 43- 
 
 The Second Triumvirate 
 
 
 400 
 
 Dec. 7, 
 
 43- 
 
 Murder of Cicero 
 
 400 
 
 . 4°3 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE CONSULSHIP OF CICERO AND 
 ITS RESULTS. 
 
"V 
 
THE LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 PART I. 
 I. (AD ATT. I. i.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT ATHENS. 
 
 July, 689 A.V.C. (65 B.C.) X, 
 
 Marcus Tullius Cicero was the son of a Roman eques — practically, qf a 
 small country gentleman- — at whose estate near Arpinum, in the "Volscian hills 
 (the birthplace also of the great Marius), he was born Jan. 3, 106 B.C. He 
 studied philosophy and rhetoric under various teachers, one of whom, Apol- 
 lonius Molon of Rhodes, is mentioned in Letter ix. His earliest extant speech 
 is that on behalf of Sextius Roscius of Ameria, in Bo B.C. (unless the defence of 
 Publius Quinctius is rightly assigned to the preceding year ; see Trollope's 
 Cicero, i. p. 90) ; but his rise into importance may be said to have begun 
 with his great impeachment of Gaius Verres, the infamous pro-praetor of 
 Sicily, ten years later. With Sicily Cicero had already some connection ; for 
 in 76 B.C. he was elected one of the quaestors, and obtained by lot the 
 department of Lilybaeum, under his friend Sextus Peducaeus, who is frequently 
 mentioned in these letters, at this time pro-praetor of Sicily. In 70 B. c Cicero 
 then, with the exception of Hortensius, the leader of the bar, was elected 
 aedile, and in '67 praetor, at the time when Pompeius was at the height of his 
 power, and when Caesar had not yet come to the front as the head of the 
 popular party. On the expiration of this office he refused to leave Rome for 
 a pro-praetorship, that he might stand for the consulship at the earliest oppor- 
 tunity, viz. for 63 B.C. He was the favoured candidate of the moderate sec- 
 tion of the optimates, i.e. the aristocratic or conservative party, whose watch- 
 word now was the union of the Senate with the Equites, or middle class. 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 The present letter is almost entirely taken up with Cicero's prospects of 
 election. It is the earliest we possess, except a few unimportant ones belong- 
 ing to the three previous years. Titus Pomponius Atticus, to whom it (like 
 nearly half of the extant letters) is addressed, was a fellow-student and the 
 lifelong friend of Cicero. He was a man of thoroughly cultivated tastes, and 
 apparently half a Greek in habits and sympathies, which is the main reason for 
 the exceptional frequency of Greek words in the letters addressed to him. He 
 was also one of the wealthiest men in Rome, and possessed numerous estates 
 abroad, one of which — that near Buthrotum, in Epirus, now Albania — is 
 "frequently mentioned. On the character of Atticus see Watson, Appendix 
 III ; Tyrrell, i. p. 44 ; Mommsen, iv. p. 510 ; Boissier, Ciceron et ses 
 amis. 
 
 On the early life of Cicero see Forsyth, ch. 1-6 ; Abeken, pp. 1-42 ; 
 Trollope's Cicero, ch. 2-7 ; and on the state of parties at Rome at the period 
 of this, letter, Mommsen, iv. 155-168 ; Merivale, i. ch. 2 and 3 ; Long, iii. 
 ch. 11 ; Beesly, Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius, pp. 1-19. 
 
 1 So far as one can guess at present what will happen, the 
 prospects of my canvass, in which I know you take the * 
 deepest interest, stand much as follows. Only Galba is per- 
 sonally asking for votes : and he gets an old-fashioned no A 
 without any varnish or polite evasions. What people say^ 
 is that this over-eagerness of his in beginning to canvass has 
 been far from unfavourable to my interest; because when they 
 refuse him a vote it is generally on the ground that I have a 
 .right to it. So I have hopes of this doing me considerable 
 service when the news spreads that my friends are discovered 
 to be very numerous. I have thought of beginning canvass- 
 ing in the Campus Martius at the election of tribunes, that 
 is July 17, the very day on which Cincius tells me your 
 messenger leaves with this letter. My competitors, at least 
 those who seem to be known for certain, are Galba, Antonius, 
 and Cornificius. At this point, I take it, you have laughed 
 or groaned. Well, then, to make you smite the tragic brow, 
 there are people who think Caesonius will be one too ! We 
 do not imagine that Aquilius will. He stoutly refuses, and 
 has vowed that his bad health and his unquestioned sovereignty 
 at the Bar are reasons against it. Catilina will be certain to 
 stand if the judges decide that day is night 1 You can hardly 
 expect me to be writing about that Aulus junior 2 or Palicanus. 
 
 1 In other words, that black is white, and that Catilina is innocent. 
 
 2 Prof. Tyrrell has, I think, satisfactorily vindicated the MS. reading 
 Aufidio, which would refer to Titus Aufidius, formerly praetor of Asia. 
 Aulifilio is a mere correction of Orelli. 
 
**• !• TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. I. i.) 
 
 As to the candidates for this year, Caesar 8 is thought to be 2 
 safe. The struggle is supposed to lie between Thermus and 
 Silanus, and they are so poorly off for friends, as well as for 
 reputation, that I fancy it would not be infaisabie to run 
 Curius against^them. Nobody but myself however takes this 
 view. Appare(it# it is best for my prospects that .Thermus 
 should be returned with Caesar. No one of the present candi- 
 dates, if he should have to stand over to my year, would be likely 
 to be a stronger competitor, because he is the commissioner 
 for the Flaminian Road ; and as that will be finished by then, 
 I should be very glad to see his name returned as consul 
 now with Caesar. 4 This is the general idea which up to the 
 present I have formed of those who are standing. For my own 
 part, I intend to use the greatest diligence in discharging the 
 whole duty of candidates, and as Gaul 6 seems to carry great 
 weight in the voting, when our law-courts have begun to 
 cool down after term-time I mean to run down next September 
 to Piso 6 on a commission, so as to be back in January. When 
 I have thoroughly satisfied myself as to the intentions of our 
 aristocracy I will let you know. Everything else must, I 
 think, run smoothly at least if these civilians 7 are my only 
 competitors. Mind, as you are nearer to them, you must 
 guarantee to secure me all that set of Po'mpeius, our good 
 friend. Tell him I shall not be at all annoyed with him if he 
 should fail to appear at my election. 
 
 3 Lucius Caesax ; see Letter ii. 
 
 4 The Medicean MS. reading, which is retained by Mr. Watson, is unin- 
 telligible. Mr. Pretor reads ' quae turn erit atsoluta. Sane facile et libenter 
 eum cum Caesare consulem factum viderim.' Manutius suggests addiderim. 
 Mr. Tyrrell proposes ' Tkermum Caesari consulem accuderim ' = ' I would 
 wish to solder together Thermus and Caesar in the consulship,' and believes it 
 to be a play on thermus, a lupine, and cicer, a vetch. Fortunately the 
 general sense of the passage is clear. 
 
 5 Only Cispadane Gaul is here meant. The many uses of Gallia need 
 great care in distinction by the context. On the extension of the franchise to 
 Transpadane Gaul, see Introd. to Letter xxxi. 
 
 6 Gaius Calpurnius Piso, consul 67 B.C., and now Governor of Gallia 
 Narbonensis, i.e. the south of France. The legatio litera was a sinecure, 
 giving the privileges of an ambassador (see xi. 3). It was a gross abuse of 
 public funds, afterwards denounced by Cicero, de Leg. iii. 18. 
 
 7 This may mean, ' those who are now in town;' but more probably = ' a 
 military candidate would be a stronger rival.' Hence the remark about 
 Pompeius, whom he does not want to come to town with all his officers. 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 3 Well, so much for that matter, and how we stand. But 
 there is something for which I am exceedingly anxious to be 
 sure of your forgiveness. Your uncle Caecilius, who has been 
 cheated out of a considerable sum of money through Publius 
 Varius, has commenced legal proceedings against his brother 8 
 Aulus Caninius Satyrus for the recovery of the property, which 
 he is accused of having purchased under fraudulent pretences. 
 The other creditors also are parties to the action, including 
 [Lucius] Lucullus, Publius Scipio, and one Pontius Aquila, who 
 will, they suppose, represent the creditors if the property comes 
 to the hammer. But to be discussing who is to represent them 
 is absurd. Hear my case now. Caecilius has asked me to 
 appear for him against Satyrus. Now hardly a day passes 
 without this Satyrus coming to my house. It is Domitius 
 whom he honours with the first place, myself with the second 
 in his attentions ; and he was exceedingly useful both to my 
 
 4 brother and to me at our elections. In fact, I am much 
 troubled from my friendship on one hand for Satyrus, and 
 on the other for Domitius, on whom above any one else my 
 chance of being elected mainly rests. This I have explained 
 to Caecilius, at the same time assuring him that if the matter 
 lay simply between him and Satyrus I would certainly oblige 
 him; but as it is 1 , this being a. case which concerns all the 
 creditors (particularly as they are men of position, well able 
 to protect the interests of their own body without the help 
 of any one specially retained for Caecilius), it was not un- 
 reasonable to expect him to make some allowance too for 
 my obligations and my present position. I thought he took 
 this more rudely than one would like, or than is usual in good 
 society, and afterwards entirely broke off our acquaintance- 
 which had sprung up in the last few days. I beg you will 
 not be angry with me for this, and believe that good feeling 
 made it impossible for me to come forward to blast the whole 
 career of a friend in deep distress, when that friend had strained 
 
 8 Frater, like ade\<p&s (compare the controversy about ' James the Lord's 
 brother'), may mean cousin, but hardly where there is nothing to suggest it. 
 He may have been a half-brother, or either of them may very well have been 
 adopted into another family, adoption being very common at Rome. Satrius 
 is a more probable form of the name than Satyrus. 
 
ep. H- TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. I. 2.) 7 
 
 every nerve to show his regard and zeal for myself. If, how- 
 ever, you are inclined to be hard on me, you will think it was 
 my election stood in the way. Well, for my part, even grant- 
 ing it to be so, I think I might be forgiven : — 
 
 ' neque enim levia aut ludicra petuntur.' 8 
 
 In short, you see how I have to steer, and to make up my 
 mind not only never to throw away supporters, but to be 
 always adding to them. I hope I have convinced you : at 
 any rate I am really anxious to do so. 
 
 Your Hermathena 10 I am immensely delighted with, and 6 
 it is so beautifully placed, that all the rest of the gallery seems 
 to be little else than the cadre to it. — Yours ever. 
 
 II. (AD ATT. I. 2.) f 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 
 July, 689 A.v.c. (65 B.C.) 
 
 The election of consuls for 65 B.C. resulted in the return of Lucius Caesar, 
 uncle of Marcus Antonius, a man whose importance seems mainly due to his 
 family connections, and Gaius Marcius Figulus, a more decided member of 
 the senatorial or aristocratical party. On the day of election Cicero's son 
 Marcus, often spoken of in later letters, was born. 
 
 After the expressions used in the last letter we are astonished to fincLCkero 
 intendingjn defend Catilina on his trial ; though whether he actually did so 
 was uncertain even to historians of the next century (Watson, Introduction, 
 p. 7). Catilina was acquitted, it is said (but this is a matter of course), 
 through bribery. Compare on this damaging admission of Cicero's, Abeken, 
 39 ; Beesly, Catiline, 26 ; Long, iii. 199, 240 ; Forsyth, 89 ; Trollope, i. 256. 
 
 I must write to tell you that the day which has made 1 
 Lucius Iulius Caesar and Gaius Marcius Figulus consuls 1 has 
 
 9 Aen. xii. 764. Cicero's quotation is from Iliad xxii. 159, of which 
 Vergil's line is a paraphrase. In other words, ' the prize (of the consulship) is 
 a noble one.' 
 
 10 A two-faced statue of Hermes and Athena. Such figures seem to have 
 been fashionable at Rome at this time. The phrase, eitts AviBrjfw. ( = the 
 whole gallery seems to be dedicated to it), is a mere correction of the Med. 
 reading eliu anaOma, which Prof. Tyrrell insists should be ij\iov (iva/i/m, 
 the lighting up, or kindled orb, of the sun. Neither reading, I think, carries 
 conviction with it. 
 
 1 That this refers to the day of election, not of entry upon office, is shown 
 by the recorded fact that Catilina was tried in the consulship of Cotta and 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 brought me the good fortune of a little son, and that Terentia 
 is doing well. 
 
 Not a line from you all this long time ! I took pains 
 some time ago to write you a full account of my prospects. 
 At present I am debating about defending my rival Catilina. 
 We have the very bench we want, and the prosecutor is most 
 obliging. If he secures an acquittal I hope he will then be 
 more inclined to coalesce with me in my candidature, but if 
 2 that fails I shall politely acquiesce. It is essential for me that 
 you should come, and that before long, for there is a very 
 strong idea prevailing that some friends of yours in high 
 position will be jealous of my success. I see that you will be 
 invaluable for gaining me their support. So be at Rome, as 
 you intended, by next January. \ 
 
 ^ III. (AD FAM. V. 7.) 
 
 FROM CICERO IN ROME TO POMPEIUS AT HIS HEAD- 
 QUARTERS IN THE EAST. 
 
 Early in 692 A.v.c. (62 B.C.) 
 
 Yielding to Cicero's entreaties Atticus came to Rome, and in consequence 
 there is a gap in their correspondence of about three years, unfortunately in- 
 cluding the important one' of Cicero's consulship. For the year 63 B. c. Cicero 
 was elected consul at the head of the poll, Gaius Antonius Hybrida, 'an 
 indolent, insignificant man, who willingly lent himself as a tool to the demo- 
 crats ' (Mommsen), obtaining a few votes more than Catilina for the second 
 place. In October the Catilinarian conspiracy broke out : five of the principal 
 conspirators, but not including Catilina himself, were arrested, and on Dec. 5 
 were strangled by order of Cicero as consul, after a majority in the Senate 
 had voted for their execution. This proceeding is alluded to by Cicero very 
 frequently in the following letters. On the legality of the execution see Wat- 
 son, App. iv. 131 ; Mommsen, iv. 179 ; Merivale, i. 116 ; Letter x. note 
 5; Beesly, Catiline, 34; Long, iii. 337; Forsyth, 119; Trollope, i. 276; 
 and on the character of the Catilinarian conspiracy see the authorities referred 
 to, Watson, p. 10. 
 
 By the end of 63 B.C. Pompeius had completed the subjugation of the East 
 under the extraordinary powers conferred on him by the acts of Gabinius and 
 Manilius, and announced his successes in an official despatch of a somewhat 
 boastful character to the Senate. 
 
 Torquatus, 60 B.C. The term ' consul,' though Mr. Forsyth (p. 87) seems not 
 to know it, can be applied to a consul-elect. See e.g. Philippic, xiv. 3, 8. 
 
TO POMPEIUS. (AD FAM. V. 7.) 
 
 Allow me to express my best wishes for the continued 
 prosperity of yourself and your army. 1 
 
 Like every one else I -derived unspeakable pleasure from 1 
 your official despatch. You have now displayed before our 
 eyes as complete a prospect of peace, as I, merely from my 
 absolute confidence in your abilities, have always held out 
 to other people. I ought to mention however that your 
 quondam foes,' but present friends, 2 are amazingly taken aback 
 at your despatches, and seem quite dumbfoundered at having 
 their sanguine hopes thus dashed. As to your letter addressed 
 to myself, though it contained but scanty expression of your 
 regard for me, it was, I assure you, most welcome. Nothing 
 ordinarily gives me so much pleasure as a consciousness of 
 having fulfilled the duties of friendship; and even if some- 
 times they are not fully responded to, I am well content that 
 the balance of good offices should be on my side. At least, 
 I cannot doubt that if my thorough devotion to you has 
 failed to win your regard, the good of our coutitry will ever 
 draw and keep us close together. Still, not to conceal what 2 
 I felt was wanting in your letter, I will be frank with you, as 
 my own inclination and our friendship alike require. ' My 
 achievements have'been such that I did expect some recogni- 
 tion of them in your letter, both on public grounds and from 
 .our personal intimacy. This, I take it, was omitted by you be- 
 cause, you would say, there was the risk of wounding some one's 
 feelings. ^ But I assure you that my action for the preserva- 
 tion of our country has been met with a chorus of approval 
 and acknowledgment from the whole world j*"and when yqu 
 come, you will *find that I acted throughout with such discre* 
 tion as well as spirit, that you, being a second and far greater 
 Scipio, ought not to find it hard to admit me, like a second 
 Laelius, and not much his inferior, to be your chosen associate, 
 alike in our public aims and our personal friendship. 
 
 1 ' It seenisMo have been the Roman etiquette to use this deferential form 
 of address towards persons in a very high position, towards strangers, and 
 towards women. ' — Tyrrell. Notice the curt form of it used in the next letter. 
 
 2 Probably this refers to the democratic party as a whole, between whom 
 and their political opponents Pompeius all his life played a double game. 
 Caesar had certainly been making overtures on behalf of the popular party. 
 It may however refer to something of which we have altdgether lost the key. 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 IV. (AD FAM. V. i.) 
 
 FROM QUINTUS METELLUS CELER IN CISALPINE GAUL 
 TO CICERO AT ROME. 
 
 Early in 692 A.v.c. (62 B.C.) 
 
 It was usual for a consul to address the people from the Rostra on laying 
 down his office. But on Cicero's proposing to do so, one of the new tribunes, 
 Quintus Metellus Nepos, who, it should be noted, was the agent of Pompeius 
 (Mommsen, iv. 189), interposed his veto on the ground that he 'had put 
 Roman citizens to death without trial.' Cicero retorted with an oration en- 
 titled Metellina. This produced the following letter of haughty but ill- 
 expressed remonstrance from Quintus Metellus Celer, the brother of Nepos 
 (see Letter i. note 8), who was now acting -proconsul in Cisalpine Gaul. 
 Cicero's reply is a masterpiece of defence. Smith's Diet, Biog. ii. 1061 ; 
 Forsyth, 125 ; Trollope, i. 297 ; Tyrrell, Introd. 57. 
 
 I trust this will find you in health. 
 
 1 I had certainly supposed that mutual regard, as well as 
 our reconciliation, would have secured me from being attacked 
 and ridiculed in my absence, and my brother Metellus from 
 being persecuted by you in respect of his rights and property, 
 for a mere word. Even if he found but little protection 
 in the respect due to him, yet surely the exalted rank of our 
 family, or my own services to your order and^to the state, 
 might have proved an adequate defence. I see now that he 
 has been entrapped and I have been neglected by the very 
 
 2 men in whom such conduct was least becoming. The result 
 is that I, the governor of a province, the general of an army, 
 nay, actually engaged in the conduct of a war, am wearing the 
 garb of sorrow. But since you have thus deliberately acted 
 in defiance alike of all reason and of the courtesy of former 
 times, you must not be surprised if you have cause to rue it. 
 I used to hope that you were not so lightly attached to me 
 and mine ; still, for my part, neither the slight to our family 
 nor the injuries any one may inflict upon me shall ever 
 alienate me from the patriotic cause. 
 
EP. v. TO METELLUS CELER. (AD FAM. V. 2.) 
 
 V V. (AD FAM. V. 2.) 
 
 FROM CICERd AT ROME TO METELLUS CELER IN 
 
 y' CISALPINE GAUL. 
 I 
 
 A '.reply to the preceding letter. 
 Early in 692 A.v.c. (62 B.C.) 
 
 Allow me to express my good wishes for the prosperity of 
 yourself and your army. 
 
 Your letter to me says you had supposed that mutual 1 
 regard and our reconciliation would have secured you from 
 attack and ridicule on my part. Now what may be the mean- 
 ing of this I fail to see quite clearly. I suspect however 
 that some one may have informed you how I, when insisting 
 in the Senate that a considerable party still felt some bitterness 
 at my having been the instrument of saving the country, stated 
 that you had consented, at the request of some relations whom 
 you could not well refuse, to suppress the encomiums you had 
 intended to honour me with in the Senate. In saying this, 
 however, I added that you and I had shared the duty of 
 saving the constitution ; for while my part was to defend the 
 capital from intrigues at home and intestine treason, yours 
 was to guard Italy from open attack and secret conspiracy ; 
 but that this alliance of ours for so great and glorious, a 
 work had been strained by your relations, who, though I had 
 been the means ot procuring you a most important and dis- 1 
 tinguished charge, were afraid of allowing you to pay me (| 
 any portion of regard in return. As these words of mine 2 
 showed how much I had looked forward to what you would 
 say, and how entirely I was disappointed, my argument seemed 
 to excite a little amusement, and was followed by a certain 
 amount of laughter, not at you, but rather at my own dis- 
 appointment, and because I was acknowledging so naively and 
 openly that I had eagerly looked forward to being eulogised 
 by you. And surely what I said cannot but be considered 
 complimentary to you if even in the fullest splendour of my 
 renown and achievements I still longed to have some con- 
 firmation of this from your own lips. 
 
12 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakT i 
 
 3 And as to your reference to our ' mutual regard,' I know 
 not what you consider reciprocity in friendship. To me it 
 seems to mean that friendly feeling is as freely rendered, as it 
 is expected. In my own case, if I affirm that for your sake 
 I have allowed my claim to your province" to be passed over, 
 I shall perhaps seem to you to be trifling with words; for 
 self-interest really brought about this resolution, and every 
 day I reap therefrom additional fruit and satisfaction. What 
 I do affirm is this — that from the moment I had declined the 
 province in public, I began to cast about how I could best 
 throw it into your hands. As to the balloting between you 
 and the others I say nothing : I merely wish to suggest a 
 surmise that nothing whatever which my colleague did therein 
 was without my full cognisance. Look at what followed ; at 
 the promptness with which I convoked the Senate that very day 
 when -the balloting was over, and the ample terms I must have 
 used in your favour when you yourself told me that my speech 
 not only paid a high compliment to you, but was very disparaging 
 
 4 to your colleagues. Nay, the very decree of the Senate passed 
 that day is couched in such terms that as long as it remains 
 extant my services to you cannot possibly be ignored. Then, 
 again, I must beg you to recollect how after your departure I 
 spoke about you in the Senate, how I addressed public meet- 
 ings, and how I corresponded with you ; and when you have 
 taken all these things into account, then I must ask you 
 to judge for yourself whether you can fairly say that your 
 late demonstration of coming to Rome was meeting me in a 
 ' mutual ' spirit. 
 
 5 With reference to what you say about a ' reconciliation ' 
 between us, I do not understand why you should speak of 
 reconciliation where there has never been an interruption of 
 
 6 friendship. As to your brother Metellus not deserving, as you 
 say, to be exposed to attacks from me and all for a single 
 word, I must ask you first of all to believe that I strongly 
 sympathise with your motives in this, and the kindly feeling 
 shown in your brotherly affection, but then to pardon me if 
 for my country's good I have ever opposed your brother ; for 
 in patriotism I yield not even to the most ardent of mankind. 
 Nay more, if it pr&ve that I have but been defending my own 
 
ep. v. TO METELLUS CELER. {AD FAM. V. 2.) 13 
 
 position against a cruelly unjust attack he himself made upon 
 me, you may well be satisfied that I do not make a personal 
 complaint to you of your brother's injustice to me. For when 
 I had ascertained that he was deliberately aiming a blow 
 delivered with the whole weight of his position as tribune in 
 order to crush me, I applied to your wife Claudia x and your 
 sister Mucia, whose liking for me, owing to my intimacy with 
 Pompeius, I had often tested, to deter him from the wrong he 
 purposed doing me. In spite of this, as I know you must 7 
 have heard, on the last day of the year he put upon me — the 
 consul who had saved the Republic — an insult which the 
 vilest citizen in the most beggarly office was never yet exposed 
 to ; actually debarring me when laying down my office from 
 the. privilege of a farewell address. Yet this insult of his 
 resulted in a signal honour to myself; for as he would make 
 no concession except that I might take the oath, I pronounced 
 aloud the truest and noblest of oaths, 2 and as loudly the people 
 in answer solemnly attested that I had sworn this truly. Yet 8 
 though I had received this signal affront, on that very day I 
 sent an amicable message to Metellus by our common friends 
 to entreat him to reconsider his attitude towards me. His 
 answer to them was that this was no longer open to him, for 
 that not long before he had publicly expressed his opinion 
 that a man who had punished others unheard ought himself 
 to be debarred the privilege of being heard in his turn. How 
 dignified ! how patriotic ! A punishment inflicted by the 
 Senate, with the approval of every respectable citizen, on those 
 who would have burned Rome, murdered her magistrates and 
 Senate, and fanned the flames of a widespreading war, he 
 would now inflict on one to whom it was granted to deliver 
 the Senate from murder, the capital from fire, and Italy from 
 
 1 This was the famous Clodia, the ' Lesbia ' who ruined Catullus, and was 
 afterwards suspected of poisoning her husband Metellus. Claudia is the form 
 here, but Munro (Criticisms on Catullus, p. 196) says that the three daughters 
 as well as the youngest son Publius called themselves Clodius and Clodia, 
 while the father and his two eldest sons spelt their name in the traditional 
 manner. Mucia, the half-sister of Metellus, was at this date the wife of 
 Pompeius. 
 
 2 Plutarch says that Cicero swore a new form of oath ; not that he had 
 ' discharged his duty,' but that he had ' saved the constitution.' 
 
i 4 LETTERS QF CICERO. part i. 
 
 civil war. And so I withstood your brother to his face, for 
 having to answer him in the Senate on the ist of January 
 about the political situation, I took care to let him know that 
 he would find in me a most resolute and determined opponent. 
 Upon the 3d of January, when he opened the debate upon 
 his proposal, 3 about one word out of three in his speech was 
 aimed at me or contained a threat against me. Nothing could 
 possibly be more deliberate than his attempt to effect my ruin 
 by any means whatever, and that not by legal trial or argu- 
 ment, but by a violent and bullying attack. Had I not 
 brought spirit and determination to meet his reckless on- 
 slaught, who could fail to believe that the resolution displayed 
 in my consulship was due not to deliberation but to chance ? 4 
 9 If you have not hitherto been aware that such was Metellus's 
 attitude towards me, you have a right to think that your 
 brother has suppressed some of the most material circum- 
 stances from you ; while, if he has taken you into his counsels 
 at all, I have a right to be credited with having shown great 
 moderation of temper for not remonstrating with you about • 
 this very incident. And if you see now that I was driven 
 into resentment, not by a word from Metellus, as you represent 
 it, but by his deliberate and bitter animosity against myself, 
 let me point out to you my forbearance, if indifference and 
 laxity about resenting so malicious an attack deserves the 
 name of forbearance. Never once did I^peak for any motion 
 attacking your brother in the Senate at all : whenever attention 
 was called to his conduct I supported without rising those who 
 seemed most moderate in their proposals. I will add this 
 too, that though after what had passed I had no reason to 
 take any trouble about the matter, I regarded without disfavour, 
 and indeed supported to the best of my humble ability, the 
 proposal for granting a bill of indemnity to my assailant, on 
 the ground that he was your brother. 
 
 8 That Pompeius should be recalled to establish order in Italy. 
 
 4 Cicero here seems to have anticipated some modern criticism. ' It was 
 the humorous trait seldom wanting to a historical tragedy that this act of the 
 most brutal tyranny had to be carried out by the most unstable and timid of 
 all Roman statesmen, and that the " first democratic consul" was selected to 
 destroy the palladium of the ancient freedom of the Roman commonwealth, 
 the right of provocation — Mommsen, iv. 179. 
 
ep. vi. TO AtTICUS. (AD ATT. I. 13.) 15 
 
 Thus you see that what I have done was not to ' attack ' 10 
 your brother, but to repel your brother's attacks. Nor has 
 my attachment to yourself been light as you say; on the 
 contrary, it has been so strong that my friendship for you 
 remains as ever, though I have had to submit to the loss of 
 your attentions. Even at this very moment, all that I have , 
 to say in answer to your (I might almost call it) threatening 
 letter is this : J for my own part not only make allowance for 
 your indignation, but applaud it highly, for my own feelings 
 teach me to remember how strong is the influence of brotherly 
 ties. From you I claim a similar candour in judging of my 
 sense of wrong. If I have been bitterly, cruelly, and un- 
 reasonably attacked by one who is deaf to you, I claim the 
 admission not only that I was in the right to maintain my 
 position, but that I might have called on you — yes, and your 
 army too — to have aided me in so doing.- I have ever been 
 desirous of calling you my friend : I have now striven hard 
 to convince you that I have been a true friend to you. To 
 those sentiments I still adhere, and so long as you permit me ' 
 will continue to retain them. I would far rather forget my ■ 
 resentment against your brother from love for you, than 
 permit that resentment in the smallest degree to impair our 
 good will to each other. 
 
 VI.. (AD ATT. I. 13). 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 Jan. 25, 693 A.V.C. (61 B.C.) 
 
 On the night of December 3 or 4, 1 when the festival of the ' Good Goddess,' 
 from which all males were rigorously excluded, was being celebrated at the 
 house of Caesar, then praetor and pontifex maximits, Clodius was discovered 
 to have made his entrance, disguised in woman's clothes. In January, 61 
 
 1 According to Ovid (Fasti, v. 147) the festival of the Bona Dea was held 
 on May i, and Prof. Beesly believes that the charge was raked up seven 
 months after, merely for political purposes. But the Bona Dea of Ovid seems 
 to be a different goddess worshipped in a temple on the Aventine (Tyrrell, i. 
 22), and ' from Plutarch, Cic. 19, 20, compared with in Cat. iii. 2, 6 ; iv. 5, 
 10 ; ad Att. x. 1, it appears that the sacrifice this year was offered on Dec. 
 3 or 4. ' — Watson. 
 
16 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 b,c, the Senate directed the consuls, Marcus Pupius Piso and Marcus Valerius 
 Messalla, to prepare a bill for bringing Clodius to trial for sacrilege before a 
 special court, to be composed of jurors nominated by the praetor, instead of 
 being selected by lot in the usual way. Of this Piso strongly disapproved. , 
 Pompeius, as usual, would not commit himself to a definite approval of the 
 prosecution. The matter created a strange furore, somewhat like that of the 
 Hermae at Athens. Eventually the trial took place in the ordinary way, and 
 Clodius was acquitted by a majority of six. See on this trial Prof. Beesly's 
 article on Clodius (Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius, esp. pp. 48-60) ; Meri- 
 vale, i. 144-152 ; Long, iii. ch. 17 ; Forsyth, ch. 10 ; Trollope, i. ch. 10. 
 
 1 I have now had three letters from you; one through 
 Marcus Cornelius, which I presume you gave him at the Three 
 Taverns ; a second which was forwarded to me by your host 
 at Canusium; 2 and now this makes the third, which you tell 
 me you wrote on board a rowing-boat, as your ship had already 
 weighed her anchor. 3 All of them were, as a schoolboy 
 rhetorician might say, ' not only relieved with polished wit, 
 but distinguished by all the marks of affection.' These three 
 letters have certainly been an incentive to me to write back 
 ere this ; but the fact is that I have got somewhat, behindhand, 
 from not finding a safe messenger. , How few men there are 
 indeed who can carry a somewhat weighty letter without 
 lightening their load by mastering its contents! Another 
 reason is that it is not always of any use to me i when some- 
 body is starting for Epirus ; for I imagine that having now 
 done due sacrifice before your Amalthea, you have started 
 forthwith to lay siege to Sicyon. 6 And yet I am not quite 
 clear even about the date when you are to go to Antonius, 6 or 
 
 2 Now Canosa, where Atticus stopped on his way to Brundisium. 
 
 3 De phaselo has generally been rendered as meaning ' when you were 
 already on board' = de nave; but possibly the 'anchor' is that of the sailing 
 vessel, which had just started, and Atticus, being at the last moment put on 
 board by some boatmen, gave them a letter to take back to shore. Prof. 
 Tyrrell, however, after Peerlkamp, denies the possibility of ' ancora soluta,' 
 and reads ' ora soluta.' 
 
 4 Some word essential to the construction must have dropped out. Tyrrell 
 suggests usui; others prodest. 
 
 5 Atticus called a villa of his in Epirus his ' Amaltheum' (Letter viii., ad 
 Jin.), either, as Mr. Watson says, from its being decorated with pictures from 
 
 the story of Amalthea, or, as Mr. Pretor prefers, simply from the abundant 
 fertility of the place, in allusion to Amalthea' s 'horn of plenty.' Cicero 
 humorously assumes that Atticus has sacrificed like a general at his favourite 
 shrine, before commencing his campaign against his debtors at Sicyon. 
 
 6 Gaius Antonius, Cicero's colleague in the consulship, was now Governor 
 of Macedonia. 
 
ep. vi. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. I. 13.) 17 
 
 how much time you propose to give to Epirus, so I am afraid 
 to entrust a somewhat confidential letter to any Greek or 
 Epirot people. Since your departure, indeed, events have 2 
 happened well worth a letter from me, but then it is^one 
 which must not be exposed to any such risk as that of being 
 lost, or opened, or intercepted. 
 
 To begin with then, let me tell you that I was not asked 
 my opinion first in the Senate, precedence over me being 
 given to the peacemaker from Gaul, 7 though there were murmurs 
 from the house at this proceeding. I myself however am far 
 from displeased, being now freed from paying any further 
 attention to a crotchety person, and at liberty to assert my 
 proper position in spite of him ; while, after all, the second 
 place in the order of speaking, has little less influence than the 
 first, and leaves one's feelings unfettered by any very special 
 obligation to the consul. Third comes Catulus ; 8 fourth — if 
 you care to go so far down — Hortensius. 9 As for the consul 
 himself, he is a man of a narrow and perverse mind, fond of 
 making retorts of the sullen kind which raise a laugh without 
 any cleverness, because he is laughed at more for his expres- 
 sion than his expressions ; 10 one who never consults the 
 wishes of his country,* and keeps aloof from our constitutional 
 leaders : a man to whom you may safely look never to do the 
 country any good, because he has not got the inclination, nor 
 harm, because he has not got the courage. His colleague n 
 
 7 The presiding consul was entitled to call on the ex-consuls (after the 
 consuls-elect and the princeps senatus) to express their opinions in any order 
 he pleased, but it was usual to keep to the same order all the year. Cicero 
 had probably been called on first during the consulship of Silanus and Murena, 
 in the previous year, and was evidently nettled that Piso now gave precedence 
 to his relative, Gaius Calpurnius Piso, consul 67 B.C., who had just quelled a 
 slight revolt of the Allobroges in Gallia Narbonensis. — Mommsen, iv. 213. 
 
 8 Quintus Lutatius Catulus, about whose character, as the most upright 
 and honourable of the aristocracy, historians show unusual unanimity. Meri- 
 vale, i. 55 '• Mommsen, iv. 8 ; Forsyth, 156 ; and Mr. Watson's and Mr. 
 Pretor's notes on this passage. 
 
 9 Quintus Hortensius, the most famous orator of Rome, until he was sur- 
 passed by Cicero. 
 
 10 I owe this neat rendering to Mr. Pretor. It is worth notice that in the 
 speech on behalf of Plancius (v. 12), Cicero calls this same Piso ' homini 
 noHHssimo, innocentissimo, eloquentissimo. 1 (!) 
 
 u Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger. Compare Letter vii. § 6. 
 
 C 
 
i8 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 however is not only most complimentary to me, but an enthu- 
 siastic champion of his party, and on the right side. At 
 
 3 present the disagreement between them is slight, but I fear 
 this infection when it has once got hold may spread ; for of 
 course you have heard that when they were offering a national 
 sacrifice at Caesar's house a man dressed in woman's clothes 
 made his way in. Also that after the Vestal Virgins had per- 
 formed the sacrifice afresh Quintus Cornificius called the 
 attention of the Senate to the matter ; — that he was the first to 
 do so I mention lest you should assume it was any one of my 
 own standing — and that after this the house decided to refer 
 the matter to [the Vestal Virgins and] the Pontifical College, 
 who decided it to be sacrilege ; — that hereupon the consuls 
 introduced a bill in accordance with the vote of the Senate ; 
 and that Caesar has served a notice of divorce on his wife. 12 
 In this question, Piso, instigated by his friendship for Clodius', 
 is straining every nerve to secure that this measure, though 
 introduced by himself, introduced moreover in accordance with 
 a decree of the Senate, and on a question of sacrilege, shall be 
 thrown out. Messalla, so far, is strongly in favour of rigorously 
 pressing the matter. Respectable people are being induced 
 by Clodius's entreaties to take no part in the question, and 
 they are getting hired rowdies together. I myself, though 
 I had been a veritable Lycurgus at first, now feel my indigna- 
 tion every day subsiding. 13 Cato is foremost in insisting on 
 stern measures. To make a long story short, I feel that 
 this scandal, being treated with indifference as it is by our 
 respectable citizens, and backed up by the vicious, may prove 
 
 4 a source of much danger to the State. As to that friend of 
 yours (you know whom I mean 14 ) whose character you 
 described to me as that of one who began to praise only when 
 he found he could not venture to blame, he is ostensibly very 
 fond of me : he devotes himself to me, loves me like a brother, 
 
 12 This was Caesar's second wife Pompeia, grand-daughter of Sulla. His 
 celebrated saying that ' Caesar's wife must be above suspicion ' was in answer 
 to some who argued that the divorce implied an acknowledgment of the guilt 
 of Clodius. 
 
 13 There is a severe comment on this passage and Abeken's distortion of it 
 into ' the lukewarmness he at first manifested ' (p. 82) in Mr. Pretor's Intro- 
 duction, p. x. M Pompeius. 
 
TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. I. 13.) 
 
 19 
 
 and is loud in my praises before my face ; in his heart (but 
 still enough to be plain on the surface) he is jealous of me. 
 There is no courtesy, no candour, no highmindedness in the 
 man — comme politique — nothing dignified, resolute, or generous. 
 But I will write to you of this on a future occasion more in 
 detail ; for at present I have not got fully to the bottom of 
 it, and I cannot venture to trust a letter on matters of such 
 importance to this son of the soil, when goodness knows who 
 he may be. 
 
 The praetors have not yet drawn for the provinces, s 
 Everything is just as it was when you left. That ' orientation ' 
 of Misenum and Puteoli which you say is wanted I will make 
 a point of introducing in my speech. 16 I had already noticed 
 that the 3rd of December was an incorrect date. 16 The points 
 you select for praise in my speeches I liked already, I war- 
 rant you ; but now that my Atticus has approved them I find 
 in them far more of the set attique. To the Reply to Metellus 17 
 I have made some additions ; a copy shall be sent to you, 
 since your partiality for me has made you such an admirer 
 artis rhetoricae. Have I anything new to tell you ? Let me see 6 
 — yes, I have. Our consul Messalla has bought Autronius's 18 
 house for ^120,000. What is that to me? you will say. 
 Only that his purchase proves that I made a good bargain ; 
 and people are beginning to see that it is quite legitimate to 
 borrow the money for buying from one's friends as a help to a 
 good position. That business of the ' Trojan Dame ' still drags 
 on, but the matter is not hopeless. 19 Mind you finish your part. 
 If you wait you shall have a less reserved letter from me. 
 Jan. 25. 
 
 15 This seems to mean that Atticus had suggested a. description of the 
 locality in some speech, but Mr. Pretor prefers to render ' I will pack up the 
 plan in the same parcel with my speech.' Prof. Tyrrell suggests incudam. 
 
 16 Probably only of some previous letter. 
 
 17 See Introduction to Letter iv. 
 
 18 Lucius Autronius Paetus was now in exile for connection with the con- 
 spiracy of Catilina. 
 
 19 The allusion in the name Teucris is obscure, but from Att. i. 12 it clearly 
 has some connection with Gaius Antonius, Cicero's colleague in the consul- 
 ship. Mr. Pretor argues that it is Antonius himself, and to this Mr. Watson 
 now inclines. Prof. Tyrrell thinks it is a female agent of Antonius, employed 
 to pay Cicero some money. 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 VII. (AD ATT. I. 14.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 Feb. 13, 693 A.V.C. (61 B.C.) 
 
 1 I am afraid it must be sickening to you to hear how busy I 
 am, but for all that I am so distracted with work that I can 
 hardly find time for this note, such as it is, and even that has 
 to be taken in snatches from most important business. 
 
 What Pompeius's first speech was like I described to you 
 before — to the poor it was not encouraging, to the radicals 
 unsatisfactory, not promising enough for the well-to-do, and 
 not dignified enough for the patriotic : the consequence of 
 which was that it had a chilling reception. Afterwards, at the 
 instigation of our consul Piso, Fufius Calenus, an utterly 
 worthless tribune, brings Pompeius forward to address the 
 people. (This took place in the Flaminian Circus, and there ; 
 happened to be already there that very day the solemn concili- 
 dbule — of a market-day. 1 ) The question put to him was 
 whether he was in favour of the jury being nominated by the 
 praetor, with the understanding that the said praetor should 
 consider them to be his assessors, this being the proposal 
 adopted by the Senate to meet the case of the Clodian 
 
 a sacrilege. Hereupon Pompeius spoke tres en aristocrate, reply- 
 ing that the authority of the Senate was and always had been 
 to him supreme, and this at considerable length. Afterwards 
 one of the consuls, Messalla, put a question to Pompeius in the 
 Senate about his sentiments on the question of sacrilege and of 
 the bill which had been introduced. His reply in the Senate 
 took the form of a panegyric on the acts of that body en bloc, 2 
 and on resuming his seat he remarked to me ; ' I think I have 
 
 1 The sarcasm consists in applying so dignified a term as Tarqyvpis, a 
 conclave, to a lot of market-people. Similarly, conciliabule is properly applied 
 to an assembly of schismatical prelates, but Rousseau uses it in a curious 
 parallel to Cicero's expression : ' les conciliabules qui se tiennent chez les 
 femmes de chambre.' — Hel. vi. 10. 
 
 2 Pompeius in a ' very aristocratic ' speech might praise the acts of the 
 Senate en Hoc. Mr. Watson and Prof. Tyrrell, however, render yaiucus 'in 
 general terms,' ' sans farticulariser.' 
 
TO ATTICVS. (AD ATT. I. 14.) 
 
 said all that is necessary about your 8 doings.' When Crassus 3 
 found that Pompeius had won applause solely because he had 
 suggested the impression that he approved of my consulship, 
 he rose and spoke in most enthusiastic terms of my proceed- 
 ings as consul, going so far as to say that he owed it to me if 
 he was this day a senator, a citizen, a free man — ay, or a 
 living man at all : he could not look on wife, or home, or 
 country without having before his very eyes the blessings that 
 I had bestowed. In short, all those phrases about fire and 
 sword (but you know the paillettes'^ with which I love to 
 colour those speeches of which you are the Aristarchus) he 
 worked with much effect into the thread of his argument. I 
 happened to be sitting next to Pompeius, and saw how the 
 man was annoyed, either that Crassus should step in to 
 establish a claim for gratitude which he himself had omitted 
 to secure, or else that my actions should be important enough 
 for praise of them to meet with such a response from the 
 Senate : particularly as it came from one who owed me a 
 panegyric all the less because in every line I have written 5 
 he has been rather hardly treated to exalt Pompeius. This 4 
 day has made me a close ally of Crassus : yet whatever credit 
 the other was willing to allow me, directly or indirectly, 6 I was 
 
 3 'Istis ' seems to imply (so Boot and Tyrrell) that the actual words of 
 Pompeius are quoted. 
 
 * Paillettes (spangles) is not an exact rendering of Xjj/ci59o«s, but expresses 
 perhaps adequately the metaphor to be conveyed, which is that of colour 
 appearing only in patches. Horace's purpureas pannus is similar, and might 
 be adopted as an alternative. The metaphor in \7/kv8os and ampulla (Hor. Ep. 
 i. 3, 14) is from their use to hold moist colours, and hence is applied to word- 
 painting, or tricks of colouring in language. This, the true explanation, is 
 given by Manutius, Boot, Pretor, and Tyrrell here, and by Prof. Wilkins in 
 his edition of Horace's Epistles. The idea that it means 'swelling-phrases,' 
 from the supposed round shape of the vessel, though given by Forcellini, 
 Matthiae, and some editors of Horace, is quite untenable, and may now be 
 considered exploded. A third view, that the word became proverbial for a 
 ' tag ' or mannerism, from the \t\K.i6i.ov of Aristophanes, is suggested by Orelli, 
 and adopted by Liddell and Scott ; but the coincidence of the word seems to 
 be purely accidental, and the point of the attack on Euripides is quite different. 
 
 6 Mr. Watson renders litteris 'my literary efforts,' and this is supported 
 by Mr. Roby, Classical Review, i. 69 ; but Prof. Tyrrell regards this usage as 
 unsupported by evidence, and certainly not justified by its common meaning of 
 ' literature.' I think the rendering in the text, however, may just stand, but if 
 not, we must with Tyrrell insert orationibus after meis, and take omnibus 
 litteris = ' in every line of them. ' 
 
 6 I agree with Mr. Watson and Boot in taking ' aperte tecte ' as a conven- 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 glad to receive. Then as to myself, on getting a new listener 
 in Pompeius — ye gods ! comme je me suis pavan'e! If ever I 
 found 'period' and 'turn' and 'antithesis' and 'constructive 
 argument' 7 rise spontaneously to my lips, it was then; — in 
 short, I brought the house down. In fact — to give you a 
 rbsumi of my argument — it was about the dignity shown by 
 our body, and their harmony with the equestrian order j the 
 unanimity of Italy ; the dying embers of the conspiracy ; and 
 the plenty and peace we enjoyed. You know already how I 
 can deliver my thunders on such material as this. They were 
 so loud that I may now say the less about them, as I suppose 
 5 they made themselves heard even where you are. As for the 
 position of affairs at Rome : our Senate might have been 
 'upon Mars' Hill.' Nothing could be more resolute, more 
 stern, or more determined. For when the day came for 
 submitting to the people the proposal accepted by the Senate, 
 some young fops with their little beards came trooping up — 
 the whole of Catilina's herd in fact — under the leadership of 
 that girl, young Curio, and implored the people to reject the 
 bilL Why even Piso, who as consul had proposed the bill, 
 was himself working against it. Clodius's rowdies had blocked 
 up the gangways : the voting tickets were being supplied in 
 such a way that not a single ' Aye ' was given out. 8 Here- 
 upon you should see Cato rush to the tribune and make an 
 astounding invective against Piso, if one can call invective 
 a speech that breathed nothing but dignity, nothing but 
 authority, and, in a word, nothing but saving counsel. On 
 the same side too came our friend Hortensius and many 
 true men besides, Favonius, however being specially distin- 
 
 tional phrase, which has therefore lost the connecting particle, like patres 
 conscripti, lis vindiciae, etc. So also Mr. Roby, Classical Review, i. 69. Mr. 
 Pretor separates the words : ' I openly acknowledged, if he even secretly con- 
 ceded.' Prof. Tyrrell prefers 'with obvious guardedness.' 
 
 7 The phrases are given by Cicero in Greek as being technical terms. The 
 nearest Latin equivalents seem to be circuitus (Cic. Or. 204), fiexus [if we 
 read Kafiirat] (Quintilian, v. 13), syllogismus imperfectus (Quint, v. 14), and, 
 most probably, conjirmatio (Cic. Inv. 24 ; Quint, x. 5). Compare Mr. Puff's 
 'you have trope, figure, and metaphor, as plenty as noun -substantives.' — 
 Critic, ii. 2. 
 
 8 ' It is an old story. There are people to this day who assure you that 
 Napoleon III. obtained his throne by tampering with the ballot-box.' — Beesly, 
 Clodius, p. 48. . 
 
TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. I. 14.) 23 
 
 guished for his activity. By this rallying of the loyalists the 
 assembly is broken up, and the Senate convoked. When 
 the time came for passing the decree in a full house 
 (Piso meanwhile exerting himself in opposition, and Clodius 
 kneeling in entreaty to every single person) that the consuls 
 should use their influence to induce the people to accept 
 the proposal, some fifteen personages voted with Curio, who 
 was for making no decree at all : against him there were 
 easily four hundred. That settled the matter. The tribune, 
 Fufius, then gave way. Clodius made some pitiful harangues 
 in which he assailed Lucullus, Hortensius, Gaius, Piso, and 
 the consul Messalla with abuse : me he only twitted with 
 'being in the secret of everything.' 9 The Senate then pro- 
 ceeded to pass a resolution to stop all business about the 
 praetors' provinces, and the reception of ambassadors, and so 
 on, till the bill became law. Now you know all about politics 6 
 at Rome. But I must tell you one other thing, which is more 
 than I had hoped for. Messalla is an admirable consul, 
 brave, resolute, and energetic ; he praises, is devoted to, and 
 imitates me. His colleague is only saved by one vice — his 
 ^ laziness, sleepiness, ignorance, and extraordinary fain'eantise^^ 
 from being entirely vicious : in spite of which he is so m'echant 
 that he has hated Pompeius ever since that speech of his in 
 praise of the Senate. The result is that he has alienated all 
 the better men to an astonishing degree, though he has been 
 instigated scarcely so much by his interest in Clodius as by 
 taking up the side of the most abandoned men and measures. 
 But he finds no imitator among those in office except Fufius. 
 We are enjoying a good set of tribunes, and as for Cornutus, 
 he would like to be a Cato.if he could. 10 But enough of this. 
 
 Now to return to domestic matters. The ' Trojan Dame' 11 7 
 has been as good as her word. Mind that you fulfil the com- 
 
 9 Alluding apparently to some boast of Cicero's about his adroit manage- 
 ment of his information in the Catiline conspiracy, which had become a joke 
 against him. See Merivale, i. 116. 
 
 10 Mr. Pretor thinks bonis decisive against the meaning ' a sham Cato ; ' 
 but he has failed to quote any instance of the use of Pseudo in a complimentary 
 sense. If Cicero means that Cornutus was sound, he must at least imply that 
 he was the ass in the lion's skin. ' Cato's Sancho ' is a phrase used by Momm- 
 sen of Favonius. u See Letter vi. § 6. 
 
24 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet i. 
 
 missions you have undertaken. My brother Quintus, who has 
 bought up the remaining three-quarters of his house in the 
 Argiletum for ^6000, is trying to dispose of his place at 
 Tusculum to buy Pacilius's house if he can. Make it up 12 
 with Lucceius : I see the man is a good deal smitten with the 
 itch of office. I will do my best to help you. Mind you let 
 me know exactly your doings and your whereabouts, and how 
 those matters of ours are getting on. 
 Feb. 13. 
 
 %* VIII. (AD ATT. I. 16.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 July, 693 A.V.C. (61 B.C.) 
 
 1 You ask me what can have happened about the trial to 
 make it end in such a completely unexpected way, and you 
 want likewise to know how I came to show less fight than 
 usual. I will answer your questions 'more Homerico,' 1 and" 
 take their order au rebours. The fact was that so long as I 
 had the resolution of the Senate to plead for, I fought so 
 keenly and strenuously that the crowd was rallying round me 
 with shouts of applause till I had covered myself with glory. 
 Nay, if ever you have thought me a resolute statesman, you 
 could not fail to have given rr/e credit in this case. For when 
 I found that my enemy had betaken himself to stump orations 
 and was trying to use my name in them to exasperate the 
 people — great Heavens ! how I fought and spread desolation 
 around me ! what onslaughts I made on Piso, on Curio, and 
 all that crew ! how I inveighed against the trifling of the older, 
 the indecency of the younger men ! Throughout it all, upon 
 my solemn word, it was not only for the support of your 
 advice I wanted you, but that you might see for yourself my 
 
 2 amazing encounters. However, after Hortensius had hit on 
 
 12 Madvig and Wesenberg read redii, ' I have made it up.' 
 
 1 Horace's phrase about Homer, in medias res auditorem rapit (A. P. 148), 
 
 will illustrate this. Prof. Tyrrell well quotes Quintil. vii. 10 : more Homerico 
 
 e mediis vel ultimis. 
 
25 
 
 tsp. vin. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. I. 16.) 
 
 his scheme of letting the tribune Fufius bring in his bill about 
 sacrilege, differing from the proposal of the consuls in one 
 point only, namely the class of people to try the case — this 
 of course being the vital point, — and struggled hard to get his 
 measure passed, because he had really persuaded himself as 
 well as others that the defendant could not possibly be acquitted 
 by any kind of panel whatever, I reefed my sails, knowing 
 only too well the neediness of the jury, and did not give a 
 syllable of evidence except what was already so well known 
 and attested that I could not pass it over. So if you want — 
 pour en revenir — to know the cause of the acquittal — it was 
 the empty pockets and itching palms of our jurymen. For 
 this disaster we are indebted to the advice of Hortensius, who 
 in his fear that Fufius would veto the measure prepared in 
 accordance with the decree of the Senate, entirely failed to 
 see how far better it had been to leave Clodius in disgrace and 
 obliged to appeal for pity, than entrust the matter to a corrupt- 
 ible set of jurors. Misled however by his indignation he pre- 
 cipitated the trial, saying that a sword, were it of lead, could 
 not fail to cut his throat. But the trial ! if you ask me about 3 
 that, we can scarcely believe the ending : it has so completely 
 justified my condemning Hortensius's plan from the very first, 
 just as other people do now after the result. When the 
 challenging had taken place amid loud outcries, the prosecutor 
 like a scrupulous censor rejecting the infamous characters, and 
 the defendant like a kind-hearted exhibitor of gladiators 
 putting aside the most respectable, from the moment the jury 
 had gone into the box, the hearts of good people began indeed 
 to fail them. Greater rascals, in fact, never sat round the 
 table of a gambling hell. There were seedy senators and 
 needy knights, and tribunes who may be called paymasters, 
 but are not masters of much pay. 2 Yet here and there among 
 
 2 Or ' cashiered rather than cashiers. ' The tribuni aerari were, according 
 to Niebuhr, the successors of the ancient tribunes of the tribes. They collected 
 the tributum, and paid it over to the military quaestors. But the office became 
 merely nominal, and seems to have included all the most substantial house- 
 holders in a ward. Hence by the Lex Aurelia of 70 B.C. they were made a 
 third class, with senators and equites to form the jury-panel. The present text 
 requires aerati to be interpreted 'moneyed,' whereas with the very plausible 
 correction of Muretus, followed by Tyrrell, non tarn aerari ut affellantur. 
 
26 LETTERS OF CICERO. tart i. 
 
 them were respectable people whom the defendant had been 
 unable to get rid of by his challenge. There they sat, looking 
 as sad as they felt, among companions who formed the strongest 
 contrast to them, and sorely troubled at their contact with 
 
 4 such pollution. Well, as point after point was submitted to 
 the bench on the preliminary applications, the uprightness 
 they showed was utterly unexpected, and that without a single 
 dissentient voice. The defendant did not gain a point : the 
 prosecutor was allowed more than he ventured to claim ; in a 
 word, Hortensius was beginning to be triumphant at his own 
 penetration. Nobody looked on Clodius as now on his trial, 
 
 ■ but rather as condemned a thousand times over. But when 
 they qalled me as a witness, I , 'suppose the uproar of the 
 partisans of Clodius must have been enough to tell you 3 how 
 the jury rose as one man, how they took their stand by me, 
 how they showed themselves to Clodius in the court ready for 
 my life to offer their throats to the sword. This circumstance 
 seems to me more complimentary than either the famous one 
 when you Athenians made Xenocrates give his evidence 
 without oath, or when in our own country a jury refused to 
 inspect the accounts of Metellus Numidicus on their being 
 handed round as usual : this tribute to myself is, I repeat, 
 
 5 even more remarkable. Thanks therefore to these utterances 
 from the jurors, since they rallied round me thus as the 
 saviour of the country, the defendant was utterly smashed, and 
 he and all his supporters gave in, while next day I was met at 
 my house by as great a crowd as that which escorted me 
 home in triumph when I laid down my consulship. Forth- 
 with our noble Areopagites complain loudly that they cannot 
 venture to come, unless a guard be given them. This is 
 
 quam aerati, it will mean 'bribed.' The word does not occur elsewhere, 
 except in the literal sense, so that we have no clue from usage to determine 
 this choice of meaning. 
 
 3 Like Mr. Pretor, I cannot understand why Mr. Watson and Prof. Tyrrell 
 should turn this into ' you must have heard how the judges rose after the 
 outcries,' etc., which requires a violent distortion of the order of the words. 
 The hyperbole is common enpugh, compare Letter vii. § 4 ; or for a much 
 more recent parallel, Mr. Leslie Stephen's 'Johnson,' p. 137: ' Johnson burst 
 into a sudden fury against the American rebels, and roared out a tremendous 
 volley which might almost have been audible across the Atlantic. ' 
 
ep. Tin. TO ATTIC US. {AD ATT. I. 16.) 27 
 
 referred to the bench. One vote only was given against 
 having a guard. The proposal is then introduced in the 
 Senate, and voted in the strongest and most complimentary 
 terms ; the jury are commended, and the necessary powers 
 given to the magistrates. Not a soul thought the fellow 
 would have any defence to make. But now musa, mihi 
 caussas memora* You know whom I mean by ' Baldhead ' — 
 one of the Nanneian set — that late panegyrist of mine 5 about 
 whose speech and its compliments to me I have already told 
 you — well, in a couple of days, with the help of a single slave, 
 one fetched too from the nearest training-school," he had the 
 whole business settled : he had sent for them all, promised 
 the money, given security, and paid the bribe down. To 
 crown it all (heavens, what a depth of villainy!) even the 
 favours of certain ladies and introductions to youths of good 
 family helped with some of the jury to swell the price. In 
 the end, though there was a complete disappearance of the 
 better sort, and the forum was crowded with' gladiators, there 
 were ' still twenty-five on the bench resolute enough, even in 
 face of this extreme danger, to be willing to lose their lives 
 rather than live and be lost ; while thirty-one of them cared 
 little about being famous, but much about being famished. 
 When Catulus met one of them afterwards, 'Why was it,' says 
 he, 'you demanded a guard from us? Were you afraid of 
 being robbed of your wages ? ' 
 
 Here then you have, as shortly as I can put it, the kind 6 
 of trial there was, and the reason of the acquittal. You next 
 proceed to ask what is the state of things in general and what 
 is my own. Know then that all that basis of law and order 
 which you believed to be made secure by my human pro- 
 vidence, and I by the divine ; which indeed appeared to be 
 fixed and established by the united action of all good men 
 and the wholesome precedent of my consulship, has now, 
 
 4 Aen. i. 8. The mock-heroic exordium of Cicero is from Iliad xvi. 112. 
 
 " Letter vii. § 3 seems to show that by ' Baldhead ' Cicero here means 
 Crassus, who it is suggested by Manutius may have bought up some of the 
 estates of Nanneius (a victim of Sulla's proscription) under the name of Calvus. 
 This, however, is mere guess-work, and some corrupted Greek word may be 
 here concealed, such as Boot's suggestion, {(airwc&m, ' a sudden convert. ' 
 
28 LETTERS OF CICERO. taut I. 
 
 unless Heaven somehow look with pity on us, slipped from 
 our hands through this single judgment — if ,it be a judgment 
 that thirty of the most worthless scoundrels among all the 
 people of Rome should overthrow for a paltry bribe all law 
 and justice ; and that what not only every human being but 
 the very brutes know was committed, a Thalna, a Plautus, a 
 Spongia, and other scum like this should decide has not been 
 
 7 committed. Still, to give you a little consolation about the 
 future of our country, disorder is not so hotly triumphant as 
 the vicious hoped for after the heavy blow inflicted on the 
 constitution. For they clearly argued thus : that if religion, 
 virtue, the integrity of the courts, and the authority of the 
 Senate could only be put down, the result would be that crime 
 and lust being openly victorious would wreak their vengeance 
 on all good citizens for the pain of the brand that had been 
 
 8 burnt into every villain by my stern consulship. It was I 
 too (and I cannot accuse myself of wanton boasting in this, 
 seeing that I am writing to you arid about myself,, more 
 ^specially as this is a letter that I do not want to be read to 
 other people) — it was I also, I say, who revived the drooping 
 courage of the good, by reassuring and rousing each individual 
 to action : while by attacking jind harrying these venal jury- 
 men I stripped his partisans and claqueurs of their brag about 
 their victory-: the consul Piso I would not allow a leg to 
 stand on for a single moment ; I snatched Syria away from 
 the man when it had been already promised to him ; the 
 Senate I brought round to its former vigour, and roused it 
 from its dejection ; Clodius I smashed then and there in the 
 Senate first with an elaborate harangue in my most dignified 
 tone, and then by the sparring-match I am going to describe. 
 (You may have just a few tit-bits of it to taste, for the rest 
 could not possibly have any point or interest when one has 
 lost the heat — or as you would call it the acharnement — of 
 debate.) 
 
 9 On the 15th of May then, when the Senate met, being 
 invited to deliver my opinion I spoke at some length on the 
 true interests of the Republic, and was inspired to utter this 
 remark, that the Fathers of the State must not be utterly beaten, 
 
 • not lose all heart, because they had received one blow. The 
 
ep. vnr. .TO ATTJCUS. (AD ATT. I. 16.) 29 
 
 wound, I said, was of such a nature as, in my opinion, ought 
 neither to be hidden out of sight, nor overmuch feared : in 
 the one case by ignoring it we should be proved to be most 
 blind, in the other by our terror of it to be most helpless. 
 Twice had Lentulus, twice had Catilina been acquitted : here 
 now was a third let loose upon the State by his judges, f ' No, 
 Clodius, this is a mistake of yours : when the jury reprieved 
 you, it was not to send you back to the city, but to the 
 dungeon ; not to keep you in this country, but to prevent you 
 from merely going into exile. Wherefore, Senators, be of 
 good courage; maintain your authority. Still as before we 
 have the sympathy of every good man in the State. All true 
 men have suffered a blow, but their courage has in no wise been 
 shaken : no new mischief has been created, but that which 
 existed has been brought to light : in trying one abandoned 
 man we have found out several like him.' But what am I 
 about ? I have all but put my speech into my letter. To id 
 return to our passage of arms. My pretty boy gets up, and 
 attacks me for having been at Baiae. (This was not true, but 
 how do you think I retorted?) 'Why it looks,' said I, 'as if 
 you were accusing me of being there in disguise.' 
 
 ' What,' says he, ' could a rustic of Arpinum find to do at 
 a Spa?' > 
 
 ' Tell that,' quoth I, ' to your kind patron, who was anxious 
 enough to get some springs from a person of Arpinum.' (Of 
 course you know all about those sea-baths ? 6 ) 
 
 ' How long,' he bursts out, ' shall we let this man be 
 king?' 
 
 ' What ? do you talk of a king,' say I, ' when there was a 
 King who left you entirely out of his will ? ' (He, you know, 
 had greedily anticipated a legacy to.come to him from a person 
 of that name. 7 ) 
 
 ' You have bought a palace,' says he. 
 
 6 Either Curio the elder (Watson, Tyrrell), or his son (Pretor, compare 
 Letter vii. 5), had bought an estate once belonging to Marius (who like Cicero 
 came from Arpinum) at Baiae. Mr. Watson retains marinas, but marianas 
 is a far more pointed reading. I cannotidiscover what Mr. Froude (Caesar, p. 
 179) means by his rendering ' Cicero reminded Clodius of a misadventure 
 among the pirates (!).' 
 
 ' His brother-in-law, Quintius Marcius Rex. 
 
30 LETTERS OF CICERO. . pabt i. 
 
 ' One would fancy it was a jury,' quoth I, ' you were saying 
 I had bought?' 
 
 ' They would not believe you,' says he, ' on your oath.-' 
 ' Nay,' I reply, ' twenty-five of the jurors did credit me, 
 while thirty-one, as they had their money down beforehand, 
 entirely refused, it seems, to give you any credit.' Over- 
 whelmed then by the shouts that arose he broke'down, and 
 had not a word to answer. 
 
 11 As to my own position, it is this : among, the respectable 
 classes I am just as when you left ; among the filth and dregs 
 of town much better off now than when you left ; for this has 
 certainly done me no harm, that my evidence should be seen 
 to have been ineffectual. 8 My swelling of unpopularity has 
 been let blood without hurting, and all the more because even 
 the supporters of that iniquity acknowledge that it was a 
 perfectly clear case, bought from the jury. There is, besides, 
 the fact that our rabble of treasury horse-leeches, the starveling, 
 miserable mob, imagine me to be immensely esteemed by ' the 
 Great ' man : and, upon my word, we are really united together 
 by a strong and agreeable tie of intimacy ; so much so that 
 the reckless scamps of the conspiracy, the young fellows with 
 the little beards, call him familiarly Gnaeus Cicero. 9 And so 
 both at the games and the gladiators' shows we came off with 
 astonishing iclat, without any charivari of 'goosing' at all. 
 
 12 Now we are all looking forward to the elections, for which 
 our friend ' the great ' Pompeius, much to everybody's disgust, 
 is pushing that ' Aulus junior,' 10 and fighting for him not by 
 authority or influence, but by the means with which Philip used 
 to say that any fort could be taken [up to which you could 
 drive an ass laden with gold]. They say too that our worthy 
 consul has undertaken to play second fiddle in this farce, 11 and 
 has the people in his own house to distribute money; which 
 
 8 See note to Letter ix. 5. 
 
 9 Mommsen does not find it necessary to adopt Cicero's interpretation. 
 ' He (Pompeius) vacillated with so much uncertainty between the parties that 
 people gave him the nickname of Gnaeus Cicero,' iv. 194. 
 
 10 See note to Letter i. § 1. 
 
 11 ' Deterioris histrionis ' must mean, if anything, that he was willing to be 
 the 8evrepayavlo-T7)s to Pompeius and play into his hands. But ' Doterionis,' 
 a coined name for a dispenser of bribes, finds much support, and ' histrionis ' 
 
TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. I. 16.) 
 
 31 
 
 I for one do not believe. But two bills have lately been 
 passed in the Senate on the motion of Domitius and Cato, 
 which are much objected to because they are supposed to be 
 directed against the consul : one that special powers should 
 be given for searching the houses of magistrates ; 12 the other 
 that any one who harboured bribery-agents in his house should 
 be held guilty of a treasonable offence. But Lurco the tribune, 13 
 who took office under the obligations of the act of Aelius, 13 
 was exempted from the operation of both that and Fufius's act 
 in order to carry his bill about bribery ; which, lame as the 
 man is, he has succeeded in introducing without having the 
 auspices vitiated. So the election has been postponed till the 
 27 th of July. The bill contains this novelty, that any one 
 who has promised money to the tribes shall not be liable to 
 any penalty, provided he has not paid it : but if he has paid 
 it, shall' forfeit £2 5 to each tribe for the period of his natural 
 life. My remark was that this law had been scrupulously kept 
 by Clodius already, even before it was passed, for it was just 
 
 is then probably an allusion to the two actors Aristodemus and Neoptolemus 
 (Demosth. De Fals. Leg. p. 442 ; Cicero, De Rep. iv. 35), who conducted 
 negotiations on behalf of Philip. 
 
 12 This is the usual interpretation of a passage, which Mr. Pretor proposes 
 to render 'that a commission of enquiry shall be held before the proper 
 authorities. ' He objects to the rendering in the text : (1) that it makes the 
 two clauses almost identical ; (2) that the measure in question is referred to 
 (Ad Att. i. 17, 8) as ' ut de eis . . . quaereretur. ' Neither of these objections 
 seems conclusive ; while, on the other hand, the meaning which we should 
 then have to give to ' liceret ' is surely inadmissible ; i.e. not that inquiry may 
 be held, but that it shall be held before magistrates. Boot proposes to read 
 ' et' for ' alterum' making the exemption of Lurco the second decree. But 
 this, besides being an unwarrantable alteration, leaves no antithesis to ' unum' 
 but the weak one of ' autem. ' 
 
 13 Mr. Munro states in a note appended to Mr. Pretor's that ' the Medicean 
 reading is insimul cum, not simul cum, of which the following is a simple and 
 perhaps not unsatisfactory correction : qui magistratum insimulatum lege 
 Aelia iniit ; " who entered upon a magistracy impeached by the Lex Aelia. 
 This is by far the best of the many corrections proposed. The acts of Aelius 
 and Fufius, about 150 B.C., were a check on the power of the pleis, by giving 
 all magistrates a right to dissolve the comitia by obnuntiatio, or a declaration 
 that the omens were unfavourable. The suspension of these laws was necessary 
 to enable Lurco to propose his Bribery Bill without organised obstruction, and 
 as personal defects were generally thought inauspicious, Cicero means that 
 Lurco's lameness might have been expected to vitiate the auspices, but that 
 nobody put a veto on his proposal. 
 
32 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 his way to promise and not to pay. Bat, mark you ! even 
 my consulship, which Curio used once to call ' I'apotMose du 
 cohsulat,' if this fellow be elected will seem like having played 
 at being in office. 14 So, I suppose, like you il faut sefaire 
 philosophe, and not care a straw for all your consulships. 
 
 14 As to the decision you say you have made, not to start for 
 Asia, I myself could have wished you to go, and I fear that in 
 the end it may lead to something awkward in that matter of 
 yours : still I cannot blame your choice, especially as I myself 
 
 15 have not gone to a province.A/1 shall be quite content with 
 
 i the -inscriptions you have assigned to me in your Shrine of 
 
 \ Amilthea, 15 particularly since Thyillus has deserted me, while 
 
 Archias has written nothing about me, and having finished his 
 
 Greek poem on the Luculli is, I fear, now thinking of a 
 
 16 ' Caecilian drama.' 16 I thanked Antonius for you, and gave 
 that letter to Mallius : (the only reason why I did not write 
 oftener to you before was that I had no proper person to 
 entrust a letter to, nor was I quite sure to what address I 
 
 17 ought to send). ' I have puffed you well. If Cincius should 
 commission me with any business for you, I will undertake it, 
 but just now he is more occupied with his own, in which I am 
 helping him. You may expect, if you are going to stay in one 
 place, to have numerous letters from me, but be sure you send 
 me more yourself in return. I wish you would write to me 
 what sort of place your 'Amaltheum ' really is, what are its 
 fittings and what its orientement ; and would also send me 
 poems or legends of any kind you have about your goddess 
 herself : I have a fancy for making one on my place at Arpinum. 
 I will send you something of my own writings : at present 
 there is nothing finished^j- 
 
 14 Fabam mimum is a very doubtful reading, but the numerous emendations 
 proposed are not convincing. If genuine, it seems to be an allusion to children 
 playing (mimum) at electing a king with beans (fabam) : a ' Twelfth Night 
 royalty' (Watson). Several editors read fabulam mimum, a play that is a 
 mere farce ; compare Nero's game in Tac. Ann., xiii. 15. Either of the words 
 may be a gloss on the other. 15 Compare Letter vi. § 1. 
 
 16 The poem Archias is thinking of is one in honour of Quintus Caecilius 
 Metellus, which Cicero calls a ' Caecilian drama, ' in allusion to the famous 
 comedian Caecilius. 
 
ep. ix. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. II. I.) 33 
 
 IX. (AD ATT. II. 1.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 June, 694 A.v. c. (60 bx.) 
 
 After his acquittal, Clodius obtained the sanction of a popular vote to his 
 adoption into a plebeian family, with the object of rendering himself eligible 
 as a tribune of the people. This is generally represented merely as a step to 
 gratify his personal animosity against Cicero, a view which is vigorously con- 
 troverted by Prof. Beesly, Clodius, p. 67, who maintains that Clodius was the 
 agent of the triumvirs in exacting retribution for the illegal execution of Catilina's 
 confederates. Compare Mommsen, iv. 207 ; Merivale i. 161 ; Forsyth, 155 ; 
 Trollope i. ch. n. 
 
 This is the first letter of Cicero's in which Caesar is mentioned as being in a 
 prominent position, though it was written about the time of the formation of 
 the first triumvirate. See Introd. to the next letter. 
 
 On the first of June, as I was starting for Antium, and 1 
 very glad to be out of the way of Metellus's exhibition of 
 gladiators, I met your messenger. He gave me a letter from 
 you, and a memoir of my consulship written in Greek : where- 
 upon I congratulated myself that long tefore this I had given 
 Cossinius my treatise on the same subject, also in Greek, to 
 take to you; because had I read yours first you would be 
 accusing me of having pilfered from you. And yet your notes 
 — for I read them with delight — did seem to me perhaps a 
 trifle rough and unadorned, but still not without a certain 
 attractiveness, from their very refusal of borrowed attractions, 
 and, as they say of women, ' all the sweeter from having no 
 added sweets.' 1 Whereas my book, besides exhausting Iso- 
 crates's dressing-case, and all the rouge-pots of his school, had a 
 touch of Aristotle's colouring as well. 2 You dipped hastily into 
 it (as I understand from another letter of yours) at Corcyra, 
 but afterwards, I suppose, had a copy sent you through 
 Cossinius. I should not have ventured to send it to you unless 
 • I had found leisure to revise it minutely and critically. And 
 yet the answer I have just had from Posidonius at Rhodes is 2 
 that on reading the mimoire I sent him for a more elaborate 
 work from his pen on the same theme, so far from finding 
 
 1 Ecastor, mulier recte olet ubi nil olet. Plaut. Most. i. 3, 116. 
 
 2 See note on \ijk60ovs, Letter vii. 3 ; and on Letter xxix. 23. 
 
 D 
 
34 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 himself more disposed to write, he has been fairly dis- 
 couraged. The fact is, that I have taken the Greek popula- 
 tion utterly aback, so that for the most part those who were 
 very pressing for me to give them some notes to elaborate, 
 have now desisted from persecuting me. Will you be good 
 enough, if you find ybu like the book, to take care that it 
 makes its way to Athens and the other towns of Greece, 
 because I think it may possibly throw some light on my whole 
 3 policy? As for my 'speechlets,' such as they are, 3 I will 
 send those you ask for, and some others too, since it seems 
 that what I put into writing from interest in the emulation of 
 some lads, can give pleasure to you too. The fact is, that 
 just as in old times your great countryman [Demosthenes] 
 gained lustre by his series of speeches which we call Philippics, 
 and detached himself from our quibbling style of pleading in 
 the courts in favour of the higher rdle of the tiomme d'itat, so 
 it suited my purpose to prepare a similar collection of my own, 
 to be entitled ' Consular speeches.' One of these was delivered 
 in the Senate on the ist of January; the second was an 
 address to the people on the agrarian law; the third is on 
 Otho ; * the fourth my defence of Rabirius ; 5 the fiftrt about 
 the sons of persons proscribed ; the sixth is my public re- 
 nunciation of the right to aprovince ; 6 the seventh is the one 
 
 8 Mr. Watson understands the diminutive as an affected depreciation ; but 
 perhaps Billerbeck's explanation is preferable, of short exercises in declamation, 
 as ' fair copies ' for pupils. 
 
 i The celebrated act of Lucius Roscius Otho reserving the first fourteen 
 rows in the Circus to the equites, with a qualification of an income of 400,000 
 sesterces (^3500), caused a popular riot, being a distinct recognition of in- 
 come alone as determining a class. Cicero addressed the people in favour of 
 the law, which was, of course, very acceptable to the favoured class, his policy 
 being to draw the equites into alliance with the majority of the senate. Cic. 
 Mur. 19 ; Phil. ii. 18 ; Hor. Epode iv. 16 ; Juv. xiv. 324. 
 
 6 The trial of Rabirius is very important, because it finally disposes, and in 
 Cicero's own consulship, of the legal plea for the Catilinarian conspirators' ex- 
 ecution. He was accused of the murder of Saturninus forty years before in an 
 insurrection, and the trial involved the whole question whether the Senate could 
 give the power of life and death over Roman citizens. This was settled in the 
 negative by his virtual condemnation, which was only averted by a constitu- 
 tional fiction, probably acquiesced in by both sides. Mommsen, iv. 159 ; 
 Merivale, i. 103 ; Long, iii. 262 ; Forsyth, 101 ; Trollope, i. 380 ; Froude, 
 Caesar, p. 142. Mr. Froude very carelessly states that Rabirius was acquitted, 
 
 6 See Letter v. § 8. 
 
ep. ix. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. II. I.) 35 
 
 by which I drove Catilina from the city ; the eighth I addressed 
 to the people the day after his flight ; the ninth was delivered 
 in the assembly on the day when the Allobroges made their 
 appeal ; 7 and the tenth in the Senate on the 5 th of December. 
 There are besides two short ones, khantillons, if I may so call 
 them, of the Agrarian law. This corpus orationum mearum I 
 will take care that you have ; and since you feel interested 
 not only in my writings but my actions, you will find in these 
 speeches a full account of what I have been doing as well as 
 what I have been saying. Otherwise you should not have 
 asked for them : it was not I, you know, who tried to thrust 
 myself upon you. 
 
 You ask me why I write for you to come here, and saying 4 
 at the same time that you are much hindered by business, 
 though you do not refuse to come if it be really necessary, 
 or even if I press the point. Well, the truth is that there is 
 no positive necessity ; but still it did seem to me that you 
 might arrange the time for your various tours abroad more 
 conveniently. You are too long away at a time, especially 
 considering that you are really near : and so while I. miss 
 your companionship, you have to do without me. And 
 though just now, it is true, all is quiet, yet if the madness. of 
 that pretty youth were allowed to go but a step or two further, 
 I should most decidedly summon you from your .retreat. 
 But Metellus keeps him finely in check, and will still do so. 
 He, for the matter of that, is a consul who is really ami de la 
 patrie, and, as I have always held, naturally well. disposed. 
 That other personage is aiming however, not in bravado but 5 
 quite seriously, at being elected tribune of the people. When 
 this question was brought on for discussion in the Senate I 
 smashed the fellow, severely exposing his sudden conversion 
 in becoming a candidate for the tribuneship, whereas in Sicily 
 he had frequently stated that his object was the aedileship; 
 not that we, I remarked, need trouble ourselves overmuch ; 
 he might become a plebeian, but he would no more be allowed 
 to bring us to ruin than the patricians of his type had been 
 
 7 This word is doubtful. Involgarunt and indicarunt ( = made their dis- 
 closures) have been suggested. See Letter xiv. § 1. The last four of these 
 speeches are the extant ones against Catilina. 
 
36 LETTERS OF CICERO. part I. 
 
 allowed in my consulship. So again, when the same person- 
 age declared he had travelled here in six days from the 
 Channel, leaving no one time so much as to come out and 
 meet him, and that he had made his entry by night, and 
 actually ventured to boast of this in the Senate, I retorted 
 that for him it was no such unheard-of thing to travel to 
 Rome from Sicily in six days ; within three hours he had 
 reached Rome from Interamna. 8 Had he entered in the 
 dead of night ? So had he done before. Had no one come 
 to give him a reception ? No more had ' they even when 
 there was very good reason for doing so. In a word, I am 
 giving his insolence a good lesson, not merely by serious and 
 elaborate speeches, but by this kind of repartee. So now I use 
 a tone of bantering familiarity with him to his face. . Once 
 even, when we were escorting our candidate home, he asks 
 me, ' Do you usually reserve your Sicilian clients a place at 
 the games ? No ? Well, then,' says he, ' I being their new 
 patron shall start the idea, though my sister, who has so much 
 of the consul's space at her disposal, only allows me just one 
 foot.' ' Oh, don't complain,' quoth I, ' of your sister giving 
 you only one foot ; I am sure she would let you take more 
 than a foot from her. 9 Not the retort for a consul, you will 
 say. I plead guilty, but I cannot stand that woman, so unfit 
 as she is to be a consul's wife. She is ' intolerably curst, and 
 shrewd and forward :' 10 she is at daggers-drawn now with her 
 husband Metellus, and not only with him but Fabius too, 
 
 8 Clodius endeavoured on his trial to establish an alibi, affirming that he 
 had been at Interamna, sixty miles off, at the time, while Cicero swore that 
 he had seen him in Rome three hours before the occurrence. All these 
 repartees refer to Clodius's intrusion on the mysteries at Caesar's house. (Letters 
 vi. vii. viii. ) 
 
 9 See Letter xxix. § 15, and on the notorious Clodia, Letter v. note 1. 
 The retort, which Cicero has the grace to be a little ashamed of, though he 
 cannot resist repeating it, is based on the fact that pedes tollere was a very 
 coarse phrase = stuprare. Of course it always gives great delight to Martial, 
 x. 81 ; xi. 71. It is well to remember that 'bad as Clodia certainly was, 
 Cicero's vulgar taunt affords no shadow of presumption against her of the 
 crime hinted at See Beesly, Catiline, p. 20, for a vigorous description of the 
 unlimited and well-understood license of accusation against opponents usual at 
 Rome. 
 
 10 Taming of the Shrew, i. *. Prof Tyrrell points out that ea 
 seditiosa ea cum viro iellum gerit is probably from some comedy. 
 
ep. ix. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. II. i.) 37 
 
 because she is so displeased with the part they are taking in 
 this. 
 
 As for the Agrarian law about which you ask me, as a 6 
 matter of fact it seems now to have cooled down. Since you 
 lecture me, though your handling somehow seems very gentle, 
 about my intimacy with Pompeius, I should not like you to 
 imagine that I ally myself to him only to secure my own pro- 
 tection^ but things were so circumstanced, that if there chanced 
 to be any disagreement between us, most serious party dis- 
 sensions must have become prevalent. Now I have guarded 
 against the danger beforehand with all this precaution, not at all 
 that I myself may begin to decline from those high principles of 
 policy, but that I may make him inclined to better things, and 
 to lay aside much of his weak popular subserviency. And you 
 should know that he speaks in far higher terms of my policy, 
 which so many people were urging him to attack, than of his 
 own : what he claims for himself is that he has guided the 
 State, for me that I have saved it. How far his doing this 
 is an advantage to me I cannot tell, unquestionably it is an 
 advantage to the country. Supposing I bring over Caesar 
 too, who is now sailing triumphantly before the breeze, to the 
 better side, am I then greatly injuring the constitutional 
 cause ? I will go farther than this. Even if no one were 7 
 jealous of me, even if all supported me as they ought to do, 
 we ought none the less to adopt any system of treatment which 
 would heal the unsound members of the State in preference 
 to one which would cut them off. But now when all our 
 chivalry, all the men whom once I posted on the slopes of 
 the Capitol under your standard, have left the Senate to fight 
 alone ; when our nobles think they have all but reached the 
 skies if they have red mullet 11 in their fish-ponds that will 
 come to be fed, and deem everything else trifling in com- 
 parison, do you not think I am doing considerable service if 
 I succeed in taking the will for mischief from those who have 
 the power ? Not that you yourself can love Cato more than 8 
 I do, but still at times, with the very best intentions and the 
 
 11 The mullus harhatus of naturalists is the plain red mullet, distinguished 
 from our common or striped red mullet [mullus surmuletus). All kinds of 
 mullet have two long barbules on the under jaw. Compare Pliny, H. N. ix. 30. 
 
38 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt i. 
 
 most stainless honour, he does positive harm to his country : 
 for he talks' as though we were living in Plato's Utopia and 
 not, as we are, in the Rogues' Asylum of Romulus. What 
 can be fairer than that a man should be brought to trial who 
 has taken a bribe to pervert judgment ? So urged Cato, and 
 the Senate assented. Result — a war of the middle class against 
 the Senate ; not against me, for I expressed my dissent. What 
 more outrageous than the tax-farmers repudiating their contract ? 
 Yet the prudent course was to submit to the loss, and so retain 
 the goodwill of that class. Cato fought against this and carried 
 his point, the consequence being now that with a consul flung 
 into prison, 12 and with seditious movements stirring again and 
 again, not one would give us a good wish of the very men 
 by whose readiness to rally round us both I and the consuls 
 who followed me always kept the constitution impregnable. 
 ' What then,' you will say, ' are we to buy the support of your 
 friends ? What must we do if we cannot help ourselves ? Are 
 we to be at the beck of freedmen, ay, and of slaves ? But, as 
 you say, enough of the grand strieux. 
 9 Favonius has carried my tribe with more flying colours 
 than his own, but has lost Lucceius's. He has prosecuted 
 Nasica, and straightforwardly enough, it is true, but grinding 
 his words in such a way that one would fancy that when 
 at Rhodes he had to grind in some mill which was not 
 Molon's mill. 18 To me, for having undertaken the defence, 
 he was mildly reproachful. But now he is again a candidate 
 — only for the public good ! What Lucceius is about I will 
 let you know as soon as I have seen Caesar, who will be here 
 10 in a couple of days. For the Sicyonians keeping you out of 
 your due you may thank Cato, and Servilius, who apes him. 14 
 
 12 The consul Metellus Celer was imprisoned by the tribune Flavius for 
 opposing the Agrarian law. Merivale, i. 163. 
 
 18 Apollonius Molon was a noted Rhodian teacher of rhetoric who had 
 Cicero and Caesar among his pupils. Molts is of course a pun on Moloni; 
 grinding at the mill was a punishment of slaves. I agree with Prof. 
 Tyrrell that there is no need to abandon the MS. reading inhoneste ac modeste 
 tamen. 
 
 14 Servilius and Cato had carried a decree against the violent methods 
 employed by powerful Romans for recovery of alleged debts from provincials 
 and free states. Compare the terribly significant story of Cicero and Brutus, 
 Letter xxxvi. 10. 
 
ep. ix. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. II. I.) 39 
 
 Well, does not that blow touch many a good citizen ? How- 
 ever, the Senate has so pleased, therefore let us assent : only 
 then we must make up our minds to be left alone in any 
 future division of opinion. 16 My Amalthea is awaiting you, 
 and much wants your advice. 18 I am charmed with my places n 
 at Tusculum and Pompeii, except that I find (I, who am known 
 as the champion of creditors ! ) how they swallow up loads of 
 good metal, not so much in Corinthian bronze, as in the 
 humbler medium of the exchange. We have hopes that all is 
 quiet in Gaul. You may expect my book on ' Prognostics ' l7 
 almost immediately, with a few speeches : but do write what 
 are your intentions about coming, for Pomponia desired a 
 message to be sent to me that you would be at Rome in July, 
 which does not agree with the letter you sent me about your 
 rents. Paetus, as I told you before, has given me the books *2 
 he believes his brother 18 has left. Whether I ever get this 
 present depends now on your looking after it. I implore you 
 to see that they are kept safe and brought to me; nothing 
 could oblige me more than this : and will you be careful to 
 keep his Greek books, and still more particularly his Latin ones ? 
 This I shall consider to be your contribution. I have written 
 to Octavius. 19 I did not speak to him personally; indeed I 
 did not know that your business had anything to do with the 
 province, nor did I venture to class you among the paltrier 
 tribe that ' breed of barren metal ; ' but I have written to him, 
 as in duty bound, very strongly. 
 
 16 Discessio is apparently not used here in its ordinary sense of divisions in 
 the Senate. 
 
 16 Compare Letters vi. 1 ; viii. 18. 
 
 17 A translation of the Diosemeia of Aratus, a poem still extant. In it 
 occurs the line toO yap koX yivos idjiiv, quoted by St. Paul, Acts xvii. 28. 
 
 18 Servius Claudius. On/rater, see Letter i. note 8. 
 
 19 Gaius Octavius, father of the emperor Augustus, now governor of 
 Macedonia. 
 
40 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt i* 
 
 X. (AD ATT. II. 1 6.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Early in May, 695 A.v.0. (59 B.C.) 
 
 Soon after the date of the last letter Atticus returned to Rome, so that there 
 is here a gap of several months in the correspondence. Meanwhile at Rome 
 events had moved fast. In the summer of 60 B.C. the celebrated cabal of 
 Caesar, Pompeius, and Crassus, generally known as the first triumvirate, was 
 formed ; a coalition which was entirely to the advantage of Caesar, who now 
 began to overshadow his rival. For the next year Caesar was elected consul ; 
 the aristocratic party succeeding by lavish bribery in procuring the election 
 also of the dull-witted Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, whose helpless opposition 
 to his colleague was popularly satirised by calling it the consulship of Julius 
 and Caesar. Caesar then lost no time in proposing an Agrarian law, entrust- 
 ing to a commission of twenty the division of the State lands, particularly in 
 ■Campania, among the veterans of Pompeius and large numbers of the poorer 
 citizens. This was rejected by the Senate, but forced through on appeal to the 
 people, and the humiliation of the Senate was complete. The cabal was in 
 fact an usurpation of absolute power, and cleared the way for the coming 
 monarchy. See Mommsen, iv. 196-206 ; Merivale, i. 166-175 I Forsyth, c. 11 ; 
 Trollope, i. ch. n. 
 
 In April, Cicero left Antium, where he had been, for his villa at Formiae. 
 Tradition assigns several villas here to him. 
 
 1 On the last day of April, as I was just dropping off to sleep 
 after dinner, your letter on the subject of the Campanian land- 
 division was brought to me. Well, at first it startled me so as 
 to put an end to sleep, but more from thoughtfulness than 
 uneasiness. And the result of my thinking comes pretty 
 much to this. First, from what you said in a previous letter 
 — :that you had heard from an intimate friend of his that he 1 
 was going to make a proposal to be made which would satisfy 
 everybody — I had apprehended a more heroic scheme. This 
 one seems to me not at all of that kind. Secondly, it' is 
 comforting to me to see how all the hopes of a distribution of 
 land are now diverted towards Campania. Now this tract, 
 even assuming that they only get six acres apiece, 2 cannot 
 possibly provide for more than five thousand men ; the rest of 
 the crowd of expectants must perforce be disappointed by 
 them. Moreover, if there is any single thing calculated more 
 than another to stir the indignation of good citizens (who I 
 
 1 Caesar. 2 The iugerum, 240 feet x 120 = about § of an acre. 
 
bp. x. TO ATTICUS: (AD ATT. II. 16.) 41 
 
 see are already roused to action), it is this : and all the more 
 because, as the customs in Italian ports are abolished and the 
 Campanian lands divided, what home revenues have we left, 
 except the five per cent tax? 3 and I suppose even that will 
 be swept away, if any one shows the slightest opposition to 
 it, by the clamour of our quondam lackeys. What our friend : 
 Pompeius may be ultimately intending I declare outright I 
 do not know, seeing it has been found possible to induce him 
 to go as far as this ; but. 
 
 ' He plays no more on tiny treble pipes, 
 Now with wild blast uncurbed the trumpet blares. ' 4 
 
 For up to this time he has adopted some such ruse as to 
 answer that he must give his sanction to Caesar's laws, while it 
 was for Caesar himself to be responsible for the means of 
 carrying them; that he had accepted the principle of an 
 Agrarian law, but whether a veto was possible or not had 
 nothing to do with him; that he approved of a settlement 
 being at length agreed to about the king of Alexandria, 6 but 
 whether Bibulus had really on that occasion watched for 
 omens in the sky or not it was not his business to inquire ; as 
 to the tax-farmers, he had always been anxious to do their class 
 any service ; he could not possibly have foreseen what would 
 be the result if Bibulus had come down that day to the 
 Forum. O great Pasha, 6 I wonder what you will say now ? 
 That you have found us new revenues on Anti-Lebanon, if 
 you have taken away that of the Campanian lands? Why, 
 how will you make this good ? I will keep you down, says he, 
 by means of Caesar's army. No ; I swear to you you will not 
 be doing it so much by that army of yours, as by the ingratitude 
 of those men who call themselves good citizens, but have 
 never showed me the least gratitude, even in a word of the 
 
 8 A tax of that amount on the value of slaves who received their freedom. 
 
 4 Sophocles, Fragm. 753. The (popfieid, Lat. capistrum, was a sort of 
 mouth-band, intended to modulate the tones of the player. 
 
 5 The claims of the illegitimate Ptolemaeus XI. , called Auletes (the flute- 
 player), were disputed by the Alexandrians, and only recognised by the 
 Senate after enormous bribery. He was subsequently expelled by his subjects ; 
 see Introd. to Letter xxi. 
 
 6 Sampsiceramus, the emir or pasha of Emesa in Syria, had been con- 
 quered by Pompeius, who is frequently nicknamed after him by Cicero. 
 
42 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 thanks which are my due, much less in substantial rewards. 
 
 3 Why, if I were to bestir myself against that party, I should 
 undoubtedly find some way of checking them. As it is, I have 
 fully determined — since the difference of opinion between your 
 favourite Dicaearchus and my friend Theophrastus is so wide, 
 that while your philosopher places the life of 'action' far 
 above all others, mine gives no less preference to the life of 
 ' contemplation,' — to show myself deferential to both. Dicae- 
 archus's opinion, you will admit, I have exemplified more than 
 enough ; now I am looking wistfully to the other's school, which 
 not only allows me to take some rest, but blames me for not 
 having always been at rest. So, my dear Titus, let us come 
 back at length to those glorious pursuits of old, back to the 
 path from which we should never have wandered. 
 
 i What you say about my brother Quintus's letter is just 
 what he was to me too — 
 
 ' Prima leo, postrema — !' 7 
 
 I do not know what to call it ; for while in his first lines he 
 deplores his long absence enough to make anybody pity him, 
 he presently relaxes so far as to ask me to revise and edit 
 his journals for him. Will you attend though to the point 
 about which he writes, the claim for port-dues on bonded 
 goods ? 8 He says, in accordance with the advice of his 
 council, he has referred the matter to the Senate. Apparently 
 he had not yet read my letter, in which I answered him, after 
 careful consideration and inquiry, that the tax is not legally 
 due. I should like you to see any Greeks who have come 
 from Asia to Rome about the matter, and if you think good, 
 point out to them what my opinion on the question is. If I 
 can back out of my opinion, rather than that the good cause 
 should be lost in the Senate I will make a concession to the 
 tax-farmers : autrement I tell you frankly in this matter I prefer 
 the interests of the whole of Asia and the large dealers ; for 
 the question is of very great importance to them too. This I 
 
 7 Lucr. v. 903, which is itself a rendering of Homer's-jdesoription of the 
 Chimaera, Iliad, vi. 181, quoted by Cicero. He only means that the begin- 
 ning and end of the letter differed widely. 
 
 8 Boot explains the word as a duty on goods re-exported in default of a 
 purchaser, which was claimed by the tax-farmers. 
 
ep. xi. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. II. 18.) 43 
 
 feel to be absolutely essential for us ; but I will leave it to 
 you. Then as to the paymasters, surely they cannot be still 
 disputing about the currency ? 9 If we can get nothing better 
 after trying all expedients, I for one should not despise even 
 their ' cistophorus ' in the last resource. 
 
 I expect to see you at my place at Arpinum, and give you 
 a country-house entertainment, since you would have nothing 
 to do with my seaside one here. 
 
 XI. (AD ATT. II. 18.) 
 
 • FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS, PROBABLY AT BUTHROTUM. 
 
 June, 695 A.V.C. (59 B.C.) 
 
 Statius was a favourite slave of Quintus Cicero who was thought to have 
 undue influence over his master. Hence his manumission seems to have caused 
 much unfavourable criticism ; showing already the rise of that dislike of freed- 
 men-favourites which became so marked under the empire. 
 
 From this and other letters it would seem that Cicero believed, or perhaps 
 only tried to persuade himself (see Introd. to Letter xv.), that the triumvirs 
 {populares isti) were highly unpopular, and Bibulus and Curio the idols of the 
 people. This is of course impossible, though no doubt there were some 
 among the lower orders who grumbled because their extravagant expectations 
 had not been fulfilled, and thus confirmed the idea that a popular reaction 
 was really spreading. The resentment of the equites (xii. § 3) is curious, if 
 truly reported, seeing that they were much courted by the triumvirs. It may 
 have been a mere momentary outburst if they were believed to contemplate the 
 repeal of the Roscian Act (Letter ix. note 4), which was highly popular of 
 course with the equites, but fiercely resented by the excluded classes. Mr. H. 
 F. Pelham suggests in Mr. Watson's edition, that equites here represents 
 equitum centuriae, which were mainly composed of young patricians. But 
 surely this is impossible where no qualification whatever is hinted at by the 
 context. The truth seems rather to be that Cicero's report of the demon- 
 strations in the theatre proves very little. As Prof. Beesly remarks : ' Probably 
 Cicero sitting among the senators in the stalls tried to persuade himself that 
 their petulance was a sample of popular feeling.' — Clodius, 68. 
 
 I have received several letters from you, which showed me 1 
 the suspense and anxiety with which you were longing to hear 
 
 9 This dispute is similar to our Anglo-Indian one about the depreciation of 
 silver and the rupee. The cistojtkorus, a coin of Asia Minor, so called because 
 it was stamped with the sacred ark of Ceres, was intrinsically worth 3 denarii 
 (2s. 2d.) but was counted as only z\. — Mommsen, iv. 454. But the actual value 
 of the coin is very uncertain. The Diet. Ant. , following Hussey, gives it as 
 7jd. The paymasters wished to pay Quintus Cicero his salary in cistophori 
 at their nominal value, without allowing for the depreciation. 
 
44 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 if there was any news. We are hemmed in on all sides, and 
 no longer rebel against our bondage, but dread death and 
 expulsion, things that in reality are smaller evils, as though they 
 were greater : in fact, our position is one which all unanimously 
 lament, and not one has a single word to relieve. The visit 
 of our lords and masters, I take it, is to leave no one else the 
 power of bestowing favours. One man only — young Curio — 
 breaks the silence and withstands them to the face. He 
 receives the loudest applause, and most gratifying demonstra- 
 tions whenever he appears in public, and numerous testimonies 
 too of goodwill from all honest citizens ; while Fufius is assailed 
 with shouts and jeers and hisses. All this does not increase 
 one's hopes, but only one's bitterness, to see the people's 
 
 2 inclination so free, their manliness so tied. Well, to save you 
 from having to ask about all the details seriatim, things on 
 the whole have come to this, that there is no hope, even of 
 magistrates, not to speak of private individuals, remaining free 
 for any length of time. Still, under all this oppression,,speech 
 is freer, at least in the clubs or over the dinner-table, than it 
 was. Indignation begins to get the upper hand of fear, yet 
 not enough to save us from general despondency. Moreover, 
 there is appended to the Campanian law a denunciation to be 
 imprecated in public by the candidates upon themselves, if 
 they should propose any scheme of distributing the land other 
 than that of Caesar's act. Everybody else is quite ready to 
 swear to it ; but Laterensis is considered to have acted 
 splendidly in withdrawing from his candidature for the tribune- 
 
 3 ship, rather than take the oath. But I cannot bear to write 
 any more about our country ; I am only worrying myself, and 
 cannot write without extreme pain. I hold my own, not 
 discreditably, considering how everybody is trodden down, but 
 with little heart, considering what has been my past career. 
 
 Caesar is inviting me with much generosity to accept a 
 place on his staff; or again, I have the offer of an honorary 
 ambassadorship, nominally to discharge a vow. But the 
 latter affords insufficient protection when you think of the 
 scrupulous delicacy of my young friend, the Beauty, 1 and also 
 
 1 Compare Letter viii. § io. 
 
ep. xii. TO ATTIC US. {AD ATT. II. 19.) 45 
 
 sends me off on a mission just when my brother is coming 
 home : the former is not only safer, but gives me liberty to be 
 here when I choose. This post I have already got, though 
 I do not think I shall avail myself of it; but yet nobody 
 knows. I hate running away, and long to fight it out. People 
 show great enthusiasm for me. Still I cannot positively state 
 anything. You will not mention this. 
 
 About the manumission of Statius 2 and several other t 
 things I am sorry, of course, but I have now grown quite 
 thick-skinned. I wish you, I may say I pine for you to be 
 here; then I should never want for advice or consolation. 
 But hold yourself in readiness, so that if I call out for you 
 you may fly to my side. 
 
 * XII. (AD ATT. II. 19.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 July, 695 A.V.C. (59 B.C.) 
 
 I have much to make me anxious, not only in such a 1 
 public crisis, but in the perils with which I am personally 
 threatened, and they may be counted by the hundred; yet 
 nothing troubles me more than this manumission of Statius. 
 
 'What ! when I bid him — well, let bidding be : 
 Say my displeasure — that then goes for nought ! 1 
 
 I do not know what to do; though really there is not so 
 much in the matter as rumour has it. But I cannot even get 
 into a rage with those whom I dearly love ; I am only sorry, 
 yes, you would be surprised how sorry. My other troubles 
 are about greater matters. The threats of Clodius and the 
 struggles I see ahead do not affect me much ; in fact, I am 
 assured I could bear them with unimpaired dignity, or step 
 out of their way without mortification. Very likely you will 
 say, ' le sifole du gland est passS,' 2 — 'enough now of your 
 
 a Compare the next Letter, § 1. 
 
 1 A quotation from Terence, Phormio, ii. 1. 2. 
 
 2 Cicero is alluding apparently to some Greek proverb about men abandon- 
 ing acorns when they could get better food. The French proverb, ' Le siecle 
 
4 6 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet i. 
 
 dignity ; think, an you love me, of your safety.' Oh dear me ! 
 why are you not here? Nothing, I know, would escape 
 you : possibly I am getting ' myope,' and am too 'passionne 
 
 2 pour I'honneur.' 3 Believe me, there never was in this world 
 anything so disgraceful, so abject, sp thoroughly loathed with 
 perfect unanimity by men of every party, every - order, every 
 age, as the present state of things ; more, I solemnly declare 
 to you, than I could wish, not only more than I had 
 expected. Those 'friends of the people' have now made 
 even the moderates begin to hiss them. Bibulus is lauded 
 to the skies, though why I do not quite know, just as 
 though he were 
 
 • That one man whose wise delay- 
 Restored to us the fortunes of the day.' 4 
 
 Pompeius, my hero, has — and this gives me the deepest pain 
 — completely extinguished himself. He has not a man 
 attached to him. I fear they may find it necessary'^^-esort 
 to force. For myself, while I do riot attack their caul^ for 
 the sake of my old friendship, neither on the other hand can 
 I support it, lest I should seem to be .stultifying all my former 
 
 3 acts : I take the high road. The .popular feeling is most 
 plainly shown at the theatre and the games ; in fact, at a show 
 
 Jiff gladiators leader 5 and associates alike provoked a storm of 
 hisses. At the games of Apollo, Diphiius the actor went out 
 . of his way to make an attack on our friend Pompeius. 
 
 ' Our tears have bought the greatness of thy name' 
 
 he was called upon to repeat over and over again ; while 
 
 ' A time will come when thou shalt rue that power, ' 
 he declaimed amid shouts of applause from the whole theatre, 
 
 du gland est passed vous donnerez du pain aux hommes,' which is an almost 
 ,exact equivalent, is found in a letter of Voltaire's to M. d6 la Chalotais. 
 
 3 These phrases seem to be quoted from the letter of Atticus. 
 
 4 This is a celebrated line of Ennius on Quintus Fabius Maximus, called 
 the Delayer because his tactics of always avoiding an encounter exhausted 
 Hannibal's strength. 
 
 5 Dominus may perhaps refer to the person who provided the show, who 
 was probably Gabinius. Mr. Watson thinks it means Caesar, but I agree 
 with Prof. Tyrrell that Pompeius is far more likely to be meant at this period 
 by the name. As he says, 'Caesar's contemporaries stood too near the 
 canvas rightly to appreciate the proportions of the colossus.' 
 
ep. xii. TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. II. 19.) 
 
 47 
 
 and so on to the end of the passage. The lines in fact are 
 such that one might fancy they were written for the occasion 
 by a personal enemy of Pompeius. 
 
 1 If thee nor law nor duty can restrain,' 
 
 with what follows,, we had recited amid shouts and uproar. 6 
 The applause showed no sign of reviving when Caesar entered ; 
 but he was followed by the younger Curio, who was cheered 
 as much as Pompeius used to be cheered once, while our 
 country was still free. Caesar was seriously annoyed. They 
 say that a letter flew post-haste to Porripeius at Capua. They 
 were objectionable to the equites, who stood up to applaud 
 Curio ; and enemies to all of us. They were supposed to be 
 threatening the act of Roscius, and even the corn-law; in 
 fact, there was a regular riot. For my part I had rather that 
 their proposed measures should be silently submitted to, but 
 this I fear will not be allowed ; people refuse to put up with 
 things it seems they must put up with. piut now you hear only 
 one expression of opinion from everybody, rather emboldened 
 by hatred than by the confidence of security. / Meanwhile, 1 
 our dear friend Publius is threatening me ; he means mischief. 
 Some trouble is impending in which I am sure you will fly to 
 me. I seem to have safely assured for my side that army of 
 all the good citizens (and even 'the moderately good ones), 
 which was the result of my consulship. Pompeius shows his 
 regard for me very strongly ; at the same time he declares that 
 the fellow will not venture on a word against me : not that in 
 this he wishes to mislead me, but he is himself misled, 
 Cosconius being dead, I have been asked to -fill his place. 7 
 No doubt they would like me to be in the shoes of a dead 
 man ! People would look on me as the basest of creatures, 
 nor could anything be less calculated to secure me even that 
 abri against risk you keep insisting on : for those men being 
 regarded with dislike by the good citizens, I should, without 
 
 6 ' In Paris, during the hottest period of the Revolution, the reactionists 
 for the most part had it their own way at the theatres.' — Beesly, Clodius, 68. 
 But see Introd. to Letter xi. 
 
 7 Gaius Cosconius was a member of the Commission of Twenty for divid- 
 ing the Campanian lands. — Introd. to Letter x. 
 
48 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 losing my own unpopularity with the bad, be taking other 
 5 people's upon my shoulders. Caesar wants me to be on his 
 staff. This is a more respectable way of avoiding the danger ; 
 but I am not inclined to shirk it. What is it to be then? 
 My vote is for fighting, but nothing has been finally settled. 
 Again I repeat, ' Oh that you were here ! ' but still I will send 
 for you if it be necessary! What more can I have to say, then ? 
 I have just this much, I think — we are now certain that all is 
 lost. What is the good of coquetting 8 with the truth so long? 
 Still I am only writing this in haste, and faith 'tis not without 
 some apprehension. Later on I will either tell you -plainly if 
 I can get a thoroughly safe person to entrust a letter to ; or if 
 I have to write ambiguously, still you will see what I mean. 
 In these letters I shall put Laelius for myself, and Furius for 
 you ; all other things too shall be en mots couverts. While 
 here I am very polite to Caecilius, and pay much attention to 
 him. I hear the edicts of Bibulus 9 have been sent to you. 
 Our friend Pompeius is boiling with rage and vexation about 
 them. 
 
 XIII. (AD ATT. II. 24.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 
 August, 695 A.v.c. (59 B.c) 
 
 The true story of the plot described in this letter is almost impossible to 
 discover. One Lucius Vettius, an informer employed by Caesar, told the 
 younger Curio that he had determined to kill Pompeius, and according to one 
 account Caesar also. On being arrested he charged most of the prominent 
 members of the senatorial party, including the consul Bibulus, with complicity 
 in the plot. But in examination he contradicted himself so grossly that 
 he was thrown into prison, and privately strangled, no doubt by the contrivers 
 of the plot, whoever they were. On this point there is a great difference of 
 opinion among authorities. Mommsen and Abeken regard it as an intrigue of 
 the triumvirs to get rid of their strongest opponents, and so do Cicero himself, 
 Suetonius, and Plutarch. Napoleon III. (Caesar, i. p. 405), and Mr. Long 
 believe that it was devised by some adherents of the triumvirs, such as Vatinius, 
 
 8 Suidas explains o.kki!> as a vain coy woman, and this best suits the sense 
 of &KKi'(op.ai. See Thompson's note on Plato, Gorgias, p. 497. Lidd. and 
 Scott, however, render it ' hobgoblin, bugbear.' 
 
 9 Bibulus issued numerous edicts to declare Caesar's acts null and void, 
 of which Caesar took not the faintest notice. 
 
ep. xiii. TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. II. 24.) 49 
 
 then a tribune, without the knowledge of their chiefs, and this Mr. Watson 
 thinks not improbable. Dean Merivale and Prof. Tyrrell incline to regard 
 it as a genuine plot of the optimates, which is the view of Dion Cassius (who 
 ascribes it to Cicero himself !) and of Appian. Mr. Forsyth's opinion is not 
 obvious, but he calls the plot ' unreal. ' See Mommsen, iv. 206 ; Merivale, i. 
 176 ; Long, iii. 436-439 ; Abeken, m ; Forsyth, 177. 
 
 In the letter I gave to Numestius, I entreated you so 1 
 much to come that nothing could have been more earnest 
 or pressing ; to the speed I then urged add even more now 
 if you possibly can. Do not however alarm yourself (I know 
 you well, and cannot forget that to love '77 is to be all made of 
 sighs and tears' 1 ), for after all the matter is, I hope, likely 
 to turn out not so formidable in the result as it seems in the 
 telling. It seems clear to me that Vettius— you know him ; 2 
 the man who used to be my informer — has promised Caesar 
 to contrive that the younger Curio shall fall under suspicion 
 of plotting. With this object he wormed himself into intimacy 
 with the lad, and after frequent conferences with him, as the 
 evidence proves, went so far as to say that he himself was fully 
 determined to make his slaves attack Pompeius and murder 
 him. Curio reported this to his father, and he to Pompeius; 
 . and the matter eventually came before the Senate. Vettius on 
 being put into the box at first denied that he had ever had any 
 meetings by appointment with Curio. Of course this did not 
 last long ; very soon he claimed a pledge of indemnity for his 
 evidence, amid cries of ' No.' He then gave out that there 
 had been an association of young men headed by Curio, 
 among whom originally had been Lucius Paulus, Quintus 
 Caepio (Brutus I mean 2 ), and Lentulus the son of the priest 
 of Mars, whose father was aware of it ; and that afterwards 
 Gaius Septimius, the secretary of Bibulus, had brought him a 
 dagger from Bibulus. All this was treated as. ridiculous — -- 
 that Vettius would have had to do without a dagger unless 
 the consul gave him one ! — and it was scouted all the more 
 
 1 Silvius's sentiment in 'As You Like It,' v. u. Prof. Tyrrell points out 
 that ' quam sit amor omnis sollicitus atque anxius ' is almost certainly a 
 quotation from a play. 
 
 2 Hie, because Marcus Iunius Brutus, the murderer of Caesar, had been 
 adopted by his uncle Quintus Servilius Caepio, but would perhaps not be 
 known to Atticus under that name. ' 
 
 E 
 
50 LETTERS OF CICERO. part I. 
 
 from the fact that on the 13th of May Bibulus had informed 
 Pompeius that he ought to be on his guard against treachery, 
 3 for which Pompeius had thanked him. Curio the younger on 
 being called rebutted the statements of Vettius ; and on that 
 occasion Vettius was discredited mostly from his own assertion 
 that the plot of these young men to make an attack on 
 Pompeius in the Forum at the exhibition of gladiators given 
 by Gabinius was headed by Paulus, who was well known to 
 have been in Macedonia at the time. A decree is passed that 
 Vettius should be thrown into gaol, because by his own con- 
 fession he had carried arms ; any magistrate who had given 
 orders for his release would be an accomplice of treason. 
 The general impression about the matter left on people's minds 
 was an idea that it had been arranged for Vettius to be arrested 
 in the Forum with a dagger, and his slaves, all of them armed, 
 at the same time; that he should then offer to give evidence; 
 and that this would actually have taken place, had not the 
 Curios first given information to Pompeius. Afterwards the 
 decree of the Senate was publicly read. However on the next 
 day, Caesar of all men, who once when praetor had forbidden 
 Quintus Catulus to speak except from below the tribune, now 
 brought Vettius forward actually on to it, thus giving him the 
 privilege of a place which the consul Bibulus could scarcely 
 venture to show himself near. Here he said anything he 
 was wished to about matters of State, in a way to be expected 
 from one who had come there fully primed and tutored. 
 First he excepted the name of Caepio from his remarks, though 
 he had mentioned him by name most emphatically in the 
 Senate, so that it became clear that the night had given an 
 opportunity for some nocturnal intercession. 3 Next he named 
 people on whom in' the Senate he had not cast the least breath 
 of suspicion : Lucullus, from whose house Gaius Fannius (the 
 same who supported the prosecution of Clodius) had, he said, 
 been frequently sent to him ; and Domitius, whose house had 
 been fixed as the ©ne from which the attack was to be made. 
 
 8 The allusion is to Marcus Brutus's mother, Servilia, who was suspected 
 of a liaison with Caesar. The evidence, however, is very weak, and Roman , 
 scandal on such subjects was entirely reckless. See Froude, Caesar, 542-547. 
 On the notion that Brutus was Caesar's own son, see Letter cv, note 1. 
 
EP. xni. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. II. 24.) 
 
 Si 
 
 He did not mention me by name, but said that a certain 
 eloquent ex-consul, a near neighbour of the consul's, had 
 remarked to him that what we wanted was to find some 
 Servilius Ahala or Brutus. 4 At the very last he added, on 
 being recalled by Vatinius, after the assembly had been 
 dismissed, that he had heard from Curio that Piso, my son-in- 
 law, was privy to this plot, as also was Marcus Laterensis. 
 Vettius is now being charged before Crassus Dives with 4 
 disturbing the peace, and in the event of being found guilty 
 intends tb claim leave to turn informer ; and if he succeeds in 
 this, there will probably be more than one prosecution. This 
 I do not exactly disregard, for I am one who makes it a 
 principle to disregard nothing, but do not much fear. People 
 show me the strongest tokens of their good-will, but I am 
 utterly sick of life; everything is so full of every possible 
 kind of trouble. A little while ago I feared a massacre, but 
 this idea was dispelled by the speech of that stout-hearted 
 veteran Quintus Considius. 6 Now the kind of massacre I 
 might have dreaded every day has risen up all of a sudden. 
 In fine, it would be impossible to be more unhappy than I, 
 or happier than Catulus, alike in the glory of his life and in 
 not seeing these evil days. Still, amid all these troubles I 
 keep a good courage and unbroken spirit, and am maintaining 
 my position with dignity and with the greatest vigilance. 
 Pompeius bids me have no fear about Clodius, and professes 5 
 the greatest regard for me in all his speeches. I long to have 
 you to advise my actions, share my anxieties, and take part in 
 all my thoughts; so, as I have desired Numestius to plead 
 with you, I now again implore you as earnestly as ever, nay, if 
 possible, even more so, to be sure to make haste to me. I 
 shall feel new life in me when once I have set eyes on you. 
 
 4 Cicero's house was on the Palatine, and therefore near Caesar's official 
 residence, as Pontiff, in the Sacred Way. Gaius Servilius Ahala, master of 
 the horse to Cincinnatus, was the murderer of Spurius Maelius, the popular 
 hero. The Brutus here meant is of course Lucius Brutus who expelled 
 Tarquinius the Second. 
 
 5 Quintus Considius told Caesar that the empty Senate was due to his 
 method of terrorism. Caesar, however, took the veteran's rebuke in good part. 
 Plutarch, Caes. 14. 
 
52 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet i. 
 
 XIV. (AD ATT. II. 25.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 August, 695 A.V.C. (59 B.C.) 
 
 This characteristic letter illustrates Cicero's not very honourable theories 
 about the Mendaciuncula or white lie. Varro, the great scholar and antiquary, 
 was now to be flattered as being a friend of Pompeius. 
 
 1 In future if I have spoken in praise of any of your friends 
 in a letter to you I should like you to let them know that I 
 have done so. For instance, I wrote to you lately, you know, 
 that Varro had been very kind to me, and you replied that it 
 gave you extreme pleasure ; but I should be better pleased to 
 know that you had written to tell him that he is doing all I 
 could wish — not that he really is doing so, but to get him to 
 do it. For, as you are aware, he has a curious disposition, 
 ' dolts instructus et arte Pelasga.' l But ' quidquid delirant 
 reges,' 2 we must bear ; 'tis a sound maxim. Yet, upon my 
 word, how liberally, how nobly, how eloquently your other 
 friend, Hortensius, extolled me to the skies in speaking of the 
 praetorship of Flaccus, and that crisis about the Allobroges, 8 
 I can assure you it would be impossible to speak more 
 affectionately and enthusiastically, or in a less grudging way. 
 You understand of course that I want you to let him know 
 
 2 that I have written this to you. But why should you write, 
 when I suppose you are on your way already, and indeed 
 almost here by now ? , I have pleaded for this so much in my 
 former letters. I am anxiously looking for you, and anxiously 
 longing, and yet it is not so much I as the cause and the time 
 that are really calling for you. What can I write to you about 
 these matters except the old story — that nothing is more hope- 
 
 1 Aen. ii. 152. The parallel is all the closer because the original is spoken 
 by Andromache of the Spartans, in Euripides, Androm. 448. 
 
 2 Hor. Ep. i. 2. 14. Cicero is alluding to a line, ' The follies of our lords 
 we must endure,' Euripides, Phoenissae, 393. 
 
 s Flaccus was praetor at the time of Catilina's conspiracy. The final dis- 
 closure came through the envoys of the Allobroges, a Gallic people whose ? 
 country lay between Lyon and Geneva, to whom overtures had been made. 
 Cicero defended Flaccus on the usual charge of extortion in a speech still extant. 
 
ep. xv. TO QUINTUS. (AD Q. F. I. 2.) 
 
 S3 
 
 less than the constitution, nothing more hateful than those 
 whose work all this is. For myself, as far as I believe, and 
 hope, and can ascertain, I am supported by everybody's 
 strongest good-will. So come to me on wings : if you do not 
 set me free from all my troubles, you will at least share them. 
 I write the more briefly because, as I hope, we shall soon be 
 able to meet and discuss anything we like. Farewell. 
 
 XV. (AD QUINT. FRATR. I. 2.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CICERO AT ROME TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS 
 AT EPHESUS. 
 
 About November, 695 A.v.c. (59 B.C.) 
 
 This letter is politically unimportant, though § 15 conclusively shows the 
 real popularity of the triumvirs, which Cicero refused to see in Letter xii. It 
 is interesting, both as detailing Cicero's views on the tact required for 
 administration of a province, and as illustrating the hasty and passionate 
 character of his brother. Quintus Cicero, who had married Pomponia, the 
 sister of Atticus, after being praetor for 62 B.C., succeeded Lucius Flaccus as 
 governor of the Roman province of Asia, the capital of which was Ephesus. 
 His administration gave rise apparently to bitter complaints, not so much from 
 any injustice, as from his want of tact, and readiness to act entirely upon 
 impulse. The letter also throws much light on the character of Roman pro- 
 vincial administration ; the enormous powers of a governor, amounting nearly 
 to making his own laws ; the pressure put upon him by his friends to wrest 
 the law in their interest ; and the odium they always endeavoured to excite 
 against him if disappointed, in view of the trial for corruption which generally 
 succeeded a proconsulship. 
 
 Abeken, 115 ; Smith's Diet. Biog., i. 746 ; Beesly, Catiline, 4-7. 
 
 Statius arrived here on the 25 th of October. 1 His coming 1 
 made me uneasy, because you said you would be sure to be 
 plundered by your servants during his absence-; so far however 
 as it cut short the curiosity about his return and the crowding 
 to see himj which would be sure to ensue if he left the province 
 in your company without showing himself before, I thought it 
 had happened very fortunately ; for gossip has now used itself 
 up, and people have often dropped phrases about having 
 expected to see some great hero — l forti pectore et armis ' ; 2 
 
 1 See Letter xi. § 4 ; xii. § 1. 
 
 2 Aen. iv. 11. Cicero is quoting the words of Polyphemus when disappointed 
 about Odysseus, Od. ix. 513. 
 
54 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 and I am glad to think that all this has been spending 
 
 2 itself in your absence. However your sending him here to 
 clear himself was, to me at least, totally unnecessary : for in 
 the first place I never suspected him at all, and secondly, 
 though I wrote to you about him, I was not writing my own 
 opinion ; but as the interest and safety of all of us when we are 
 in any public character depends not only on what is known, 
 but what is believed about us, I have invariably reported to 
 you what other people were saying, not my own conclusions. 
 And how general, and moreover how serious these remarks 
 were, Statius himself discovered on his arrival. In fact, he 
 happened to be present when some people were actually com- 
 plaining about him at my house, and was enabled to perceive 
 that the slanders of the spiteful burst out with special vehemence 
 
 3 at the mention of his name. What however used to disturb 
 me most was when I heard rumours of his influence with you 
 being greater than the dignity of your years and respect for your 
 high position ought to allow ; for you cannot think how many 
 people have interceded with me to give them a good word 
 with Statius ; or again, how many times I myself have heard 
 him in conversation drop, as though par migarde, 3 expressions 
 like this : ' I did not approve of it,' ' I warned,' or ' I recom- 
 mended,' or ' I prevented ' him ; and, though all this shows 
 the greatest fidelity — which I fully believe, since you are con- 
 vinced that it is so, — yet the mere fact of people's knowing 
 that one has such an influential freedman or slave is fatal to 
 self-respect. And you may take this for a fact (for if I ought 
 not thoughtlessly to report anything, neither ought I to deceive 
 you by suppressing it), that it is Statius who has given a handle 
 for all the slanders of people who were eager to disparage you. 
 Until now all I could see was that there were some people who 
 had a grudge against you for your severity ; but since you have 
 given him his freedom, I find that the people with a grudge 
 have something to talk about. 
 
 i II. I will now proceed to answer the letters delivered to 
 
 3 aa<pa\uis may perhaps mean ' feeling safe ' and so = carelessly. But 
 Prof. Tyrrell reads d0e\uJs, which may be rendered ' in all naiveU' 
 Atque habeto is an anacoluthon after quod me movebat, caused by the long 
 parenthesis. 
 
ep. xv. TO QUINTUS. {AD Q. F. I. 2.) 55 
 
 me by Caesius (and since I gather that you wish this, I will not 
 fail to assist this man on any opportunity I may have). The first 
 of them is about Zeuxis of Blaudus. 4 You say that I have 
 cordially recommended to you a man who is beyond all doubt 
 the murderer of his mother. With regard to this — and indeed 
 all similar cases — I must ask you to note a few facts ; other- 
 wise you might perhaps wonder that I have become so eager 
 to conciliate the Greeks. Perceiving that the complaints of 
 the Greeks were being allowed too much weight, owing to the 
 national talent for imposing on everybody, I took care to pacify 
 in every way I could any persons I ever heard complaining of 
 you. First I conciliated the people of Dionysopolis, who were 
 particularly bitter, — and Hermippus, as being one of their 
 leading men, I attached to me by not only entering into con- 
 versation with him, but by admitting him to intimacy — I even 
 condescended personally to treat Hephaestus of Apamea, and 
 that good-for-nothing scamp Megaristus of Antandros, and 
 Nicias of Smyrna too 6 — worthless creatures as they un- 
 doubtedly are — with all the courtesy I could manage, even 
 down to Nymphontes of Colophon. Now my object in all 
 this was not any pleasure I take in such people as these, or the 
 nation as a whole — I am sick of their want of principle, their 
 subserviency, their disposition to ignore gratitude for expediency 
 — but when Zeuxis (to return to him) began to talk about his 5 
 conversation with Cascellius exactly as you describe, I stopped 
 his mouth, and invited his intimacy. I cannot understand 
 however what this extreme ' desire ' of yours can have been, 
 when you tell me in your letter that having had two Mysians 
 at Smyrna sewn up in the sack, 6 you were very desirous to 
 apply similar stern measures in the upper part of your province, 
 and therefore wanted, whatever the means, to get Zeuxis in- 
 veigled there. Possibly he was not a man whom, if brought 
 
 4 A town of Phiygia. All the places mentioned below were in Quintus 
 Cicero's province. 
 
 6 The repetition of 'ego' is to point the contrast with the objects of 
 ' complexus. ' 
 
 6 By a well-known traditional punishment a parricide was scourged, sewn 
 up in a sack with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, all supposed to be parri- 
 cidal creatures, put on to a waggon drawn by black oxen, and thrown into 
 the sea. Diet. Ant. p. 687 ; Mayor on Juv. viii. 214 ; Cic. pro Rose. Am. 25. 
 
56 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 to trial, it would be right to let go, but surely it was not 
 necessary that he should be enticed and inveigled to trial 
 under false pretences, as you propose ; especially as he is a 
 man whom, on the testimony not only of his fellow-citizens but 
 other people too, I find more plainly day by day to be even 
 
 6 more eminent if possible than his native town. 7 But, say you, 
 it is always these Greeks I am favouring. What ? did not I 
 appease Caecilius in every possible way ? And look what a 
 man he was — what a rage he was in ! what temper he showed ! 
 In fact, is there any one I ever failed to mollify except 
 Tuscenius, whose case is beyond remedy? Mind you, we 
 still have Catienus hanging over our heads — a worthless and 
 mean-spirited fellow enough, but for all that entitled by his 
 income to equestrian rank. Even him it will be possible to 
 pacify ; nor can I blame you for having dealt so severely with 
 his father, being perfectly well aware that you had good reason 
 for so doing ; but what could be the necessity for such a letter 
 as you sent to the man himself; that 'he was bent on setting 
 up for himself the cross from which you had taken him down 
 once before ; ' or that ' you would take good care that he was 
 stifled and burnt at the stake amid applause from the whole 
 province ' ? Look again at what you wrote to one Gaius 
 Fabius, whoever he may be — for Catienus is carrying that letter 
 too round to everybody — how 'it had been reported to you 
 that the kidnapper Licinius with his son, a chick of the old 
 kite, was levying blackmail.' And you proceed to request 
 Fabius to burn father and son alive if possible, but if not, to 
 send them to you, and you would burn them in legal form. 
 Such a letter as this which you wrote in joke to Fabius (if 
 indeed it be yours) has, when any one reads it, a most dis- 
 
 7 agreeable ferocity of expression : and if you look back to the 
 advice given in all my letters, you will find that I have merely 
 ilamed your bitterness of phrase and hastiness, and possibly 
 now and then a want of due consideration in letters you have 
 despatched. And in matters such as these, if my judgment 
 
 7 The supposed irony of this passage seems extremely pointless. Prof. 
 Tyrrell proposes two conjectures, either mobiliorem, ' more excitable,' or to read 
 'Blandus' for ' Blandus' [supra, § 4), and 'molliorem' here for ' nobiliorem,' 
 which would give a Ciceronian play of words on the name Blandus (soft). 
 
TO QUWTUS. (AD Q. F. I. 2.) 57 
 
 had more weight with you than your (shall I say?) slightly 
 hasty disposition, or perhaps a certain enjoyment you have in 
 getting into a passion, or a way of making too pungent epigrams, 
 there would be absolutely nothing I could regret. Yet can 
 you believe the pain I feel is trifling when I hear what a 
 reputation Vergilius has, or Gaius Octavius, your nearest 
 neighbour ? For if you can rank yourself above your neigh- 
 bours inland, in Cilicia and Syria, what a thing to boast of ! 8 
 And here is the sting of it, that while the people I have 
 mentioned are not superior to you in purity of administration, 
 they are superior all the same in the art of winning good-will : 
 yet they know nothing of Xenophon's Cyrus or Agesilaus ; in 
 whose mouths, though both were kings with absolute power, 
 no one ever heard an ill-tempered word. 
 
 III. But as I have from the first been pressing this upon 
 your consideration, I am well aware how much success I have 
 already had. Now however on the eve of your departure, 8 
 which I suppose you are just making, leave behind you, I 
 entreat, as pleasant a recollection of yourself as possible. 
 Your successor is a man of most courteous manners ; all your 
 other qualities will be greatly missed when he comes. In 
 issuing your instructions, as I have often mentioned in my 
 letters, you have shown yourself too accessible to entreaties. 
 Make away, if you possibly can, with any that are unjust, any 
 that are startling, any that are inconsistent. Statius has told 
 me that it is usual for instructions to be brought to you ready 
 written ; that they are read by him, and if they are illegal he 
 informs you of it ; but that before he came to you there was 
 no sifting of the correspondence ; to which fact he attributes 
 those collections of selected despatches which always provoked 
 so much criticism. About matters of this kind I will not, just 9 
 now at any rate, give you any warning ; it is too late, and you 
 may recollect that on various occasions I have given you most 
 careful advice. To repeat however what I charged Theo- 
 pompus to tell you when I was warned of it by him, be sure you 
 
 8 Vergilius was pro-praetor of Sicily, Octavius of Macedonia. Mr. Watson 
 says that the Governor of Syria was either Lucius Philippus, or Gnaeus 
 Lentulus Marcellinus, who were the consuls of 56 B.C. ; of Cilicia either 
 Titus Balbus (Letter 1.), or Marcus Pupius Piso (Letter vi.), consul 61 B.C. 
 
58 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 see that people who are really your friends — this is easy enough 
 — destroy all papers of this kind ; first, the illegal ; secondly, the 
 inconsistent ones ; thirdly, those that are eccentric, or written 
 in bad taste ; lastly, those that contain insulting expressions 
 about anybody. Mind, I do not suppose that these faults are 
 really as great as I am told ; only if through pressure of work 
 they have been little noted, take the opportunity now of re- 
 vising and correcting them. I have read a letter of which I 
 cannot approve, said to have been written by your confidential 
 man 9 Sulla on his own authority ; several I have seen which 
 
 10 are written in an angry tone. But this is just h propos about 
 your rescripts : for while I was on this very page, in came 
 Lucius Flavius, our praetor-elect, -a great friend of mine, who 
 told me you had sent instructions to his agents, which appeared 
 to me most unjust ; forbidding them to take any part of the 
 property of the late Lucius Octavius Naso, to which Flavius 
 succeeds, before paying the claim of Gaius Fundanius ; and 
 that you had sent a similar one to the authorities at Apollonis, 
 not to allow the property which had belonged to Octavius to 
 be touched till the debt had been paid to Fundanius. It 
 seems to me impossible this can be true ; it is so utterly unlike 
 your judgment. Not let the heir touch the property ! What 
 if he denies the debt ? What if he does not owe it all ? In 
 fact, is it usual for the praetor to decide whether a debt is 
 owing or not ? Am I not a well-wisher to Fundanius, a good 
 friend of his, and one who would pity his case ? No one more 
 so than I ; but the force of justice is so great in some cases as 
 to leave no room for personal feeling. Moreover Flavius told 
 me that in the instructions, which he declared to be yours, you 
 had stated that the alternative was whether you should thank 
 them as your friends, or make it unpleasant for them as being 
 
 11 your enemies. I need scarcely say that he took this very ill, 
 and complained most bitterly to me, and implored me to write 
 to you very strongly about it. This I am now doing, and I 
 beg you over and over again, with all the earnestness I can, 
 
 9 Lit. nomenclator, an attendant who informed his master of the names of 
 the people he met, it being 'at Rome a most important attention that a man 
 should be addressed by name. Usually of course this was a confidential 
 servant. 
 
ep. xv. TO QVINTUS. (AD Q. F. I. z.) 59 
 
 first to concede the point to Flavius's agents about taking pos- 
 session of the property ; and secondly, not to send any further 
 instructions to the people at Apollonis which Flavius can object 
 to. You will do all this, will you not, for the sake of Flavius ? 
 I am sure you will for Pompeius. Upon my honour, I do 
 not like you to think that I am gaining credit for liberality 
 myself out of your hard dealing towards this man ; but I 
 entreat you to see to it in person that some official instructions 
 are left behind you on the point, and some record in the form 
 of a decree or memorandum of your own, such as may be 
 calculated to secure the rights of Flavius in this case. For 
 the poor man, who is most attentive to me, and most tenacious 
 of his rights and position, is much pained to find that neither 
 friendship nor equity availed him at all with you : and yet, if 
 I am not mistaken, both Pompeius and Caesar once recom- 
 mended Flavius to your good offices, and Flavius had himself 
 written to you, as I certainly did. For these reasons if there 
 is anything you would feel you ought to do for me, when I 
 ask it, let this be it. An you love me, fail not in this; 
 spare no pains ; attain the end of making Flavius feel the 
 deepest gratitude both to yourself and to me. I could not be 
 more in earnest than I am in pleading for this. 
 
 IV. What you tell me about Hermia has, I give you my 12 
 word, caused me much pain. I wrote you a letter which I 
 own was not quite in a brotherly spirit ; but I wrote it in a 
 fit of temper when I was stung by the speech of Diodotus, 
 Lucullus's freedman, immediately after I had heard about the 
 compact ; and I really wanted to recall it. Such a letter, if 
 not a brotherly one, you ought as a brother to forgive. 
 
 With regard to Censorinus, Antonius, Scaevola, and the 13 
 Cassii, it gives me the greatest pleasure to find that you are 
 as popular with them as you say you are. Everything else 
 in that same letter of yours was too bitter for my taste ; your 
 'numquam navem nisi rectam,' 10 and 'mors ultima linea.' 
 
 10 This is Seneca's version (Ep. 85) of the Greek proverb quoted by Cicero, 
 which is explained as the boast of a sailor in a storm that he will steer his 
 good ship well to the last. The other quotation is from Prometheus Vinctus, 
 L 769, meaning that death once for all is better than continued pain. The 
 parallel here given is from Horace, Ep. i. 16, 79. 
 
60 LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 You will find that all this is too tragic for the occasion ; u my 
 reproofs were full of affection for you. They are not exactly 
 nothing; but still they are very moderate, not to say tiny. 
 For my own part, I should not have thought you deserved 
 even the smallest blame in any single thing, so purely blame- 
 less is your conduct, were it not that we have many enemies. 
 Whatever I have said to you in my letters that is in any degree 
 couched in a tone of admonition or censure I have said simply 
 from the watchfulness of that anxiety on your behalf, which 
 is still possessing me and likely to continue ; nor shall I ever 
 give up entreating you to adopt the same course. 
 
 14 Attalus of Hypaepi has been pleading with me for you 
 not to prevent his paying out of the public funds the money 
 that was voted for the statue of Quintus Publicius. In regard- 
 to this I should not only ask as a favour, but should strongly 
 recommend you not to allow, as far as you are concerned, any 
 privileges of such a man, and one so useful to our side, to be 
 cut down or put a stop to. 
 
 By the way, you know Licinius, the slave of my friend 
 Aesopus [the tragedian]. Well, he has run away. He passed 
 as a free man with Patron the Epicurean philosopher at Athens, 
 and went from thence into Asia. Some time afterwards a cer- 
 tain Plato of Sardis, who spends much of his time at Athens, - 
 happened to be at Athens at the very time of Licinius's 
 arrival there ; and on discovering by a letter from Aesopus that 
 he was a fugitive slave, he had the rascal arrested and thrown v 
 into prison at Ephesus, but whether into the public gaol or a 
 private mill I have not been able quite to make out from his 
 letter. Whichever it is, as he is at Ephesus, I should like you 
 to hunt out the man, and to be quite sure to bring him if 
 necessary in your own company. Do not mind whether he is 
 worth it (in fact, a worthless creature cannot be worth much) ; 
 but Aesopus is so pained at the outrageous audachy of his 
 slave, that you could not lay him under any greater obligation 
 than if you could help in his recovery. 
 
 15 V. Now I must tell you what you are most longing to hear 
 
 11 Erant has been suggested, but this sense of the future may be paralleled 
 by Juv. i. 126, quiescet, 'you will find her asleep, ' quoted by Prof. Tyrrell. This 
 is better than Orelli's, ' these things will do for greater troubles.' 
 
ep. xv. TO QUINTUS. (AD Q. F. I. 2.) 61 
 
 about. We have utterly lost our constitution : so much so that 
 Gaius Cato, a young man of no judgment, but still a Roman 
 and a Cato, scarcely escaped with his life because, when he 
 wanted to impeach Gabinius for bribery, and the praetors for 
 several days had refused him any access to or communication 
 with themselves, he from a public platform called Pompeius 
 a dictator in all but law. He had the narrowest escape you 
 ever saw of being murdered. From this you can see what 
 must be the state of the Republic. Still it seems that there 16 
 will not be wanting numbers in our cause; it is quite astonishing 
 how people profess their adherence, and offer their services, or 
 make promises. For my own part indeed I have not only strong 
 hopes, but more confidence than I had before — hopes that we 
 shall prevail in the end, and confidence that while the con- 
 stitution lasts at all I need not even fear any disaster. How- 
 ever things stand thus : if I am impeached in course of law all 
 Italy will flock to my aid, so that I shall come off with tenfold 
 glory ; if, on the other hand, force is to be the order of the 
 day, I hope the devotion not only of friends but even of 
 personal strangers will give me force in return to resist. Every 
 one is promising to place not only himself, but his friends, 
 dependants, freedmen and slaves, and (to crown all) his money 
 at my disposal. My old phalanx of patriots is fired with zeal 
 and love for me : if there are any who before were cold or 
 lukewarm through hatred of these tyrants, they now rally 
 to the good cause. Pompeius makes every promise, and so 
 does Caesar. I believe them of course, so far as that does 
 not require me to abate a jot of my preparations. The 
 incoming tribunes are friendly to me; the consuls seem 
 excellently disposed ; 12 among the praetors I have some warm 
 friends as well as most energetic patriots, such as Domitius, 
 Nigidius, Memmius, 13 and Lentulus : there are other sound 
 
 13 The consuls-elect were Lucius Calpumius Piso, father of Caesar's 
 wife Calpumia, and Aulus Gabinius, both of whom disappointed Cicero's 
 expectations. 
 
 13 The chief title to fame of Memmius is that he was the patron of 
 Lucretius, whose great poem is dedicated to him. He seems to have had no 
 cognomen, though the editors of Cicero have generally altered the correct read- 
 ing of Ad Fam. xiii. 19, 2, from C. Maenius Gemellus to C. Memmius Gem. 
 — Munro on Lucretius, i. 41. 
 
62 LETTERS OF CICERO. fart i. 
 
 people too, but these are all men in a thousand. So you may 
 have good heart and good hope. I will let you know at 
 frequent intervals about such matters as may occur from 
 day to day. 
 
 XVI. (AD ATT. III. 15.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT THESSALONICA TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 August 17, 696 A.v.c. (58 B.C.) 
 
 At last the long-expected attack of Clodius, alluded to in the preceding 
 four letters, fell upon Cicero. As has been already remarked in the Intro- 
 duction to Letter ix, this attack is generally represented as arising simply from 
 the personal animosity of Clodius, but that is a view which cannot possibly be 
 sustained. Prof. Beesly (Clodius, p. 42) undertakes to show ' that the lower 
 orders of Rome exhibited a consistent and determined hostility to the man 
 who had hunted their hero to death ; and that the prime agent in a most just 
 retribution was not Clodius, but Caesar. ' And similarly Mommsen speaks of 
 Clodius ' acting on the instructions he had received. ' That Caesar however 
 would have been quite willing to shield Cicero from any extreme severity, 
 provided he would retire for some period from Rome (just as Cato was entrusted 
 with the annexation of Cyprus), appears clearly enough from his offers of an 
 honorary embassy, and even of the post of one of his own legati (Letter xi. 
 § 3 ; xii. § 5). No less characteristically Pompeius made warm professions of 
 friendship, without extending any protection at all (Letter xii. § 4 ; xiii. § 5). 
 According to Plutarch (Cic. 31) he slipped out of his house by a back-door" to 
 avoid seeing Cicero. 
 
 In March a resolution was proposed in the Assembly by Clodius, now a 
 tribune of the people,- that ' any one who had put Roman citizens to death 
 without trial should be forbidden fire and water,' or, in other words, outlawed. 
 This caused great consternation to the senatorial party, large numbers of whom 
 put on mourning. Though Cicero was not attacked by name, the resolution 
 was obviously aimed at him for his conduct in the conspiracy of Catilina 
 (Introd. to Letter iii. ; Letter ix. note 5) ; and, acting on the advice of 
 a majority of his friends, which he afterwards deplored, he withdrew from 
 Rome, after vainly imploring aid from Pompeius. On the same day Clodius 
 carried a law banishing Cicero by name, but allowing him to live anywhere 
 400 miles from Rome. Cicero sailed from Brundisium to Dyrrachium, and 
 went thence to Thessalonica, where Gnaeus Plancius was quaestor ; declining 
 an invitation to stay at the estate of Atticus in Epirus, which he thought 
 unsafe. Cicero's house on the Palatine was burned down by the mob at once, 
 and on its site Clodius dedicated a. temple to Liberty, to render its recovery' 
 impossible. 
 
 The remaining letters of Part I. are all written by Cicero from Thessalonica 
 or Dyrrachium during his exile. They consist principally of lamentations for 
 Which he has been, for once, too severely censured even by his most partial 
 biographers, coupled with entreaties to hurry the steps that were being taken 
 by his friends to effect a repeal of the act of Clodius. 
 
ep. xvi. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. III. 15.) 63 
 
 See Mommsen, iv. 206-209 ; Merivale, i. 179-190 ; Long, iii. ch. 21 ; iv. 
 ch. 4 ; Beesly, Clodius ; Abeken, 121-141 ; Forsyth, c. 12 ; Trollope, i. ch. 12. 
 
 On the 13th of August I received four letters from you : 1 
 one to reproach me for not being firmer ; a second, in which 
 you mention that Crassus's freedman has told you how worn 
 and thin I look with anxiety ; a third, describing proceedings 
 in the Senate ; and a fourth on a point which you tell me 
 you have heard Varro corroborate, namely, the inclinations of 
 Pompeius. My answer to the first is this. It is true, I do 2 
 grieve, but so far from letting this impair my resolution it is 
 itself a cause of grief to me that with such an unshaken 
 purpose I can neither find scope nor sympathy for it. For if 
 you cannot refrain from grieving when I and I only am missing, 
 what, think you, must it be to me, to be parted from you and 
 everybody? And if you, enjoying all your rights, feel my 
 absence, how much, think you, must I be longing for those 
 very rights? I am loath to recount all that I have been 
 robbed of, not only because it will not be new to you, but 
 because I shrink from reopening the old smart. This only I 
 repeat : never yet did man fall from such high estate, or unto 
 such depths of misery. Time, however, so far from bringing 
 balm to this pain, in fact inflames it ; for while all other sorrows 
 are mellowed by age, this alone can only grow keener day by 
 day as one thinks of the misery of the present, and looks back 
 on the days that are past. 1 For what I miss is not merely the 
 blessings and the friends I once had, but my very self. What 
 indeed is left of me? — but I will not let myself either thus 
 distress your mind with my lamentations, or be perpetually 
 handling my own wounds. 
 
 Now as to your defence of the people that I said were 
 jealous of me, including Cato among them, why truly I, for 
 my part, hold him so entirely acquitted of such baseness, that 
 I bitterly regret having trusted the pretended friendship of 
 
 1 ' Comfort? comfort scorn' d of devils ! this is truth the poet sings, 
 That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. ' 
 
 Tennyson, Locksley Hall. 
 The allusion is to Dante, Inferno; c. v. 
 
 1 Nessun maggior dolore 
 Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
 Nella miseria.' 
 
64 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 others more than his sturdy fidelity. As to the rest whom 
 you defend, they ought to be clear in my eyes if they are in 
 
 3 yours. But this discussion is now out of date. As to Crassus's 
 freedman, he, I dare say, did not speak a word of truth. You 
 describe the debate in the Senate as satisfactory. But how 
 about Curio, — can it be that he has not read that speech 
 (though how it got published I cannot imagine) ? 2 Axius 
 however in his letter to me about the proceedings of the very 
 same day is not so eulogistic of Curio. But it is possible that 
 he passes over something : you of course would not have told 
 me anything but what was the fact. What Varro said gives 
 me some hopes of Caesar, and I only wish Varro could be got 
 to throw himself into our cause. Surely if he would do it of 
 his own accord he would be yet more likely if you pressed 
 
 4 him. For myself, if heaven ever restore me to you and my 
 country, I will indeed try hard that you above all my friends 
 may have cause to rejoice at it ; and the claims of duty and 
 affection, which I must acknowledge have not been sufficiently 
 conspicuous hitherto, I will so discharge that you shall think 
 me restored to you as much as to my brother and my family. 
 If I have ever done you wrong, — nay, what I ought to say is, 
 for the wrong I have done you, forgive me ; for it is myself I 
 have wronged far more deeply. Now I am not writing all this 
 as if I were not aware how great is the grief you feel at my 
 downfall, but assuredly if the affection you have and had for 
 me were, and always had been, nothing but my due, 3 you 
 would never have allowed me to lack the help of that sound 
 advice of which you had such overflowing wealth, nor would 
 you have allowed me to be deluded into believing that it was 
 best for us to let that act about guilds * be carried. But in 
 
 2 Probably the speech 'in Clodium et Curionem' (the elder), of which 
 some fragments remain. 
 
 3 There is no need with Boot to alter the text to ' tantum anwrem re exhi- 
 tuisses.' A real, if subtle, distinction is in the thought. Cicero complains 
 that Atticus has taken all the pains to advise him rightly that he was bound to 
 do under the circumstances, but not all that he would have done had he and 
 not Cicero been the gainer by their friendship. However undeserved this 
 complaint it is at least intelligible, and in accordance with the tone of the 
 whole letter. 
 
 4 Clodius had 're-established the "street-clubs" [collegia compitalicid), 
 at that time abolished, which were nothing else than a formal organisation — 
 
ep. xvi. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. III. 15.) 65 
 
 my trouble you only gave me tears as a tribute of affection ; 
 and that was all that I did for myself. What I ought to 
 have earned by a real claim upon you — that night and day 
 you should be thinking ' what will it be best for him to do ? ' — 
 has all been thrown away, by my own wrongdoing, not by 
 yours. But had there been a soul — I do not mean only you, 
 but any one — to hold me back from my cowardly resolution 
 when I was upset by the ungenerous reply of Pompeius (and 
 this you were the one man most capable of doing), I should 
 either have fallen without disgrace, or lived to be triumphant 
 at this day. You will bear with me thus far ; for it is myself 
 I am accusing much more deeply of us two, and you only 
 afterwards as being my second self; and then of course I 
 should like to find somebody to share the blame with. Then 
 too, if I do get restored, I shall come to see that our common 
 omissions were hardly even so great as this implies, and am 
 quite sure that I shall be dear to you for the kindness you 
 have shown, since I am not to be so for any you have 
 received- 
 
 The suggestion you mention as arising from your conver- 5 
 sation with Culleo about this being a bill against an individual 6 
 has something in it ; but a formal repeal is far more desirable. 
 For if nobody means to oppose, what can be more conclusive ? 
 If, on the other hand, there is any one disposed to prevent its 
 passing, he will be sure also to veto a decree of the Senate. 
 Nor is there any need to repeal anything else ; for the first of 
 the two laws did not affect me at all, and if we had only con- 
 sented when it was first proposed to give it a general support 
 or to disregard it, which was all that it deserved, it could not 
 possibly have hurt us a whit. Here it was that for the first 
 time my judgment failed, nay, even stood in my way. How 
 blind, yes blind, we must have been for putting on mourning, 
 and imploring the aid of the people, always a mischievous 
 step to take, unless indeed they had begun to attack me by 
 
 subdivided according to the streets, and with an almost military arrangement 
 — of the whole free or slave proletariat of the capital.' — Mommsen, iv. 296 ; 
 see also Long, iii. 214. 
 
 s Privilegia or laws directed against individuals were, by the XII Tables, 
 illegal (Cic. Leg. iii. 19. 44), and ipso facto void. The second of the two 
 bills attacked Cicero by name. 
 
 F 
 
66 LETTERS OF CICERO. PART I. 
 
 name. But I keep harping on the past. Still it is for this 
 reason, to prevent your meddling at all, if any step is taken, 
 with the law above mentioned, which has many popular pro- 
 
 6 visions. But it is foolish for me to be advising you about 
 what you are to do, and how to do it ; only I wish to heaven 
 something could be done ! Your letters, I fancy, keep back 
 a good deal, lest I should be too much overwhelmed with 
 despair. For what is there that you see possible to be done, 
 and how ? Can we count on the Senate ? Why you yourself 
 wrote to me that Clodius had affixed to the door of the 
 House a certain section of his law, ' that it be illegal to make 
 any motion or speak upon the point.' How comes it then 
 that Domitius announced his intention of making a motion ; 
 or, again, how is it that when the people you mention were 
 both discussing the matter and calling for it to be put to the 
 vote, Clodius kept silence ? On the other hand, if we are to 
 trust to the popular assembly, will that be possible without 
 securing the unanimous consent of the tribunes ? What about 
 my property? What about my house ? Can it be restored, 
 or if it cannot, how can I be ? Unless you can see some way 
 out of these things, what hope can you hold out to me ? Or 
 if you have no hope, what to me is life itself? I am therefore 
 waiting at Thessalonica for the Gazette of the ist of August, 
 according to which I must determine whether I will retire to 
 your estate in the country, where I can avoid seeing anybody 
 whom I do not want to, while, as you urge, I can s see you, and 
 be at hand if there is anything to be done (and this course I 
 understand is what you as well as my brother would advise), 
 
 7 or whether I will go to Cyzicus. 6 Now, my dear Pomponius, 
 since you would not give me any of your good advice to help 
 me, either because you thought I was quite capable of judging 
 for myself, or from the idea that you were only bound to be 
 ready when appealed to : since I have been betrayed, inveigled, 
 forced into a snare ; have let all my strongest defences be 
 taken ; have put aside and ignored Italy, when she was all 
 alert in my defence; and have given up myself and my 
 dearest ones to my foes, while you looked on without a word, 
 
 6 An important free city, now in ruins, on the south side of the Sea of 
 Marmora. 
 
ep. xvii. TO HIS WIFE. (AD FAM. XIV. 2.). 67 
 
 though if you were not more keen-sighted than I, you were at 
 least less under the influence of fear, I pray you, wherever you 
 have an opportunity, give a hand, if you can, to a fallen man, 
 and be in this a support to me. If however all ways are 
 blocked, be sure to let me know the truth, and on no account 
 any longer try to shame me into action or console me out of 
 mere politeness. It is not your good faith that I am blaming ; 
 were it so it would not be your roof above all others I should 
 choose for a refuge. No, it is my own blindness I blame, in 
 thinking myself loved by you as much as heart could wish. 
 Had this been so you would have shown no less fidelity, but 
 increased anxiety : assuredly you would have held me back 
 when I was flinging myself upon destruction ; and then you 
 would not have had to labour as you are now doing to repair 
 this shattered wreck. Be sure therefore to let me know 8 
 everything about which you are clear and certain ; and help 
 me, as indeed you are doing, to be a man again, since I dare 
 not say to be what I was once, or once had it in my power 
 to become ; and remember that in this letter it is not on you 
 but on myself I have been throwing the blame. 
 
 If there should be any people to whom letters ought to be 
 sent as though they came from me, 7 I wish you would write 
 them and see that they are despatched. 
 Aug. 17. 
 
 < 
 
 XVII. (AD FAM. XIV. 2.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT THESSALONICA TO HIS WIFE TERENTIA AT 
 
 ROME 
 
 Oct. Si 696 A.v.c. (58 B.C.) 
 
 I send this, my dear Terentia, with much love to you, and 
 my little Tullia, and my Marcus. 
 
 I hope you will never think that I write longer letters to 1 
 
 7 Meo nomine =purporting to come from me (e.g. Cicero Bruto Sal.), and 
 therefore ' on my account.' If the seal was with Terentia there would be no 
 possibility of detection, since letters were usually dictated to an amanuensis, 
 and the seal therefore corresponded to our signature. Compare Letter lxxxi. § 3. 
 
68 LETTERS OF CICERO. MOT i. 
 
 other people, unless it so happens that any one has written 
 to me about a number of matters that seem to require an 
 answer. In fact, I have nothing to say, nor is there any- 
 thing just now that I find more difficult. But to you and 
 my dear little girl I cannot write without shedding many 
 tears, when I picture to myself as plunged in the deepest afflic- 
 tion, you whom my dearest wish has been to see perfectly 
 happy ; and this I ought to have secured for you ; yes, and I 
 would have secured, but for, our being all so faint-hearted. 
 
 i I am most grateful to our friend Piso for his kind services. 
 I did my best to urge that he would not forget you when 
 I was writing to him ; and have now thanked him as in duty 
 bound. I gather that you think there is hope of the new 
 tribunes ; that will be a safe thing to depend on, if we may 
 on the professions of Pompeius, but I have my fears of 
 Crassus. It is true I see that everything on your part is done 
 both bravely and lovingly, nor does that surprise me, but what 
 pains me is that it should be my fate to expose you to such 
 severe suffering to relieve my own : for Publius Valerius, who 
 has been most attentive, wrote me word, and it cost me many 
 tears in the reading, how you had been forced to go from the 
 temple of Vesta to the Valerian office. 1 Alas, my light, ray 
 love, whom all used once to look up to for relief ! — that you, my 
 Terentia, should be treated thus ; that you should be thus 
 plunged in tears and. misery, and all through my fault ! I have 
 indeed preserved others, only for me and mine to perish. 
 
 3 As to what you say about our house — or rather its site— I 
 for my part shall consider my restoration to be complete only 
 
 1 Terentia had probably taken refuge in the convent of the temple of 
 Vesta, as she had a half-sister among the Vestal Virgins, the Fabia who was 
 tried and acquitted for an intrigue with Catilina. It is uncertain whether 
 Tabula Valeria means a money-lender's office, where Terentia had been . 
 obliged to borrow, or a court where she was forced to make an affidavit about 
 her property. Prof. Tyrrell thinks it was to make some declaration before a 
 banker about, her husband's estate, and compares tabula Sestia, Pro Quinct, 
 23, but he also gives 'auction-room' as an alternative. According to a Scholiast 
 on Cic. Vatin. ix. 21, where the word recurs, as it does also in Pliny, H. N. 
 xxxv. 7, it was a place near the Curia Hostilia, so called from a picture of the 
 naval battle of Marcus Valerius Messalla against Hiero in 264 B.C. Perhaps 
 Cicero, with his inveterate love of playing upon words, is alluding to the name 
 of his informant. 
 
kp. xviu. TO HIS WIFE. {AD FAM. XIV. I.) 69 
 
 when I find that it has been restored to me. But these things 
 are not in our hands : what troubles me is, that in the outlay 
 which must be incurred you, unhappy and impoverished as 
 you are, must necessarily share. However, if we succeed in 
 our object I shall recover everything; but then if ill-fortune 
 continues to persecute us, are you, my poor dear, to be allowed 
 to throw away what you may have saved from the wreck ? As 
 to my expenses, I entreat you, my dearest life, to let other 
 people, who can do so perfectly if they will, relieve you ; and 
 be sure as you love me not to let your anxiety injure your 
 health, which you know is so delicate. 2 Night and day you 
 are always before my eyes : I can see you making every 
 exertion on my behalf, and I fear you may not be able to bear 
 it. But I know well that all our hopes are in you ; so be very 
 careful of your health, that we may be successful in what you 
 hope and are working for. 
 
 As far as I know there is nobody I ought to write to except 4 
 those who write to me, or those whom you mention to me in 
 your letters. Since you prefer it I will not move any further 
 from here, but I hope you will write to me as often as possible, 
 especially if we have any surer grounds for hoping. Good bye, 
 my darlings, good bye. 
 
 Thessalonica, Oct. 5. 
 
 XVIII. (AD FAM. XIV. 1.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT DVRRACHIUM x TO HIS WIFE TERENTIA 
 AT ROME. 
 
 Nov. 25, 696 A.V.C. (58 B.C.) 
 
 I send this with love, my dearest Terentia, hoping that 1 
 you, and my little Tullia, and my Marcus, are all well. 
 
 2 Yet Terentia is said by Pliny (vii. 48) and Valerius Maximus (viii. 13) 
 to have lived to the age of 103, and Cicero (who afterwards divorced her) 
 complained on his return to Atticus that she had neglected him and Tullia. 
 Has the passage a touch of sarcasm ? 
 
 1 This letter seems to have been written at Thessalonica, but sent with a 
 postscript from Dyrrachium, the Greek Epidamnus, which is now called Durazzo, 
 and is in Albania. ' -«, 
 
70 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt i. 
 
 From the letters of several people and the talk of every- 
 body I hear that your courage and endurance are simply 
 wonderful, and that no troubles of body or mind can exhaust 
 your energy. How unhappy I am to think that with all your 
 courage and devotion, your virtues and gentleness, you should 
 have fallen into such misfortunes for me ! And my sweet 
 Tullia too, — that she who was once so proud of her father 
 should have to undergo such troubles owing to him ! And 
 what shall I say about my boy Marcus, who ever since his 
 faculties of perception awoke has felt the sharpest pangs of 
 sorrow and misery ? Now could I but think, as you tell me, 
 that all this comes in the natural course of things, I could bear 
 it a little easier. But it has been brought about entirely by 
 my own fault, for thinking myself loved by those who were 
 jealous of me, and turning from those who wanted to win me. 
 
 2 Yet had I but used my own judgment, and not let the advice 
 of friends who were either weak or perfidious weigh so much 
 with me, we might now be living in perfect happiness. As it 
 is, since my friends encourage me to hope, I will take care not 
 to let my health be a bad ally to your exertions. I quite 
 understand what a task it is, and how much easier it was to 
 stop at home than to get back there again ; still if we are sure 
 of all the tribunes, and of Lentulus (supposing him to be as 
 zealous as he seems), certainly if we are sure of Pompeius as 
 
 3 well, and Caesar too, the case cannot be desperate. About 
 our slaves we will let it be as you tell me your friends have 
 advised. As to this place, it is true that the epidemic has 
 only just passed off, but I escaped infection while it lasted. 
 Plancius, who has been exceedingly kind, presses me to stay 
 with him, and will not part with me yet. My own wish was 
 to be in some more out-of-the-way place in Epirus, where 
 Hispo 2 and his soldiers would not be likely to come, but 
 Plancius will not yet hear of my going ; he hopes he may yet 
 manage to return to Italy himself when I do. If I should ever 
 see that day, and once more return to your arms, and feel that 
 
 2 Nothing is known of Hispo. Orelli thinks he was an officer sent to 
 watch Cicero; Manutius, approved by Wesenberg, reads ' Piso,' i.e. the : 
 consul of this year, afterwards Governor of Macedonia. The ' Piso ' a few 
 lines below is Tullia's first husband. 
 
ep. xvm. TO HIS WIPE. (AD FAM. XIV. I.) 71 
 
 I was restored to you and to myself, I should admit that both 
 your loyalty and mine had been abundantly repaid. Piso's 4 
 kindness, constancy, and affection are beyond all description. 
 May he reap satisfaction from it — reputation I feel certain he 
 will. As to Quintus, I make no complaint of you, but you 
 are the very two people I should most wish to see living in 
 harmony, especially since there are none too many of you left 
 to me. 3 I have thanked the people you wanted me to, and 6 
 mentioned that my information came from you. As to the 
 block of houses which you tell me you mean to sell — why, 
 good heavens ! my dear Terentia, what is to be done 1 Oh, 
 what troubles I have to bear ! And if misfortune continues to 
 persecute us what will become of our poor boy? I cannot 
 continue to write — my tears are too much for me ; nor would 
 I wish to betray you into the same emotion. All I can say is, 
 that if our friends act up to their bounden duty we shall not 
 want for money ; if they do not, you will not be able to succeed 
 only with your own. Let our unhappy fortunes, I entreat you, 
 be a warning to us not to ruin our boy, who is ruined enough 
 already. If he only has something to save him from absolute 
 want, a fair share of talent and a fair share of luck will be all 
 that is necessary to win anything else. Do not neglect your 6 
 health, and send me messengers with letters to let me know 
 what goes on, and how you yourselves are faring. My suspense 
 in any case cannot now be long. Give my love to my little 
 Tullia and my Marcus. 
 
 Dyrrachium, Nov. 26. 
 P.S. — I have moved to Dyrrachium because it is not only 7 
 a free city, but very much in my interest, and quite near to 
 Italy ; but if the bustle of the place proves an annoyance I 
 shall betake myself elsewhere and give you notice. 
 
 3 Compare Letter xx. § 8. 
 
72 LETTERS OF CICERO. part i. 
 
 XIX. (AD ATT. III. 23.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT DYRRACHIUM TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Nov. 29, 696 A.V.C. (38 B.C.) 
 
 1 On the 27th of November three letters came to hand from 
 you. In the first, which was dated Oct. 25, you encourage 
 me to wait with confidence for the month of January, and tell 
 me fully about everything that is calculated to raise one's hopes 
 — the zeal of Lentulus, the friendliness of Metellus, and the 
 general policy of Pompeius. The second letter (contrary to 
 your usual practice) is not dated, though you indicate the time 
 clearly enough when you mention that it was written on the 
 same day as the publication of the proposal of the eight 
 tribunes (that is, of course, Oct. 29), and tell me how far you 
 consider the publication of it to be to our advantage. Well, 
 with regard to this, if you find that my hopes of return and 
 this proposal are alike already desperate, I can only hope that, 
 like a dear good friend, you will think all the trouble I am going 
 to waste a fitter object for pity than ridicule. If on the other 
 hand there is any hope . to speak of, please take all pains to 
 secure more watchful support from the magistrates on our side. 
 
 2 Now the proposed bill of the former tribunes comprised 
 three heads : one dealing with my recall, which was carelessly 
 worded, as it provides for the restoration of nothing except my 
 civil rights and rank, and that is of course much considering 
 my misfortunes, but you were aware what ought to have been 
 secured, and the way to do it. The second head is only the 
 
 • ordinary form of indemnity, ' if the carrying out of this act 
 involve a breach of others,' etc. As to the third head, find 
 out, my dear Pomponius, who procured its insertion, and why 
 he did so. You are aware of course that Clodius added 
 these sanctions to his act to make it all but, if not quite, 
 impossible for either Senate or people to repeal it. But you 
 see that the sanctions of such laws as have to be repealed 
 never are regarded ; for otherwise scarcely any could be 
 repealed : in fact, there is hardly a single one that does not 
 hedge itself round with all possible obstacles in the way of 
 
ep. xix. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. III. 23.) 73 
 
 repeal. But when an act is repealed, the clause limiting the 
 manner of its repeal is itself also repealed. Though this is 3 
 undoubtedly the case, as has always been maintained both in 
 theory and practice, the eight tribunes on our side have 
 inserted this clause : ' If there be anything contained in this 
 act, which by any laws or decrees of the people (that means 
 the bill of Clodius) it is or has been unlawful to promulgate, 
 abrogate, amend, or supersede, without incurring penalty, and 
 renders liable thereon to fine and penalty whosoever has 
 promulgated or repealed it, this act is to be considered so far 
 void.' Moreover so far as those tribunes were concerned this 4 
 had no power for harm, for there was no law agreed to by 
 them in their corporate capacity to bind them ; which gives 
 one the more reason for suspecting foul play in their having 
 inserted a clause immaterial to themselves, but at the same 
 time prejudicial to me ; so that the new tribunes (if they were 
 at all inclined to be timid) would think it far more necessary for 
 them than for their predecessors to insist on the clause. Nor 
 has this been overlooked by Clodius, for he publicly stated 
 on the 3rd of November that by this clause the powers of the 
 tribunes elect were limited. But, as you are well aware, there 
 is not a single law which includes a clause of this kind ; though 
 were it necessary it would be found in all where a repeal is 
 involved. I should like you to ascertain how this came to 
 escape Ninnius or the rest of them, and who proposed its 
 introduction; and also how it comes about that while eight 
 tribunes were not deterred from proposing a decree about • 
 me — and this must have been because they thought the 
 clause above mentioned need not be regarded — these very 
 same men are so cautious about a repeal as to fear a responsi- 
 bility which does not affect them at all, while even those who 
 are included in the terms are not obliged to take any notice 
 of it. Certainly I should not wish the new tribunes to 
 propose such a clause as that, but still let them carry some- 
 thing, whatever it be : I shall be quite satisfied with the single 
 paragraph that will restore me, if only the business can be 
 done with. I have felt ashamed for some time of writing so 
 much about it, being afraid of your reading this when the matter 
 is past hope, so that my pains about it would seem as pathetic 
 
74 LETTERS OP CICERO. fart i. 
 
 to you, as amusing to other people. But if there is anything 
 still to hope for, do look into the law which Visellius has drawn 
 up for Fadius to propose. 1 That satisfies me thoroughly, while 
 our friend Sestius's, which you say you approve of, does not. 
 5 The third letter is one dated Nov. 1 2, in which you explain 
 with equal judgment and care what are the causes which 
 would seem to be keeping the matter in abeyance, touching 
 Crassus, Pompeius, and the rest of them. This makes me 
 entreat you that, if there is the slightest hope of the matter 
 being settled once for all by the insistence on it of the better 
 class of citizens, by personal influence, or by the collection 
 of an imposing force, you will make every effort to break 
 through the obstacles at a single blow, not only zealously 
 exerting yourself, but rousing others to the effort. But if (as 
 I see too clearly that you forebode as well as I) there is no 
 hope, I beseech and adjure you to turn your affection to my 
 brother Quintus, unhappy man, whom I have so unhappily ■ 
 dragged down with me ; and stay him from any hasty resolution 
 that might harm your sister's son. 2 Do all you can to protect 
 my son, for whom, poor boy, I leave nothing but the odium 
 and ignominy of my name ; and be by your kindness the stay 
 of Terentia, who has been afflicted beyond the lot of women. 
 For myself, I intend to start for Epirus as soon' as I have 
 received intelligence of the first day's proceedings. I wish 
 you would write me in your next letter how the first act goes off. 
 Nov. 29. 
 
 1 Visellius, a cousin of Cicero, was a leading jurisconsult or chamber counsel, 
 who drew up in legal form a bill for his recall, to be proposed by the tribune 
 Titus Fadius Gallus. This proposal Cicero preferred to the one of his friend 
 Publius Sestius, another of the tribunes, which did not mention him by name, 
 but simply repealed the abstract resolution of Clodius. 
 
 2 Quintus Cicero's wife, Pomponia, was sister of Atticus. 
 
PART II. 
 THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE. 
 
PART II. 
 
 FROM CICERO'S RETURN FROM EXILE (Aug. 4, 57 B.C.) 
 TO THE OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES BETWEEN 
 CAESAR AND POMPEIUS (end of 50 B.C.) 
 
 \ 
 
 XX. (AD ATT. IV. 1.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 September, 697 A.v.c. (57 B.C.) 
 
 / Cicero's exile lasted sixteen months only. The consuls for the new year 
 were Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, a warm friend of Cicero, to whom 
 many of the most important letters in this part are addressed, and Quintus 
 Metellus Nepos, with whom Cicero had had a quarrel (Letters iv. , v.), but 
 who was now quite willing to support his recall under orders from Fompeius. 
 Of the ten tribunes, among whom was Milo, the counterpart of Clodius in the 
 senatorial party, eight were in his favour. Caesar was absent in Gaul, and 
 perhaps considered that the humiliation of Cicero (from which, as we have 
 seen (Introd. to Letter xvi.), he had wished partially to shield him) was 
 now sufficient. Pompeius, finding the supreme power slipping from his grasp, 
 and having been insulted by Clodius, was now making overtures to the Senate, 
 which of course demanded Cicero's recall, as a step towards undoing the 
 defeat it had suffered from the people. Accordingly various proposals were 
 made both in the Senate and the popular assembly for the repeal of Clodius' s 
 bill. Some of these appear to have been passed by the Senate more than once, 
 but frustrated by the interposition of a tribune's veto. Similar proposals in 
 the popular assembly at once caused riots between the parties of Milo and 
 Clodius. Finding it impossible to force a bill through by ordinary means, the 
 Senate at last summoned the Italian voters from the municipal towns, who 
 were almost wholly inclined to the senatorial party, from jealousy of the city 
 mob ; and thus Cicero's recall was finally sanctioned on August 4. Cicero 
 left Dyrrachium for Brandisium the same day, and travelled to Rome amid 
 great demonstrations from the now triumphant party, which were clearly 
 intended as an answer to the popular ones displayed at his downfall. His 
 first act was to show his gratitude to the Senate by a speech of thanks ; his 
 second to the regents by proposing to invest Pompeius for five years with the 
 
78 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 supreme control of the supplies for the capital, and the power of nominating 
 fifteen officers to assist him, 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 293-305 ; Beesly, Clodius, 72-81 ; Merivale, i. 333-347 ; 
 Long, iv. ch. 5 ; Abeken, 153-158 ; Forsyth, 194-207. 
 
 A As soon as ever I got to Rome and found some one to 
 whom I could safely entrust a letter to you, I thought my first 
 act ought to be to write my thanks to you, since I cannot 
 express them in person, for my happy return. For I felt 
 certain— to tell the truth— that while in giving advice you had 
 been no more resolute or longsighted than myself, and 'indeed 
 that it was owing to my deference to you that I had been over- 
 anxious about risking my personal safety, you at the same 
 time, however much you had shared at first in my mistake, or 
 rather my infatuation, and partaken of my groundless alarm, 
 had most bitterly felt our separation, and had contributed so 
 much of the labour and exertion, the zeal and perseverance, 
 
 2 which have gone towards effecting my return. And so I may 
 now tell you, with perfect truth, that even in all my unbounded 
 happiness and the delight of these congratulations I amreceiv-' 
 ing, there was just one thing wanting to complete the sum of 
 my pleasure — the opportunity of seeing, or better still, of 
 embracing my dear friend. Let me but once have you back, 
 and if ever again I let you go — nay if I do not also exact to 
 the full all arrears of delight in your pleasant companionship 
 for the past — I shall assuredly think myself scarcely deserving 
 of this return of Fortune. 
 
 3 So far as I have yet seen about my political position I 
 have recovered all that I thought it would be most difficult to 
 regain — I mean all my old reputation at the Bar, my influence 
 in the Senate, and my popularity with all good citizens ; more 
 indeed than I had ever aspired to. About my property, how- 
 ever, I am in serious trouble, for you know how it has been 
 broken into, scattered to the winds, plundered right and left ; 
 and I want the help, not so much of your purse, which I 
 count as my own, as of your advice about getting together and 
 securing such remnants as are left me. 1 
 
 1 -Mr. Watson estimates Cicero's losses by the plunder of his villas .at not 
 less than ^20,000. See Ad Att. iv. 2-5. Probably here he is also alluding 
 to Terentia, whom he subsequently accused of wasting his property. See 
 Introd. to Letter xciv. , and note 8 to this Letter. 
 
ep. xx. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. IV. I.) 79 
 
 Next, though I may assume that either your friends have 4 
 written to you about all the news, or it has even reached you 
 by the report of messengers and common rumour, still I will 
 just mention briefly the points that I take it you are most 
 eager to learn from myself. I started from Dyrrachium on 
 the 4th of August — the very day that the law about me was 
 carried. r I got to Brundisium on the 5 th : there I found my 
 darling Tullia ready to meet me, and that on her own birth- 
 day, which as it happened was also the anniversary of the 
 foundation of Brundisium as a colony, and of your neighbour 
 the Goddess of Salvatioa.; 2 a coincidence which being noticed 
 by the good^,people of Brundisium was hailed with much ^ 
 rejoicing. On the 8th of August [being still at Brundisium s ] s/ 
 I learnt by a letter from Quintus that the law had been carried 
 in the House of Centuries with astonishing enthusiasm of all 
 ranks and ages, by an incredibly large assemblage of people 
 from all Italy. Then, after receiving high honour from the 
 principal people of Brundisium, I could "not pursue my journey 
 without deputations from every place meeting me with con- 
 gratulations. When I came near the city this went so far that 5 
 not a soul of any rank who was known to my attendant 4 failed 
 to Come* and meet me, except such enemies as found it 
 impossible either to conceal or deny the fact [of their hostility]. 
 On my arriving at the Capuan gate the steps of the temples 
 were crowded with the very lowest classes, 5 and after they had 
 expressed their congratulations by shouts of applause, another 
 crowd like it attended me with the same applause all the way 
 up to the Capitol, while both in the Forum and the Capitol 
 itself the numbers were enormous. The next day (it was the 
 5th of September) I expressed my thanks to the Senate. 
 Two days after that, bread being then exceedingly dear, and 6 
 crowds of people having come together, first by the theatre, 
 ** 
 
 2 The Temple of Salus was on the Quirinal, near the present Royal Palace, 
 and therefore near the tdwn-house of Atticus/ 
 
 3 The subjunctive essem (if the clause be genuine ; it is omitted by Boot) 
 implies that Cicero did not miss the letter owing to his not having left 
 Brundisium. 
 
 4 See Letter x* note 9. 
 
 6 I have no doubt that al infimo (' from top to bottom '), adopted by Prof. 
 Tyrrell, is the right reading. The corruption to infima would be sure to occur. 
 
80 LETTERS OF CICERO. fabt it. 
 
 and then in front of the Senate, at the instigation of Clodius 
 a cry was raised that the dearth of corn was all brought about 
 by me. Now the meeting of the Senate for those very days 
 being on the question of supplies, and there being calls for 
 Pompeius not only from the mob but from the better class of 
 people to undertake the administration of them, and he being 
 himself anxious for this, when the people insisted on my name 
 to propose it, I did so, taking care to explain my views in full. 
 All the other ex-consuls being absent except Messalla and' 
 Afranius, because— so they alleged — they could not safely 
 express their opinions, the Senate passed a decree on my 
 motion that Pompeius should be requested to undertake that 
 office, and a bill be drafted to that effect. On the recital 
 of this decree, as they broke into applause, according to the 
 silly fashion nowadays, immediately on the reading out of 
 my name, I made a speech, with the consent of all the 
 magistrates present, except one praetor and two tribunes. 
 i Next day there was a full house, and all the ex-consuls were 
 for granting Pompeius any request he saw fit to make ; and 
 he in asking for a committee of fifteen under him named me 
 first of all, and said that I should be in every respect his 
 second self. The consuls drew up a law conferring the 
 management of the supply of corn all over the world on 
 Pompeius for five years. Messius proposed an amendment 
 giving him full control over the finances with the addition of 
 a fleet and army, and fuller powers in the provinces than 
 would be granted to those who have to govern them. After 
 this the proposal of the consuls and myself seems moderate 
 enough, this of Messius quite inadmissible. Pompeius says 
 he prefers ours : but really (so his friends think) the other. 
 The ex-consuls, headed by Favonius, are crying out : I hold 
 my tongue, particularly because the Pontifical college has as 
 yet given no answer about my house. If it turns out that 
 they declare the consecration illegal 6 I shall have a grand site. 
 The value of the buildings upon it will then be assessed by 
 the consul in accordance with the decree of the Senate : on 
 the other alternative they will pull down the building, contract 
 
 6 See Introd. to Letter vi. 
 
ep. xxi. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I, i.) 81 
 
 for another in their own names, and estimate the whole value 
 for compensation. This is how my fortunes now stand — 8 
 1 Tickle for good, well-set for evil days.' 7 
 
 About my income, I am, as you know, in great trouble. 
 Moreover there are one or two things at home which I do 
 not care to put on paper. 8 How could I fail to love my 
 brother Quintus for the affection, courage, and loyalty that 
 are so marked in his character ? I am looking for you, and 
 intreat you to make haste in coming. Come too with the 
 full determination never to let me want for your advice. I 
 am now as it were starting upon a second life. Already 
 certain people who stood up for me in my absence are begin- 
 ning, now I have come back, to be secretly offended with or 
 openly jealous of me. I long intensely to see you again. 
 
 XXL (AD FAM. I. i.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO PUBLIUS LENTULUS SPINTHER, 
 GOVERNOR OF CILICIA. 
 
 Jan. 13, 698 A.V.C. (56 B.C.) 
 
 The consuls for 56 B.C. were Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and 
 Lucius Marcius Philippus. Lentulus Spinther on the expiration of his consul- 
 ship accepted the province of Cilicia, and he is Cicero's principal correspondent 
 for the year 56 B.C. Much of the letters to him is taken up with the affair of 
 King Ptolemaeus Auletes, the father of Cleopatra. That king having been 
 expelled from Egypt by his subjects for gross misgovernment, appealed to the 
 Senate for protection. The Senate, which was naturally a lenient judge of 
 tyranny, was willing to reinstate him ; but there were rival claimants for the 
 office of doing so. On the one hand Lentulus Spinther was anxious to signalise 
 his proconsulship ; on the other Pompeius' wished for the military power which 
 he had failed to obtain as Commissioner of Supplies. Against this the nobles 
 were obstinate ; 'and a passage was soon discovered in the Sibylline books, for- 
 bidding the King of Egypt ,to be brought back ' with a multitude of men.' This 
 led to an indefinite postponement of the decision, and the king was eventually 
 restored by Aulus Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, upon his own authority. 
 Cicero professes in these letters to have been enthusiastic in the cause of 
 Lentulus, but was really neutral for fear of offending Pompeius. 
 
 7 No doubt this, as Prof. Tyrrell points out, is a quotation from some play. 
 It is quoted in two other places, Ad Att. iv. 3 ; Epp. ad Brutum, i. 10-ia. 
 
 8 This probably refers to some domestic difference with Terentia, who 
 apparently disliked Quintus Cicero. Compare Letter xviii. § 4. 
 
 G 
 
82 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 Merivale, i. 348-351 ; Mommsen, iv. 153, 305 ; Forsyth, 218 ; Long, iv. 
 ch. 7 ; Abeken, 163-165. 
 
 ' The year opens with a series of letters differing considerably in character 
 from most of those with which we have been hitherto occupied. They are 
 addressed to statesmen by a statesman, and we may notice in, them a more 
 artificial and laboured style of diction, together with an ambiguity of expres- 
 sion, often throwing out significant hints of matters which it appeared hazardous 
 to speak of openly.' — Abeken, p. 162. 
 
 1 I find that in all the claims of duty — let me rather say of 
 affection — towards you, while I can satisfy everybody else in 
 the world I never am satisfied myself. Indeed so vast are the 
 obligations you have laid me under, that as you never rested 
 till you had done everything for me, I feel life embittered to 
 me because I have not the same success in your behalf. 
 The reasons for this are as follows. Hammonius, the King's 
 legate, is avowedly fighting against us by length of purse : 
 the supply is kept up by loans from the same quarters as 
 when you were here. Those who happen to be favourable to 
 the King's interest — they are not very many — without exception 
 want the conduct to be entrusted to Pompeius. The Senate 
 refuses to ignore that trumped-up plea of a religious objection, 
 not from any religious feeling, but from dislike, and the pre- 
 
 2 judice which his majesty's bribery has aroused. I lose no 
 opportunity of exhorting and entreating Pompeius, and even 
 venture to expostulate with him and warn him frankly that he 
 ought not to expose himself to such very discreditable imputa- 
 tions : but I fully admit that he gives me no ground for either 
 entreaties or advice ; indeed, not only in the course of ordinary 
 conversation, but publicly in the Senate, he pleaded your cause 
 so well that no one could have urged it with more eloquence 
 and weight, nor yet with more zeal and enthusiasm : adding 
 the strongest possible testimony of the services you had done 
 him, and the affection he felt for you. You know that 
 Marcellinus is annoyed with you. 1 He is a man who in all 
 respects, except this question of the King, bids fair to be your 
 warmest supporter. We take what we can get : as for his 
 intention of bringing the question of religion before the Senate, 
 
 1 This sentence seems scarcely consistent with the following one. The very 
 ingenious conjecture tibicini, found on the margin of a MS. (in allusion to 
 Ptolemaeus's name Auletes, the flute-player), is approved by Prof. Tyrrell. 
 
bp. xxi. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I. I.) 83 
 
 we cannot divert him from it — indeed he has often done this 
 already. "Up to the 13 th — for I am writing this early on the 3 
 13th — the conclusion we have come to is as follows. Hor- 
 tensius, Lucullus, and myself are of opinion that we ought to 
 give way to the religious objection which has been raised to 
 an army, because our object cannot be secured otherwise ; but 
 in pursuance of the decree of the Senate which was passed on 
 your own motion, we are for giving you the office of restoring 
 the King as you best can without injury to the state : in short, 
 let us defer to the religious scruple and give up the army, and 
 let the Senate retain you in the direction. Crassus proposes 
 three commissioners and is not for excluding Pompeius, his 
 proposal being to include any who may at the time be holding 
 military command. Bibulus is for three commissioners too, 
 but to be selected only from those who are in a private station. 
 The latter is supported by all the other ex-consuls, except 
 Servilius, who gives it as his opinion that the King ought not 
 to be restored at all ; Volcatius, who proposes Pompeius — this 
 is put to the house by Lupus — and Afranius, who echoes 
 Volcatius. Now one's suspicion of the real wishes of Pompeius 
 is strengthened by the fact that his intimate friends, it was par- 
 ticularly noticed, all support Volcatius. It is very hard work, 
 and success is doubtful. The undisguised way in which Libo 
 and Hypsaeus are rushing about and straining every nerve, 
 and the anxiety shown by those who are most intimate with 
 Pompeius, have created a general belief that he himself really 
 wishes for this appointment ; while those who object to him 
 object to you also, because you gave him his preferment. My 4 
 influence in the case is diminished by my being indebted to 
 you, while my private interest fades into nothing before the 
 shrewd suspicion which people have got into their heads that 
 they are really thus doing a favour to Pompeius. 2 It must be 
 remembered that we have to deal with a case which long before 
 your departure was secretly inflamed by the King himself and 
 the intimates and associates of Pompeius, and afterwards made 
 
 8 The tense of gratificari is, I think, in favour of this being an allusion to 
 people who had refused to support Lentulus, thinking they were thus obliging 
 Pompeius, and not to those who refused because of the unpopularity of Pom- 
 peius, thinking it would be a favour to him. 
 
84 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 even worse by the open meddling of the ex-consuls, ending in 
 the great disgust of everybody. It shall be seen by all the 
 world that I am loyal to you, and by your friends here that I 
 have not forgotten you because you are away. If there were 
 any loyalty in those people who owe it most we should have 
 no difficulties to encounter. 
 
 XXII. (AD FAM. I. 2.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO PUBLIUS LENTULUS SPINTHEE, 
 GOVERNOR OF CILICIA. 
 
 Jan. 15, 698 A.v.c. (56 B.C.) 
 
 1 Nothing was settled in the Senate on the 13th of January, 
 because the day was mainly taken up with a dispute between 
 the consul Marcellinus and the tribune Caninius. On that 
 occasion I too took a considerable share in the debate, and 
 apparently impressed the house a good deal by dwelling 
 on your cordial support of the body to which we belong. 
 So next day we thought it best only to give our opinions 
 briefly, for as I had already perceived, both in the coutee of 
 my speech and when I appealed to individual merdfers to 
 request their support, the feeling of the house had eljidently 
 come over to our side. When therefore the motion of Bibulus 
 had been read out first, that there should be three commis- 
 sioners to reinstate the King ; then that of Hortensius, that 
 the office of reinstating him should be conferred on you, but 
 without an army ; and third, that of Volcatius, that it should^ 
 be conferred on Pompeius ; a demand was made that the 
 motion of Bibulus should be put to the vote as two separate 
 questions. So far as it related to the religious objection — and 
 this could no longer be opposed — Bibulus's motion was 
 accepted; about the three commissioners a large majority 
 
 2 voted against him. The motion of Hortensius stood next to 
 be taken ; whereupon Lupus the tribune rose to maintain that 
 having himself proposed Pompeius he had a prior right to the 
 consuls to claim a division on his own motion. His speech 
 was met with vehement cries of ' Order ' from everybody : it^ 
 
bp. xxn. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I. 2.) 85 
 
 was indeed a thing monstrous and unheard of. The consuls 
 were neither inclined to give way nor yet to fight the question 
 boldly : they wanted the debate to be protracted over the day, 
 which was the result in the end, because they saw plainly that 
 an immense majority would, on a division, vote for the motion 
 of Hortensius, though they might profess to hold with Volcatius. 
 Many were asked to express their opinion, and that too was 
 [not] x unwelcome to the consuls, because they were eager for 
 the proposal of Bibulus to succeed. When the dispute had 3 
 lasted quite until nightfall the House broke up. I happened 
 to be dining that day with Pompeius, and getting here a better 
 opportunity than I had ever had before, because that was my 
 most successful day in the Senate ever since you left, I said in 
 conversation enough I think to induce him to postpone all 
 other objects to insisting upon the rights of your position. Now 
 whenever I am personally conversing with him I cannot but 
 acquit him entirely of any suspicion of selfish ambition : when 
 however I mark the behaviour of his intimates in every rank I 
 see clearly enough, what indeed is now patent to everybody, 
 that your cause has long been betrayed by some underhand 
 dealing on the part of people I need not mention, no doubt 
 with the connivance of the King himself and his advisers. I 4 
 am writing this before daybreak on the 1 5th of January ; and 
 the Senate is to meet again to-day. As for myself, I may at 
 least hope to preserve my position there, as far as one can 
 amid all the faithlessness and wrongdoing there is in the world. 
 As for the plan of a popular vote, I think we have taken such 
 precautions that no one can bring it before the people at all 
 without violating religion and law alike, or indeed without a 
 breach of the peace altogether. It was with a view to this 
 that only the day before my writing these lines a most stringent 
 resolution of the Senate has been passed ; and though both 
 Cato 2 and Caninius interposed their veto, it was still ordered 
 to be entered on the minutes : no doubt it has been sent to 
 you. As to other matters, I will let you know about anything 
 
 1 Wesenberg is surely right in inserting non; the consuls, as the previous 
 sentence shows, being in favour of delay. 
 
 2 This is of course Gaius Cato, the tribune : see Letter xv. § rs. 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 that happens, and will spare no expenditure of time and trouble 
 or of vigilance and private influence to secure that all shall be 
 managed in the best possible way. 
 
 X XXIII. (AD. QUINT. FRAT. II. 3.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CICERO AT ROME TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS 
 IN SARDINIA. 
 
 Feb. 15, 698 A.v.c (56 B.C.) 
 
 At the time of this letter Quintus Cicero was in Sardinia as a member of 
 the Commission of Supplies under Pompeius (Letter xx. Introd.) This 
 and the next one relate the most recent events at Rome : particularly the pro- 
 secution, apparently ineffectual, of Milo by Clodius for a breach of the peace ; 
 the growing dissensions between Pompeius and Crassus ; and the acquittal of 
 Sestius for a breach of the peace in attacking Clodius, which was thought to 
 indicate the temper of the tribunals. 
 
 Merivale, i. 351-355; Long, iv. ch. 7; Abeken, 165-167; Forsyth, 219-224. 
 
 About this time Cicero's daughter, Tullia, whose first husband; Gaius 
 Calpurnius Piso Frugi, had been dead a year, was' betrothed to Marcus Furius 
 Crassipes, quaestor of Bithynia, an adherent of Caesar, of whom little is known. 
 This marriage perhaps never took place ; if it did, she must very speedily have 
 been divorced. 
 
 1 I wrote to you before about all that had happened. up to 
 that time -, 1 now I must tell you what has occurred since. 
 The .reception of the foreign deputations was postponed from 
 the 1 st to the 13th of February, business not being finished 
 on the former day. On the 2nd Milo surrendered to stand his 
 trial. Pompeius was in court to support him, and at my 
 request Marcellus 2 spoke in his defence : we came off with 
 the honours of war. The trial was adjourned until the 7th, 
 Meanwhile the deputations having been put off till the 13th, 
 the provinces to be given to the different quaestors and the 
 grants to be made to the praetors were discussed, but there 
 were so many lamentations on the state of the country forced 
 upon us that nothing was settled. Gaius Cato gave notice of 
 a proposal to recall Lentulus from his government. His son 
 
 2 has put on mourning. On the 7 th Milo again appeared on 
 
 ' r-#' 
 
 1 The date of the last letter to Quintus before this one is Jan. 18s "" ,< '< 
 
 2 There is nothing to show which of the Marcelli is here intended. 
 
BP. xxni. TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. (//. 3.) 87 
 
 his trial. Pompeius spoke, or rather intended to, for as soon 
 
 as he rose the hired rowdies of Clodius made such an uproar, 
 
 lasting too throughout his whole speech, as to drown his voice 
 
 with their interruptions, and even with insults and abuse. 
 
 Well, when he had made his peroration — for I must admit 
 
 that he showed great resolution on the occasion, and so far 
 
 from being conquered by them, he said his full say, sometimes 
 
 even without interruption, and in the end had succeeded in 
 
 making a considerable impression — after his peroratjon, I say, 
 
 up got Clodius : whereupon such an uproar wjjfc raised on 
 
 our side (for we had determined he should get ^igood as he 
 
 gave) that he lost all control of his thoughts, his voice, and 
 
 his countenance. This scene, though Pompeius had all but 
 
 finished speaking at eleven, lasted till quite one ; 3 people 
 
 meanwhile shouting all sorts of abuse, culminating finally in 
 
 the filthiest doggerel about Clodius and his sister. 4 Furious 
 
 and white with rage, he appealed to his partisans above the 
 
 shouting to say who it was that was starving the people to 
 
 death ? His rowdies shouted back, Pompeius. Who it was 
 
 that wanted to go to Alexandria ? Pompeius, they answered. 
 
 Whom would they vote for to go instead? Crassus, they 
 
 replied (he was in the assembly at the time with no friendly 
 
 intentions to Milo). About two the Clodians began, apparently 
 
 at a given signal, to spit upon our party. This was too much 
 
 for our temper. When they began to hustle us out of the 
 
 place our men fell upon them ; the roughs took to their heels ; . 
 
 Clodius was turned out of the tribune, and thereupon I too 
 
 fled, for fear of anything happening in the riot. The Senate 
 
 is then summoned to meet : as for Pompeius, he is off home : 
 
 still even so I avoid the House, not liking on the one hand 
 
 ro hold my tongue in such a crisis, or on the other to defend 
 
 Pompeius — for he was being attacked by Bibulus, Curio, 
 
 Favonius, and the younger Servilius— and so run the risk of 
 
 offending many good patriots. The inquiry was adjourned 
 
 till next day ; Clodius gave notice of postponing the trial till 
 
 3 This is only a rough approximation to the time. The Roman hours of 
 the day varied (in the local reckoning they do still) with the time of year. See 
 Diet. Ant. p. 614. * Compare Letter ix. § 5. 
 
88 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 3 the feast of Quirinus. 6 On the 8th the Senate met in the 
 Temple of Apollo, in order that Pompeius might be present. 6 
 He spoke on the question with considerable force ; nothing 
 was decided that day. On the 9th they met in the Temple of 
 Apollo, and passed a resolution that the proceedings up to the 
 8th 7 were a breach of the peace. The same day Cato delivered 
 a vehement invective against Pompeius, and through the whole 
 of his speech attacked him as though he were actually in the 
 dock ; about me, strongly against my will, he spoke at length, 
 and in most flattering terms. His denunciation of the bad 
 faith that had been kept with me was listened to amid perfect 
 silence by my ill-wishers. Pompeius made a vehement reply, 
 and alluded to Crassus, saying in so many words that he him- 
 self would take more precaution to guard his own life than 
 Africanus, who was murdered by Papirius Carbo, had done. 8 
 
 4 So it seems to me that we have great storms beginning to 
 brew, for Pompeius quite understands this, and makes no 
 secret of it to me, that plots are being hatched againsfr his 
 life ; that Gaius Cato is backed up by Crassus, while some one 
 is supplying Clodius with funds ; and that both of them' are 
 being egged on not only by him, but by Curio, Bibjilus, and 
 the rest of his detractors ; and therefore great care just now 
 is necessary if he would not be entirely crushed', with the 
 demagogue-ridden 9 populace wellnigh alienated from him, 
 with the nobility hostile, the Senate prejudiced, and our young 
 bloods ready for any reckless deed. So he is forearming by 
 sending for men from the country, while Clodius is filling up 
 
 5 Feb. 17. 
 
 6 This temple of Apollo was near the Flaminian Circus, and outside the 
 walls, so that Pompeius could attend without forfeiting his imperium. But 
 Mr. Watson (see note on this passage) thinks the place was selected on account 
 of the disorder in the city. 
 
 7 Prof. Tyrrell inserts ad. before a. d. There were apparently no riots on 
 the 8th. 
 
 8 Scipio Africanus Minor was found dead in his bed? and was probably 
 murdered by some one of the party of the Gracchi (Mommsen, iii. 104) ; but it is 
 purely a hypothesis, apparently stated by Pompeius as a fact, that Gaius Papirius 
 Carbo was guilty of it. Ihne comes to the conclusion that Scipio died a 
 natural death. In the former edition I attributed, by a slip, this assertion to 
 Cicero, which, as Prof. Tyrrell points out, would require interemit. 
 
 s Contionarius does not occur elsewhere ; perhaps it is better taken, with 
 Prof. Tyrrell, as ' that demagogue ' = Clodius. 
 
ei>. xxiii. TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. (if. 3.) 89 
 
 his gang of rowdies : there is a body of them now being got 
 ready for the Quirinus festival. In this instance we are far 
 stronger than any forces he can get by himself; and besides a 
 strong lot are expected from Picenum and Gaul, 10 so that we 
 may even show fight against Cato's motions about Milo and 
 Lentulus. 
 
 On the 10th of February Sestius was summoned by Gnaeus 5 
 Nerius, an informer belonging to the Pupinian tribe, for 
 bribery, and on the same day by a certain Marcus Tullius for 
 breaking the peace. He was then ill in bed. Of course I 
 went immediately to see him at his house, and placed myself 
 entirely at his service — wherein I was acting contrary to the 
 expectation of most people, who thought I had some reason 
 for being a little annoyed with him — that I might enjoy both 
 the satisfaction and the character of showing great kindliness 
 and gratitude, and I mean to be as good as my word. But 
 in addition to the others implicated, Nerius has laid informa- 
 tion .against Gnaeus Lentulus Vatia and Gaius Cornelius 
 and so they have been put on their trial]. 11 The same day 
 tlie Senate passed a resolution that all political clubs and 
 electioneering associations should be dismissed, and a law 
 should be proposed to render such of them as might have 
 refused to go liable to the penalties for breaking the peace. 
 
 On the 1 ith I defended Bestia on his trial for bribery 6 
 before the praetor Gnaeus Domitius, in the centre of the 
 Forum, amidst a vast concourse ; and in speaking I happened 
 to allude to the time when Sestius in the temple of Castor, 
 being then covered with wounds, was only saved by the help 
 of Bestia. With such a belle occasion as this of course I intro- 
 duced here an avant-propos with reference to the charges that 
 were now being raked together against Sestius, and paid him 
 some genuine compliments in which everybody agreed. This 
 
 10 The connection with Picenum makes it probable that Gallia here, as in 
 the Second Speech against Catilina, means the ager Gallicus, or the sea-coast 
 from Ancona to the Rubicon. 
 
 11 This is Orelli's suggestion, itaque reifacti sunt, in place of the unmean- 
 ing ista ei. Wesenberg reads et L. Bestiam. The whole sentence is doubtful ; 
 for adligatos the best MSS. have adlegatos, which seems to mean ' commis- 
 sioners. ' 
 
90 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet ii. 
 
 incident gratified the good man exceedingly ; and I mention 
 it now to you because in your letters you have frequently 
 7 advised me to keep on good terms with Sestius. Thus far I 
 am writing on the 1 2 th before daybreak. To-day I am going 
 to dine with Atticus in honour of his wedding. 12 
 
 P.S. Feb. 1 5. All that I need add about my position is 
 that it is one of dignity and influence, as you have frequently 
 told me it would be, when I was afraid to believe it ; and all 
 this, my brother, has been won back for both of us by your 
 patience, resolution and affection, and, I must add, by your 
 tact. A house near Piso's park that belonged to Lucinius has 
 been hired for you ; but I hope that in a few months, after 
 the 1 st of July, you will move into your own. Your house in 
 the Carinae 13 has been taken on lease by some very respectable 
 tenants, the Lamiae. I have had no letter from you since the 
 note from Olbia. 14 I am anxious to know how you are getting 
 on, and how you amuse yourself, but most of all to see your 
 face again as soon as ever I may. Be sure, my dear brother, 
 not to neglect your health, and, even though it is winter, 
 recollect that you are now living in Sardinia. 
 
 XXIV. (AD QUINT. FRAT. II. 4.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CICERO AT ROME TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS 
 IN SARDINIA. 
 
 March, 698 a.v.c. (56 B.C.) 
 
 1 On the nth of March our friend Sestius was acquitted, 
 and moreover, which is of the greatest constitutional import- 
 ance — that there should be no appearance of a division of 
 opinion in a case of this kind — he was acquitted unanimously. 
 Now as to that anxiety of yours which I have often noticed, 
 that I should not leave any ill-natured person, who might say 
 that I was ungrateful if I did not in some things put up as 
 
 12 Atticus married Pilia, who is frequently mentioned in later Letters. 
 
 13 The Carinae was between the Forum and the Esquiline, near the present 
 church of San Pietro in Vincoli. 
 
 14 Now Terranova, on the N.E. coast of Sardinia ; at this time the prin- 
 cipal port of the island. 
 
ep. xrv. TO ATTIC US. (AZ> ATT. IV. 5.) 
 
 91 
 
 good-humouredly as possible with his crabbedness, an oppor- 
 tunity for abusing me, I may tell you that in this trial I have 
 earned the reputation of being one of the most grateful men 
 in the world. For not only by defending a cross-grained 
 man did I lay him under a vast obligation, but — and this was 
 his dearest wish — I made very short work of Vatinius, who 
 was openly attacking him, to my own complete satisfaction 
 and the joy of gods and men. Moreover my friend Paulus, 
 though called as a witness against Sestius, declared that he 
 would give information against Vatinius, if Licinius* Macer 
 would agree to a delay ; and Macer at once rose from his 
 place among Sestius's friends to say that he would certainly 
 not refuse the request. Not to make a long story, that 
 insolent and overbearing fellow [Vatinius] went off much 
 perturbed and quite beaten. 
 
 Your Quintus, who is an excellent boy, is getting on re- 2 
 markably well in his studies : this I have now the better oppor- 
 tunity of noticing because Tyrannio gives him his lessons here. 
 Both of our houses are being built vigorously. I have seen 
 to the paying of half the money to your contractor ; and 
 before winter comes I hope we shall both be under one roof. 
 As to our Tullia — who I declare is devoted to you — I hope 
 I have now settled everything with Crassipes. We are now 
 in the two days that people generally consider holidays after 
 the Latin festival ; but the festival itself is over. 1 
 
 XXV. (AD ATT. IV. 5.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ANTIUM TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 April, 698 A.V.C. (56 B.C.) 
 
 The time for the struggle between the senatorial party and the triumvirs, 
 weakened by their mutual jealousy, seemed now to have come. Accordingly 
 on the 6th of April Cicero proposed in a full house to reconsider Caesar's act 
 for the allotment of lands in Campania on the 15th of May ; while Domitius 
 
 1 The Latin festival was one of the feriae conceptivae, the date of which 
 was fixed by the consuls in each year. Consequently the remark does not 
 supply the precise date of this letter. After this sentence Mommsen, who is 
 followed by Baiter, Wesenberg, and Tyrrell, inserts § 3-7 of Ad Q. F. ii. 6. 
 
92 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt It. 
 
 announced that his first proceeding as consul should be to propose the appoint- 
 ment of a successor to Caesar. The moment was critical,, and Caesar acted 
 with his customary promptness. Meeting Crassus at Ravenna he proceeded 
 with him to Lucca, where they were joined by Pompeius and the prominent 
 members of their party, and an understanding was restored between the three 
 regents. Pompeius then crossed to Sardinia and informed Quintus Cicero that 
 he would be held responsible for any act of hostility on the part of his brother. 
 This produced an immediate and almost startling change in the orator, whose 
 next appearance in the Senate was to deliver the extant speech ' On the Con- 
 sular Provinces,' which is a political manifesto on behalf of Caesar and Pom- 
 peius, and is probably the ' Recantation ' alluded to below. (Some however 
 think this refers to the defence of Balbus, or to a separate pamphlet.) Cicero's 
 real feeling of humiliation may be seen in this remarkable if not unique letter. 
 Two years' later it is nearly concealed under a cloud of words, as, for example, 
 in the long letter to Lentulus (No. xxix. ) 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 306-311 ; Merivale, i. 352-360 ; Abeken, 168-173 > For- 
 syth, 227 ; and compare Mr. Watson's remarks in his Introd. to Part ii. p. 139. 
 
 1 Can I believe my ears then, and do you really think there 
 is a soul in the world I would rather have to read and criticise 
 my writings than yourself? Why then did I send them to 
 anybody first? Because I was pressed by the person to' 
 whom they were sent and had not got another copy. Any- 
 thing more ? Well, yes there is — (how I keep nibbling round 
 my leek that I shall have to swallow !) — the fact is I do feel a 
 little bit ashamed <P avoir chante la palinodie. But let us openly 
 say our good-bye to sincerity, truth, and honour. Nobody 
 can believe what perfidy these leading men of ours as they* 
 want to be — ay, and would make themselves, if they could 
 but be trusted — can show. I had felt this before ; I knew it all, 
 befooled, deserted, flung aside as I had been by them : 1 still I 
 made up my mind to this, that in public policy I would co- 
 operate with them. They were just the same as ever. At 
 last, under your teaching, I am slowly come back to my senses. 
 
 2 You will say that your suggestion stopped at what to do, not 
 that I should put it down also in black and white. I for ray 
 part solemnly declare that what I wanted was to tie myself 
 
 1 Hermann and others take senseram inductus like sensit delapsus (Aen. 
 >>■ 377) • an d P ro f- Nettleship (Journal of Philology, No. 15) quotes this 
 passage without discussion as a parallel. But is there any instance of such a 
 construction in prose at all? See Madvig, 401, ots. 3. Moreover the tense 
 is against taking senseram at any rate with the participle, and if so it is surely 
 simpler to understand the same implied object with noram from the preceding 
 sentence. Mr. Watson has now come over to this view. 
 
bp. xxv. TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. IV. 5.) 
 
 93 
 
 down to this new connection, that no possible way might be 
 left open of slipping back among people who, even when they 
 have every reason for pitying, never cease to be jealous of me. 
 Still in the maniement of my subject, I was, as I have already 
 told you, very cautious : if however he takes it kindly and it 
 makes those people snarl, I shall launch out more fully — 
 people who begrudge my having a house that belonged to 
 Catulus, and do not remember that I bought it from Vettius ; 
 who declare that I ought not to have built a house, but to 
 have sold the land. But what will you say if I tell you that 
 in the very speeches I made for what they themselves approved, 
 they still only exulted that I was speaking counter to ihe 
 inclinations of Pompeius ? I've done with them. But since I 
 those who have no power will not love us, let us now try to | 
 make those who have the power like us. You will say, ' I 3 S 
 should have been inclined to that long ago.' I know you , 
 wanted it, and that I was a downright ass. But it is now 
 high time for me to bestow a little affection on myself, since I 
 cannot get it from these people on any terms. 
 
 I am very much obliged to you for going so often to look 
 after my house. Crassipes runs away with all my money for 
 travelling. 2 Do you think I should come straight off the 
 journey to your villa ? s Would it not be more convenient to 
 come to you ? The next day is just as good, for what differ- 
 ence does it make to you ? — but we will see about that. 
 Your people have been making my library smart by putting 
 the books in cases, and re-covering them. Please compliment 
 them on it. 
 
 2 That is, the expense of Tullia's dowry. See the conclusion of the pre- 
 ceding letter. 
 
 3 This sentence is ambiguous, owing to our not possessing the Letter of 
 Atticus. Boot's interpretation, given above, makes ' de via recta in hortos ' a 
 quotation from Atticus' s letter. 
 
94 LETTERS OF CICERO. part n. 
 
 XXVI. (AD FAM. I. 7.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO PUBLIUS LENTULUS SPINTHER, 
 GOVERNOR OF CILICIA. 
 
 About June, 698 A.V.C. (56 B.C.) 
 
 For the facts connected with King Ptolemaeus, see Introd. to Letter 
 xxi. ; for the present position of the triumvirs, and Cicero's relation to them, 
 see Introd. to Letter xxv. 
 
 1 I have been reading the letter in which you tell me you 
 are much obliged to me for being so frequently informed 
 about everything that goes on and seeing such evident proofs 
 of my regard for you. As to this latter — I mean my showing , 
 great affection for you — I must do it if I want to be the man 
 you once helped me to be. / As to the former, it is always a 
 pleasant duty to perform, s e e ing th at- 'it gives ■ra@-4fegT3ppof^ 
 
 ftunity in so long and distant a separation as ours pixonversing^ 
 -with you by letter as often as possible. So if the intervals are 
 longer than you expect, the cause will simply be that my letter 
 is not of a kind I could venture— to entrust to any chance ' 
 person : whenever I have an opportunity of finding trustworthy 
 persons by whom I may safely send one I will not fail to make • 
 use of it. 
 
 2 It is not easy to answer what you would like to know about 
 individuals — and the sincerity and energy shown by each. 
 This much only, which I have frequently hinted to you before, 
 I now venture, having closely examined the point and being 
 thoroughly satisfied of it, to assert : that certain people, and 
 some in particular who had the strongest obligations as well 
 as the best opportunities to strengthen your cause, have shown 
 themselves vehemently jealous of your position. In fact, 
 different as are the circumstances, the position is with you 
 now exactly what it was once with me ; those to whom you 
 had given offence on public grounds being your avowed 
 opponents ; those whose position, whose rights, and whose 
 aims you had always supported, being less inclined to remem- 
 ber your qualities than to disparage your elevation. Such was 
 the position of affairs then, as I have fully described to you 
 
ep. xxvi. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER {AD FAM. I. 7.) -95 
 
 before, when I satisfied myself that Hortensius was genuinely 
 anxious on your behalf, and Lucullus very enthusiastic ; while 
 of the people actually in office, Lucius Racilius displayed 
 remarkable loyalty and courage. As for my own champion- 
 ship of you and my efforts to support your rightful claims, they 
 will probably be thought by most people,; considering the 
 depth of my obligation to you, to carry more weight as the 
 discharge of a duty than as a deliberate expression of approval. 
 Indeed, with the above exceptions, I cannot testify to any zeal 3 
 or gratitude or friendliness towards you on the part of the ex- 
 consuls : since Pompeius, who frequently speaks to me about 
 your case, not only when I introduce the subject but even 
 unsolicited, was at that time, as you are aware, not often to be 
 found in his place in the Senate ; and certainly to him your 
 last letter was, as I could easily see, very gratifying. To me 
 indeed, speaking for myself, your tact> or rather your singular 
 discretion, seems as marvellous as it is pleasant ; for by that 
 letter you have retained your hold on an excellent man, and 
 one who feels his obligations to you for your conspicuous 
 generosity to him, when he was beginning to suspect that you 
 had been alienated from him because of the notion of several 
 people that he is looking after his own interests. In fact, 
 I have always myself thought that he fully appreciated 
 your merits, even during that most suspicious period, the 
 episode of Caninius, 1 but after he had read your letter, it was 
 evident to me beyond any doubt that he was now heartily in 
 earnest about promoting your cause, and whatever might be 
 to your honour and interest. For this reason I should like 4 
 you to understand that what I am about to say, I say only 
 after frequently discussing the matter with him, and with his 
 fall consent and authority : that since there is no decree of 
 \the Senate in force, depriving you of the right to reinstate the 
 king [of Alexandria], and since the order finally made on the 
 subject — which, as you know, was vetoed — that nobody should 
 reinstate him at all, might for any weight it carries be the 
 partisan expression of men in a passion rather than the deliberate 
 judgment of a grave legislative body, you, being in command 
 
 1 Letter xxii. §§ 1, 4. 
 
96 LETTERS OF CICERO. PAET n. 
 
 of Cilicia and Cyprus, must be best able to judge of your own 
 powers, and your chances of success. If the state of things 
 seems likely to give you an opportunity successfully to hold 
 Alexandria and Egypt, we think that it will be in no wise 
 derogatory to you or our empire there that you with -your 
 fleet and army should proceed to Alexandria, first leaving king 
 Ptolemaeus at Ptolemais 2 or any place in the neighbourhood, 
 so that when you have re-established order there, and a strong 
 garrison, he may return to his kingdom. The result of this 
 will be that while it will be you who will reinstate him, just as 
 the Senate originally voted, he will at the same time not have 
 been restored by force of numbers, and this scrupulous people 
 
 5 insist on as being the injunction of the Sibyl. But when we 
 both agreed to recommend this scheme we were by no means 
 blind to the fact that the world will judge of your policy by its 
 success : if all has turned out as we wish and hope to see, 
 then everybody will say you have done wisely and bravely : if 
 any mishap occurs, the very same men will call it ambitious ' 
 and foolhardy. For this reason it is not so easy for us as it 
 is for you, who have Egypt all but in sight of you, to judge 
 how far this is practicable. What we feel in short is this : If 
 you are satisfied you can make yourself master of his kingdom;, 
 you should lose no time : if you have any doubt on this point 
 you should not run the risk. Of this I can assure you; be suc- 
 cessful in your scheme, and you will find many to applaud 
 you even during your absence, everybody after your return. 
 
 I see that a slip is very dangerous on account of that order of 
 the Senate, and the religious difficulty in the way ; but while 
 I would encourage you to win yourself laurels wherever they 
 are certain, I as emphatically warn you off from any perilous 
 struggle, and come round again to what I said at first, that 
 the world will form its conclusion about the whole affair more 
 
 6 from the success than the.merits of your scheme. If, however, 
 you think this plan of action hazardous, it was our opinion 
 that provided the king has fulfilled his promises to your friends' 
 throughout the province • over which your authority extends" 
 
 2 It is doubtful whether the best known Ptolemais (Acre) is meant, this 
 being a long way from Alexandria. Several towns had this name. 
 
ep. xxvi. TO LENTULVS SPINTHER. {AD FAM. I. 7.) 97 
 
 who may have advanced him money, you should let him have 
 the help of your men and supplies : the nature and situation 
 of your province being such that you can either greatly help 
 his return, by lending it your support, or make it difficult by 
 standing aloof. In deciding this question you yourself will be 
 the best and most likely person to judge of what the case on its 
 general merits or its special circumstances would suggest ; our 
 own conclusion I thought it best you should learn from myself. 
 
 When you congratulate me on my present position, on my 7 
 intimacy with Milo, on the want of strength as well as of 
 principle in Clodius, I cannot wonder at all that you, like a 
 great artist, should look with pleasure on the perfection of 
 your own work. And yet the wrongheadedness — I do not like 
 to use a stronger word — of people is quite beyond belief. In 
 my case, they have simply estranged me by their jealousies 
 from making common cause with them, when they might 
 have retained my services by proper appreciation. And I must 
 inform you that by the extreme spitefulness of their attacks I 
 have been all but forced to abandon the principles I have 
 so long and steadily supported : not that I would go so far as 
 to forget my self-respect, but I feel that it is high time now to 
 let my own security too count for something. Both were quite 
 compatible if there were any loyalty, any steady principle 
 among the ex-consuls : but most of them are infected with 
 such a paltry spirit that admiration for the consistency of my 
 political career is outdone by envy of its splendour. I write 8 
 all this to you with the less reserve, because not only in my 
 present fortunes, the enjoyment of which I owe to you, but 
 almost from the earliest rise of my reputation and position 
 you have given them your distinguished support; and also 
 because I see that it is not — as I formerly suspected — my 
 want of birth that has excited their envy ; for I have seen a 
 similar malignity of jealousy even against you, the highest in 
 position of them all : one however whom those people readily 
 admitted to be among our leading men ; that you should soar 
 above them they entirely objected to. I rejoice that your lot 
 has thus been different from mine, for it is not at all the same 
 thing to have one's honours cut down and to be abandoned 
 to ruin. I owe it however to your resolution that I have not 
 
 H 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 too bitterly to lament what has passed ; it seems as though by 
 your efforts my reputation had gained more than my fortunes 
 9 have lost. But you I earnestly advise, stimulated not only by 
 your kindnesses but by my own affection, with all zeal and 
 perseverance to make glory, which has fired your enthusiasm 
 from boyhood, still in every form your guiding-star, and never 
 on any occasion, through the malice of some one else, to 
 swerve from the greatness of soul I have always admired and 
 always loved in you. The world has a great opinion for you ; 
 your liberality wins great praise ; great is still the recollection 
 of your consulship : surely you must see how much more 
 prominent, how much more brilliant all this will become when 
 you have added to it no inconsiderable lustre from the govern- 
 ment and administration of a province. Yet I would not 
 have you take any step requiring you to employ your army. 
 and the powers you possess, without a long and careful con- 
 sideration of all these things. 3 Make your preparations for 
 this end ; take this always into account ; in every action keep 
 this in view ; and believe what, as you have always hoped for 
 it, I doubt not you now perceive from your success to be true 
 — that with the utmost ease you may assert for yourself the 
 very highest and most dignified position in the state. And now 
 that this exhortation of mine may not seem to you to be pointless 
 and spoken without reason, here is the motive which impelled 
 me : it was because I thought you ought to have the warning 
 pointed by our common experience to be very tjhutious as long 
 as you live, whom to trust, with whom to be on your guard. 
 10 As to what you say you would like to know — namely, the 
 state of public affairs — the division of opinion is of the widest, 
 but the earnestness unequally matched ; for those who already 
 have the advantage in money, in arms, and in strength seem to 
 me to have gained so much by the folly and irresolution of their 
 adversaries that they now have the superiority even in prestige. 
 And so, with hardly any dissentient voices, the Senate has been 
 the instrument of giving them everything for which they fancied 
 they could hardly appeal even to the people without risk of an 
 
 s Haec is, I think, better referred to the general advice of the letter than, 
 with Mr. Watson, to the impression produced here, that is at Rome. 
 
ep. xxvil. TO CAESAR. (AD FAM. VII. 5.) 99 
 
 outbreak. Not only did we vote money to Caesar to pay his 
 troops, and a right to nominate ten of his lieutenant-generals, 
 but no difficulty was made about dispensing with Gracchus's 
 act for appointing a successor to him. 4 All this I mention to 
 you somewhat briefly because I cannot feel satisfaction with 
 the present state of the Republic ; still I do mention it to be 
 a warning to you of a lesson which, though from my boyhood 
 I have been a student, I myself have had to learn more from 
 experience than from books : that you at least may see before ] 
 evil befalls you, that we are equally bound not to study self- 
 protection to the neglect of our honour, nor honour so as to 
 forget our self-protection. 
 
 I am obliged to you for the courtesy of your congratulations 11 
 about my daughter and Crassipes. I do indeed trust, as is of 
 course my wish, that this alliance may prove one that will 
 always be a satisfaction to us. You must bring up my young 
 friend Lentulus, a lad who gives remarkable promise of noble 
 qualities, in all the accomplishments which have ever been 
 your taste, and, above all, to follow in your steps, for no 
 training in the world can be better than this. I love him 
 much, and hold him very dear, not less because he is your 
 son, and a worthy son too, than from the particular liking he 
 seems to have always had for me. 
 
 X XXVII. (AD FAM. VII. 5.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO CAESAR IN GAUL. 
 February or March, 700 A.v.c. (54 B.C.) 
 
 This letter is of little importance, except perhaps as illustrating the terms 
 on which Cicero now ostensibly stood with Caesar. It is simply a letter of 
 introduction for Gaius Trebatius Testa, a jurist to whom the first Satire of the 
 second book of Horace is addressed. The title of ' Imperator ' here given to 
 Caesar was probably gained by some successes in GauL On this title see 
 Mommsen, iv. 468 ; Watson, p. 123. 
 
 4 A law of Gaius Gracchus providing for the assignment of provinces to 
 the consuls before their election. The assignment of Gaul would be virtually 
 the recall of Caesar. Cicero is rather dishonest here. As Mr. Watson 
 remarks, ' no one could suppose from hjs language here, that he had actively 
 supported Caesar's claims.' 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 1 • I must beg you to notice how I assume that you are really 
 one with myself; not only in whatever concerns me in person, 
 but even my friends as well. I had intended to take Gaius 
 Trebatius with me wherever I was to go ; not intending that 
 he should return without my having loaded him with every 
 attention and service I could show. But now that I have 
 found, first that Pompeius was longer in setting out than I had 
 expected, and secondly that a certain reason for hesitating — 
 of which you are not unaware x — seemed likely at least to delay 
 my starting, if not to put a stop to it altogether, see what I 
 have taken on myself to promise. I found myself wishing 
 that Trebatius could look 1 to you for any patronage" he had 
 expected to receive from me, and upon my word and honour 
 I have pledged myself to him for your good-will just as freely 
 
 2 as I used to for my own. But hereupon an extraordinary 
 coincidence happened to us as though to give evidence in 
 favour of my opinion about you, and a pledge for your 
 kindness. Just when I was speaking with more than usual 
 earnestness at my own house about this very Trebatius to 
 our common friend Balbus, in comes a letter from you which 
 concludes as follows : ' since he has your good word, I will 
 make Marcus * * * 2 King of Gaul if you like ; or if you prefer 
 it, pass him on to the care of Lepta, and you can send me 
 somebody else to give a place to.' ' Both Balbus and I raised 
 our hands in wonder : the coincidence here was so striking 
 that it seemed somehow to be no chance, but the very act of 
 Providence itself. Therefore I send Trebatius' to you, and if 
 my sending him was at first of my own motion, I regard it now 
 
 3 as a thing to be done on your own invitation. I hope, my 
 dear Caesar, you will so receive him with your wonted, courtesy 
 that whatever favours you could be induced by me to confer 
 upon any of my friends you will give this one friend the entire 
 benefit of. As to his character, I pledge myself for this — and 
 I am not using a hackneyed phrase, such as you justly rallied 
 me on once before when I wrote to you about Milo, but in 
 true Roman fashion, as men speak who are not empty triflers 
 
 1 This no doubt refers to the attacks of Clodius. 
 
 2 The name is corrupt, the Med. MS. having itfiuium. Wesenberg's 
 suggestion ' Titinius,' is perhaps the best 
 
ep. xxviii. TO ATTICUS. (AV ATT. IV. 15.) 101 
 
 — that a truer-hearted man, and a braver or less assuming 
 man, does not exist : add to this that he is quite at the top of 
 his profession in civil law from his unequalled memory and 
 vast learning. 8 I do not ask for him either a tribuneship or a 
 prefecture, or wish to limit you by specifying the name of any 
 preferment : what I do ask you for is that you will show him 
 your goodwill and generosity ; not that I have any objection, 
 if you are so disposed, to your conferring upon him these little 
 marks of distinction as well. In short I pass him over, as 
 they say, ' from hand to hand ' — to that hand of yours so 
 eminent alike in its strength and its fidelity. You must allow 
 me to be a -little worrying: the thought of you might well 
 forbid it, 4 but I see it will be allowed. Farewell, and let me 
 always enjoy the affection you now have for me. 
 
 XXVIII. (AD ATT. IV. 15.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS IN ASIA MINOR. 
 Late in July, 700 A.V.C. (54 B.c.) 
 
 After his late severe lesson Cicero made no further move in the Senate for 
 some time, but confined his energies to the Bar, though it too was now playing 
 an important part in the struggle between the Senate and the triumvirs. Here 
 however he had no rival except Hortensius. He defended his enemies Vatinius 
 and Gabinius ; the latter, though he was Caesar's most active lieutenant in 
 Rome, was condemned. Riots at elections between embittered factions were 
 now the rule ; and for one of these, in which a citizen had been killed, appar- 
 ently by Procilius, in his own house, the tribunes Sufenas, Gaius Cato, and 
 Procilius were brought to trial, but only the last-named was condemned. 
 Forsyth-, 259 ; Abeken, 188. 
 
 Disputes between the people of Reate (Rieti) and Interamna (Terni) about 
 the waters of the Velinus have existed almost down to our own day. At 
 Rieti is still shown a mutilated statue, said to be erected by the people in 
 honour of Cicero's services in this very trial. The splendid work of Curius 
 Dentatus for draining the upper tableland forms the celebrated Caduta delle 
 Marmore, or Falls of Terni. Smith's Diet. Geogr. j. v. Reate ; ib. Biogr. 
 Dentatus ; Forsyth, 260 ; Mommsen, i. 463. 
 
 3 Another interpretation is : ' Add to this that he is a man of unequalled 
 memory and vast learning, which in civil law is the first consideration.' See 
 Diet. Biog. iii. 1012. But this leaves no proper construction for accedit, 
 nor was civil law in itself a necessary recommendation to Caesar. 
 
 4 I do not believe quam can stand, and agree with Prof. Tyrrell that 
 Ernesti's correction quamquam is necessary. 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 On the extraordinary compact alluded to § 7, which was a secret bargain 
 made by the consuls Apphis Claudius and Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus to 
 support Gaius Memmius and Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus at the election in 
 return for a. fraudulent decree giving them military authority (Ad Att. iv. 18, 
 2), see Merivale, i. 386-; Long, iv. 274; Forsyth, 281-283; Abeken, 189. 
 
 1 I am pleased to hear about Eutychides, that he is to take 
 your old name of Titus with your new family name of Caecilius, 
 just as Dionysius by a combination of you and me becomes 
 Marcus. Pomponius. Assuredly it is a real pleasure to me to 
 know that Eutychides understands, through your granting me 
 this favour, that his having been so compatissant in my trouble 
 was neither lost upon me at the time nor forgotten afterwards. 
 
 2 Your journey into Asia I suppose you were obliged to take ; 
 for without some very good reason you, I am sure, would never 
 have chosen to be absent so long, both from your friends, and 
 from everything you most love and prize. But the speediness 
 of your return will best show the consideration and love you 
 bear to your friends : still I am afraid of the rhetorician Clodius 
 detaining you too long with the charms of his conversation, as 
 also that most accomplished man — so people say he is — 
 Pituanius, who just now indeed is quite given up to his Greek 
 ' books.' 1 But if you would be thought a good man and true, 
 be back among us by the time you promised ; you will still be 
 able to live in the society of those two people at Rome when 
 they have found their way here in safety. 
 
 a You say you are longing to have at least a line from me. 
 I did write to you, and about a great variety of things too, 
 giving a full account of everything as it happened de jour en 
 jour: but I suppose, since apparently you did not stop long 
 in Epirus, [I may conjecture] that they never reached you. 
 My letters to you however are generally of a kind that one 
 does not care to entrust to anybody but a person of whom we 
 can be sure that he will deliver them into your own hands. 
 
 1 The tone of the passage seems to show that this is ironical ; so that by 
 litteris Cicero probably means accounts or ledgers, the charms of which he 
 fears will be too strong for Atticus. Compare § 7, where he banters his friend 
 again on his liking for money-getting. It may however retain its usual mean- 
 ing. A Sicilian rhetorician, Sextus Clodius, is mentioned in Phil. ii. 17, 43, 
 and may have been employed by Atticus. The doubt as to the reference here 
 is further increased by the better supported, but almost inexplicable reading 
 praetor for rhetor. 
 
ep. xxvm. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. IV. 15.) 103 
 
 Now I will tell you about matters at Rome. On the 5 th 4 
 of July Sufenas and Cato were acquitted, while Procilius was 
 condemned, from which it is obvious that these ' viri reveren- 
 dissimi' care not a straw about the bribery, the elections, 
 the general dead-lock, the sovereign constitution, or in short 
 about their country at all. We ought perhaps not to approve 
 of killing a householder in his own house, but even this not 
 by a decisive majority, seeing that twenty-two voted for an 
 acquittal, against twenty-eight for a conviction ! Clodius, 
 opening the accusation, had already made an impression on 
 the minds of the jurors by a really very eloquent peroration, 
 before Hortensius in this case acquitted himself much in his 
 usual manner. I did not open my mouth, because my little 
 girl, who is now unwell, dreaded my provoking the anger 
 of Clodius. When all this was over, the people of Reate 
 had me over to their valley — a perfect Tempe — to plead then- 
 cause against Interamna before the consul and ten commis- 
 sioners ; because the water of Lake Velinus, to which Curius 
 Dentatus gave an outlet by cutting through the hill, flows down 
 into the Nar ; and thanks to him, the famous Rosia has been 
 reclaimed from water, though it retains a moderate amount of 
 moisture. I stayed with Axius, and he took me over too to 
 the Seven Waters. On Fonteius's account I returned to town 6 
 on the 9th of July. I went to see the play, and immediately 
 on my entrance considerable and uninterrupted applause of — 
 never mind this however ; it was silly of me to have mentioned 
 it. Well, I gave my attention to Antiphon, who had had his 
 freedom given him before being brought out. Not to keep 
 you in suspense, he won his laurels ; but I never saw anything 
 
 so feeble, such a total want of voice, or such but never 
 
 mind ; you must keep this to yourself. When he was playing 
 Andromache however he was not so small as Astyanax, but 
 among the rest there was nobody of his size at all. And 
 what about Arbuscula? 2 Well, she decidedly pleased me. 
 The games were magnificent and gave much pleasure. The 
 wild-beast hunt was postponed. 
 
 Now I will take you to the polling-booths. Bribery is 7 
 
 2 The well-known dancer who had such a contempt for ' the gods ' of the 
 gallery. — Hor. Sat. i. 10, 77- 
 
104 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 going on hotly, ' quod iam non dubiis poteris cognoscere signis.' % 
 On the 15 th of July the rate of interest was raised at once 
 from 4 to 8 per cent I * Perhaps you will say, ' Well, that at 
 any rate I can make a shift to bear.' And you call yourself a 
 man, and a patriot ! All Caesar's influence is being used on 
 behalf of Memmius : the consuls have coupled Domitius with 
 him, under a compact which I cannot venture to put on paper. 
 Pompeius storms and grumbles, and backs up Scaurus, but 
 whether only on the surface or in earnest is considered doubt- 
 ful. No candidate has the least primauti in himself : money 
 levels the claims of them all. Messalla's hopes are low; not 
 that you must think his courage or his friends to be failirig him, 
 but the caucus of the consuls and the line taken by Pompeius 
 are much against him. This election will, I think, be ad- 
 journed. The candidates for the tribuneship have pledged 
 themselves to submit their conduct to the decision of Cato. 
 They have each deposited with him ^4000 on the condition 
 that whoever is condemned by Cato shall lose that sum, which 
 
 8 is to go to the credit of his competitors. I am writing this 
 letter the day before the elections are expected to be held, but 
 if they come off, and the messenger has not then started, I will 
 on the 2 8th write to you all about the election ; and if, as is 
 anticipated, it proves to be free from bribery, Cato will by 
 himself have effected more than [all your laws or] all your 
 judges. 
 
 9 I am undertaking the defence of Messius, who has had to 
 return from his post for trial, for Appius had sent him to take 
 an appointment on Caesar's staff. It was Servilius who issued 
 the summons against him. The tribes he has to face are the 
 Pomptine, Velian, and Maecian. The struggle is a sharp one, 
 but I am doing good work. 6 When this is over I betake ray- 
 self to Drusus's case, and then to Scaurus : good titles these 
 
 s Verg. Georg. iv. 253. Cicero is quoting from Iliad xxiii. 326. Compare 
 the Irish phrase, ' And more by token.' 
 
 4 Even the higher of these rates is somewhat lower than we should expect 
 (compare Letter xxxvi. § 13, where 12 per cent, is declared the legal interest). . 
 But Dean Merivale's interpretation (i. 387) of 4 to 8 per cent per month is 
 wholly incredible, even if the words will bear that meaning. 
 
 B Or perhaps, ' I have enough to do,' which is rather supported by the 
 satagitur of comedy. 
 
up. xxix. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. {AD FAM. I. 9.) 105 
 
 to have when any one catalogues my speeches ! Possibly the 
 consuls-elect as well will come into the list, and if Scaurus fails 
 to find himself among them it will go hard with him in this 
 trial. From my brother Quintus's letters I imagine he is now 10 
 in Britain. 6 I am waiting with much anxiety to know what he 
 will do. This much at any rate I have gained, that by many 
 and strong indications I may conclude that I am both warmly 
 respected and personally liked by Caesar. 
 
 Will you give my compliments to Dionysius, and ask him 
 — or press him — to come as soon as possible, so that he may 
 have the opportunity of teaching my boy Marcus, — yes, and 
 me too. 
 
 XXIX. (AD FAM. I. 9.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO PUBLIUS LENTULUS 'SPINTHER, 
 GOVERNOR OF CILICIA. 
 
 *• Late in 700 A.V.C (54 B.C.) x 
 
 See Introduction to Letter xxv. This elaborate letter, one of Cicero's most 
 celebrated compositions, contains the orator's lengthy apology, when the im- 
 mediate humiliation was past, for his sudden conversion into an adherent of 
 the triumvirs. Most of it is laboured and artificial in the extreme, but in a few 
 parts of it Cicero seems almost to have convinced himself. Long, iv. 134 ; 
 Forsyth, 265-273 ; Abeken, 192 ; Tyrrell, Introduction to Vol. ii.^» / ' 
 
 Your letter gave me very great pleasure indeed. I per- 1 
 ceived in it that you recognise my affection for you — for why 
 should I merely say ' regard,' since even that highest and holiest 
 name of affection seems too feeble to express your claims upon 
 me ? And when you tell me you are greatly obliged by my 
 efforts to serve you, the truth is that your own overflowing 
 affection makes an obligation of that which it were an un- 
 pardonable sin to omit. My feelings towards you however 
 
 6 It was on his return from Britain on this occasion that Quintus Cicero 
 made the gallant defence of a fort, near Charleroi, against a fierce attack of 
 the Nervii, which secured him ever after the warm regard of Caesar. See 
 Froude's Caesar, ch. 17. 
 
 1 The date of this letter is generally given as October, but Kbrner, in his 
 recent monograph on the dates of various letters, places it about the middle of 
 December. — Tyrrell, ii. p. 16. 
 
io6 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 would have been far better understood, and also far more 
 clearly shown, had we but been at Rome and together during 
 
 2 all this period of our separation. For by the line of conduct 
 that you announce your intention of following — for which 
 indeed you are eminently qualified, and in which I expect 
 great things from you — we should have been invigorated for 
 the expression of our opinion in the Senate, and for the whole 
 of our political conduct and administration. And speaking of 
 this I will show you a little later on how I stand in opinion 
 and position, and give you an answer to the questions you put 
 I should at least have enjoyed in you a most faithful and 
 sagacious adviser, you in me a perhaps not inexperienced, at 
 any rate a trustworthy and devoted confidant. I rejoice of 
 course for your sake that you have won the highest title of 
 command, and that you and your victorious army are securing 
 the province to us by your successes, yet I certainly feel that 
 had you been here you might have reaped all the fruits of my 
 gratitude in some more abundant and substantial form. In 
 particular I should have proved myself an admirable comrade 
 for punishing those who, as you are aware, are partly indignant 
 with you for your championship of my rights, partly jealous of 
 the dignity and distinction of that action. However that 
 lifelong enemy of his own benefactors, 2 who after receiving 
 distinguished kindness from you has singled you out for the 
 attacks of his harmless and impotent fury, has anticipated our 
 duty by bringing down chastisement on himself: for his 
 attempt was such as being exposed at once excludes him from 
 any possibility not only of respect but even of license for the 
 
 3 future. Still though I could wish you had learnt this from 
 my experience only, and not in your own person as well, yet 
 I am glad, in spite of your disappointment, that you have seen 
 at no very great cost the wisdom of putting the same value on 
 the professions of the world, which I was taught only after 
 
 2 This is generally referred either to the consul Appius Claudius, elder 
 brother of Clodius (see Letter xxviii. note 5), or to the tribune Oraius Cato, 
 who had proposed to recall Lentulus. But Prof. Tyrrell makes it refer to 
 Pompeius, whose behaviour to Lentulus about the restoration of King Ptole- 
 maeus had been extremely shifty. Libertatis would then mean ' political inde- 
 pendence.' I cannot think this language would be used of Pompeius. Com- 
 pare § n. 
 
ep. xxix. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I. 9.) 107 
 
 bitter suffering. And it seems to me a proper opportunity for 
 giving you an explanation of my general position in this matter, 
 as an answer to the questions you wish to be informed on. 
 
 You tell me you hear by letter that I have had a recon- 
 ciliation with Caesar and also with Appius, adding that of this 
 you do not disapprove, but hinting that you would like to 
 know what reasons induced me to defend Vatinius and appear 
 1 as his eulogist. In order to explain this thoroughly to you it 
 will be necessary for me to go somewhat deeper into the 
 -motives of my policy. 
 
 From the very beginning, my dear Lentulus, of those 
 events in which your exertions were displayed, I held that 
 I was restored not only to my friends but to the service of 
 my country; and considered that if I owed you boundless 
 affection and a repayment in person of your unequalled and 
 extraordinary devotion, so, as my country had helped you greatly 
 in recalling me, I owed her now on the score of gratitude at 
 least all the loyalty which I had before rendered not as a 
 return for any special favour conferred on me, but in mere 
 discharge of the common duty of citizens. That such was 
 my conviction the Senate has heard from my lips during your 
 own consulship, and you yourself have perceived it from the 
 conversations we have had in our private intercourse. And 5 
 yet just at the beginning of that very period there were many 
 circumstances to wound my feelings, when I noticed how all 
 your efforts to secure the complete restoration of my rights 
 were met by some people with suppressed dislike or at least a 
 dissembling of their enthusiasm for me. Those, for instance, 
 whose duty it was, would neither give you any assistance in 
 the matter of that memorial of my name, 3 nor of the outrageous 
 violence which drove my brother and myself together out of 
 house and home ; nor even, I declare to you, did they give 
 me the willing assistance I had expected, when it was proposed 
 
 3 It is doubtful whether this refers (1) to a. 'Hall of Liberty,' said by 
 Manutius to have been erected by Cicero as a memorial after the Catilina con- 
 spiracy, and very probably destroyed in the riots ; or (2) to his own house 
 , which had been razed by Clodius, and a Temple of Liberty built in its place 
 (Letter xx.) ; or (3) to the adjoining Portico of Catulus on which Clodius had 
 put his own name ; or (4) comprises all of them. Compare § 15 below. 
 
io8 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 to repair my losses under a decree of the Senate ; a measure 
 which had become absolutely necessary to me in the total 
 shipwreck of my property, though I attach to this the least 
 importance of all. Now though I noticed all this — indeed it 
 was notorious — still to me the present discovery was not so 
 bitter as the recollection of past services was a cause for grati- 
 
 6 tude. For this reason, though I owed much to Pompeius, as 
 you yourself declared and bore me witness, and always had 
 the highest regard for him, not only for his services to me but 
 on the grounds of personal affection and, to a certain extent, 
 an unvarying belief in him, still, putting his aims out of the 
 question, I was consistent throughout in every expression of 
 
 7 my political principles. It was I who, with Pompeius himself 
 in court (for he had returned to town to speak in favour of 
 the character of Sestius), on hearing Vatinius ■ state in his 
 evidence that it was owing to the rising fortunes and success 
 of Caesar that I had begun to court his friendship, avowed 
 that I for my part honoured the lot of Bibulus, down-trodden 
 as he deemed it, more than the triumphs and the victories of 
 them all. 4 Again, in his hearing on another occasion I stated 
 that the people who had prevented Bibulus from quitting his 
 house were the very same who had forced me to quit mine. 
 In fact, the whole of my cross-examination amounted to a 
 complete exposure of his tribuneship : I spoke with entire 
 freedom and with the warmest indignation of his illegal pro- 
 ceedings, his manipulation of the auspices, his corrupt disposal 
 
 8 of kingdoms. Nor was it the case that I did so- only in this 
 trial ; on the contrary many a time I was just as resolute in 
 the Senate : nay, when Marcellinus and Philippus were consuls, 
 my proposal of the 5 th of April was carried, that the question 
 of the Campanian lands should be reconsidered in a full house 
 on the 15th of May. Could I possibly make a more direct 
 attack on the very stronghold of their policy ? or could I do 
 more towards forgetting the hard facts of the present, and re- 
 membering only the actions of the past ? This proposal of 
 mine was followed by a violent outburst not only from those 
 who were immediately concerned, but from others too of whom 
 
 i See Introd. to Letter x. 
 
ep. xxix. TO LENTULVS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I. 9.) 109 
 
 I had never expected it. For when the decree of the Senate 9 
 had been passed as I proposed, Pompeius, without having 
 given any sign of being offended with me, started for Sardinia 
 and Africa, and on his way thither had an interview with 
 Caesar at Luca. There Caesar complained strongly of my 
 proposal ; the truth being that at Ravenna he had previously 
 met Crassus, who had irritated him against me. Of course it 
 was well known that Pompeius also was annoyed at it, a fact 
 which I heard from several others, but was particularly told 
 by my brother. When Pompeius happened to meet him in 
 Sardinia a few days after leaving Luca, he said : ' This is 
 indeed fortunate ; you are the very man I want to see ; if you 
 do not make strong representations to your brother Marcus, 
 we shall call upon you to pay all you have pledged yourself 
 for on his behalf.' In short, he made a bitter complaint; 
 recounted his previous services ; reminded my brother of what 
 he had frequently arranged with him in person about the acts 
 of Caesar, and what he had undertaken to pledge on my 
 behalf; and added that my brother himself would witness that 
 his proceedings to secure my recall had been taken with the 
 full consent of Caesar : wherefore in claiming from me a 
 favourable consideration for their object of paying honour to 
 Caesar he begged I would at least abstain from opposition, if 
 I could not or would not give him my support. 
 
 When my brother had brought me this news — though it 10 
 did not prevent Pompeius from sending Vibullius also to me 
 with the request that I would hold myself unpledged about 
 the Campanian question until his return — I reasserted myself, 
 .and argued, as it were, thus with my country : that as I had 
 suffered and done so much for her sake, she might at least 
 allow me to fulfil my private duties by showing my gratitude 
 to those who had deserved it, and redeeming my brother's 
 pledge on my behalf; nor ought she to hinder one whom she 
 had ever considered an honourable statesman from approving 
 himself an honourable man. Now throughout these proceed- 
 ings of mine and these expressions of opinion which seemed 
 to give umbrage to Pompeius, the comments of certain people, 
 whose names you ought by this time to be able to guess at, 
 used to be reported to me. These men, though their political 
 
no LETTERS OF CICERO. part n. 
 
 opinions were, and always had been, what I was endeavouring 
 to carry out, used nevertheless to express their satisfaction that 
 while I was by no means pleasing Pompeius, I should be 
 certain to make Caesar my bitterest enemy. This was a 
 thing for me to be annoyed at, but how much more when 
 before my very eyes they began to embrace, and fondle, and 
 caress, and fawn upon my old enemy? — mine, do I say? he 
 is the foe of law, of justice, of peace, of his country and every 
 decent citizen in it — it was enough not perhaps for people like 
 these to make my blood boil — I have lost all capacity for that — 
 but at all events to imagine they were making it do so. Here- 
 upon then, as far as human foresight could go, I made a careful 
 review of my whole position, and on balancing the items 
 arrived with care at the following sum total, which I will now 
 endeavour briefly to lay before you. 
 
 11 For my part, were I to see the constitution entirely in the 
 hands of worthless or wicked men — which has happened before 
 now, within my own recollection as well as at other times— 
 not merely would no rewards induce me — such things indeed 
 weigh but little with me — but no threats of danger, such as I 
 know do stir even the stoutest hearts,, should ever compel me 
 
 . to support their cause ; no, not though their claims upon me 
 were of the strongest. But when a man of the character of 
 Gnaeus Pompeius is at the head of affairs, one who has reached 
 that summit of power and eminence by his brilliant exploits 
 and extraordinary public services, a man too whose successful 
 career I have steadily supported from my youth upwards, and 
 had even put myself forward to promote both in my praetor- 
 ship and consulship ; when moreover he had given me the 
 help of his own influence and support, as well as sharing in all 
 your plans and exertions ; when, finally, his only enemy in the 
 whole country was mine as well, I did not think I should have 
 much to fear from the imputation of timeserving if I slightly 
 changed my language in expressing some of my opinions, and 
 contributed my good wishes to the advancement of our most 
 illustrious countryman, and one moreover who had deserved 
 so much from me. 
 
 12 Assuming this resolution, I had necessarily, you will .admit, 
 to include Caesar in my attentions, their interests and position 
 
bp. xxix. TO LENTVLUS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I. 9.) in 
 
 being so closely allied. Now I was much strengthened in this 
 not only by the old friendship which, as you are well aware, 
 my brother Quintus and I used to have for Caesar, but by his 
 courtesy and generosity, which even in this short time I have 
 good reason to know and appreciate, both from his letters and 
 from the attentions he has paid me. A strong incentive also 
 to me was afforded by our country herself, holding as I did that 
 she, so far from consenting to any opposition being made to 
 her great sons, especially after Caesar's brilliant exploits, was 
 resolutely determined not to let this happen. My weightiest 
 impulse however to this resolution arose partly from Pompeius 
 having pledged his word for me to Caesar, and partly from my 
 brother having done the same to Pompeius. Moreover I was 
 bound to recollect the political truth contained in the inspired 
 teaching of my master Plato, that as are the leading men in a 
 State so must the mass of its citizens be. 6 I had not forgotten 
 how in my consulship from the very first day of the year so 
 firm a basis had been laid for strengthening the position of the 
 Senate that no one ought to wonder on the 5 th of December 6 to 
 find so much resolution or spirit in that body. I remembered 
 too that after I had retired from office, down to the consulship 
 of Caesar and Bibulus, not only did my opinions carry great 
 weight in the Senate, but the feeling of good citizens was all 
 but unanimous. Afterwards however, with yourself holding 13 
 military command in Eastern Spain, and our government 
 administered not so much by consuls as by province-mongers 
 and the hangers-on and feeders of sedition, some chance flung 
 my unhappy self like an apple of discord into the midst of 
 these hot passions of party struggles ; when at this critical 
 moment a consensus of opinion, rare even in the Senate, 
 incredibly strong over the whole of Italy, and quite unique 
 among all respectable citizens, manifested itself for my pro- 
 tection. I will not say however what was the result — there 
 are so many people involved, and in such different degrees — I 
 
 5 ' Let no one ever make us believe, my friends, that a State can possibly 
 change its laws more easily or more quickly in any way than when its rulers 
 simply lead the rest.' — Plato, Laws, p. 711. 
 
 6 The day when Catilina's fellow-conspirators were strangled by order of 
 the Senate. Compare Letter lxviii. § 1. 
 
112 LETTERS OF CICERO. paktii. 
 
 will merely state briefly that where I failed was not in forces, 
 but in leaders for them. And herein whatever blame belongs 
 now to those who failed to defend me lies no less on those 
 who abandoned me ; and if any who felt timidity ought to be 
 censured, still more ought one to be reproached who made a 
 pretence of timidity. Surely at any rate for the determination 
 I took I may fairly claim some credit, in that I refused to 
 expose my fellow-citizens, whom once I had saved and who 
 now wished to save me in turn, all leaderless as they were, to 
 the mercy of a gang of slaves ; choosing rather that the world 
 should see how irresistible would have been the strength of 
 our good citizens when once united, had they been allowed to 
 fight for me before my fall, by their having been able so to 
 raise me again after I had been struck down. And that such 
 was their feeling you not only saw beyond doubt when you 
 were pleading my cause, but have always so asserted and 
 maintained. 
 
 14 Now on this occasion — so far am I from denying the fact 
 that I shall always recollect it, and readily admit it — you were , 
 assisted by some of our noblest citizens, who showed greater 
 vigour in recalling than they had once done in keeping me. 
 Had they but been willing to hold fast to their principles, 
 they might have recovered their own authority at the same 
 time with my restitution. For at a time when the patriotic 
 party had been encouraged by your consulship, and greatly 
 animated by your admirable and resolute proceedings in office, 
 — particularly after Pompeius had enlisted himself in the 
 cause, — when moreover Caesar, finding his brilliant exploits 
 distinguished by marked and unprecedented honours and 
 acknowledgments on the part of the Senate, was allying him- 
 self too with the cause of that order, there would have been 
 no possible opportunity for any person however abandoned to 
 lay impious hands upon our liberties. 
 
 15 But mark now, I beg, what followed. In the first place, 
 that harpy who befouls even feminine devotions, who respecteflsa 
 the sanctity of the Holy Goddess no more than he did that of 
 his three sisters, was screened from punishment by the votes 
 of those very men who, when a tribune, relying on the feeling 
 of honest people, was endeavouring to get justice done on a 
 
ep. xxix. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I. 9.) 113 
 
 turbulent citizen, have lost to our country a splendid oppor- 
 tunity of making an example of sedition for the future. 7 
 
 So again, these same men afterwards allowed a monument 
 — not of myself, for they were no spoils of mine, but only my 
 services that were engaged for the work, but a monument 
 rather of the Senate itself — to be branded in letters of blood 
 with the name of its bitterest foe. Now certainly I am most 
 grateful that these people should have supported my recall : 
 but I could wish they had chosen to show some concern, not 
 only for my recovery, as a doctor does, but like trainers who 
 look to one's muscles and healthy complexion. As it is — just 
 like Apelles finishing the head and bust of his Venus to 
 exquisite perfection, and leaving the rest of her a mere sketch 
 — there are certain persons who regarded my restoration as the 
 head, and have completed that alone ; everything else about 
 me they have left sketched in the barest outline. But here 1 16 
 disappointed the expectations of those who were watching me, 
 not only with jealous but even with hostile eyes. They had 
 formerly heard a false account of the brave and heroic 
 Quintus, the son of Lucius Metellus, a man who in my 
 judgment towered above every one else in resolution and 
 magnanimity, and whom they persistently represent as having 
 been broken down and dispirited after his recall. [We are to 
 believe then] that one who retired from his country with 
 perfect readiness, and stayed abroad with unmistakeable cheer- 
 fulness, never in fact caring to come back, was actually a 
 broken-down man, because of an action in which he surpassed 
 every one else, including even the great Marcus Scaurus, in 
 firmness and dignity ! 8 However, what they had heard 
 reported, or even what they merely suspected about him, they 
 
 7 See Letter viii. for the trial of Clodius. The tribune is either Milo or 
 Racilius, who was also a fierce opponent of Clodius. On tres sorores see 
 Letter ix. note 9. Mr. Froude, Caesar, p. 283, translates ' The Three 
 Sisters,' apparently thinking that it refers to the Fates ! 
 
 8 Quintus Metellus Numidicus (Letter viii. § 4) was the only member of the 
 Senate who refused to swear obedience to the Agrarian law of Satuminus in 
 100 B.C. A bill of attainder being proposed against him he retired to Rhodes 
 for a year, when he was recalled. Marcus Aemilius Scaurus might have been 
 expected as the fierce champion of the oligarchy to resist, but he did not. The 
 parallel is rather clumsily introduced : Cicero means that Metellus' s enemies 
 were disappointed, and so shall mine be. 
 
 I 
 
114 LETTERS OF CICERO. paetii. 
 
 forthwith proceeded to imagine about me — that I should be 
 humbled for the future. Why, my country was inspiring me 
 with greater courage than ever, in that she had unmistakeably 
 declared me to be the one citizen she could not afford to 
 spare ; and whereas Metellus's recall was on the motion of a 
 single tribune, in mine a country of one mind, headed by her 
 Senate, sympathised with by all Italy, with eight tribunes to 
 propose the motion, and a consul to put it to the vote of the 
 people gathered in their centuries — with every class and every 
 individual joining in the effort — in a word, with her whole 
 strength claimed me back again for her own. 
 
 17 Yet never once since that time have I taken upon mysehy- 
 nor do I at this day take upon me anything that could reason- 
 ably give offence to the most malicious critic : my only 
 ambition is never to be wanting in advice, or assistance, or 
 personal help, whether to friends or to those who have a 
 slighter claim upon me. Possibly this aim of mine in life 
 awakens the jealousy of those who, while they see the outward 
 splendour of such a life, cannot discern its hidden anxieties 
 and troubles. Certainly they are at no pains to conceal this 
 accusation against me, that my speeches in support of the 
 honours to be paid to Caesar show that I am in some way 
 'turning my back on my old party.' The fact is that my 
 reasons are partly what I have stated above, partly, and not 
 least, the following consideration, which I was beginning to 
 discuss. 
 
 You will not find, my dear Lentulus, the feeling of our 
 loyal citizens what it was when you left. That feeling, renewed 
 in strength by my consulship, afterwards for a while impaired, 
 trampled under foot before you were consul, but brought by 
 you to new life, has now been totally neglected by the very 
 men most bound to respect it; and not merely by external 
 signs or by changes of countenance, ,where false pretences are 
 easiest, do those men who used when I was in power to be 
 claimed as good conservatives show this, but they have even 
 frequently impressed it on us before now by their votes in the J 
 
 18 Senate and the law-courts. So it is that at last both the policy 
 and the objects of all prudent politicians (as one of whom I 
 should claim to range myself and to be classed by others) 
 
bp. xxix. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I. 9.) 115 
 
 have with justice veered completely round ; for Plato again, 
 the great master whose teaching I earnestly strive to follow, 
 bids you never press your opinions in politics beyond the point 
 to which you can carry your fellow-citizens with you ; seeing 
 that one has no more right to use violence to his country than 
 to his own mother. 9 And in fact he alleges that this was the 
 cause of his abstaining from public life, because finding Athens 
 now wellnigh in her dotage, [and holding it equally impossible to 
 guide her by argument or by force], he despaired of his powers 
 of persuasion, while he ■ would not admit the lawfulness of 
 force. 10 My case was different, because I was already com- 
 mitted, having neither a people in their dotage to deal with, 
 nor a choice still open as to whether I should take part in 
 politics : still I was glad to have the opportunity in one and 
 the same question of supporting a policy at once advantageous 
 to myself and honourable to any patriotic citizen. To these 
 considerations was added a memorable, almost more than 
 human generosity of Caesar to my brother and myself; a man 
 who might justly claim support from me whatever he was 
 undertaking : as it is, after such a brilliant career and such 
 victories as his, even were he not what he is to me, I should 
 still deem him a man we might well delight to honour. For I 
 must ask you to believe that, leaving out you and others who 
 have given me back to life again, there is no human being to 
 whose kindness I not only profess but am proud to be so 
 indebted. 
 
 Having now laid these facts before you, I find it easy to 19 
 answer your questions about my relations to Vatinius and 
 Crassus ; for as to Appius you write that you cannot blame me 
 with respect to him any more than Caesar, and I am rejoiced 
 to have your approval of my conduct But as to Vatinius, 
 in the first instance a reconciliation had occurred between us, 
 thanks to Pompeius, immediately on his election to the praetoi- 
 ship; though I admit I had made some uncompromising 
 speeches in the Senate against his claims, not however so much 
 with the object of attacking him as of supporting and eulogising 
 
 9 ' If it be monstrous to use force to father or mother, how much more to 
 one's country !'■ — Plato, Crit. p. 51. 
 
 10 This alludes to a passage in Plato's fifth Letter, p. 322. 
 
n6 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt n. 
 
 Cato. This was followed however by an unusually strong 
 request from Caesar that I would undertake the defence. But 
 why speak highly of him ? Nay, I entreat you not to press 
 me with this either about the client in question or about any- 
 body else, lest I retort it on you when you return. In fact 
 there is no reason why I should not even before you come. 
 Just think of the people to whom you have sent letters of 
 recommendation from the ends of the earth. But fear not : 
 I myself always do and always mean to recommend the very 
 same people. However in defending Vatinius I had also 
 a spice of the motive of which I spoke on the trial when I 
 was pleading for him, and remarked that I was following pretty 
 much the advice of the Parasite in 'The Eunuch' to the 
 Captain : 
 
 ' If she with Phaedria's name your passion try, 
 
 Do you with Pamphila at once reply ; 
 
 If at the feast she Phaedria wish to see, 
 
 We'll say, "A song from Pamphila for me;" 
 
 If she the youth, do you the maid extol ; 
 
 Meet thrust by thrust, an so you touch her soul.' u 
 
 Accordingly, as I told the gentlemen who tried this case, since 
 certain people of high position who had formerly been very 
 kind to me were now parading rather too great affection for 
 my avowed enemy, and before my very eyes were frequently 
 taking him apart in the Senate, now for a grave consultation, 
 now to greet him warmly with the enthusiasm of intimate 
 friends — in fact as they had taken up one Publius, I must 
 really claim their consent to my having the benefit of another, 
 by whose help I, as being somewhat mortified, might just take 
 this slight revenge on my friends' susceptibilities ; and it was 
 not a mere threat, but I often really put it in practice, and 
 before heaven and earth my conduct stands approved. 
 20 Enough of Vatinius : now hear about Crassus. I, for my 
 part, having still much of the old feeling for him — for I had 
 eagerly trodden down as far as possible into oblivion for the 
 sake of harmony in the common cause all recollection of the 
 very serious injuries he had done me, even when he unex- 
 pectedly defended Gabinius, whom a few days before he had 
 
 u Terence, Eunuchus, iii. i, 50. 
 
bp. xxix. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. {AD FAM. I. 9.) 117 
 
 bitterly attacked — could still have borne it had he set about it 
 without any abuse of me. But when on my arguing the 
 question with him he had gone out of his way to attack me 
 unprovoked, I flashed out at once, not merely with indignation 
 at the actual circumstance, for that probably would not have 
 been very deep, but because that pent-up dislike inspired by 
 his perpetual assaults, which I fancied I had entirely got rid 
 of, but must I suppose have been latent nevertheless, rose all 
 at once to the surface. Well, upon this very occasion certain 
 people, including those individuals whom I generally allude to 
 by [signs or] hints, while they professed to have derived great 
 advantage from my plain-speaking, and that now at last they 
 looked upon me as really coming back to politics like my old 
 self, and while that passage of arms did actually do me con- 
 siderable good even with the outside public, were nevertheless 
 expressing satisfaction that he at least was now thoroughly 
 estranged from me, and that those who were in the same boat 
 with him would never again be friends of mine. As these 
 malicious remarks were reported to me by men on whom I 
 could thoroughly depend, and as Pompeius's entreaties could 
 not possibly have been more pressing than they were that I 
 would make up my quarrel with Crassus, and Caesar showed 
 plainly in his letters that he was much concerned at our 
 difference, I obeyed the dictates alike of circumstances and my 
 natural feelings : and Crassus, that our good understanding 
 might be made as public at Rome as possible, started for his 
 province, one might almost say from under my roof; for, as 
 he had expressed a wish to be invited, he dined with me at the 
 seat of my son-in-law, Crassipes. Thus it was that I came, as 
 you say you have heard, to support his cause in the Senate, 
 under the strongest recommendations from that eminent man, 
 as indeed I was in honour bound to do when I had once 
 undertaken it. 
 
 Now I have laid before you the reasons which induced me 21 
 in each case to defend particular measures or causes, and a 
 statement of my individual position with reference to the politics 
 of the day. On this I must ask you to believe me, that my 
 feeling would have been precisely the same, had I been entirely 
 free and unfettered in action ; for my deliberate opinion was 
 
Il8 LETTERS OF CICERO. PART n. 
 
 that it was not advisable to resist such superior^strength, nor 
 to abolish, even if that were possible, the just preeminence of 
 our leading men : in short, that we ought not obstinately to 
 hold by a rigid opinion when circumstances are so entirely 
 changed, and with them the views of the most patriotic citizens, 
 but that we must move with the times. Obstinately to persist 
 in one unvarying opinion has never been accounted among the 
 merits of those great men who have guided the helm of 
 State. Just as the pilot's art is shown in running before the 
 storm, even when you cannot make the port, whereas when an 
 opportunity offers of getting there by merely shifting your sails, 
 it is sheer folly to take the risks of keeping on the course you 
 have begun, rather than consent to change it, if you can any- 
 how get to the welcome haven ; so, if what I have frequently 
 quoted be true, that the supreme object of us statesmen should 
 always be the preservation of ' peace with honour,' we are not 
 bound always to use the same language, but only to keep the 
 same end always in view. For this reason, to repeat what I 
 stated above, were all courses left entirely open to me, yet I 
 should still in politics be no other than I am : but now that 
 kindness from some is equally attracting, and ingratitude from 
 others driving me to my present disposition, I feel no reluct- 
 ance in holding and expressing those political opinions which 
 seem to me most conducive to the interests alike of myself and 
 the State at large. I do this however all the more frequently 
 and unreservedly because not only is my brother Quintus on 
 Caesar's staff, but because not the slightest word of mine, 
 much less action in Caesar's interest, has ever passed without 
 his receiving it with gratitude so marked as to give the appear- 
 ance of his being under the greatest obligation to me. The 
 result is that I have the benefit of his influence, overwhelming 
 as it is, and his resources, which are you see enormous, as 
 though they were my own ; nor do I see how in any other way 
 I could have succeeded in breaking down the intrigues of 
 scoundrels against me, except by supplementing now the safe- 
 guards I have always possessed by a friendly alliance with 
 22 powerful people. These opinions I am inclined to think I 
 should have adopted in full, even had I had the benefit of 
 your society ; for I know the candour and moderation of your 
 
ep. xxix. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I. 9.) 119 
 
 nature ; I know that your feelings, while most affectionate to 
 me, conceal no tinge of bitterness against the rest of us ; on 
 the contrary, they are no less open and sincere than they are 
 large-hearted and sublime. I have myself seen certain people 
 prove to you exactly what you could not but see they were to 
 me. All that has influenced me must surely have influenced 
 you too. But however long it be before I have the happiness 
 of again being with you, you shall be my guide in every action : 
 you who once protected me from ruin shall again protect me 
 from loss of dignity. Of this at least I am sure, that you will 
 find me ready to take my part at your side in every act or 
 sentiment or wish, in a word, in everything that is yours ; nor 
 shall any purpose of my life be so dear to me as that day by 
 day you should have stronger reason to rejoice that you have 
 deserved so much of me. 
 
 You ask me to send you any literary work I may have 23 
 been engaged on since your departure. I have some speeches 
 which I will give to Menocritus, but, not to frighten you, 
 there are not very many of them. I have written moreover 
 — for I am effecting a divorce on the whole from pleading, 
 and am wooing again the gentler Muses who from my very 
 boyhood have been as they are now my chief delight — I have 
 written, I say, on the model of Aristotle 12 — as far at least as 
 intention goes — [a discussion or dialogue in] three books, 
 called ' The Orator,' which I think may be not without value 
 to your son Lentulus, because they reject entirely the orthodox 
 treatment, and embody the principles of rhetoric as laid down 
 both by Aristotle and Isocrates, and all the elder writers. I 
 have also written three books of verse on the vicissitudes of my 
 life, which I would have sent to you before this had I had the 
 idea' of publishing them, because they will be a lasting memorial 
 of your kindness to me and my gratitude in return ; but [the 
 fact was] I was afraid, not so much of people who might fancy 
 themselves attacked (which indeed I have done gently and 
 
 18 Why Cicero calls his ' De Oratore ' written on the model of Aristotle is 
 not obvious. Madvig (Exc. vii. to De Finibus) thinks his knowledge of 
 Aristotle was limited to the lost dialogues and the rhetorical works. His 
 description of Aristotle's style as 'flumen orationis aureum fundens ' (Acad. 
 Pr. ii. 38, 119), and his 'colouring' (Letter ix. §1), are not at all what we should 
 expect. See further references in Mr. Watson's note. 
 
120 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 sparingly), as of those whom it would have been an endless 
 task to enumerate in full as having laid me under obligations. 
 Still as to these particular books, if I succeed in finding any- 
 body to whom I can safely entrust them, I will take care they 
 shall be sent to you. Indeed all this department of my life 
 and occupations I submit unreservedly to you ; all the literary 
 and all the philosophic work, my old recreations, that I ever 
 succeed in completing I shall have much pleasure in referring 
 entirely to the critical judgment of one who has always 
 delighted in such pursuits. 
 
 24 The private matters you mention in your letter and beg 
 me not to forget seem to me so much a part of my own that 
 I do not like to be reminded of them ; indeed I can scarcely 
 be asked without feeling hurt you should ask it. As to the 
 service which my brother Quintus wants done for him, you tell 
 me you were hindered by ill-health from travelling into Cilicia, 
 and so could not effect a settlement last summer, but now will 
 spare no pains to get it done. I assure you that this is so 
 important that my brother will justly regard himself as really 
 indebted to you for the satisfactory settlement of his estate by 
 the addition of that piece of land. I should be glad if as 
 frequently as possible you would tell me as an intimate friend 
 any news about yourself, or about the studies and first essays 
 of your son Lentulus, who is almost mine also ; for believe 
 me no man was ever dearer to another or more longed for 
 than you are by me ; and this I mean that not only you but 
 all the world shall feel, and even future generations shall 
 recognise. 
 
 25 Appius has now publicly declared in the. House what he 
 frequently stated before in private conversation, that if not 
 prevented from getting a confirmation by the people of his 
 command he will cast lots with his colleague for the two 
 provinces. Should he fail to get this confirmation, it is his 
 intention to make a private arrangement with his colleague, 
 and become your successor. He asserts that this confirmation 
 by the people is for a consul only a matter of expediency, not 
 of necessity ; his own province, being given him by a decree 
 of the Senate, entitles him to full military power under Sulla's 
 act, until such time as he shall have entered the limits of the 
 
ep. xxix. TO LENTULUS SPINTHER. (AD FAM. I. 9.) 121 
 
 city. For my own part, without knowing what the individual 
 sentiments of your correspondents may be, I see that opinion 
 is much divided. One party thinks that it is open to you not 
 to resign your province, because your successor has not been 
 formally authorised by the people voting in their districts; 
 another, that if you do resign it, you are entitled to leave a 
 successor in charge. To me it seems that the legal point is 
 not so clear — though even that can hardly be called doubtful 
 — as that you are bound by your own eminent position, your 
 self-respect, and your independence, which I know you always 
 prize so highly, without any delay to give up the province to 
 your successor; more especially as you cannot oppose his 
 over-eagerness for office, without a suspicion of over-eagerness 
 on your own part. For myself, I recognise a double duty; 
 first to tell you my own opinion, secondly to defend your 
 decision whatever it proves to be. 
 
 P.S. — Since writing the above letter I have received your 26 
 note about the contractors for the taxes. Your fairness to 
 them one cannot but respect ; at the same time I wish your 
 readiness to oblige could have secured you from coming into 
 collision with the interests or the sentiments of a class to which 
 you have always paid great respect. For my own part, I shall 
 not fail to support your decrees, but you know the way of these 
 people, and are aware what formidable enemies these very men 
 proved themselves to Quintus Scaevola. 13 I would still advise 
 you, if you can in any way, to recover the good graces of that 
 class, or at any rate to mollify them. Though this may be 
 difficult, it seems to me within the reach of your sagacity. 
 
 13 Quintus Mucius Scaevola, consul 95B.C. and Governor of Asia, offended 
 the equites by his unheard-of objections to plunder of the provinces, which 
 was almost the only object of senatorial government. Of course he met the 
 usual fate ; his legate, Publius Rutilius Rufus, was condemned pn a false charge 
 of embezzlement — a true charge was almost always bribed away with the 
 money of the plundered people— and he himself was murdered. — Letter liv. § 6. 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. takt ii. 
 
 XXX. (AD FAM. II. 6.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO GAIUS SCRIBONIUS CURIO, ON HIS 
 RETURN FROM ASIA MINOR. 
 
 January, 701 A.V.C. (53 B.C.) 
 
 Curio the younger, afterwards Caesar's ablest lieutenant, though he is 
 contemptuously spoken of in Letter vii. § 5, was about this time one of Cicero's 
 most favoured correspondents. This rather ponderous yet characteristic letter 
 is sent to meet him at once on landing from Asia, where he had been quaestor, 
 and enlist his sympathies for Milo in the coming election of consuls. Milo 
 would probably have been elected but for an affray between himself and Clodius, 
 with their retainers, on the Appian Road, on Jan. 17, in which the latter was 
 killed. This led to such fierce rioting at Rome that Pompeius was created 
 Dictator, but in order to avoid the name he was only entitled ' Sole Consul.' 
 Pompeius was at this time proconsul of Spain with an army there, and he still 
 had the supreme control of supplies. Thus his position was quite unconstitu- 
 tional, and to all appearance far more powerful than Caesar's. It is epigramr 
 matically described by Tacitus, Annals, iii. 28. Milo, though defended by 
 Cicero, was condemned to banishment in April ; and in July Pompeius resigned 
 his virtual dictatorship by accepting his father-in-law, Quintus Metellus Scipio, 
 as his colleague in the consulship. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 322-327 ; Merivale, ii. 27-37, 75-84 ; Long, iv. ch. 20 ; 
 Forsyth, ch. 16 ; Abeken, 206-214. 
 
 1 I have not yet received any news of your arrival in Italy at 
 the time of despatching the bearer of this letter — Sextus 
 Villius, an intimate acquaintance of my friend Milo — to meet 
 you ; but though it is thought your arrival may now be 
 expected at any time, and we are assured that you have already 
 left Asia en route for Rome, the importance of my object has 
 relieved me from any fear about writing with undue haste,, 
 since I am extremely anxious for these lines to reach you as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 As for these services of mine, my dear Curio, if you were 
 the only recipient, and if they were really as important as you 
 are good enough to represent them rather than as they are 
 estimated by myself, I for my part should have greater scruples 
 in pressing upon you a request for any considerable favour; 
 because it is unpleasant to a man of any delicacy to ask any- 
 thing of importance from one whom he regards as under an 
 obligation to himself, lest he should seem to be demanding it 
 more of right than of grace, and counting it rather a debt to 
 
ep. xxx. TO SCRIB0N1US CURIO. {AD FAM. II. 6.) 123 
 
 be paid than a kindness to be conferred. But since those too 2 
 which you have rendered to me have been either done in the 
 sight of all men, or become famous by the very strangeness of 
 my experiences, and since it is the test of a generous disposition, 
 if you owe much to your friend, to wish that to him your 
 obligations could be multiplied, I have had no hesitation in 
 writing to ask a favour of you which to me would be the very 
 greatest possible, indeed almost of the last importance, for I 
 have felt no fear of not being able to bear the weight of all the 
 things you may do for me, however countless ; especially as I 
 was confident that no favour could be so great but that while 
 my heart would be enlarged in the receiving, it would be able so 
 to heap up the interest in repaying as to make it conspicuous 
 to all. 
 
 Now all my hopes, all my energies, care and thought, and 3 
 assiduity — in a word my whole soul — I have concentrated on 
 a single investment — the consulship of Milo ; and I have 
 decided that in his case it is my bounden duty not only to 
 seek the solid fruits of such service as I can render, but also 
 some distinction for true affection; 1 and really no one, I 
 think, ever set such a value on his own life or fortunes as I 
 do on this high place for him, on whom it is my settled belief 
 that all my hopes are staked. To him I perceive that you 
 above all people have it in your power, if you choose to 
 exercise it, to render such material assistance that we need 
 look no further. We have on our side all the following points, 
 — the support of every right-minded citizen, which he has 
 secured ever since his tribuneship, as I hope you perceive, by 
 having been my champion ; — of the populace and the lower 
 classes, thanks to the magnificence of the shows he has given 
 
 1 Offici fructum has given rise to a needless variety of interpretation. 
 Wieland's rendering ' a recompense for his services ' is doubtfully followed by 
 Mr. Watson, who understands a totally different verb such as praestare out 
 of quaerere. Metzger's and Hofmann's ' a recompense for my services ' would 
 have shocked Cicero to see thus nakedly expressed. The rendering given 
 above is perfectly simple and suits the context. Officium and fietas are here 
 used in the same sense as in the opening of Letter xxi. : fietas being much 
 the stronger, because it implies personal affection. The fruits looked for need 
 be no more than success, but they probably include the prestige that success 
 would carry with it. 
 
124 LETTERS OF CICERO. pahT ii. 
 
 them, and his generous disposition; — the sympathy of our 
 young bloods, and all the people who are most influential in 
 getting votes, thanks to his own remarkable influence, or 
 perhaps it is rather his activity in that line ; — my own vote 
 and interest, which if not so powerful as the rest has at least 
 stood some trial, and is his right and due, and may therefore 
 
 4 even carry some weight. What we absolutely require is a 
 leader and a guiding mind — one who will know how to use 
 these winds I have been describing, and be as it were our 
 pilot. Now had we to select one man for our purpose out of 
 all the world, there is nobody we could even name beside you. 
 Therefore if you can believe that I am unforgetful, if a true 
 and grateful man to my friends — which the fact that I am 
 working so earnestly for Milo perhaps may show — if, in short, 
 you deem me a worthy recipient for your kindness, this is the 
 favour I have to ask : help me in this anxiety of mine, and 
 devote your support now to the side on which my honour, or, 
 to tell the plain truth, I may almost say my safety, is involved. 
 As to Titus Annius Milo himself, I can promise you this 
 much, that you will not find a man anywhere of more resolu- 
 tion, earnestness, consistency, or if you will but espouse his 
 cause, more gratitude : while as for me, you will be heaping 
 upon me such an honour, and such a distinction, that I shall 
 readily recognise in the building up of my reputation the same 
 
 5 hand that once worked for my preservation. I would write 
 at greater length did I not feel sure that you perceive, from 
 my saying thus much to you, how deeply I am pledged, and 
 how I must exert myself on Milo's behalf in this contest, not 
 only straining every nerve, but also meeting every encounter. 
 I now only commend the matter and his cause to you, and 
 together with it surrender my very self into your hands. Of 
 this at least be well assured : that wherl you have granted me 
 this favour, I shall feel my debt to you to be almost greater 
 than to Milo himself: for my own preservation, which I owe 
 in so large a degree to him, is scarcely so dear to me as the 
 thought is pleasant that I may now show my affection by 
 returning his kindness. And for this I fully believe I need 
 only your concurrence to insure success. 
 
Ei>. xxxi. TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. V. II.) 125 
 
 XXXI. (AD ATT. V. 11.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ATHENS TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 July 6, 703 A.V.C. (51 B.C.) 
 
 There is a considerable interval between this and the preceding Letter. 
 
 The year 53 B. c. was signalised by the ill-starred expedition of Crassus into 
 Syria, ending with his total defeat at Carrhae, and murder at Sinnaca, June 
 9. This not only imperilled the Roman empire in the East, but materially 
 helped to precipitate the civil war, by leaving Caesar without a make-weight 
 to Pompeius ; and the death of Caesar's daughter Julia, the dearly-loved wife 
 of Pompeius, in 54 B.C., had sundered a strong tie between the rivals. The 
 growing breach was made manifest when Pompeius now refused to marry 
 Octavia, the grand-daughter of Caesar's sister, choosing instead the daughter 
 of so typical a member of the senatorial party as Quintus Metellus Scipio. 
 For the death of Clodius, and the election of Pompeius as Sole Consul, see 
 Introduction to the preceding Letter. 
 
 The consuls for 51 B.C. were Marcus Claudius Marcellus, = vehement 
 leader of the senatorial party, and the more moderate and learned Servius 
 Sulpicius Rufus. Attacks on Caesar, direct and indirect, were numerous, the 
 one which apparently caused the greatest sensation being an outrageous act of 
 Marcellus. Caesar had extended, perhaps irregularly, to the Transpadane 
 Gauls, that is to Upper Italy, the privileges at least of the Latins, and pos- 
 sibly of full Roman citizens (see esp. Mommsen, iv. 312, 351, 360 ; and Mr. 
 Watson's note-on § 2 of this Letter, and compare Introd. to Letter lxxvi.) ; but 
 Marcellus seized an opportunity to scourge an eminent senator, if not a magis- 
 trate, of Novum Comum (Como), bidding him go and show the marks to 
 his patron. 
 
 An act of Pompeius in his sole consulship provided that no one should be 
 eligible for the Governorship of a Province until after five years from his time 
 of office ; and a clause was appended by the Senate that all ex-consuls and 
 ex-praetors who had not yet served should be compelled to draw for a pro- 
 vince. In this way Cicero, much against his will, became Governor of Cilicia, 
 a large province which included all the southern half of Asia Minor and the 
 island of Cyprus. His predecessor was Appius Claudius Pulcher, elder 
 brother of Publius Clodius, who had ravaged, plundered, and oppressed the 
 province in the usual proconsular way. (Compare Mommsen, iv. 529-533 ; 
 Beesly, Catiline, 4-9 ; De Quincey, Essay on Cicero, quoted by Forsyth, 308 ; 
 Introduction to Letter xv.) 'Cicero's own administration seems to have been 
 just, considerate, and popular, and to have deserved a considerable part of 
 the praises of it which fill his letters of this period ; but he cannot be 
 acquitted of injustice to the Salaminians (Letters xxxvi. xxxviii.), except by 
 comparison with other proconsuls. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 328-347 ; Merivale, ii. 1-27, 75-100 ; Long, iv. ch. 15, 
 16, 22, 23 ; Abeken, 217-263 ; Forsyth, ch. r7. 
 
 Whew ! can I have been writing so often to Rome, and 1 
 never a line to you ? Well henceforth I _ will waste a letter 
 
126 LETTERS OF CICERO. fart ii. 
 
 rather than commit the crime of not sending one at all, pro- 
 vided I find anybody to whom I can safely entrust it. As 
 you hope to be happy, now while you are on the spot use 
 every scheme that may be schemed to prevent my governorship 
 from being prolonged. Nobody knows how I am burning 
 with desire for town ; how I can scarcely bear the distasteful- 
 ness of everything over here. 
 
 2 This is most abominable about Marcellus and the citizen 
 of Comum : even supposing the man proves not to have held 
 office, yet at any rate he was a Transpadane. Therefore it 
 seems to me he has stirred our friend's bile as much as Caesar's; 
 
 3 but this he must look to himself. As to Pompeius, I myself 
 fancied, as you say Varro tells you, that he is sure to go to 
 Spain. I could not at all approve of this i 1 in fact, I easily 
 persuaded Theophanes that the best possible course was that 
 he should go nowhere at all. So the Greek will put the 
 pressure on, and his advice counts for a good deal with his 
 chief. 
 
 4 I send this July 6, on leaving Athens, where I have been 
 stopping just ten days. Pomptinus is arrived, and with him 
 Gnaeus Volusius ; the quaestor 2 too is here, and nobody but 
 your friend Tullius away. I have some open boats of the 
 Rhodians, and biremes of the Mytileneans, besides a good 
 number of the ordinary chaloupes. There is no news about 
 the Parthians. Heaven help us for what is coming. 
 
 5 So far, I have made my way through Greece amid great 
 applause ; nor have I had anything to complain of, I give you 
 my word, among my own people ; they seem to be fully aware 
 of my aims, and the conditions on which they attend me; 
 beyond a doubt they sacrifice themselves to my reputation. 
 For the future, if there be any truth in the saying ' tel maitre,'* 
 they will certainly persevere ; for they shall never see me do 
 a single thing in any way that would justify delinquency in 
 
 1 See Letter xci. note i. 
 
 2 Probably Lucius Mescinius Rufus (Watson). One Quintus Volusius is 
 mentioned as in command in Letter xxxvi. He may be the Volusius men- 
 tioned here, with a mistake of his praenomen in one passage or the other". 
 
 3 ' Tel maitre, tel valet,' corresponding to the Greek ' You may know the 
 mistress by her lap-dog' (Plato, Rep. viii. p. 563), and to our ' Like master, 
 like man.' 
 
EP. xxxi. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. V. u.) 127 
 
 them. If this however should entirely fail I shall have to 
 adopt severer measures ; for hitherto, with my lenient inclina- 
 tions, I have been mild with them, and hope I am doing some 
 good. But for my own part I have calculated on this ' soffer- 
 enza ' (as our Sicilian friends call it) only for a year ; so be my 
 champion, or, if my term is prolonged at all, I may be found 
 an impostor. 
 
 To return now to your commissions. As to the prefects, e 
 any of them you wish shall have exemption from service : send 
 me their names, 4 and I will not be so difficile as I was about 
 Appuleius. I like Xenon as much as you do, and I am sure 
 he is sensible of it. I have brought you into high favour with 
 Patron and the rest of the stupid school, and upon my word 
 you have deserved it of me, for the man told me three times 
 over you had written to him that after his letter I had taken 
 pains to do what he wanted, 6 and that gave him immense 
 pleasure. But though Patron had appealed to me to ask of 
 your High Court that they would rescind the arrfte they had 
 passed in Polycharmus's year, both Xenon and eventually 
 Patron too thought it would be more convenient for me to 
 write to Memmius (who had started for Mytilene the very day 
 before I arrived at Athens) and get him to send word to his 
 agents that he had no opposition to make to this ; for Xenon 
 was positive that the Areopagus could not be got to grant this 
 favour without the consent of Memmius. Now Memmius 
 had already abandoned his intention of building, but was 
 annoyed with Patron, so I wrote him a letter in carefully 
 chosen terms, a copy of which I enclose. 
 
 Please say something comforting to Pilia which might 7 
 
 4 The sentence might just possibly be translated thus as it stands, but 
 excusatio, — discharge or exemption, is only found in Ulpian, and there can be 
 little doubt that the word is corrupt. Gronovius, Boot, and Orelli suspect it 
 to be a corruption of negotiator, alluding to Cicero's refusal to appoint any 
 one in trade to a military command. — Letter xxxvi. § 10. 
 
 5 Gaius Memmius, now in banishment for bribery (see Letter xx|viii. § 7), 
 had obtained a grant of the venerable ruins of Epicurus's house, on which, 
 there being no Ancient Monuments Act in those days, he intended to build. 
 This scandalised the Epicurean philosophers, whom Cicero describes as ■ the 
 stupid school,' and they procured his mediation with Memmius. The letter 
 alluded to is still extant (Ad Fam. xiii. 1). See Forsyth, 315 ; Abeken, 222 ; 
 Munro on Lucretius, i. 41. 
 
128 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet ii. 
 
 naturally come from me 6 — I will tell you why I give you this 
 hint, only not a word of it to her. The fact is that I received 
 a budget of letters, and among them was one from Pilia. I 
 took it out, opened and read it. The tone of the letter was 
 entirely sympathigue. Those which you received from Brun- 
 disium were of course sent off without one from me because I 
 was then far from well, so you must not take this excuse as 
 being a mere banalitk? Mind you keep me informed of 
 everything, and particularly of your being well. 
 
 XXXII. (AD ATT. V. 16.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT SYNNAS IN PHRYGIA TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 August, 703 A.V.C. (51 B.C.) 
 
 1 I am on the march, indeed at this very moment on the 
 road, but the messengers of the tax-contractors are just about 
 to start, and though we are moving along I thought I must 
 snatch a moment, lest you should fancy I had forgotten your 
 injunction. Accordingly I am now sitting by the road-side to 
 send a few jottings about things which really want a fuller 
 
 2 explanation. I assure you that about my arrival on the last 
 day of July in this province, broken down and hopelessly 
 ruined as it is, there were immense expectations. I stayed 
 three days at Laodicea, three at Apamea, and the same at 
 Synnas. Everywhere it has been the same story : [that they 
 cannot pay] the taille which has been imposed in the form of 
 a poll-tax ; that everybody has had to sell out of his placement-} 
 
 6 Pilia was the wife of Atticus (compare Letter xxiii. § 7), and had 
 apparently written to Quintus Cicero, to condole with him on the unhappy 
 temper of his wife Pomponia, Atticus's sister. For meis verbis compare 
 Letter cxxii. § 8. It cannot mean 'give her a message from me,' because 
 Cicero expressly charges Atticus not to tell her about opening the letter. On 
 Cicero's lax morality in this respect compare Forsyth, 315 ; Letters xvi. § 8 ; 
 xlii. § 4. 
 
 7 This word voiuwdpla. is corrupt, and none of the suggestions for it are 
 very happy, but the sense is fairly clear. Some word meaning 'hackneyed' 
 {vojiaiav, Boot, vofd/Aijv, Billerbeck) seems to be included in it. 
 
 1 The meaning of tbv&s is not very clear, except that it is certainly meant 
 to be in sharp contrast to venditas. It may be either investments (emptiones), 
 
ep. xxxiii. FROM CAELIUS. (AD FAM. VIII. 4.) 129 
 
 that there are groans and cries from every district; things 
 often not like the acts of a human being, but of some monstrous 
 beast. In short, their life is simply a burden to them. Still 3 
 the wretched cities are finding some relief in having no expense 
 whatever to incur, either for myself, or my staff, or my paymaster, 
 or anybody. I must tell you that I not only decline to accept 
 forage, and all that is usually allowed us under Caesar's act, 2 
 but even fire-wood : none of us in fact accepts a single thing 
 beyond four beds and the shelter of a roof; in many places 
 not even the roof, and we not uncommonly stay in our tent. 
 The consequence is that there is astonishing enthusiasm about 
 coming to greet us from the country, from the villages, and 
 from every house. I solemnly declare that my coming here, 
 if nothing else, seems to be making them lift their heads again 
 under the just, forbearing, and merciful rule of your Cicero ; 
 he has so exceeded all expectation. Appius, when he heard 4 
 of our approach, flung himself into a corner of the province, 
 as far as Tarsus in fact, where he holds his court. I hear 
 nothing about the Parthians, but the people who come from 
 Syria report that our cavalry has been cut to pieces by some 
 wild hordes. Bibulus does not even yet think of going to his 
 province : the reason of this they say is that he does not want 
 to leave any earlier than he can help. I am hurrying on to 
 reach our camp, which is two days distant. 
 
 XXXIII. (AD FAM. VIII. 4.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CAELIUS RUFUS AT ROME TO CICERO IN CILICIA. 
 
 August 1, 703 A.V.C. (51 B.C.) 
 
 Cicero's principal correspondent during his government of Cilicia, as we 
 have no letters of Atticus, was Caelius Rufus, tribune of the preceding year 
 . and aedile in the next. These letters are so interesting and important that a 
 separate edition of his correspondence with Cicero has been published (by 
 Suringar, Leiden, 1846). Letters xxxiii. xxxiv. xxxv. and xli. are from him. 
 Abeken says of them (p. 253) that ' they serve by their triviality to convince 
 
 as Orelli renders it, or contracts for taxes (Lidd. and Scott), which the con- 
 tractors had to get rid-of at a ruinous sacrifice. 
 
 2 For the provisions of this Act see Long, iii. 441. 
 
 K 
 
130 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt ii. 
 
 us of Cicero's superiority,' but this is an unfair judgment. The style differs 
 somewhat from Cicero's, and a few unusual and perhaps rough phrases, have 
 been pointed out, but they have a vigour and piquant flavour of their own, 
 and he is known to have been quite in the front rank both of the orators and 
 the literary men of his time. Like most Romans, however, he was absolutely 
 blind to the momentous issues of the coming struggle, and seems far more 
 concerned about the gossip of the elections and the chance of getting panthers 
 out of the Governor of Cilicia for the public games than the movements of 
 Pompeius and Caesar. M. Boissier (Ciceron et ses amis) justly selects him as 
 the type of young Rome. 
 
 The principal events alluded to in this letter are the election to the consul- 
 ship of Gaius Claudius Marcellus (a cousin of both his predecessor and his 
 successor, and of the same politics with them) and Lucius Aemilius Paulus ; 
 the candidature of Gaius Curio, often mentioned in these letters, for the 
 tribuneship,t in which he was successful ; and the continually growing murmurs 
 in the Senate about Caesar's recall. 
 
 The history of the diplomatic war between Pompeius and Caesar preceding 
 the appeal to the sword is given with great brilliancy by Mommsen, iv. 346- 
 361 ; compare Merivale, ii. 95-122. 
 
 1 I am quite envious of you : you have every day such a 
 quantity of news arriving to be a surprise. First of all there 
 is the fact of Messalla's acquittal, followed immediately by his 
 conviction ; then that Gaius Marcellus has been elected 
 consul ; that Marcus Calidius immediately on his defeat was 
 impeached by the brothers Gallius ; and that Dolabella has 
 been elected into the Fifteen. 1 One thing I do not envy you 
 for is missing a splendid sight, in not having seen the face of 
 Lentulus Crus when he was not elected ! How confident he 
 was, to be sure, and how safe he thought he was when he 
 entered ! and that with Dolabella himself so doubtful of 
 success ! Indeed, by Jove, if our good friends of the eques- 
 trian order had not been more sharp-sighted, he would have 
 been likely enough to win his election from his adversary 
 
 2 retiring. One event I suppose you were not surprised at, that 
 Servaeus, the tribune elect, was convicted. Gaius Curio is a 
 candidate for his place. I quite admit that he inspires con- 
 siderable suspicion in a great many people, who do not know 
 him and his kindly nature ; but I hope and trust, as we may 
 judge from the way he is conducting himself, that he will be 
 all for the right men and for the Senate. In his present state 
 
 1 The Fifteen [Quindecim viri) was a sacred college which had charge of 
 the Sibylline books, and could thus exercise a powerful political influence. 
 See an instance in the Introd. to Letter xxi. 
 
ep. xxxin. FROM CAEL1US. (AD FAM. VIII. 4.) 131 
 
 he is oozing this from every pore ; and the cause and begin- 
 ning of his present leanings is that Caesar, though he will 
 always win the affections of the veriest dregs of the people at 
 any cost, has slighted him not a little : and by the bye the 
 prettiest thing to have happened, as it seems to me, and as 
 other people too [before now] have noticed, is that Curio, who 
 never acts upon calculation, should now be thought to show 
 great foresight and cunning in upsetting the plans of those 
 who had thrust themselves forward against him for the tribune- 
 ship : such as the Laelii and Antonii, and that sort of 
 influential people. 
 
 I have been a longer time than usual in sending you this 3 
 letter, because the adjournments of the elections have kept 
 me too busy, and made me every day be expecting the final 
 result, when I could let you know about things after all was 
 settled. I have now waited positively until the 1st of August. 
 Several delays have befallen the election of praetors. As to 
 my own, I do not know how that will end ; but, at any rate, 
 as to Hirrus's chance we had an amazingly plain hint in the 
 election of aediles. For that stupid suggestion of Caelius 
 Vinicianus, which we had laughed down ever so long ago, and 
 his proposed Bill for a dictatorship, suddenly crushed him 
 now, and was used as a grand cry to follow him up with after 
 his defeat ; since which time they have all been bawling now 
 that Hirrus is not to be elected. I hope you will very shortly 
 hear, all in one, the news about me which you hoped for, and 
 about him which you hardly ventured to hope for. . As to 4 
 politics, we had already quite given up hoping for any change : 
 in the meeting of the Senate however at the temple of Apollo 
 on the 2 2d of July, when it was proposed to vote a grant for 
 the troops of Pompeius, attention was called to the legion 
 which he had transferred to Caesar 2 — whose was it to be 
 reckoned ? how long was it asked for ? and so on. Pompeius 
 replied that it was now in Gaul, but [he] was compelled to 
 promise that he would withdraw the legion, though not im- 
 mediately after such a malicious display of insinuation and 
 invective. This led to questions about the appointment of 
 
 2 See Introd. to Letter xxxv. 
 
132 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet ii. 
 
 a successor to Caesar. To settle this question [I mean about 
 the provinces] it was decided that Pompeius should return to 
 Rome at the earliest opportunity, so that he might be present 
 at the appointment of successors to the various provinces ; for 
 he was then just about to start for Ariminum, where his army 
 was, and did indeed set out immediately. We shall have a 
 debate on this question, I imagine, on the 13th. Unquestion- 
 ably some arrangement will have to be made, or there will be 
 a scandalous use of the veto ; for in the debate Pompeius 
 pointedly dropped this expression, that to the orders of the 
 Senate everybody owed obedience. Still, for my own part, 
 there is nothing I look forward to so much as having Paulus 
 give us his opinion first as the consul elect, 
 i I am somewhat persistent in reminding jou of that bond 
 of Sittius, but I want you to recognise that it is a matter 
 which touches me nearly ; also about those panthers — to get 
 you to send for some from Cibyra, and give orders for their 
 being shipped out to me. Then, again, I have had news — and 
 they say it is a certainty now— that the King of Alexandria is 
 dead. Do be sure to write and let me know 'what steps you 
 would recommend my taking, what state his kingdom is in, 
 and who is acting on his behalf. 
 
 S Au & u 
 
 XXXIV. (AD FAM. VIII. 8.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CAELIUS RUFUS AT ROME TO CICERO IN CILICIA. 
 
 October, 703 A.v.c. (51 B.c.) 
 
 The breach between the two rulers was now becoming daily more open, as 
 is illustrated by § 9 of this letter. Since the Pompeio-Licinian act of 55 B.C. 
 forbade the discussion of Caesar's successor until the beginning of his last year 
 of office, the filling up of his proconsulship by the Senate was placed, with the 
 consent of Pompeius, in the order of the day for March 1, 50 B.C. Caelias 
 encloses also in his letter three resolutions : (1) that no one be allowed to 
 hinder this discussion ; (2) that the claims of Caesar's soldiers to a discharge 
 be brought before the Senate, which was an attempt to break up Caesar's 
 army ; (3) that provision be made for the government of the nine praetorian 
 provinces by ex-praetors only, which was apparently an attempt to diminish 
 the number of provinces available fot ex-consuls, and so to strengthen the 
 argument for Caesar's recall by the necessity for circulation in the prizes of a 
 consulship. (See Mr. Watson's note on the passage. ) All three were of course 
 
ep. xxxiv. FROM CAELIUS. (AD FAM. VIII. 8.) 133 
 
 vetoed by the tribunes in Caesar's interest. It must be remembered that the 
 vital necessity for Caesar was not to resign the proconsulship until he was 
 safely assured of the consulship, or he would inevitably be impeached. By 
 the law as it stood before 54 B.C. no successor could be appointed to him 
 until the autumn of 49, by which time Caesar would be a consul and safe from 
 impeachment. But by Pompeius's new act his vacancy would be filled up 
 reckoning from the day it legally began, viz. March 1. To put the debate in 
 the order for that day, therefore, was to intimate that the letter of the law thus 
 altered would be put in force. This was a casus belli. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 348-352 ; Merivale, ii. 95-99 ; Long, iv. App. ii. ; Abeken, 
 261-263 '• Forsyth, 342-344. 
 
 Though I have some politics to tell you there is nothing in 1 
 my budget that will, I fancy, give you greater pleasure than 
 this. Learn then that Sempronius Rufus — [your dear Rufus] 
 the apple of your eye, you know — has been convicted, amid 
 loud applause, of bringing a false accusation with malice ! 
 How was that? Why, after the Roman games he laid an_ 
 information under Plotius's act against Marcus Tuccius, who 
 was the plaintiff against him, for breaking the peace, with this 
 object : he knew that if there was no other defendant with a 
 prior right to be tried on the list, his case would have to come 
 on in the present year, and of course he could not have any 
 doubt then what the result would be. So there being nobody 
 it would give him greater pleasure to oblige with this little trifle 
 than his own prosecutor, without even getting a soul to back 
 him in the charge, down he came and laid information against 
 Tuccius. As for myself, the moment I heard of it off I go, 
 without waiting to be asked, and take my place in the defend- 
 ant's box. Rising to speak, I avoid saying a word about the 
 case itself, but run Sempronius down in every corner so 
 mercilessly as even to bring in all about Vestorius and the old 
 story, how ' purely as a favour to you ' he allowed Vestorius to 
 claim what it was so very unfair for him to have to pay. 
 
 We have another important disputed case, too, which is 2 
 now occupying the courts. Marcus Servilius, having come to 
 the complete smash to which he had been leading up, and not 
 having a thing left that was not for sale, had been passed on 
 to me as a client with a terribly bad reputation. When 
 Laterensis, who was praetor, refused to entertain an application 
 for recovery against those into whose hands the money had 
 passed, in spite of the expostulations of Pausanias — I was 
 
134 LETTERS OF CICERO. part u, 
 
 acting for the defendant — another action for embezzlement 
 was commenced by Quintus Pilius, some relation of our friend 
 Atticus. The news at once spread widely, and people began 
 to talk warmly about a conviction. This shifting of the wind 
 drove young Appius into stating in evidence that a large sum 
 out of his father's wealth had been paid over to Servilius. 
 ,£70,000, he avowed, had been placed in his hands to procure 
 a collusion on the part of the accuser ! ' What amazing folly !' 
 you say ; but oh, if you had heard the trial itself, and the 
 confessions he made ! They were idiotic enough even about 
 
 3 himself, but iniquitous as about his own father. Well, he gets 
 the same bench of jurors who had assessed the original fine to 
 try his case. On the whole number of votes proving to be 
 equal, Laterensis, who knows no law at all, announced that the 
 decision had been given by a majority of votes in the three 
 orders taken separately, and ended the case in the usual form 
 that ' no restitution would be required.' After the court broke 
 up, however, when people had begun to talk of Servilius as 
 already acquitted, he read section 1 o 1 of the Act, part of which ran 
 thus : ' A verdict of the majority of the whole number of jurors 
 in the case shall be accepted as final, and judgment pronounced 
 accordingly.' Consequently he refused to enter an acquittal, 
 but reported the verdicts of the different orders ; but as Appius 
 recommenced his suit, he conferred with Lucius Lollius, and 
 said he would enter an acquittal. So as matters now stand, 
 Servilius, being neither acquitted nor condemned, will be handed 
 over, somewhat damaged by his battle, to the mercies of Pilius 
 on a charge of peculation. For Appius, after taking the oath 
 that it was a bona fide charge, did not venture to dispute the 
 right to prosecute, but retired in favour of Pilius, and has now 
 himself been impeached by the family of Servilius for peculation; 
 and to crown it all, he has had information laid against him 
 for a breach of public order by a certain spy of his own, one 
 Sextus Tettius. Nicely matched, that pair ! 
 
 * As for politics, absolutely nothing has been done for days, 
 because we are waiting to know about the Gallic provinces. 
 At length, however, after frequent postponements and the 
 fullest discussion, and when it had been ascertained beyond 
 doubt that Pompeius's inclinations were in favour of passing a 
 
dp. xxxiv. FROM CAELIUS. {AD FAM. VI II. 8.) 
 
 135 
 
 resolution for his rival to be recalled after the 1st of March, 
 the enclosed decree was passed, and the following orders entered 
 on the minutes. 
 
 COPY OF THE DECREE. 
 
 By order of the Senate, meeting in the temple of Apollo, this 5 
 29th day of September. 
 
 We the undersigned were present at the drawing up of this 
 decree. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Father's 
 Name. 
 
 Tribe. 
 
 Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus . 
 
 Gnaeus. 
 
 Fabia. 
 
 Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio 
 
 Quintus. 
 
 Fabia. 
 
 Lucius Villius Annalis 
 
 Lucius. 
 
 Pomptina. 
 
 Gaius Septimius 
 
 Titus. 
 
 Quirina. 
 
 Gaius Lucilius Hirrus 
 
 Gaius. 
 
 Pupinia. 
 
 Gaius Scribonius Curio 
 
 Gaius. 
 
 Popilia. 
 
 Lucius Ateius Capito 
 
 Lucius. 
 
 Aniensis. 
 
 Marcus Eppius .... 
 
 Marcus. 
 
 Teretina. 
 
 Whereas the consul Marcus Marcellus has brought before this 
 House the question concerning the provinces to be assigned only 
 to such as have held the office of consul : 1 be it resolved that 
 Lucius Paulus and Gaius Marcellus, consuls elect, shall after their 
 entry upon office, from the 1st day of March next, falling during 
 their term of office, bring the question of the consular provinces 
 before the consideration of this House ; and that this motion shall 
 from the 1st of March take precedence of all other motions before 
 the House, nor shall the consuls propose any other in combination 
 with it. For this purpose it shall be lawful to hold a meeting of 
 the Senate, whose decrees shall be valid upon a day of election ; 
 and when the consuls bring the question before the notice of the 
 House, it shall then be lawful to summon such members of it as 
 may be on the roll of the three hundred jurors. If on the afore- 
 said question there be any matter requiring the assent of the people 
 
 1 Mr. Watson says (Appendix vi. p. 290) : ' Consular provinces in this 
 passage must mean those which under the ' ' Lex Pompeia de iure magistra- 
 tuum" would be governed" by " consulares." For its usual meaning — those 
 to be assigned to the next consuls — is excluded by the enactment of that law 
 which interposed an interval of five years between the consulship and the 
 government of a consulai province.' 
 
136 
 
 LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 PART It 
 
 assembled, whether in their centuries or their tribes, be it hereby 
 resolved that Servius Sulpicius and Marcus Marcellus, the consuls 
 for the present year, with the praetors and the tribunes of the 
 people, or such of their number as may be agreed upon, shall 
 propose such question to the people assembled in their centuries 
 or their tribes : the which if they shall fail to carry, their successors 
 in the above offices shall propose the same to the assembly of the 
 burghers or plebeians. 2 
 
 Against this decree no protest was recorded. 
 
 6 Minutes of resolutions of the Senate, meeting in the temple of 
 Apollo, this 29th day of September. 
 
 We the undersigned were present at the drawing up of this 
 decree. 
 
 
 Father's 
 
 
 Name. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Tribe. 
 
 Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus . 
 
 Gnaeus. 
 
 Fabia. 
 
 Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio 
 
 Quintus. 
 
 Fabia. 
 
 Lucius Villius Annalis 
 
 Lucius. 
 
 Pomptina. 
 
 Gaius Septimius .... 
 
 Titus. 
 
 Quirina. 
 
 Gaius Lucilius Hirrus 
 
 Gaius. 
 
 Pupinia. 
 
 Gaius Scribonius Curio 
 
 Gaius. 
 
 Popilia. 
 
 Lucius Ateius Capito 
 
 Lucius. 
 
 Aniensis. 
 
 Marcus Eppius .... 
 
 Marcus. 
 
 Teretina. 
 
 Whereas the consul Marcus Marcellus has brought before this 
 House the question concerning the allotment of provinces, be it 
 resolved : 
 
 (1) That in the opinion of this House it will be highly inex- 
 pedient that any of the magistrates who possess the right of veto 
 or adjournment should interpose any delay whereby this House 
 may be prevented from discussing that which affects the welfare 
 of the Roman state and people, and legislating thereon ; whosoever 
 therefore shall so veto or adjourn the question will in the opinion 
 of this House have made himself a public enemy. If any magis- 
 trate shall veto this resolution, be it hereby resolved that a formal 
 proposal shall be drawn up and referred to the decision of the 
 Senate and people. 
 
 2 Mr. Watson explains populum plebemve of the comitia centuriata and 
 tributa, but Mommsen (Rom. Forsch. i. 194) refers plebem to a concilium 
 fkbis from which patricians were excluded. 
 
ep. xxxiv. FROM CAELIUS. {AD FAM. VIII. 8.) 137 
 
 We the undersigned record our veto on the above resolution : — 
 Gaius Caelius ^ 
 
 Lucius Vinicius ( _ ., r , 
 
 Publius Cornelius f Tnblmes of the P eo P le - 
 Gaius Vibius Pansa J 
 
 (2) Resolved concerning the soldiers in the army of Caesar, 7 
 that those who have completed their time of service, or can 
 advance any other plea, which plea would entitle them to a 
 discharge, shall have their case brought before this House for con- 
 sideration and investigation of the pleas. If any magistrate veto 
 this resolution, it shall be formally drawn up, and the proposal 
 referred to the decision of this House. 
 
 We the undersigned record our veto on the above resolution : — 
 
 Gaius Caelius \ „ ., , . , 
 
 „ . _ > Tribunes of the people. 
 
 Gaius Pansa J r r 
 
 (3) Resolved by this House with regard to the province of 8 
 Cilicia, and the eight other provinces now under the government 
 of such persons as have held the office of praetor : that such former 
 praetors as have not yet held a provincial Government with full 
 military powers, but have a claim to be appointed by decree of 
 this House to a provincial Government with full military power, 
 shall be appointed to these provinces by lot. If out of the number 
 of those who havea claim to be appointed to a province by decree 
 of this House there be not enough to fill the vacancies in the pro- 
 vinces, the appointment to those provinces shall be filled up by lot 
 in the order of seniority of election of the praetors for each year 
 out of the number of those who have never been appointed to a 
 province. If these fail to make up the required number, then in 
 succession from the praetors of each year according to seniority 
 of election those who have held that office and have not yet been 
 appointed to a province shall be admitted to the allotment, until 
 the required number of allotments to these provinces be completed. 
 If any magistrate veto this resolution, it shall be drawn up as a 
 formal proposal. 
 
 We the undersigned enter our veto on the above resolution : — 
 
 Gaius Caelius l„., . ., . 
 
 _. . _ > Tribunes of the people. 
 
 Gams Pansa J r r 
 
 Besides these, there was some commenting on the indica- 9 
 tions let fall by Pompeius, which were the principal confirma- 
 
1.38 LETTERS OF CICERO. PART n. 
 
 tion of the general impression : — how he said that before the 
 ist of March it would be out of order for him to interfere with 
 Caesar's command of his province, but that after that time he 
 should have no hesitation. On the question being raised, 
 'what if any one should then interpose a veto?' he replied 
 that it was a matter of indifference whether it should prove 
 that Caesar openly refused to obey the Senate or suborned a 
 magistrate to obstruct its decrees. ' What if,' suggested some- 
 body else, ' he should wish to be consul and yet to keep his 
 army?' 'What if,' he answered — wasn't it kindly put? — 'my 
 own son should want to lay the stick on my back?' By such 
 expressions Pompeius brought about a general impression that 
 there was some hitch between him and Caesar ; so, as far as 
 I can see now, Caesar intends to consent to one of these two 
 alternatives : either to remain where he is, and not have his 
 name entered for this year, or submit to be recalled if he can 
 10 first make his election safe. Curio is gathering himself up 
 against him with all his might. 3 What he may be able to do, 
 I know not : this I see, that a man of honest views, though 
 he may have produced no visible effect, cannot altogether fail. 
 Curio treats me with great generosity, and indeed his liberality 
 has caused me some trouble, for if he had not given me the 
 wild animals which were sent him from Africa for the show, 
 this might have been dispensed with. As it is, since I must 
 exhibit them, I hope you will be sure to see, as I have per- 
 petually been asking you, that I get a stock of wild beasts sent 
 out from you ; and I recommend to your notice too that bill 
 on Sittius. I have sent my freedman Philo and a Greek, 
 Diogenes, to your province, and have entrusted them with 
 papers and letters for you. Will you kindly see after them 
 and the business on which I have sent them, for how nearly 
 it affects me I have pointed out in the letter which they will 
 deliver to you. 
 
 8 Compare the next Letter. 
 
bv. xxxv. FROM CAELIUS. (AD FAM. VIII. 6.) 139 
 
 XXXV. (AD FAM. VIII. 6.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CAELIUS RUFUS AT ROME TO CICERO AT LAODICEA. 
 January, 704 A.v.c. (50 B.C. 
 
 Curio, ' the most eminent among the many brilliant profligates of this epoch ' 
 (compare Introd. to Letter xxx.), had been carefully playing the independent 
 republican, waiting for the price to be offered by Pompeius or Caesar. Caesar, 
 who had previously bribed the consul Paulus, now accepted Curio's terms, and 
 he used his opportunity skilfully. Lucan indeed (Phars. iv. 819) attaches 
 special importance to . his conversion : ' momentumque fuit mutatus Curio 
 rerum.' He proposed that all generals holding extraordinary commands 
 should lay them down simultaneously ; and his motion was carried by 370 to 
 22. Caesar at once announced his willingness to comply if Pompeius would 
 do so also, knowing that the latter without his command would be helpless ; 
 thus again securing the advantage of apparent submission to the Senate. 
 When moreover it was decided by the Senate to withdraw a legion from each 
 general for the Parthian war, Caesar not only complied, but surrendered also 
 at the demand of Pompeius a legion which had been lent, him by his rival, but 
 had practically become one of his own ; a concession not perhaps so dangerous 
 as it was thought, considering the nearness of the Civil War, since Caesar was 
 assured of the soldiers' devotion to himself. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 352-355; Merivale, ii. 110-112 ; Abeken, 263-267; 
 Forsyth, 343, 344. 
 
 Of course you must have heard the news that Appius 1 
 has been impeached by Dolabella, but with far less popular 
 feeling against him than I had expected. In fact Appius 
 has made by no means a bad move, for as soon as Dola- 
 bella had lodged the charge he returned within the walls and 
 withdrew his application for a triumph, by which proceeding 
 he has taken the edge off our sarcasms, and shown himself 
 more ready than his accuser had looked for. His hopes depend 
 now mainly on you. I am sure at heart you do not hate him, 
 and it is in your power now to lay him under any obligation 
 you please. If you had never been on bad terms with him 
 you would have had the whole question more open ; but as 
 things are now, if you strictly measure his claims by the ideal 
 standard of fitness, you must mind lest people think that your 
 reconciliation was not really frank and sincere. Besides, it 
 will be quite safe for you to bestow any favour you may find 
 yourself inclined for in this quarter, because nobody will then 
 say it was only family ties or intimacy that deterred you from 
 
i 4 o LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 doing your duty. That reminds me that between the first 
 application to prosecute and the posting of the name in court 
 
 2 Dolabella's wife has left him. I have not forgotten your 
 instructions to me when you left, 1 and you, I suppose, have 
 not lost sight of what I wrote to you. This not being the 
 time now for saying more, I can only give you one piece of 
 advice ; should you not feel disinclined to the idea, still do 
 not let him see anything of your willingness ; wait to see how 
 he comes out of this affair. In fact it would do you a good 
 deal of harm if it once got about ; and moreover if he has any 
 hint of it before the time, it will be made more public than 
 either prudence or a regard for appearances would allow : he 
 will be quite unable to conceal a circumstance happening so 
 opportunely for his hopes, and likely to be so much more 
 generally noticed through its helping him to effect his object; 
 particularly as he is just the man who, though he knew that it 
 would be ruin to him to talk about the matter, would almost 
 
 3 certainly be unable to restrain himself. They say that Pompeius 
 is working hard for Appius, so much so that it is even supposed 
 he will send one or other of his sons to you. It is our way 
 here to acquit everybody, and, on my honour, everything base 
 and villainous is perfectly safely screened. As to our consuls, 
 they set a fine example of energy : up to the present time they 
 have not been able to carry through one single measure in the 
 Senate, except to fix the date of the Latin festival! 2 Our 
 
 4 friend Curio's tribuneship is a very benumbed affair. In fact, 
 I cannot describe how dull everything is here : if it were not 
 for my quarrelling with the small shopkeepers and the water- 
 companies there would be a lethargic stillness over all the 
 country. 3 If you find that the Parthians hardly keep you warm, 
 we here are quite numb with the frost. Still, however he 
 managed it without the help of the Parthians, Bibulus lost a bit 
 of a cohort or two on Mount Amanus — such was the report. 
 
 1 About finding another husband for Tullia, Compare Introd. to 
 Letter xxiii. 
 
 2 Letter xxiv. § 2, note. 
 
 3 Wieland says, ' It was the deep calm before the outbreak of a terrible 
 tempest ; ' and Mr. Watson well adds that ' a modern reader may remember 
 the early summer of 1870.' 
 
bp. xxxvi TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. V. 21.) 141 
 
 P.S. — I told you above that Curio was freezing, but he b 
 finds it warm enough just at present, everybody being hotly 
 engaged in pulling him to pieces. For just because he failed 
 to get an intercalary month, without the slightest ado he has 
 stepped over to the popular side, and begins to harangue in 
 favour of Caesar ; and he has been throwing out phrases about 
 a Commission of Roads, not unlike the agrarian law of Rullus, 
 and a distribution of food to be measured out by the aediles 
 to the people. He had not done this at the time when I wrote 
 the first part of this letter. 
 
 An you love me, if you mean to do anything for Appius to 
 help him, let me have the credit of it with him. As to 
 Dolabella, my advice is, do not compromise yourself : this line 
 of action is the best, not only for the object to which I allude, 
 but for your position, and reputation for integrity. It will be 
 a shame if you do not let me have some Greek 4 panthers. 
 
 XXXVI. (AD ATT. V. 21.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT LAODICEA TO ATTICUS AT BUTHROTUM. 
 Feb. 13, 704 A.v.c. (50 B.C.) 
 
 This letter, like the 15th (see Introd. to that), illustrates the pressure 
 put upon a Roman Governor to make or wrest the law in the interest of 
 his .private friends. The conduct of MaTcus Brutus, the typical represent- 
 ative of Roman aristocratic virtues, who was the real lender of the usurious 
 loan to the town-council of Salamis, and who by his agent starved five of them 
 to death to obtain the payment of his illegal bond, sets Cicero's by comparison 
 in a highly favourable light ; though the latter, with his usual love of a weak 
 compromise, only refused personally to do a gross injustice to the poor 
 people of Salamis, and left the question open for his presumably unscrupulous 
 successor. 
 
 Merivale, i. 333 ; Long, iv. ch. 24, 25 ; Abeken, 241-245 ; Forsyth, 325- 
 328. On the threatening attitude of the Parthians, see Mommsen, iv. 338. 
 
 I am exceedingly glad that you have got safe to Epirus, 1 
 and had, as you tell me, an agreeable journey, but a little vexed 
 that you should not be in Rome at such an intensely critical 
 time for me ; though indeed I can console myself by thinking 
 
 4 I.e. from the Hellenised countries of Asia. 
 
142 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 that you are not likely to have a cheerful winter there, or enjoy 
 stopping where you are. 
 
 2 That first letter, the meaning of which you want me to ex- 
 plain, from Gaius Cassius, the brother of your friend Quintus 
 Cassius, is a more modest one to write than the one he sent 
 afterwards, where he announces that he has brought the Parthian 
 war to a conclusion ! It is true they had retreated from Antioch 
 before Bibulus came up, but it was no very brilliant journee 
 for us, whereas at the present moment they are wintering in 
 Cyrrhestica, 1 and a very serious war is impending. Not only 
 is the son of the Parthian king Orodes inside our territory, but 
 Deiotarus, whose son is betrothed to the daughter of Artavasdes 
 (and the information might come from him), has no doubt 
 whatever that the king himself, when summer comes, will at 
 once cross the Euphrates with all his forces. And on the very 
 same day — the 7th of October — that Cassius's triumphant 
 letter was read in the Senate, came mine announcing the rising. 
 Our friend Axius says mine was regarded as most important, 
 while he tells me that nobody believed the other. Bibulus's 
 had not yet arrived ; and his, I know for certain, was full of 
 
 3 anxiety. All this makes me fear lest, Pompeius not being 
 allowed to leave Rome at all from the dread of an outbreak, 
 and the Senate refusing to grant any special privileges to Caesar,,., 
 members should think that till this knot can be untied I ought 
 not to return home before a successor has been appointed ; or 
 that while things are in such a disturbed state, it is not right 
 to leave such important provinces each to the charge of a mere 
 deputy. Thus I dread lest there should be some extension of 
 my time, which nobody could even stop with his veto, and all 
 the more because you, who would be sure to meet many of my 
 difficulties with your good advice, and influence and sympathy, 
 are now away. [Still] you will say I am simply creating these 
 anxieties for myself. I cannot help it, and hope it may prove 
 to be so ; but I am nervous about everything. However, 
 that was a very pretty finale to the letter you sent me from 
 Buthrotum while you were still sea-sick : that, as far as you 
 could see, there would be nothing, you hoped, to prevent my 
 
 1 The district between Antioch and the Euphrates. 
 
ep. xxxvi. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. V. 21.) 
 
 '43 
 
 return home. I should have liked the 'as far as you could 
 see ' better without the hoping ; that was not wanted at all. 
 I got too at Iconium, and with hardly any delay, thanks to i 
 the messengers of the tax-contractors, one written immediately 
 after the triumph of Lentulus. You repeat in it your aigre- 
 doux mixture, that I shall have no delay, but add immediately 
 that if things go wrong you will come out to me. Your hesi- 
 tation tortures me : at the same time this will show you which 
 letters they are that I have received. For I never got the one 
 which you yourself tell me you gave to Hermon, the freedman 
 of Canuleius the centurion. You had frequently mentioned 
 that you entrusted one to the slaves of Laenius : this, dated 
 September 2 1, was delivered to me at last at Laodicea by 
 Laenius in person, after my arrival there, on the nth of 
 February. I will show Laenius, not only by promises for the 
 moment, but by substantial proofs as long as I stay, how I 
 value a recommendation from you. This letter only contained 5 
 what was stale news, with one exception, I mean about those 
 panthers from Cibyra. You are a dear good fellow for telling 
 Marcus Octavius it was not likely : only do for the future say 
 ' no ' positively to whatever you are not positively certain about. 
 For my good resolutions were pretty firm of themselves, but 
 having them fired, as upon my honour they were, by your 
 approval, I have now outstripped everybody (you will find this 
 is true), not merely in being considerate, but in justice, courtesy, 
 and clemency. You will be greatly mistaken if you think that 
 anything in the world ever caused more surprise than that 
 during my government of this province there has not been a 
 halfpenny of expense, either for public objects, or for any 
 individual of my suite, except Lucius Tullius, my second in 
 command. He, though scrupulous in other respects, has 
 [nevertheless] overstepped Caesar's act, though never more 
 than once in a day, and not as others used to do in every 
 town [and excepting him, no one has on any single occasion 
 taken anything] ; and so has compelled me to make him an 
 exception, when I assert there has not been a halfpenny of 
 expense ; but leaving him out, no one has taken anything. 
 For this discredit I am indebted to our friend Quintus Titinius. 
 After the summer campaign I gave the command of the 6 
 
144 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 winter quarters and of Cilicia to my brother Quintus. I have 
 sent Quintus Volusius) the son-in-law of your friend Tiberius, 
 a safe man and wonderfully little inclined to be grasping, to 
 stay in Cyprus just for a day or two, lest the few Roman 
 citizens who have business there should say the administration 
 of justice was denied them, it not being allowable to summon 
 
 7 the Cypriots out of their island. I myself started from Tarsus 
 for my Asiatic district on the 5th of January, and I declare I 
 cannot tell you what enthusiasm I evoked from the states of 
 Cilicia, and, above all, from the good people of Tarsus ; while, 
 after I had crossed the Taurus, there was enormous expectation 
 among my districts in Asia^ which for the six months of my 
 government had never received a requisition from me, never 
 seen a man billeted on them. Now before my time that part 
 of every year was spent in the following profitable way : the 
 richer states used to be paying large sums not to have soldiers 
 quartered on them for the winter ; the Cypriots indeed as 
 much as ,£10,000, whereas from that island — I am speaking 
 with no exaggeration, but strictly au pied de la lettre — not one 
 single penny was exacted under my government. For these 
 benefits, which seem to them astounding, I do not allow them 
 to vote me any honours, except as a mere compliment : statues, 
 temples, and arcs de tr'iqmphe 2 I absolutely forbid, nor in any 
 other way do the towns groan under the infliction of me — 
 though perhaps you do, for trumpeting all this about myself. 
 Let it pass, an you love me : you yourself wanted me to do 
 
 •8 so. The consequence was that I made such a progress through 
 Asia, that even though there was a famine at the time, which 
 is a most distressing sight, in this Asiatic district of mine, 
 owing to the entire failure of the crops, it has been a thing to 
 be proud of. Wherever I went, I have never had to employ 
 force, or legal process, or insolent threats, but simply by my 
 influence and recommendation I have induced the people, 
 whether Greeks or Roman citizens, who had stowed away corn, 
 to promise a large supply to their own towns. 
 
 9 I have appointed the 1 3th of February (the day on which 
 I am writing this letter) for holding a court at Laodicea for 
 
 2 Literally, statues representing the person thus honoured in a four-horse 
 chariot. 
 
ep. xxxvi. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. V. 21.) 145 
 
 Cibyra and Apamea; from the 15th of March onwards one, 
 which will also be here, for Synnas, Pamphylia (I will look 
 about then for a cor de chasse for Phemius), Lycaonia, and 
 Isauria; after the 15 th of May, I am off for Cilicia to spend 
 June there — in peace, let us hope, as far as the Parthians 
 are concerned. July, if all go well, we are to spend in passing 
 through the province on our way back : for I entered my 
 Government [at Laodicea] on the 31st of July, while Sulpicius 
 and Marcellus were still consuls, and it will be the right thing 
 for me to leave it on the 30th of July. I will first try hard to 
 get my brother Quintus's consent to allowing himself to be 
 left in charge, which will be as much against his will as mine, 
 but it cannot now be decently avoided, especially since, even 
 as it is, I cannot detain my excellent officer Pomptinus ; the 
 good man has such an attraction to Rome in Postumius — not 
 to say possibly in Postumia. But enough of my plans ; I must 
 now tell you about Brutus. 
 
 Your friend Brutus is acquainted with certain individuals, 10 
 by name Marcus Scaptius and Publius Matinius, to whom the 
 people of Salamis, in Cyprus, owe money, and whom he strongly 
 recommended to my good offices. I know nothing of Matinius, 
 but Scaptius came out to me to the camp. For Brutus's sake, 
 I promised that I would enforce payment on the Salaminians, 
 for which he thanked me. He asked for some post of com- 
 mand, but I said that I never appointed anybody engaged in 
 money transactions, and that I had explained the same to you 
 before : when Pompeius had applied to me I had shown him 
 good reasons for my rule, not to mention Torquatus when he 
 asked for your friend Laenius, as well as many others. If he 
 wanted the post only for the sake of his bond I would take care 
 he recovered it. He thanked me, and took his leave. Now 
 my predecessor Appius had already given a few troops of horse 
 to this Scaptius in order to coerce the Salaminians, and had 
 appointed the man also to a command. He was now putting 
 the screw on the people. I ordered that his troops should 
 leave Cyprus. Scaptius was greatly aggrieved. Well, not to 11 
 make a long story, when the Salaminians came to apply to me 
 at Tarsus, and with them Scaptius, I ordered them to pay the 
 money, in fulfilment of my pledge to him. This produced 
 
146 LETTERS OF CICERO. past ii. 
 
 much about the bond itself and the' violent proceedings of 
 Scaptius, but I refused to listen. I advised them,, even 
 implored them, in return for the favour I had shown their city, 
 to settle the claim ; finally I told them that I must enforce it 
 The poor people, so far from refusing, even said they were only 
 paying away what was mine, for as I had not exacted what 
 they had always before had to give to the Governor, they were 
 only giving up what was practically mine, and in fact the debt 
 to Scaptius was considerably less than what their Governor 
 usually exacted. I commended the deputation for this. Very 
 good, said Scaptius, but let us see what the sum amounts to. 
 Now when I published the usual edict, I had announced that 
 I should maintain the rate of interest at 12 per cent, the 
 interest on default to be added to the principal only at the end 
 of each year ; but Scaptius by the terms of his bond now 
 proceeded to demand 48 per cent. What do you mean ? say 
 I. How can I possibly go against my own edict ? Hereupon 
 he produces a decree of the Senate, dated from the consulship 
 of Lentulus and Philippus, that the Governor of Cilicia for the 
 time being should be required to recognise this bond as valid 
 I was horrified at first ; in fact, it was absolute ruin for the 
 12 community. On examination I find two decrees of the Senate 
 dated from that year about the very bond in question. For 
 when the Salaminians wanted to borrow money at Rome they 
 failed, because it was forbidden under Gabinius's act. Here- 
 upon some friends of Brutus, relying on his powerful protection^ 
 were willing to lend the money at four times the usual rate, 
 provided they could obtain security for payment by a special 
 decree. Through Brutus's influence a decree is then passed 
 exempting both the Salaminians and their creditors from the 
 penalties of the law, and the money was duly handed over. 
 Some time afterwards it occurred to these money-lenders that 
 the decree was of no use to them, because Gabinius's act 
 excluded the bond from being good in law at all. Then a 
 decree was passed that the bond should be held valid, * * * s 
 but only for the usual rate of interest allowed in other cases. 
 After I had explained this to be the meaning of the decree, 
 
 8 There is a slight lacuna here in the text, but the general meaning is clear. 
 
up. xxxvi. TO ATTICUS. (A£> ATT. V. 21.) 147 
 
 Scaptius took me aside to say that he had nothing to urge 
 against my decision, only that the people fancied they owed 
 him 200 talents, and he would be willing to compromise for 
 this sum, as they really owed him a trifle less ; would I then 
 induce them to pay the 200 in full? Very well, say I, and 
 calling them to me, without letting Scaptius be present, I put 
 the question : ' How much do you really owe ?' One hundred 
 and six talents, say they. I report to Scaptius, and the fellow 
 begins to bluster. ' All we want, then,' say I, ' is for you to 
 compare accounts.' Down they sit, and begin adding up the 
 amount, which tallies to a penny. The deputation is quite 
 prepared to pay the money down, and urges him to take it, 
 but Scaptius, taking me aside again, begs me to leave the 
 matter as it stands. I yielded to the fellow, cool as his pro- 
 posal was, and refused the Greeks when they requested leave 
 to deposit the money in some temple. 4 All the people there 
 were inclined to cry out that Scaptius was impudent to the last 
 degree for not being satisfied with 12 per cent, with interest 
 on default, and some that he was incredibly foolish. To me 
 however it seems he was more impudent than foolish, for he 
 had the choice between resting content with 12 per cent, 
 recoverable at law, or making a doubtful debt in the hope of 
 extorting 48 per cent. Here you have the statement of my 13 
 case, and if Brutus does not accept my explanation, I do not 
 know why I should regard him as a friend. His uncle Cato 
 will undoubtedly accept it, especially since quite lately the 
 Senate has passed a decree, which, I suppose, was since you 
 left, for the recovery of debts, making 12 per cent, simple 
 interest, the legal, rate. What a reduction this makes I feel 
 certain you have already reckoned, knowing how you have 
 your figures at your fingers' ends. And as to this subject — 
 en passant — Lucius Lucceius (he is a son of Marcus Lucceius) 
 writes to me complaining that there is great danger, for 
 which the Senate and all these decrees are responsible, of our 
 coming to a general repudiation ; and dwells on the mischief 
 
 4 This was a clear injustice, because paying into a temple under" a judicial 
 decree was like paying money into court, and interest would at once have 
 ceased to accrue. 
 
148 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet ii. 
 
 Gaius Iulius 6 did when he allowed payment to be deferred, 
 were it but for the trifling period of a single day ; never was 
 anything more momentous to the State. But to return to the 
 point. Put my case against Brutus carefully, if you can call 
 it a case where nothing can fairly be said on the other side at 
 all, especially since I have left this matter of his entirely 
 open to my successor. 
 14 Everything else I have to say is about home matters.- As 
 to the affaire de famille, I should be quite willing, like you, to 
 give my consent to Postumia's son, 6 since Pontidia is only 
 trifling with us ; but how I wish you were there ! You must 
 not expect to hear from my brother Quintus for the next 
 few months, because the snow makes the Taurus impassable 
 before June. I am perpetually writing, as you ask me, to 
 strengthen Thermus's hands. King Deiotarus declares that 
 Publius Valerius has no money, but is, so he tells me, dependent 
 upon him. As soon as you have heard whether they have 
 inserted an intercalary month or not at Rome, I wish you 
 would let me know definitely on what day the Mysteries will be: 
 I am perhaps a shade less eager in looking for your letters 
 than if you were at Rome,' but still I do look for them. 
 
 XXXVII. (AD FAM. II. r 3 .) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT LAODICEA TO MARCUS CAELIUS RUFUS. 
 
 {An answer to Letter XXXV.) 
 
 Early in May (?), 704 A.v.c. (50 B.C.) 
 
 1 I find your letters only too infrequent (perhaps because they 
 fail to reach me) but very welcome. The very last I had from 
 you, how sound was its advice ; no less friendly than judicious ! 
 Though indeed I had already come to the conclusion that I 
 
 5 It is very doubtful whether this refers to the Dictator, who is alivays 
 called either C. Caesar or C. Iulius Caesar, nor has the particular measure 
 been identified. 
 
 6 I.e. to Servius Sulpicius the younger as a husband for Tullia. Compare 
 Letter xxxv. § 2, where Caelius proposes Dolabella, whom she eventually 
 married. 
 
ep. xxxvn. TO CAELIUS. (AD FAM. II. 13.) 
 
 149 
 
 ought to act as you recommended, still my judgment always 
 feels itself much stronger when it coincides with that of a 
 faithful and far-seeing friend. 
 
 For Appius, as I have often mentioned to you, I personally 2 
 entertain a strong affection, which I felt that he reciprocated 
 immediately upon our reconciliation ; for during his consulship 
 he was always most deferential to me, and a congenial friend, 
 and one who enjoys the very same studies as I do myself. 
 You, however, will bear me witness that he has not wanted 
 for proofs of my regard, and I suppose you have Phania 
 now, like the ' deus ex machina ' of a comedy, to back your 
 testimony. 1 Indeed, I give you my word I esteemed him 
 even higher than I should otherwise have done because I saw 
 his regard for you. Then you know that I am heart and soul 
 for Pompeius ; you can see my affection for Brutus. 2 Is there' 
 any reason why it should not be one of my most ardent 
 wishes to attach myself to a man who has every advantage 
 that the prime of life, wealth, position and talent, children 
 and relatives, connections and friends can give him ; above all, 
 a colleague of my own, and one who, in devoting his learning 
 to the praises of our foundation, has been very complimentary^ 
 to myself? I mention all this the more particularly because 
 your letters seemed to hint at a shadow of doubt what my 
 feeling was towards him. Some report I suppose you have 
 heard : I assure you it is false if you have heard anything. 
 My principles and practice have a certain amount of difference 
 in character from his mode of administering a province : s this 
 perhaps had led certain people to suspect that my divergence 
 
 1 This is not an exact equivalent, but it fairly represents the general idea, 
 if, as is supposed, the ' comedy witness ' means the omniscient person who 
 appears in time to clear up all difficulties and make things end happily. 
 Compare King Lear, i. 2, 118 : 'And pat he comes like the catastrophe of 
 the old comedy. ' Metzger less satisfactorily explains it of a ' coached ' witness 
 who knows his cue. The use of Greek words probably points to their being 
 a quotation, or a recognised phrase. 
 
 2 Marcus Brutus and Pompeius's elder son Gnaeus were sons-in-law of 
 Appius. 
 
 3 This is very Ciceronian. In Letter xxxii. we hear that Appius's ' mode 
 of administering ' a province was ' not like a human being, but some unheard- 
 of wild beast !' Yet some of his biographers would accept either or even both 
 of the statements without further inquiry.' 
 
150 LETTERS OF CICERO. PART n. 
 
 from him arose from a spirit of opposition, and not a mere 
 difference of opinion, whereas I have never done nor have I 
 said a single thing with a wish to prejudice his reputation. 
 After this affair however, and the rash action of our good 
 friend Dolabella, I offer myself as his advocate to stave off the 
 threatened danger. 
 3 That same letter of 'yours talked of the lethargy of the 
 country. Of course I was pleased at this, and smiled to think 
 that our friend had come to freezing-point of tranquillity. 
 The little paragraph at the end in your own hand was indeed 
 a stab. What? Curio now become a supporter of Caesar? 
 Who could ever have expected this but myself? for, upon my 
 life, I really did expect it. Good heavens ! how I miss our 
 laughing together over it. My intention is, now I have finished 
 my circuit, improved the finances of the towns, secured the tax- 
 renters even their arrears from the previous contract without 
 a single murmur from the allies, and given general satisfaction 
 to individuals high and low, to start for Cilicia on the 7th of 
 May, and after I have just been to the summer quarters and 
 put army matters in order, to avail myself of the decree of the 
 Senate for returning home. I very much want to see you as 
 an aedile : indeed I am filled with indescribable longing at 
 the thought of Rome and all my friends, and of none more 
 than yourself. 
 
 XXXVIII. (AD. ATT. VI. 2.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT LAODICEA TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 May, 704 A.V.C. (50 B.C.) 
 
 1 Your freedman Philogenes having made his way to Laodicea 
 to pay his respects to me, and mentioned that he was just 
 about to sail on his return to you, I send this letter by him in 
 answer to the one I received from Brutus's courier. And I 
 will answer your last page first, which gave me much annoy- 
 ance, that Cincius should have written so to you about his 
 conversation with Statius ; and the most annoying part of it 
 all is that Statins should say I agreed in approving the course 
 
ep. xxxviii. TO ATTICUS. (a& ATT. VI, 2.) 151 
 
 proposed. 1 Approve indeed ! but no more of this. I need 
 only say that my wish is to see the ties of relationship with 
 you as numerous as possible, though those of affection which 
 we already have could not be closer than they are ; so utterly 
 do I repudiate the idea of wishing to undo in the smallest 
 degree anything that now holds us together. I have often 2 
 however found from experience that he is just the man who 
 would express himself too bitterly about such disputes ; often 
 indeed I have had to pacify his rage : this I suppose you know : 
 why, in this very excursion — not to call it a campaign — I have 
 frequently seen him furious with passion, and no less frequently 
 mollified again. What he may have written to Statius, I can- 
 not tell : whatever he intended to do in a matter of this kind, 
 he had no business in any case to write to a freedman about 
 it. 2 Now it shall be my earnest endeavour to prevent any step 
 being taken that our wishes or his duty would forbid. Nor 
 is it enough in a thing of this kind for each to go bail for 
 his own part only. In fact the principal share in this work 
 belongs to the boy (I ought perhaps now to call him a young 
 man) Quintus Cicero, and indeed I am always impressing 
 this upon him. And it appears to me that he loves his 
 mother, as he ought to do, very strongly, and yourself to an 
 amazing extent But the lad's disposition is a generous one 
 enough, only it is a strange mixture, and I have enough to do 
 to keep him straight. 
 
 Now as my first page has answered your last, it is time 3 
 to turn back to your first. That the cities of Peloponnesus 
 are all on the sea-coast I took on trust from the maps 
 of Dicaearchus, 3 no worthless authority, but one whom even 
 your judgment approves. When he is making Chaeron de- 
 scribe the cave of Trophonius he finds this fault with the 
 Greeks on various grounds — that they had kept so much to 
 the sea-coast, and makes not a single exception in Pelo- 
 
 1 This refers to Quintus Cicero's intention of divorcing Pomponia. See 
 Letter xxxi. note 4. The divorce did not take place till five years after this. 
 
 2 See Introd. to Letter xi. 
 
 3 Dicaearchus — the Peripatetic philosopher of Letter x. § 3 — published a 
 series of maps of the whole known world with descriptive accounts. In one 
 of them Chaeron, an interlocutor, apparently describes the celebrated cave and 
 oracle of Trophonius, near Lebadeia in Boeotia. 
 
i'52 LETTERS OF CICERO. PART II. 
 
 ponnesus. While I could not but accept his authority — for 
 he was historien, s'il en fut, and had lived in Peloponnesus 
 — I was certainly startled, and only half believing it I con- 
 sulted Dionysius. He too was at first taken aback, but after- 
 wards, having as good an opinion of your friend Dicaearchus 
 as you can have of Gaius Vestorius, or I of Marcus Cluvius, 4 
 thought we might without hesitation accept his statements. 
 Lepreon, which is a place on the coast, he fancied might 
 belong to Arcadia, while Tenea, Aliphera, and Tritia seemed 
 ne dater que dhier, in proof of which he appealed to Book II 
 of the Iliad, where there is no mention of those places. 
 Accordingly I transferred the passage in question bodily from 
 Dicaearchus. As to the ' Phliasii,' I know already that that 
 is what they are called ; so will you see that your copy has it ; 
 mine indeed is already so. But it was the esprit de systems 
 in the first instance that led me astray : Phlius is like Opus, 
 Sipus ; which make Opuntii, Sipuntii. But this I have at 
 once corrected. 
 
 4 I see you are pleased at my moderation and forbearance ; 
 how much more then would you be if you were here ! And 
 during this session, which I have been holding at Laodicea 
 from the 13th of February till the 1st of May, for all the 
 departments except Cilicia Proper, I have done some wonder- 
 ful work, seeing the number of cities that have been entirely ' 
 freed from debt, and many more that have been greatly 
 relieved. All have revived at once on recovering their 
 dffranchiss'ement, with the use of their own laws and courts. 
 There were two kinds of opportunities I gave them for 
 diminishing or getting rid of their debts. The first was, that 
 under my government they had no expense at all, and when 
 I say none, I am speaking absolutely a la lettre : no expense 
 whatever, I repeat, not a single farthing. Now it is scarcely 
 credible how largely even by this alone the different cities 
 
 5 have been enabled to get their heads above water. But there 
 is another reason too. The peculations of the Greeks them- 
 selves, committed, that is, by their own magistrates, were 
 
 4 Vestorius and Cluvius were both bankers of Puteoli, the old name of which 
 was Dicaearchia. Cicero means therefore, ' I thought Dicaearchus was as much 
 to be trusted in geography as the most respectable of Dicaearchians in money.' 
 
ep. xxxvin. TO ATTIC US. {AD ATT. VI. 2.) 
 
 "S3 
 
 enormous. I myself examined those who for the last ten 
 years had held office : they made no secret of it. Conse- 
 quently, without being publicly disgraced at all, they have 
 taken the load on their own shoulders, and repaid the money 
 themselves to the communities ; 6 the communities in their 
 turn, without a word of complaint, have handed over to the 
 tax-gatherers (to whom they had paid nothing since the last 
 census) even the arrears of the previous period, and conse- 
 quently among tax-gatherers now I am as the apple of their 
 eye. A grateful lot they are ! say you. Yes, we know them 
 of old. Well, they have found my administration in other 
 respects too, without being incompetent, mild and courteous 
 beyond all precedent : access to me has been given not at all 
 in the style of our foreign governments : no applying to a 
 chamberlain ; I have always been about the house before 
 daybreak, just as in the old days when I was a candidate. 
 All this is popular and thought a great deal of, and has not as 
 yet proved irksome, thanks to my being an old campaigner. 
 
 On the 7 th of May I shall go I think to Cilicia, and after 6 
 spending June there (Heaven send it may be without an 
 outbreak ! but we are threatened with a great war by the 
 Parthians) give up July to the journey back, for my year of 
 work expires on the 30th of July, and I am in great hopes 
 that I shall not have my time extended at all. I have the 
 Gazettes up to the 7 th of March, by which I find that, thanks 
 to the firm attitude 6 of our friend Curio, the last thing in the 
 world likely to be discussed is the provinces ; therefore I shall 
 see you, I hope, before long. 
 
 I come now to your — nay, since you prefer it, I will say 7 
 our — friend Brutus. 7 For my own part I have done every- 
 thing that it was possible to effect in my province, or even 
 to attempt in the king's country. Accordingly I have been 
 pressing his majesty in every way, and continue to do so 
 
 6 Suis umeris certainly does not mean 'of their own accord' (Boot), a 
 rendering for which there is no authority, but 'out of their own resources,' 
 'without borrowing.' This is the meaning also in the passages (Pro Flacco, 
 37, 94 ; Pro Milone, 9, 25) which Boot quotes as parallels for his view. 
 
 6 Compare Letter xxxv. § 5. 
 
 7 Letter xxxvi. §§ 10-13, where cum anatocismo anniversario seems = 
 renovatis quotannis here. 
 
154 LETTERS OF CICERO. part n. 
 
 daily ; by letter, of course, for I only had , him here for three 
 or four days during a disturbance which I helped him out of. 
 But I have never ceased, either in person while he was here, 
 or in perpetual letters afterwards, to ask him to grant this as a 
 favour to me, and to urge it as being advisable for himself. 
 I have done a good deal, but how much I do not exactly 
 know, being at such a long distance. As to the people of 
 Salamis, being able to use force with them, I have brought 
 them to express their willingness to pay the whole, debt to 
 Scaptius, provided only that the 12 per cent were reckoned 
 from the last contract, and not at compound interest, but to 
 be calculated from the beginning of every year. There was 
 the money ready to be counted out : Scaptius would have 
 nothing to do with it. My good friend, how can you tell 
 me that Brutus really wants to put up with some deduction? 
 Why his bond was for 48 per cent. That was totally impos- 
 sible, and if it were possible I could not allow it. They tell 
 me that Scaptius is decidedly repenting, for as to his argument 
 that a decree of the Senate gives him the right to recover 
 under his bond, the reason why that was passed was that the 
 people of Salamis had borrowed money in violation of Aulus 
 Gabinius's act, which is an act to forbid the legal right to 
 recover money so borrowed; therefore the Senate passed a 
 resolution that that particular bond should be held good in 
 8 law for recovery. As things are then, the bond possesses 
 exactly the same validity as every other one, nothing whatever 
 that is exceptional. I think I shall get Brutus to admit that 
 I have only acted with propriety in all this ; ' but about you I 
 am not sure : Cato undoubtedly will. But now I appeal 
 again to yourself. Seriously, Atticus, can you, who have 
 always praised my integrity and fine sense of right, ' dare with 
 those very lips,' as Ennius has it, to urge me to give Scaptius 
 a troop of horse to exact the money ? Nay, if you, who tell 
 me you are often tormented at not being with me, were here 
 now, would you allow me to do this, if I wanted it? Not 
 more than fifty, indeed! why Spartacus at first had not so 
 many as that. How much harm, think you, would those 
 scoundrels not have done in so helpless an island: — would 
 have done? what did they not actually do before I came 
 
ep. xxxviii. TO ATTICUS. {AJD ATT. VI. 2.) 155 
 
 here ? They kept the councillors of Salamis shut up in their 
 town-hall so many days that some actually died of starvation ; 
 for Scaptius had a command given him by Appius, and Appius 
 himself furnished him with some troops. Is this then what you 
 would ask me ; you, whose face I declare always rises before 
 my eyes whenever I think about honour or any claim of duty 
 — can it be you, I say, asking me to appoint Scaptius to a 
 command ? I had already formed a resolution independently 
 not to appoint any money-lender, and Brutus had approved 
 of it. He to have a troop of horse ? why more than foot ? 
 Scaptius seems to be turning out quite a spendthrift ! The 9 
 principal people of Salamis wish it, no doubt. Oh, I know 
 all about that : why, they came as far as Ephesus to meet me, 
 and with tears in their eyes reported the iniquities of the 
 cavalry, and their own misery : and in consequence of this I 
 at once issued a despatch ordering that all cavalry should 
 leave Cyprus before a certain date, for which, among many other 
 reasons, the people of Salamis have passed resolutions lauding 
 me to the skies. But what need can there be now of cavalry, 
 when the people of Salamis are all for paying ? Unless indeed 
 this is what we want to use our swords to enforce — that they 
 should pay interest at four times the 1 2 per cent. And then, 
 think you I shall ever again venture to read or to lay a finger 
 on those books which you are everywhere praising, if I shall 
 have been guilty of such an act ? 8 Nay, my dearest Atticus, 
 let me tell you you have shown too much affection for Brutus 
 in your pleading, and, I fear, too little for me.' I may add 
 that I have written to Brutus to say that you have been 
 writing to me. 
 
 Now for what else there is to be said. I am doing all 1 10 
 can here for Appius, 9 though only as far as honour will allow, 
 but still unquestionably with good-will; for indeed I do not 
 dislike him, and am really attached to Brutus ; while Pompeius, 
 my regard for whom increases with every day of my life, is 
 pressing his case upon me with amazing anxiety. You have 
 heard that Gaius Caelius is coming here as our quaestor. I 
 
 8 Probably Cicero's treatise on Government (De re publica). 
 8 Compare Letters xxxv. § 1 ; xxxvii. § 2. What Appius wanted Cicero 
 to do was 'no doubt to suppress or cajole inconvenient witnesses. 
 
156 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 do not understand what it all means, but I do not like that 
 business about Pammenes. For myself I hope to be at Athens 
 in September. Of course I should like to know the times of 
 your movements. About Sempronius Rufus's naivetk you told 
 me in your letter from Corcyra. Well, I can only say I envy 
 Vestorius his power. 10 I should like still to go on chattering, 
 but it is now broad daylight ; the crowd is beginning to press ; 
 Philogenes is in haste to be off. So I will only add my good 
 wishes : give ttyem from me to Pilia and my little Caecilia when 
 you write, and accept kind remembrances from my son Marcus. 
 
 ^ XXXIX. (AD FAM. XV. 5.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CATO AT ROME TO CICERO IN CILICIA. 
 
 June (?), 704 A.v.,c. (50 B.C.) 
 
 After their great defeat of Crassus (Letter xxxi. Introd. and § 3) the 
 Parthians maintained a threatening attitude, and it was feared they would 
 invade Cilicia ; but they were repulsed by Gaius Cassius, who had been quaestor 
 to Crassus, at Antioch, and the ex-consul Bibulus arrived in Syria with rein- 
 forcements. Cicero then employed the forces he possessed as a defence against 
 the Parthians in attacking the savage hordes of Mount Amanus, which he did 
 with great success, his brother Quintus, who was an able and experienced 
 officer, being on his staff. This inspired him with hopes that the Senate would 
 recognise the exploit by a public thanksgiving in his honour, and a triumph on 
 his return. But fearing the opposition of Cato, he wrote him a long letter {Ad 
 Fam. xv. 4) to ask for his support, to which the present one is an answer. 
 Cato voted against the motion for a public thanksgiving, though he proposed 
 a complimentary vote, but signed the decree when it was passed. Cicero here 
 thanks Cato for his complimentary expressions, but calls him ' discreditably 
 spiteful' in a letter to Atticus (Ad Att. vii. 2, 7), and indeed we can scarcely 
 be surprised if Cato's arguments did not convince him. 
 
 Long, iv. ch. 24, 25 ; Forsyth, 322-324 ; Abeken, 228-235. 
 
 1 It is with sincere pleasure, as ^patriotism and friendship 
 would alike dictate, that I see the spirit, integrity, and 
 vigilance which we knew so well in the great crisis of your 
 
 10 Compare Letter xxxiv. § 1. The allusion is somewhat obscure, but it 
 seems that Rufus did not call on Cicero when he passed through Puteoli, and 
 Cicero sarcastically attributes this to his being afraid of meeting the hanker 
 Vestorius {supra, § 3) in the streets. We have no means of explaining fully 
 the allusion to Pammenes ; but from Ad Att. v. 20, io, it appears to refer to 
 some purchase of a house. 
 
ep. xxxix. TO CICERO. {AD FAM. XV. 5.) 157 
 
 civil administration at home, now addressing themselves in 
 unimpaired vigour to the conduct of our arms abroad. I have 
 therefore only acted in accordance with my convictions in 
 endeavouring to pay due honour, both in my speeches and in 
 the vote I proposed, to the integrity and judgment with which 
 you have protected a province, saved the person and crown of 
 King Ariobarzanes, and brought back the feeling of our allies 
 to a loyal enthusiasm for our rule. If you prefer that we 2 
 should give thanks to the Almighty rather than acknowledge 
 our gratitude to yourself for a success in which the State is in 
 nowise indebted to chance, but to your consummate ability 
 and self-control, I am glad that a public thanksgiving has been 
 voted. But if you regard a thanksgiving as merely tte pre- 
 liminary part of a triumph, and are glad for that reason that 
 Fortune rather than yourself should have the credit, in the 
 first place a triumph does not necessarily follow on a public 
 thanksgiving, and then it is far more honourable that the Senate 
 should record its opinion that the mild rule and integrity of a 
 governor has saved his province and its allegiance than the 
 amount of his forces or the favour of Providence, and this was 
 the sentiment I wished to express. And, contrary to my usual 3 
 practice, I have written to you somewhat at length for this 
 reason, that you might see (as I earnestly hope you will) how 
 eager I am to convince you that while I supported the course 
 which appeared to me most becoming for your dignity, I yet 
 am glad we adopted the one you yourself prefer. I hope you 
 may live long to grant me your friendship, and to continue in 
 the path you have chosen of strict watchfulness for the interests 
 of our allies and the Republic. 
 
158 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet ii. 
 
 Y XL. (AD FAM. XV. 6.) 
 
 FROM CICERO IN CILICIA TO MARCUS CATO AT ROME. 
 
 [Answer to the preceding Letter.) 
 
 August (?), 704 A.v.c. (50 B.C.) 
 
 ' Father, from thee applause is praise indeed, 
 From one so praised this comes a nobler meed.' 1 
 
 1 So says Hector in one, I think, of Naevius's plays ; for it 
 is undoubtedly true that applause is sweet when it proceeds 
 from those whose own lives have been most applauded. Indeed, 
 as for myself, whether I look at the congratulations of your 
 letter, or the testimony of the opinion you expressed in the 
 Senate, I seem to have reached the very summit of my wishes, 
 and it is to me at once the greatest pleasure and the greatest 
 honour that you have been ready to make a concession to 
 friendship which you could certainly grant with a very clear 
 conscience to truth. And if we all, or even if many of us were 
 Catos in this country, whose proudest boast is that she has given 
 birth to one, what laurels, what triumphal cars, could I weigh 
 for a moment against your approbation ? To my own feelings, 
 as well as to your own most upright and refined judgment, 
 nothing could be more honourable to me than that speech of 
 yours, which I have had fully reported to me by my friends. 
 
 2 But the reasons that made me so desirous (I will not say 
 ambitious) I explained to you in my previous letter, and 
 although they have seemed to you to be scarcely sufficient, 
 there is at least this much to be said for them — that if the 
 privilege is not one to be too eagerly desired, at all events, if the 
 Senate should offer it me, it is one on no account to be rejected. 
 Now I hope that that body, in consideration of the work I 
 have done for my country, will think me not unworthy of the 
 privilege, especially as it is by no means an unusual one. 
 Should this prove to be the case, I would only beg of you, in 
 
 1 Compare ' Commendation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed.' — 
 Thomas Morton, ' A Cure for the Heart-ache. ' This phrase is much oftener 
 quoted than the name of its author remembered. 
 
ep. xli. FROM CAELIUS. (AD FAM. VIII. 14.) 159 
 
 accordance with the very friendly expressions of your letter, 
 that as you were willing to grant me what in yourjrjudgment 
 would be most to my honour, you will rejoice with me if that 
 happens which would give me most pleasure. Indeed, I know 
 you have so expressed yourself in acts and feelings, as well as 
 in your kind letter ; and I find a proof that the thanksgiving 
 in my honour was not indifferent to you in the fact that you 
 added your signature to the decree ; for I am well aware that 
 decrees of this kind are usually signed by those who feel the 
 warmest interest in the person in whose honour they are passed. 
 I shall, I hope, see you very shortly, and heaven grant that 
 our country may then be in a happier state than my fears 
 forebode ! 
 
 XLI. 1 (AD FAM. VIII. 14.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CAELIUS RUFUS AT ROME TO CICERO IN CILICIA. 
 
 September (?), 704 A.v.c. (50 B.C.) 
 
 The capture of his Parthian majesty 2 and the storming of 1 
 Seleuceia itself had not been enough to compensate for missing 
 the sight of our doings here. Your eyes would never have 
 ached again if you had only seen the face of Domitius when 
 he was not elected ! The election was important, and it was 
 quite clear that party feeling determined the side which people 
 took : only a very few could be brought to acknowledge the 
 claims of friendship. Consequently Domitius is so furious 
 with me that he scarcely hates any of his most intimate friends 
 as much as he does me ; and all the more because he thinks 
 that it was to do him wrong that his hopes of being in the 
 College of Augurs are snatched away, and that I am responsible 
 for it. He is savage now to see everybody so delighted at his 
 mortification, and myself more active than anybody, with one 
 
 1 It would seem that this letter should be placed before Letter xxxix. , 
 because the Parthian war is spoken of as still continuing, and because Antonius 
 was elected Augur early in the year (Bell. Gall. viii. 50). But as Ad Fam. 
 viii. 12 cannot have been written before September, and yet seems to precede 
 this one, Mr. Watson thinks the war had merely been suspended, and dates 
 this as September. 
 
 2 Arsaces is a title of the Arsacidae ; the king's name was Orodes. 
 
i6o LETTERS OF CICERO. paet ri. 
 
 exception, 3 on behalf of Antonius ; for even his son Gnaeus 
 has now begun an action against young Gnaeus Saturninus, 
 who is in terribly bad odour from his antecedents. That trial 
 we are now looking forward to, and even with some. confidence, 
 after the acquittal of Sextus Peducaeus. 
 
 2 As to political prospects, I have often mentioned to you 
 that I do not see any chance of peace lasting a year ; and the 
 nearer that struggle, which must infallibly take place, is drawing 
 to us, the more manifest does its danger become. The point 
 at issue about which our lords and masters are going to fight 
 is this : Pompeius has absolutely determined not to allow 
 Caesar to be elected consul on any terms except a previous 
 resignation of his army and his government, while Caesar is 
 convinced that he must inevitably fall if he separates himself 
 from his army. He offers however this compromise, that they 
 should both of them resign their armies. So you see their 
 great affection for one another and their much-abused alliance 
 has not even dwindled down into suppressed jealousy, but has 
 broken out into open war. Nor can I discover what is the 
 wisest course to take in my own interests : a question which I 
 make no doubt will give much trouble to you also. For while 
 I have both interest and connections among those who are on 
 one side, on the other too it is the cause and not the men 
 
 3 themselves I dislike. You are not, I feel sure, blind to the 
 fact that where parties are divided within a country we are 
 bound so long as the struggle is carried on with none but 
 constitutional weapons to support the more honourable cause, 
 but when we come to blows and to open war, then the safer 
 one ; and to count that cause the better which is the less likely 
 to be dangerous. In the present division of feeling I see that 
 Pompeius will have the Senate and all judicially-minded people* 
 
 3 Probably Curio (Watson) ; or Saturninus (Wesenberg). 
 
 4 These words are taken by some (as Manutius and Melmotb.) to be only 
 a periphrasis for indices. It is true that Cicero uses res iudicant in this sense 
 (Phil. i. 2b), but there he means those who are at the present time judges, 
 acting as jurors, not the class from which .the panel is selected. Would not 
 such use indeed be doubtful Latin ? Caelius appears rather to be contrasting 
 the calm observers who would support traditional authority, with those who 
 would be hurried by fear or cupidity to the side of Caesar. The phrase recurs 
 in Quintus Cicero's letter, ' De Petendo Consulatu,' ii. 8. 
 
ep. xu. FROM CAELIUS. (AD FAM. VIII. 14.) 161 
 
 on his side ; those who have everything to dread and little to 
 hope for will flock to Caesar ; the army is not to be compared. 5 
 On the whole, we have plenty of time for balancing the strength 
 of parties and making our decision. 
 
 I had all but forgotten my principal reason for writing. 4 
 Have you heard of the wonderful doings of our censor Appius 
 — how he is rigorously inquiring into our statues and pictures, 
 our amount of land, and our debts ? He has persuaded him- 
 self that his censorship is a moral soap or toilet-powder. He 
 is wrong, I take it, for while he only wants to wash off the 
 dirt, he is really laying bare his veins and his flesh. Heaven 
 and earth ! you must run, and come to laugh at the things 
 here — Appius questioning about pictures and statues ; Drusus 
 sitting to administer Scantinius's Act 1 6 You must make haste, 
 I assure you. 
 
 Our friend Curio is thought to have acted wisely in giving 
 way about the pay of Pompeius's troops. If I must sum up 
 my opinion, as you ask, about what will happen ; unless one 
 or other of them consents to go and fight the Parthians, I see 
 a great split impending, which will be settled by the sword and 
 by force : each is well inclined for this and well equipped. If 
 it could only be without danger to yourself, you would find 
 this a great and most attractive drama which Fortune is 
 rehearsing. 
 
 6 It is difficult to see the intention of this remark. Mr. Watson says 
 ' Caesar's being much the best,' as of course it was proved by the event. But 
 would it not be a strange admission in the mouth of a young senatorial 
 partisan ? As a matter of fact the armies now seemed very evenly balanced ; 
 the optimates were insanely confident ; and Pompeius boasted that he had 
 only to stamp his foot to cover the soil of Italy with armed men. See on the 
 disposition of both forces Mommsen iv. 348-351 ; Watson, Appendix vii. 
 Compare also Ad Att. vii. 8 : [Pompeius) vehementer hominem (Caesarem) 
 contemnebat, el suis et rei puilicae cofiis confidetat. Absurd therefore as it 
 seems after the event, if the phrase cannot be otherwise interpreted, the diffi- 
 culty is, I think, far less in supposing it to imply the superiority of Pompeius's 
 army than it would be of Caesar's. 
 
 6 ' It was directed in eos qui nefanda. Venere uterentur, and is mentioned 
 by Juvenal (Sat. ii. 44), and, according to one reading, by Cicero (Phil. iii. 6, 
 16).' — Watson. 
 
 M 
 
i6z LETTERS OF CICERO. paet ii. 
 
 XLII. (AD ATT. VI. 6.) 
 
 FROM CICERO A,T SIDE IN PAMPHYLIA TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Early in August, 704 A.v.c. (50 B.C.) 
 
 Cicero's year of office expired on the 30th of July, and on the 3d of 
 August, leaving his quaestor Caelius in charge, he sailed from Side, the 
 principal port of Pamphylia, to Rhodes, and thence to Ephesus, Athens (from 
 which place Letter xliii. is dated), and Brundisium, where he was met by 
 Terentia. From Brundisium he went to stay a few days with Pontius Aquila 
 at Trebula, where he wrote Letter xliv. , and then to his own villa at Formiae. 
 Cicero never re-entered Rome until the end of the year 47 B.C. ; because 
 entering the gates implied the laying down of a military command, and thereby 
 renouncing the claim to a triumph. This the Senate would probably have 
 granted him at any other time, but in that terrible crisis, on the very verge of 
 the greatest of civil wars, no one else had a thought to spare for such trifles. 
 
 In Letter xxxv. § 2 Caelius suggested Dolabella as a husband for Tullia, 
 and Terentia hurried on the match without waiting for the consent of Cicero, 
 who was inclined to favour Tiberius Nero, the father of the emperor. Dolabella 
 was now prosecuting Appius on the usual charges of peculation and mis- 
 government, and Cicero was using his position to suppress the evidence. 
 
 Merivale, ii. 1 18-120; Forsyth, 345-332 ; Abeken, 268-281. 
 
 1 Here I am in my province doing all I can to support the 
 credit of Appius, when, lo ! I find myself all at once his 
 accuser's father-in-law. ' Yes, and may Heaven make it,' say 
 you, ' a happy match ! ' Amen, say I, as I am quite sure you 
 really wish it to be, but upon my word there is nothing in the 
 world I had less expected to hear of; I had even gone so far 
 as to send some confidential messengers to my womankind 
 about Tiberius Nero, 1 who had made proposals to me ; but 
 when they got to Rome the betrothal was all over. After all 
 I hope this is better : at any rate, I can see that the ladies are 
 immensely delighted with the young fellow's deference and 
 agreeable manners ; as for other things, don't try to have him 
 iplucM. 
 
 2 But hey ! my good friend, what is this about you and a 
 distribution de ble at Athens? Is that approved? Still no 
 
 1 Mr. Forsyth (p. 331) makes the truly remarkable comment that if Tullia 
 had accepted this proposal ' the world might possibly have been spared one 
 monster, ' meaning apparently the emperor ! 
 
ep. xlii. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. VI. 6.) 163 
 
 doubt there was nothing to prevent it in my treatise, 2 for yours 
 was not so much a largess to fellow-citizens, as a tribute to the 
 hospitality of entertainers. Do you still tell me to think about 
 adding ' Propylaea ' to the Academy, when Appius has given 
 up his idea about Eleusis? I am sure you are very sorry 
 about Hortensius. I for my part am agonised ; I had set my 
 heart on living in pleasant intimacy with him. I have left 3 
 Caelius in charge of the province. ' He is a mere boy,' you 
 will say, ' and possibly a fool, and wanting in character and 
 self-restraint.' Granted : there was nothing else to be done. 
 For it was the letter I had from you a long time ago, when 
 you said you were quite 'baland' as to what I ought to 
 do about leaving the province, which pricked me : because I 
 saw the reason of this 'balancement'; indeed I felt just the 
 same myself. Why give it to a mere boy? there was my 
 brother? That was an undesirable thing for both of us, while 3 
 there was nobody except my brother whom I could without 
 invidiousness put over the head of my quaestor, especially as 
 he was of noble family. Still while the Parthians seemed 
 threatening I had determined to leave my brother, or even for 
 the public good to stay myself, in spite of the decree of the 
 Senate : now that by some marvellous good luck they have 
 retired, my hesitation has been removed. I saw what would 
 be the comments : So ! he has put his brother in ; do you call 
 this holding a province only for a year ? what good is it that 
 the Senate intended the provinces to go to those who had not 
 previously held any government? why, here is a man has 
 been three consecutive years ! These are my reasons therefore 
 for the public ear. And now for those which are for yours only? 
 Well, I should never have been free from the dread — such 4 
 things will occur in life — of something passionate or insolent 
 or negligent happening. What if my nephew too did something, 
 being only a lad, and a headstrong lad too? — what trouble 
 this would be. His father however was not at all for sending 
 
 2 The Treatise on Government (De re publica), which had been lately 
 published. Compare Letter xxxviii. § 9. The phrase, ' distribution de ble,' 
 occurs in Montesquieu. 
 
 s Nam refers to a suppressed clause, such as ' and I could not give it to 
 anybody else. ' 
 
1 64 LETTERS OF CICERO. PART II, 
 
 him away, and was much annoyed that you thought he ought 
 to. Whereas now with Caelius — I am not saying, you under- 
 stand, that he has ever done anything, but at any rate I am 
 far less anxious. Then you may add another reason : Pompeius, 
 strong man as he was, and deep as his roots were set, 
 appointed Quintlis Cassius without any election, and Caesar 
 did the same for Antonius : was I to offend a man who had 
 been regularly elected, and be sure to make him a spy on the 
 conduct of anybody whom I left in charge? My way was 
 better than that, and there are more precedents for this course, 
 which certainly is better suited for my time of life. But, bless 
 me ! you do not know how I have ingratiated you with him : 
 I read him a letter which if it did not come from you, at any 
 rate did from your secretary. 4 The letters I have from friends 
 all invite me to claim a triumph, which I am inclined to think 
 is a thing that ought not to be neglected in the present 
 renaissance of my fortunes ; so, my dear Atticus, please begin 
 to be eager for it too, that you may keep me in countenance, 
 if it is thought foolish of me. 
 
 XLIII. (AD FAM. XIV. 5.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ATHENS TO HIS WIFE TERENTIA AT ROME. 
 October 18, 704 A.v.c. (50 B.C.) 
 
 1 With our dear boy Marcus and myself all is well, if it is 
 well with you and my darling Tullia too. We got to Athens 
 only on the 14th of this month, having had bad winds and a 
 tedious and disagreeable voyage indeed. As we stepped out 
 from the ship Acastus was there to meet us with the letters, 
 though he had only just three weeks to do it in, which is 
 
 4 Cicero's lax morality about letters (compare Letter xxxi. note 6) seems 
 here to have extended to reading to Caelius an imaginary letter from Atticus, 
 whose secretary was with Cicero, and probably had the seal. The seal was 
 the only guarantee, though a most inadequate one (see Letter xvi. note 7), 
 of genuineness. As Dean Merivale remarks (note to Abeken, 322), 'It 
 is a curious trait of the morality of the times, not so much as regards the act 
 itself, which may perhaps admit of some excuse, as from the evident uncon- 
 sciousness of the writer that it requires any.' 
 
ep. am. TO HIS WIFE. (AD FAM. XIV. 5.) 165 
 
 certainly energetic travelling. I received your letter and found 
 from it that you were afraid the previous ones might not have 
 reached me. Yes, all were safely delivered, and you have 
 taken a great deal of trouble to give me a full account of 
 everything, and I am greatly obliged for it. I am not surprised 
 too that this letter which Acastus has brought is short, for 
 you are now expecting to see me, or rather both of us, in 
 person, and we, you may be sure, are longing to get home as 
 soon as possible, though I see what a country it must be to 
 come home to ; for I learn from the letters which Acastus has 
 brought me from many kind friends that things are looking in 
 the direction of war, so that when once there I shall not be 
 allowed to conceal my sentiments. But since we must take 
 what fortune sends, I will exert myself all the more to come 
 speedily, that I may_ have more opportunity for reconsidering 
 my general position. I hope you will come on the road to 
 meet me as far as you possibly can without injuring your health. 
 
 As to the legacy of Precius, 1 I am very sorry indeed to S 
 receive it, for I loved him much. I should however wish you 
 to see to this : if the sale is to come off before my arrival, let 
 Atticus, or, if he is not well able, let Camillus undertake my 
 part. When I have got safe home I mean to do all the rest 
 myself : but even if you have already left Rome, be sure that 
 this is done all the same. I hope, with God's blessing, to be 
 in Italy about the middle of November. And now, my dearest, 
 my much-longedTfor Terentia, if you love me be sure you both 
 of you take care of your health. [Farewell.] 
 
 Athens, Oct. 18. 
 
 1 One Lucius Precius is mentioned by Cicero (Verr. v. 62) as a Roman 
 of good position at Panormus, and the legacy may have come from him. Or 
 it may be ' of Precianus ' (a friend of Cicero, mentioned Ad Fam. vii. 8, 2), 
 in which case the adjective would have the same form as the substantive. 
 This form shows that his original name was Precius, and that he had been 
 adopted into another family, just as Octavius became Octavianus when adopted 
 by Caesar. 
 
166 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 r 
 
 XLIV. (AD ATT. VII. 7.) 
 
 FROM CICERO ON A VISIT TO LUCIUS PONTIUS AQUILA, AT 
 TREBULA, 1 TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 December, 704 A.v.c. (50 B.c.) 
 
 1 ' Dionysius, who, as I too have found, is a most excellent 
 person, and besides being very learned is quite devoted to 
 you, arrived in Rome on the 18th of December, and gave me 
 a letter from you.' This is every word you have to say about 
 Dionysius in your letter. You do not add, mind, 2 'and he 
 expressed his gratitude to you ;' though he was certainly bound 
 to do so, and if he had done, you with your usual kindness 
 would have been sure to add this. However, it is not left 
 open for me now chanter la palinodie about him, after what I 
 said in my former letter. Let us say therefore that he is 
 undoubtedly a good man, since even on the present occasion 
 he deserves some credit for giving me such an excellent 
 opportunity of seeing through him. 
 
 2 Philogenes has given you a correct account : he has not 
 neglected his duty at alL I wanted him to make use of the 
 money as long as we could allow him, and consequently he 
 has done so for the last thirteen months. 
 
 3 I am anxious to hear that Pomptinus 3 is doing well, and 
 afraid of what his entering the city, which you say he has 
 done, may mean ; for he would not have taken this step with- 
 out some important reason. For myself, as the 2nd of January 
 is Cross-Roads day, 4 I do not care to go and stay at the house 
 
 1 Now Treglia, about eight miles from Capua. An estate at Trebula would 
 be called Trebulanum. This Mr. Forsyth (p. 348) turns into Tribulanum, 
 giving it apparently as the name of the town. 
 
 a Boot suggests optatum for the strange word futato := 'what I wanted 
 to heat.' 
 
 3 One of Cicero's officers, mentioned Letter xxxi. § 4. His entering Rome 
 implied that he had given up all hopes of attending Cicero's entry in triumph. 
 
 4 The Compitalia, or Cross-Roads day, a feast in honour of the household 
 gods, was, like the Saturnalia, a special holiday for the slaves. Cicero had 
 been invited to stay with Pompeius at Albanum, the later town which succeeded 
 the ancient Alba. 
 
xliv. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. VII. 7.) 167 
 
 at Albanum on that day, lest my arrival should put the house- 
 hold to inconvenience : I shall make it the 3rd therefore, and 
 thence to Rome on the 4th. I do not know on what day you 
 look for your -ctcces' of the fever, but I should be very sorry for 
 you to have to move, at the risk of your health. 
 
 As to what honours they are going to give me, unless it 4 
 should prove that Caesar has been secretly working against me 
 by means of his creatures among the tribunes, there seems 
 to be a general acquiescence, and my own feelings are most 
 inclined of all to acquiesce, which say that whatever happens 
 about this will do well enough, and all the more because I 
 hear from many quarters that Pompeius and his council have 
 determined to send me out to Sicily with full powers as 
 Governor. Oh, these wise men of Abdera ! 5 as you Greeks say. 
 The Senate has passed no decree, the people have voted for no 
 law that I should be intrusted with the government of Sicily. 
 If on the other hand the State makes over the selection 
 entirely to Pompeius, why must he send me more than any 
 private individual ? So if my military rank is going to give me 
 any trouble, the first gate I come to shall serve me to get rid 
 of it. 6 For when you say that there is amazing anxiety to 5 
 know what I shall do, and yet that not a single individual 
 among the good citizens, or even the moderately good ones, 
 has any doubt on the point, I do not see what sort of people 
 you would call good citizens ; — I for my part know of none, — 
 of course I only mean if we are looking for classes of none but 
 good citizens. Individuals no doubt here and there are sound, 
 but in times of civil discord it is soundness in whole classes 
 and different ranks of life we have to look for. The Senate ? 
 How can you call it sound, when it is entirely in fault if the 
 provinces have no proper government at all ? For Curio would 
 never have persisted in his opposition if any attempt had been 
 made to discuss it with him properly ; but the Senate refused 
 to adopt the proposal, and the consequence is that no successor 
 
 6 The people of Abdera, though it was the birthplace of three celebrated 
 philosophers, Democritus, Protagoras, and Anaxarchus, were generally spoken 
 of by the Greeks like our wise men of Gotham (Martial, x. 25 ; Juvenal, x. 
 50, etc.) Malines has o. similar unenviable reputation among Belgians, 
 probably equally undeserved. 
 
 6 See Introd. to Letter xlii. 
 
]68 LETTERS OF CICERO. part ii. 
 
 to Caesar was appointed at all. Or the tax-contractors ? They 
 never were staunch, but now they are Caesar's most devoted 
 friends. Or the money-lenders ? or the farmers, who are for 
 peace at any price ? But perhaps you fancy that they have 
 a horror of finding themselves under a monarchy; whereas they 
 never formerly kicked against it, provided one would leave 
 
 6 them in peace. What then ? Ought we to allow a man who 
 still retains his army after his legal term has expired to stand 
 for office? To me, on the contrary, it seems that even his 
 absence is conclusive. But grant one and you grant the other 
 too. Do I approve of the ten-year term of military authority, 
 carried too in the way that it was? If so, I must equally 
 approve of my own banishment ; of the loss of our Campanian 
 territory ; the adoption of a patrician by a plebeian, and a 
 native of Gades by one of Mytilene ; 7 I must approve of the 
 gains of Labienus and Mamurra ; the park of Balbus, and his 
 villa at Tusculum. 8 But all these things spring from one 
 source. It was our place to resist him while he was weak, 
 and that was easy enough ; now it is a case of eleven legions ; 
 cavalry as much as ever he likes ; all the people beyond the 
 Po ; the masses of the capital ; numbers of the tribunes ; 
 such a reckless body of our younger men ; and a general of 
 his immense authority, immense audacity. This is the man 
 now with whom we have to reckon by the sword, or legally 
 
 7 ratify his pretensions. ' Fight to the last,' you say, ' rather 
 than be a slave.' And for what ? To be proscribed if you 
 fail : to be a slave none the less if you succeed. What then 
 would I propose to do ? Just what sheep do : when scattered 
 
 7 Compare Introd. to Letter x. for the Campanian land -division, and 
 to Letter ix. for the adoption of Clodius by Fonteius. The native of Gades 
 (Cadiz) is Lucius Cornelius Balbus the elder, who was adopted by Theophanes 
 of Mytilene, the cpnfidential servant of Pompeius ; but why their birthplace 
 is mentioned is not clear. Mr. Watson thinks it was to mark the degradation 
 of the Roman franchise. The whole passage means that the acts of the 
 triumvirs must stand or fall together. 
 
 8 Mamurra, Caesar's commandant of engineers, and Labienus, his second 
 in command (Letter xlvii. ), amassed great wealth. Compare Catullus, xxix. : 
 Mamurram habere quod Comata Gallia Habebat ante et ultima Britannia. 
 Labienus rebuilt Cingulum at his own expense, Caes. Bell. Civ. i. 15. The 
 gardens of Balbus, Caesar's treasurer, were a gift from Pompeius, Ad Att. ix. 
 13, 8 ; his villa at Tusculum is described in Cicero's speech, Pro Balbo, 25, 56. 
 
ep. xlv. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. VII. 9.) 169 
 
 they will go with any flock of their own species. Like an ox 
 following a herd I mean to follow the good citizens, or any 
 who will claim to be the good ones, even if they only mean to 
 rush blindly on. I see plain enough what is the best course 
 in our sad straits : for nobody can say for certain what will 
 happen when we have got to blows, while everybody can tell 
 this much, that if the good cause is defeated he will exact 
 the blood of our leading men as cruelly as Cinna, and the 
 treasures of the wealthy as avariciously as Sulla. 9 Here I am 
 all this time politiquant with you, and I would do so even 
 longer, but that my lamp is failing me. This is my conclu- 
 sion : ' Marcus Tullius- is in possession of the House.' Then 
 Marcus Tullius begs to support his honourable friend, Gnaeus 
 Pompeius, or, what is the same thing, Titus Pomponius Atticus. 
 Please give my remembrances to Alexis, a very gentlemanly 
 boy — unless indeed during my absence he has grown up into 
 a young man, for he seemed to be likely enough to do that. 
 
 XLV. (AD ATT. VII. 9.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 End of December, 704 A.v.c. (50 B.C.) 
 
 'Eh, what?' you exclaim, 'am I to have a letter from you 1 
 every day?' Every day if I can find a messenger to send it 
 by. 'Why, you are all but here yourself!' Very well, as soon 
 as I am come, I will stop them. One of yours I see has never 
 reached me, which my good friend Lucius Quinctius was 
 bringing when he was assaulted and robbed near the tomb of 
 Basilus. So see if there was anything in it which I ought to 2 
 know, and at the same time here is a question for you a 
 trancher; assuredly it is a problem in la haute politique. We 
 will say that things must take one of these courses. (1) Caesar 
 is allowed to stand for the consulship, and yet meanwhile, 
 through the influence either of the Senate or the tribunes, to 
 retain his army. (2) Caesar is induced to give up his province 
 
 lJ Caesar's utter falsification of this prediction is well known. See especially 
 Mommsen, iv. 378, and Cicero's striking admissior. Letter xci. § 8. 
 
170 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet ii. 
 
 and army, and thereupon is elected consul. (3) We fail in 
 persuading him to do this, and thereupon the elections are 
 held without admitting his claim ; he meanwhile consenting to 
 this, and so retaining his province. (4) The tribunes being 
 employed to interfere, though he still remains passive, matters 
 are brought to an interregnum. 
 
 Again, if he bring his army to bear upon us because we 
 refuse to admit his claim, it may be that we must fight it out 
 with him. In that case he may draw the sword either (1) at 
 once, while we are hardly prepared for him, or (2) later on 
 when his friends have proposed to the assembly his claim to 
 stand as being legal, and it has been rejected. Then he may 
 appeal to arms (1) merely on the single pretext of the refusal 
 of his claims ; or (2) he may combine it with some other 
 , reason, if it should turn out that any tribune, for obstructing 
 the proceedings of the Senate, or inciting the populace to 
 riot, has been publicly censured, or had his powers limited, 
 or been suspended, or deprived of his office (or, what is the 
 same thing, 1 pretends to have been deprived) and takes refuge 
 with him. 
 
 Lastly, war being once begun, we may have (1) to defend 
 the capital ; or (2) to abandon it, and intercept his provisions 
 and other supplies. 
 
 Now which of all these evils, one or other of which we 
 must unquestionably undergo, are you inclined to think the 
 least ? I have no doubt you will say that he should be per- 
 suaded to give up his army and be elected consul on that 
 3 condition. That is exactly how it stands ; if he will only come 
 down to this nothing can possibly be said against it ; and I 
 should not be surprised at his doing so, if he does not succeed 
 in getting permission to stand and still to retain his army. 
 Some people however think that for us there is nothing more 
 to be dreaded than his being consul. ' Well, I would rather 
 have it so,' you will say, ' than with his army.' Undoubtedly ; 
 yet I can tell you there is one person 2 who considers even the 
 
 1 Notice the weak alternative marked by ve after a succession of strong 
 alternatives marked by aut. 
 
 - Probably Pompeius, whom, as Mr. Watson points out, Cicero had met 
 at Formiae on Dec. 25 (Ad Att. vii. 8, 4). 
 
ap. xlv. TO ATTJCUS. (AD ATT. VII. 9.) 171 
 
 former by itself a frightful evil, nor is there any cure for it. 
 Give way, must we, if he is bent upon it ? Fancy seeing him 
 such a consul again as you saw him in his first consulship ! 
 And yet our friend admits that even then in his weaker days 
 he was stronger than all the Republic together. What then 
 do you expect now? And if he is to be consul, Pompeius is 
 fully determined to stop in Spain. What a dreadful state of 
 things, if what we cannot refuse him is the very thing most to 
 be deprecated, and yet one his acceptance of which would 
 instantly win him the highest regard of all good citizens ! So 4 
 let us put this alternative out of the question, which they say 
 he could never be brought to accept. Then which is the worst 
 evil of the rest ? To give way to him on what the same person 
 characterises as his * most unblushing ' demand ? What indeed 
 could be more unblushing? You have held a province for 
 ten years, a time which you got not by a grant of the Senate, 
 but by your own factiousness and violence. Now that period 
 — not one of law but only of your own self-willed choice, but 
 still let us say the period of the law — has elapsed, and a vote 
 is passed for your successor. Then you step in and say : ' You 
 must have some consideration for me.' Will you have some 
 for us ? Are you forsooth to keep your army longer than the 
 nation has voted it to you against the will of the Senate ? ' You 
 must fight to the bitter end unless you give way.' At least 
 then, the other retorts again, it will be with a bright hope, 
 whether it be of conquering or only of dying while liberty still 
 survives. To conclude, if we must fight, the time depends on 
 the chapter of accidents, and the policy to be adopted upon 
 the circumstances of the time, so that I do not propose to put 
 you through your examination on that question. Send me an 
 answer to these I have named if you see one j as for me, my 
 thoughts are racked night and day. 
 
PART III. 
 THE CIVIL WAR. 
 
PART III. 
 
 FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR (Jan. i, 49 b.c.) 
 TO THE BATTLE OF PHARSALUS (Aug. 9, 48 B.C.) 
 
 XLVI. (AD ATT. VII. 10.) 
 
 FROM CICERO IN THE SUBURBS OF ROME TO ATTICUS IN 
 THE CITY. 
 
 •About Jan. 17, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 On the first day of the year 49 Curio appeared in the Senate with Caesar's 
 ultimatum, by which he offered, until he was elected consul, to retain nothing 
 more than Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria with a force of merely two legions. 
 This proposal is apparently of such dangerous moderation that Dean Merivale 
 thinks he must have calculated on the blind passion of his enemies closing 
 their ears to any offer of compromise whatever. At any rate the proposals 
 were rejected, and Caesar was ordered to resign his provinces by the 1st of 
 July ; and when the tribunes Marcus Antonius and Quintus Cassius interposed 
 their veto it was disallowed ; whereupon they fled with Curio to the camp. 
 Caesar then addressed his soldiers amid great enthusiasm, and marched from 
 Ravenna. The outbreak of the war is popularly marked by the crossing of 
 the tiny river Rubicon, the northern boundary of Italy, in the middle of 
 January (i.e. by the true time about the end of November), but the occupation 
 of Ariminum (Rimini) next morning was its explicit declaration. When the 
 news reached Rome the consuls, Gaius Marcellus and Lucius Lentulus, and I 
 the majority of the senatorial party fled in a panic, without even securing thej 
 treasury, a fact which strikingly shows their unprepared condition ; and they 
 were followed after a little hesitation by Cicero, who had not entered the city, 
 lest he should lose his military rights, and the coveted triumph for his suc- 
 cesses in Cilicia (Letter xlii. Introd. ) This hasty note was probably written 
 just before starting. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 356-373; Merivale, ii. 120-139; Forsyth, 351-356; 
 Long, v. ch. 1. ; Abeken, 280-284 ; Froude, Caesar, ch. xx. and xxi. 
 
 I have suddenly come to the resolution of setting out 
 before daylight, to avoid exciting any attention or gossip, 
 
176 LETTERS OF. CICERO. jam hi. 
 
 particularly as my attendants still have the laurels on their 
 wands. As for anything beyond that, upon my honour I 
 have no idea either of what, I am doing or what I am to do ; 
 I am so stunned by the rashness and utterly frantic nature 
 of our decision. But how am I to give advice to you whose 
 decision I myself am waiting for? As to our chief, what 
 designs he has or had I know not, he being at present some- 
 where among the country towns, cooped up and quite be- 
 wildered. All of us, supposing he decides to make a stand in 
 Italy, will be together ; but if he means to leave it, we must in 
 that case consider further. Certainly hitherto (unless it is I 
 who am out of my senses) everything has gone blunderingly 
 and heedlessly. Do pray write to me very often — say anything, 
 whatever it be, that first comes to your ftps. 
 
 XLVII. (AD ATT. VII. n.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT MINTURNAE (?) TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Jan. 19, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 While Caesar was at Arimimun, Titus Labienus, his very able second in 
 command, deserted to the Pompeian carm> — the solitary instance of a defection 
 from the great general during the whole war. Caesar contemptuously sent his 
 baggage after him, and then moved southwards and occupied the district of 
 Picenum (now called The Marches), almost without opposition. Pompeius 
 entrusted Cicero with a general superintendence of the Campanian coast in 
 his interests, while he himself fell back, first upon Luceria in Apulia, and then 
 on Brundisium. Cicero professed to Pompeius (see Letter L. ) to be zealously 
 discharging his commission, but let Caesar know that he was residing quietly 
 on his own estate. 
 
 This letter has a curiously declamatory tone, differing much from the one 
 of two days before. The succeeding letters show perpetually shifting phases 
 of feeling, varying from confidence to utter despair, but all alike penetrated by 
 a dread, amply justified, of the probable cruelties of the Pompeian party. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 362 ; Merivale, ii. 141 ; Long, v. ch. x. ; Forsyth, 355-359 ; 
 Abeken, 284-296. 
 
 1 Pray tell me, what is the meaning of all this ? What is 
 happening ? To me it is all as dark as night. ' We have lost 
 Ancona, but still hold Cingulum : x Labienus has deserted 
 
 1 Now Cingoli, in the Marches, about 20 m. south-west of Ancona, 
 Though it had been rebuilt by Labienus out of his enormous wealth (Letter 
 xliv. note 8), it opened its gates at once to Caesar. 
 
ep. xlvii. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. VII. 11.) 177 
 
 Caesar's standard. 1 Why, are we talking of a Roman general, 
 or is it of a Hannibal ? O mad and pitiable man ! who has 
 never seen even in a faint reflection ' splehdorem pulcritudinemque 
 virtutis.' 2 And yet he says he is doing all this ' for the sake / 
 of his honour.' Why, how can there be honour without what/ 
 is honourable ? Is it ' honourable ' then to retain your army 
 without the lawful authority — to capture the towns of your 
 fellow-countrymen, in order to clear the road to the city that 
 gave you birth — to be plotting your ' table rase de dettes,' your 
 ' rentrke des Emigres,' s and countless other nefarious watch- 
 words, for the sake of empire, — 'the queenliest' as Eteocles 
 says, ' of the gods in heaven.' i 
 
 Much good may his successes do him ! Dearer to me, 
 upon my honour, is one day's basking in that well-earned 5 
 sunshine of yours, than all the kingdoms in the world if they 
 must be won by such means ; nay, let me rather die a 
 thousand deaths than harbour one moment such a thought as 
 his. But, say you, what if you only wished for it ? Surely 2 
 nobody is forbidden to wish ? Nay, I on the contrary hold 
 that this mere wishing is more wretched than being nailed 
 upon the cross ; there is but one thing more miserable than 
 it — to be granted your wish after all. 
 
 But enough of this : I am only too ready to find it an easy 3 
 passe-temps to dwell upon these troubles with you. 6 To return 
 to our chief — for heaven's sake tell me what you think of 
 Pompeius's resolution — I mean of course his abandoning 
 
 2 I have ventured to adopt this paraphrase because it is Cicero's own 
 attempt (De Off. ii. 10) to express the inseparable notion of beauty so hard to 
 translate in rb KaXSv. Moreover a stilted and rhetorical phrase is in keeping 
 with the tone of this remarkable letter, which must surely have been intended 
 for some sort of publication. 
 
 3 See Letter lxxi. note 1. 4 Eur. Phoen. 506. 
 
 5 The exact force of this word is hard to determine, even if the text is 
 beyond doubt Its legal meaning is, ' a thing acquired by bequest or gift ' 
 (Forcellini), and this may be the right one here, but then we cannot explain 
 the allusion. Or it may imply that such enjoyment is the true gain of industry, 
 opposed to the prizes at which Caesar is wrongly grasping. Boot explains it 
 as either a holiday for basking in the sun successfully snatched from business, 
 or a sunny view gained by the removal of obstructions. 
 
 6 Cocon is of course a vox nihili, probably concealing some Greek par- 
 ticiple. Baiter suggests <rws S>v ; Boot and Wesenberg ooi, but this fails to 
 account for the corruption, 
 
 N 
 
178 LETTERS OF CICERO. part m, 
 
 Rome ? Because for my part je n'y vois goutte. At times I 
 say nothing could be more unreasonable. 'What, abandon 
 the capital ! Then would you do just the same if the Gauls 
 were to come?' 'One's country,' says he, 'does not con- 
 sist of bricks and mortar.' ' No, but it does of hearths and 
 homes.' ' Themistocles did just the same when his city 
 could not stand by herself against the rising flood of barbarism.' 
 ' Well, but so did Pericles not do some fifty years later on, 
 though he had only the bare shell of the city to save ; and 
 our own forefathers in the olden time, after they had lost the 
 rest of Rome, still held out in their citadel. 
 
 'Ad nos sic tenuis famae perlabitur aura.' 7 
 
 i On the other hand, from the indignation of the provincial 
 towns and the language of people I meet, there seems ground 
 for believing that this resolution will not be without some 
 effect. The universal complaint is very remarkable (I do 
 not know how it may be with you, but you will be sure to 
 let me know), that Rome has no Senate, no government left. 
 The flight of Pompeius is at last creating a profound sensation ; 
 in short, I may say the aspect of the case is quite altered; 
 they think now that no concessions whatever must be made 
 to Caesar. Do explain to me what all this really means. 
 
 5 I myself have had put under my care a not very trouble- 
 some business. Pompeius wants me to be in the position of- 
 a sort of Prtfet to Campania and all the seaboard about here, 
 to whom the levying of troops and management of things in 
 general are to be referred, and so I expect to have to move 
 about from place to place. You of course can see by this 
 time the real object of Caesar's klan, and what the inclinations 
 of the populace point to, and in fact affairs in general. Do 
 write to me about it all, and moreover, since changes are so 
 rapid, as often as possible, for I become pacified when I am 
 either writing to you or reading what you have to tell me. 
 
 7 Aen. vii. 646. Cicero is quoting from Iliad, ix. 524. 
 
15P. xltiii. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. VII. 13.) 179 
 
 XLVIII. (AD ATT. VII. 13.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT CALES l TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Jan. 23, 705 A.V.C. (49 B.C.) 
 
 About that business of Vennonius I agree with you. 2 1 
 Labienus has, in my judgment, acquitted himself en heros. 
 We have not for a long while had a more noble example to 
 citizens, and he has succeeded, if in nothing else, at least in 
 annoying his chief; but, even on broader grounds, I think it 
 has done some good. My heart warms too towards Piso, 
 whose deliberate verdict about his son-in-law 3 will, I suspect, 
 carry weight with it. Yet you see the real character of this 
 war — a civil war no doubt, yet not because it is the offspring^ 
 of the dissensions of citizens, but of the reckless ambition of 
 one abandoned citizen. Now his strength is in his army, and 
 while he is attracting many by hopes and promises, his desires 
 have risen to no less than everything every one else can call 
 his own. This is the man to whom the capital has been 
 abandoned, overflowing with supplies, and stripped naked of 
 all defence ! What is there you have not to dread from one 
 who can regard your holy temples and your homes, not as his 
 country, but his prize of war ? But what his next movements 
 are to be, and how he means to carry them out without Senate 
 or Government, I cannot see. He will not be able for a 
 moment even to pretend that his acts are constitutionally en 
 regie. But we — ah, where and when shall we be allowed to 
 raise our heads again, when you perceive as clearly as myself 
 how peu g'entral is our general? Why he did not even know 
 about the state of Picenum ; and facts show how entirely he is 
 without any settled plan; for, to say nothing of his other 
 blunders these ten years past, what conceivable terms were not 
 
 1 Now Calvi, about ten miles north-west of Capua. Cicero seems to have 
 been fond of the place. 
 
 2 Gaius Vennonius was a collector in Cilicia, and a friend of Cicero. The 
 allusion in this paragraph we have no means of explaining. 
 
 3 Caesar's wife Calpurnia was the daughter of this Piso, the consul of 
 58 B.C. 
 
180 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 2 better than running away thus ? Indeed, even now I do not 
 know what his views are, yet I lose no opportunity of pressing 
 the question upon him by letter. It is obvious that his 
 timidity and confusion are the utmost that can be conceived ; 
 so that I not only find no forces (to raise which was the very 
 object of his being retained near Rome), but no place fixed as 
 the centre for our forces. We have to trust entirely to two 
 legions that have been kept ready for us by a piece of sharp 
 practice, 4 and are at heart all but for our opponents. For 
 hitherto, at any rate, our recruits have been enlisted against 
 their will, and are strongly disinclined to fighting ; yet the time 
 for making terms is gone by. What is to be the end I cannot 
 see ; at all events we — or our general if you like — have brought 
 it to this, that we have left the harbour without a rudder, and 
 
 3 must trust ourselves to the storm. Consequently I am in 
 doubt what to do about our boys. At times I think they had 
 better be sent away to Greece. Then, again, about Tullia and 
 Terentia — when a vision rises before my eyes of barbarian 
 troops entering Rome I shudder at everything, but when I 
 think of Dolabella I breathe again a little. But I should like 
 you to decide what you think ought to be done, first of all, 
 with regard to la stiretk (for you see it is one thing for me to 
 take thought for them, and quite another for myself); and, 
 secondly, to what people will think of it, so that I may not be 
 blamed for consenting to let them stay at Rome when all good 
 citizens have left it in a body. If I may go farther, you too 
 and Peducaeus, who has written to me, must now make up 
 your minds how you mean to act, for the place you both 
 occupy in your order is such that just as much will be expected 
 of you as of men in the highest rank of the state. But of this 
 you may well judge yourself, seeing that it is you I have to 
 ask to take thought for me and mine. 
 
 4 I have only now to ask you to find out as far as you can 
 how matters are going, and to let me know, and any conjectures 
 as to the future at which you have arrived. This last indeed 
 
 * See Introd. to Letter xxxv. The Senate moreover kept the two legions 
 thus demanded by Pompeius for the Parthian war in readiness for his use at 
 Capua. — Mommsen, iv. 353. The remarkable admissions as to the unpopu- 
 larity of the Pompeian party should be noticed. 
 
EP. xlix. FROM POMPEIUS. {AD ATT. VIII. u A.) 
 
 181 
 
 I am even more anxious to get from you; because while 
 everybody is telling me what has happened, I look to you for 
 what is going to happen, and 
 
 ' bene qui coniciet vatem hunc perhibebo optumum. ' 6 
 You will pardon my running on thus ; it is not only a relief to 
 me, at any rate when I am writing to you, but it extracts a 
 letter from you in reply. 
 
 XLIX. (AD ATT. VIII. u A.) 
 
 FROM POMPEIUS AT LUCERIA IN APULIA TO CICERO AT FORMIAE. 
 Feb. 10, 705 A.V.C. (49 B.C.) 
 
 It is interesting to contrast this insulting offer of protection with the 
 graceful courtesy of Caesar's letter (lxx.) See Tyrrell, ii. xli. ; Letter lvi. 3. 
 
 To-day, the 10th of February, Fabius Vergilianus has joined 
 me. From him I learn that Domitius with his eleven cohorts, 
 and fourteen cohorts that Vibullius has brought up, is on his 
 way to me. His intention was to start from Corfinium on the 
 13th, Hirrus to follow soon after with five of the cohorts. I 
 decide that you are to come to us at Luceria ; here, I think, 
 you will be most in safety. 
 
 L. (AD ATT. VIII. 11 B.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO POMPEIUS AT LUCERIA. 
 Feb. 15, 705 A.V.C. (49 B.C.) 
 
 I have received your letter at Formiae this day, the 1 5th 1 
 of February, from which I gathered that what had happened 
 in the Marches of Picenum was far more favourable than it 
 had been represented to me, and I was glad to recognise the 
 bravery and energy of Vibullius. For myself, while I have 
 not yet quitted that part of the coast with the command of 
 
 6 This is Cicero's own rendering (De Div. ii. 5) of the line of Euripides, 
 from an unknown play, which in this letter he half quotes in the original. 
 
182 LETTERS OF CICERO. part in. 
 
 which I was entrusted, I have none the less kept a vessel in 
 readiness. Indeed, such were the reports I heard and such 
 my anxiety, that whatever plan you had decided upon, that I 
 should have deemed it my duty to pursue. Now since, thanks 
 to your encouragement and advice, I am in better hopes, if 
 you think it possible to hold Tarracina and the sea-coast I will 
 remain there, though there are no garrisons in the towns. In 
 fact there is no one of our rank in these parts except Marcus 
 Eppius, a prudent and active officer whom I decided to station 
 at Minturnae, since Lucius Torquatus, a gallant gentleman 
 and of influential position, is not with me at Formiae, being, 
 
 2 I suppose, on his way to join you. Of course, as you had 
 last instructed me, I came to Capua, on the very day you left 
 Teanum Sidicinum ; since you had expressed a wish that, in 
 conjunction with the ex-praetor, Marcus Considius, I would 
 there represent your interests. On arriving I found Balbus 
 busily employed in raising troops, which were then transferred 
 to the command of Libo, who is also a man of great zeal, and 
 of much influence in that district. I stayed at Capua as long 
 as the consuls, and came back to Capua a second time, as the 
 consuls had ordered, on the 5th of February. After a stay of 
 
 3 three days I returned again to Formiae. At present I am not 
 aware what are your designs or plan of campaign. If you 
 think we ought to hold this coast — and it certainly has a good 
 position and possesses considerable importance and inhabitants 
 of distinction, and, in my judgment, is capable of being main- 
 tained — then there must be some one to take the command ; 
 if, on the other hand, we are to concentrate all our forces, I 
 have no hesitation about coming to you at once, and there is 
 nothing I should wish more : indeed, I mentioned this to 
 you the day we left Rome. For my own part, if there is any- 
 body to whom I still seem inclined to fail in energy, provided 
 only I am not so in yours, I care nothing ; and yet if, as I 
 perceive, we must go to war, I have full confidence that I shall 
 without difficulty do my duty to the satisfaction of all. 
 
 4 I have sent you a confidential friend, Marcus Tullius, for 
 you to give him letters, if you think fit, for me. 
 
ep. LI. FROM POMPEIUS. (AD ATT. VIII. 12 D.) 183 
 
 LI. (AD ATT. VIII. 12 D.) 
 
 FROM POMPEIUS AT LUCERIA TO LUCIUS DOMITIUS 
 AHENOBARBUS AT CORFINIUM. 
 
 Feb. 17, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 The first resistance to Caesar's rapid progress southwards was made at 
 Corfinium. That city, the capital of the ancient Paeligni, in the territory now 
 called the Abruzzi, near Popoli, occupied one of the strongest positions in 
 Italy, for which reason it had been the proposed capital of the allies in the 
 Social War. Domitius, Caesar's intended successor in Gaul, there made a 
 stand against Caesar, who invested the place on Feb. 14, for seven days, 
 hoping for relief from Pompeius. On the receipt of this letter he infamously 
 attempted to escape, leaving his soldiers behind, but they against his will 
 handed the town over to the conqueror. This was the first signal example of 
 the extraordinary clemency of Caesar throughout the whole war. He dismissed 
 all his prisoners unharmed, merely proclaiming himself as the representative 
 of law and order. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 375, 376 ; Merivale, ii. 145-150 ; Long, v. ch. 2 ; Forsyth, 
 359 ; Abeken, 28S. 
 
 I have this day — February 1 7 — received the letter in which 1 
 you inform me that Caesar has invested Corfinium. What I 
 suspected and forewarned you of is now being done, namely, 
 that without wishing to risk a battle with you at present he is 
 drawing all his forces together, and hemming you in, so that 
 you may not have free communication with me, and thus 
 succeed in uniting your ranks of loyal citizens with those legions 
 of whose fidelity we are doubtful. This makes me all the 
 more disturbed by your letter. For, in the first place, I have 
 not sufficient confidence in the fidelity of the soldiers I have 
 with me to stake the whole fortunes of the country on one 
 battle ; while, added to this, the men who have been enrolled 
 in the consuls' levies have not yet joined. So make every 2 
 effort, if by any possible means you can even now succeed in 
 extricating yourself, to come here as soon as possible before 
 the enemy can get all his forces together ; for the new recruits 
 cannot be collected here on short notice, and, even if they 
 were collected, you are not unaware how little we can trust these 
 men who barely even know one another against experienced 
 regiments. 
 
184 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt iil 
 
 LII. (AD FAM. XVI. 12.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT CAPUA TO HIS FREEDMAN TIRO AT PATRAE. 
 Jan. 27, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 Marcus Tullius Tiro, the favourite freedman and pupil of Cicero, was in 
 the opinion of many critics the first collector and editor of his master's letters, 
 as he certainly was of his life and speeches. See Ad Fam. xvi. 5 (the whole 
 of that book of the letters is addressed to him) ; Boissier, Recherches sur la 
 maniere dont furent recueillies et pubises les lettr'es de Ciceron, p. 8. At this 
 time he was lying ill at Patrae (Patras) in Greece. This letter ought to pre- 
 cede Letter xlix. 
 
 Smith's Diet. Biogr. iii. p. 1152 ; Forsyth, 347; Abeken, 271. 
 
 1 You may judge of the imminent hazard to which my safety, 
 like that of all true patriots, nay, the whole fabric of the state 
 is exposed, from the fact that we have left our homes, yes, and 
 our city herself, to be pillaged, it may be, or burnt. To such 
 a state have things come that, without some interference of 
 God's providence or of chance, we must inevitably be ruined. 
 
 a For my own part, ever since I came to Rome I have never 
 ceased to think, or say, or do, whatever was towards the side 
 of peace; but an unaccountable madness had fastened not 
 only on the enemies, but even on the nominal friends of 
 order, so that they were burning to fight it out, I meanwhile 
 crying to them that the worst of all miseries is a civil war. 
 Consequently when Caesar, hurried away it would seem by his 
 passions, and forgetting alike his name and his position, had 
 seized Ariminurn, Pisaurum, Ancona, and Arretium, we aban- 
 doned the capital. How far this was bravely, how far it was 
 wisely done, it is beside the question now to discuss ; at any 
 
 3 rate you see the lamentable state we are in. These are the 
 exact terms he offers : that if Pompeius will proceed to Spain, 
 and we will disband the men we have lately enrolled, and our 
 forces in garrison, he will then resign Northern Gaul to 
 Domitius, and Southern to Considius Nonianus, to whom they 
 have been assigned, and will return home to stand for the 
 consulship, withdrawing his claim to be allowed to be nomi- 
 nated for it in his absence, and putting in an appearance as a 
 candidate for the three market-days. These terms we have 
 
EP. Hi. TO TIRO. {AD FAM. XVI. 12.) 185 
 
 accepted, only with the stipulation that he shall remove his 
 garrisons from the towns he has occupied, so that the Senate 
 may be convened without fear at Rome to authorise these 
 items of the agreement. Supposing he consents to this, there 4 
 is some hope of peace, not with honour, because we are being 
 dictated to, but anything in the world is better than to go 
 on as we are at present. Should he however prove unwilling 
 to stand by his own conditions, war is meant at once, but it 
 would be of such a kind as he could hardly face, especially if 
 he has been the first to back out of the agreement he himself 
 has made, provided only that we can succeed in cutting him 
 off from all access to the city. This we are in hopes can be 
 done, as we are enrolling large numbers, and have reason to 
 believe that he is afraid, if he takes the step of marching 
 against Rome, of losing the two provinces of Gaul, both of 
 which he finds are, with the exception of the Transpadanes, 
 most hostile to him. There are too in his rear six legions 
 from Spain, and some powerful auxiliaries under the command 
 of Afranius and Petreius. It seems probable that if he persists 
 in his mad venture he may be crushed. If only we can save 
 Rome ! Moreover he has suffered a very great blow in the 
 refusal of Titus Labienus, who held the highest position in 
 his army, to be a partaker in his impious attempt. He has 
 abandoned his chief and is now with us, and it is said there 
 are several who will do the same. 
 
 For myself, I am still in charge of all the sea-coast beyond 5 
 Formiae. I shrank from undertaking any more important 
 duty, in order that my letters and remonstrances might carry 
 greater weight towards forwarding peace with him. If however 
 there is to be war, I see that I shall definitely be put in com- 
 mand of a camp and some regular legions. I have another 
 annoyance too from one of our family, Dolabella, being in 
 Caesar's camp. All this, which I wanted to let you know, 
 you must be sure not to let worry you, and interfere with 
 your recovery. 
 
 I have written a strong appeal on your behalf to Aulus 6 
 Varro, whom I have found to be not only warmly attached to 
 myself but also to have a great regard for you, to be careful 
 about your health and your voyage home, and to take you 
 
186 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt in. 
 
 entirely under his charge and protection. All this I feel con- 
 fident he will do, because he not only promised it, but spoke 
 very obligingly to me about you. Since you could not be 
 with me at the time when I was most in need of your services 
 and your fidelity, be sure you do not now overhurry yourself, 
 or run the risk of putting to sea if you are unwell or the weather 
 is bad. I shall never think you have been late in coming 
 when you have once come safe. Up to the present time I 
 have met nobody who has seen you since Marcus Volusius, 
 from whom I got your letter. This I was not surprised at, 
 since my letter too could hardly, I should think, get safe to 
 you in such stormy weather as this. But do your best to get 
 well again, and if you are quite recovered when one can sail 
 with comfort, to sail then. My son Marcus is at my house at 
 Formiae, Terentia and Tullia are at Rome. Make haste to 
 get well again. ' 
 
 Capua, Jan. 27. 
 
 LIII. (AD FAM. XVI. 15.) 
 
 FROM CICERO TO TIRO. 
 
 Mr. Watson says : ' As the date of this letter is uncertain and unimportant 
 I have inserted it here as an illustration of Cicero's care for Tiro. ' Schiitz 
 assigns it to 699 A.v.c. (55 b. c.) 
 
 1 Aegypta arrived here on the 12th of April. Although he 
 reported that you were now quite rid of your fever and going 
 on very well, he nevertheless caused me some anxiety by his 
 report that you were not able to write to me, the more so 
 because Hermia, who ought to have been here on the same 
 day, has not yet come. I am more anxious than you can 
 believe about your health. Only free me from this anxiety 
 and I will free you from all duties. I would write you more 
 if I thought you could now read more with pleasure. Use all 
 the talents you possess, of which I have no small opinion, to 
 keep yourself safe for my sake as well as your own. Again 
 and again I repeat, take every precaution about your health. 
 Good-bye. 
 
EP. liv. TO A TTIC US. (AD ATT. VIII. 3.) 187 
 
 P.S. — Hermia is just come. I have your note with its poor 2 
 weak handwriting — no wonder too after so severe an illness. 
 I send out Aegypta to stay with you because he is not a bad 
 companion and appeared to me to be fond of you, and with 
 him a cook, for you to make use of his services. Good-bye. 
 
 LIV. (AD ATT. VIII. 3.) V 
 
 FROM CICERO AT CALES TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Feb. 20, 705 A.V.C, (49 B.C.) 
 
 Being in extreme agitation about these great and terrible 1 
 events, and having no means of discussing matters with you 
 in person, I want at any rate to avail myself of your judgment. 
 Now the question about which I am in doubt is simply this. 
 If Pompeius should fly from Italy (which I suspect he will do), 
 how do you think I ought to act ? To make it easier for you 
 to advise me, I will briefly set forth the arguments that occur 
 to me on both sides of the question. 
 
 The obligations that Pompeius laid me under in the matter 2 
 of my restoration, my own intimacy with him, and also my 
 patriotism incline me to think that I ought to make my decision 
 as his decision, or, in other words, my fortunes as his fortunes. 
 There is this reason also. If I stay behind and desert my 
 post among that band of true and illustrious patriots, I must 
 perforce fall completely under the yoke of one man. Now 
 although he frequently takes occasion to show himself friendly 
 to me — indeed, as you well know, anticipating this storm that 
 is now hanging over our heads, I took good care that he should 
 be so long ago — still I have to consider two different questions 
 — first, how far can I trust him ; and, secondly — assuming it 
 to be absolutely certain that he is friendly disposed to me — 
 would it show the brave man or the honest citizen to remain 
 in a city where one has filled the highest offices of peace and 
 war, achieved immortal deeds, and been crowned with the 
 honours ot her most dignified priesthood, only to become an 
 empty name and undergo some risk, attended also very likely 
 with considerable disgrace, should Pompeius ever again grasp 
 
188 LETTERS OF CICERO. pari hi. 
 
 3 the helm? 1 So much for this side; see now what may be 
 said on the other. 
 
 Pompeius has in our cause done nothing wisely, nothing 
 strongly ; nothing, I may add, that has not been contrary to 
 my opinion and advice. I pass over those old complaints, 
 that it was he who himself nourished this enemy of the Re- 
 public, gave him his honours, put the sword into his hand' — 
 that it was he who advised him to force laws through by 
 violence, trampling on the warnings of religion 2 — that it was 
 he who made the addition of Transalpine Gaul, he who is his 
 son-in-law, he who as Augur allowed the adoption of Clodius ; 
 who showed more activity in recalling me than in preventing 
 my exile ; who took it on him to extend Caesar's term of 
 government ; who supported all his proceedings while he was 
 away : that he too even in his third consulship, after he had 
 begun to pose as a defender of the constitution, actually exerted 
 himself to get the ten tribunes to propose that absence should 
 not invalidate the election ; nay more, he expressly sanctioned 
 this by one of his own acts, and opposed the consul Marcus 
 Marcellus, who proposed that the tenure of the Gallic provinces 
 should come to an end on the ist of March — but anyhow, to 
 pass over all this, what could be more discreditable, what more 
 blundering, than this evacuation of the city, or I had better 
 say this ignominious flight ? What terms ought not to have 
 been accepted sooner than abandon our country ? The terms 
 were bad ? That I allow; but is anything worse than this ? But 
 
 4 he will win back the constitution ? When ? What prepara- 
 tions have we made to warrant such a hope ? Have we not 
 lost all Picenum ? have we not left open the road to the capital ? 
 have we not abandoned the whole of our treasure, public and 
 private, to the foe? In a word, there is no common cause, 
 no strength, no centre, to draw such people together as might 
 yet care to show fight for the Republic. Apulia has been 
 chosen — the most thinly populated part of Italy, and the most 
 
 1 Nomen is a mere conjecture for non, after which some word, such as 
 idem, may have dropped out. The reading fore is impossible, and should 
 almost certainly be forte. Boot's objection that there was no doubt about the 
 disgrace is of no weight, forte often meaning ' very likely, ' and not implying a 
 doubt at all. , 2 See Letter x. 2. 
 
ep. liv. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. VIII. 3.) 189 
 
 remote from the line of movement of this war : it would seem 
 that in despair they were looking for flight, with some easy 
 access to the coast. I took the charge of Capua much against 
 my will 3 — not that I would evade that duty, but in a cause 
 which evoked no sympathy from any class as a whole, nor any 
 openly even from individuals (there was some of course among 
 the good citizens, but as languid as usual), and where I saw 
 for myself that the mass of the people, and all the lowest 
 stratum, were more and more inclined to the other side, many 
 even longing for a revolution, I told him to his face I would 
 undertake to do nothing without forces and without money. 
 Consequently I have had no responsibility at all, because I 6 
 saw from the very first that nothing was really intended but 
 flight. Say that I now follow this ; then whither ? Not with 
 him; I had already set out to join him when I found that Caesar 
 was in those parts, so that I could not safely reach Luceria. 
 I must sail by the western sea, in the depth of winter, not 
 knowing where to steer for. And again, what about being 
 with my brother, or leaving him, and taking my son ? How 
 then must I act, since either alternative will involve the 
 greatest difficulty, the greatest mental anxiety ? And then too 
 what a raid he will make on me and my fortunes when I am 
 out of the way — fiercer than on other people, because he will 
 think perhaps that in outrages on me he holds a means of 
 popularity.* Again, these fetters, remember — I mean these 
 laurels on my attendants' staves, 5 how inconvenient it is to 
 take them out of Italy ! What place indeed will be safe for 
 me, supposing I now find the sea calm enough, before I have 
 actually joined him ? though where that will be, and how to get 
 there, I have no notion. 
 
 On the other hand, say that I -stop where I am and find 6 
 
 3 Invite is an obvious correction of in te, and occurs on the margin of the 
 Medicean MS. Boot however calls this 'pessima,' and reads non accept. 
 Compare Ad Att. viii. 12, ' accipere Capuam nolui. ' Cicero stayed there some 
 time (Letter L), but regarded it as incapable of defence. 
 
 4 This important admission stands almost alone in Cicero's writings, and 
 deserves more notice than it has received. It seems to show at least that the 
 execution of Catilina's associates had never been forgiven, and that the ac- 
 clamations on Cicero's recall (Letter xx. ) were not those of the masses. Com- 
 pare Beesly, Clodius, 64, 81 ; and Mr. Watson's note on this passage. 
 
 6 Compare Letter xlvi. 
 
190 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 some place on this side of the water, then my conduct will 
 precisely resemble that of Philippus, or Lucius Flaccus, or 
 Quintus Mucius under Cinna's reign of terror. 6 And however 
 this decision ended for the last-named, yet still he at any rate 
 used to say that he saw what really did happen would occur, 
 but that it was his deliberate choice in preference to marching 
 sword in hand against the homes of the very city that gave 
 him birth. With Thrasybulus it was otherwise and perhaps 
 better; but still there is a sound basis for the policy and 
 sentiments of Mucius ; as there is also for this [which Philippus 
 did 7 ] : to wait for your opportunity when you must, just as 
 much as not to lose your opportunity when it is given. But 
 even in this case, those staves again of my attendants still 
 involve some awkwardness ; for say that his feelings are friendly 
 to me (I am not sure that this is so, but let us assume it) ; 
 then he will offer me a triumph. I fear that to decline may 
 be perilous — [to accept] an offence with all good citizens. 8 
 Ah, you exclaim, what a difficult, what an insoluble problem ! 
 Yet the solution must be found ; for what can one do ? Arid 
 lest you should have formed the idea that I am rather inclined 
 towards staying, because I have argued more on that side of 
 
 6 Lucius Marcius Philippus, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, and Quintus Mucius 
 Scaevola, all probably ex-consuls, remained in Rome after the occupation of 
 Cinna and Marius (8? B. c. ) when the rest of their party fled to Sulla's camp. 
 The last-named was murdered by Damasippus, by order of the younger Marius. 
 Mommsen, iii. 327, 336. Thrasybulus, on the other hand, left Athens under 
 the Thirty Tyrants, and when he returned in 401 B.C. it was to overthrow 
 them. 
 
 7 The word Pkilippi is apparently the gloss of some copyist who mistook 
 the meaning of ilia, which rather unusually refers to the words following. 
 For the conduct of Mucius and of Philippus has just been stated as identical, 
 namely, staying at Rome in spite of the danger, whereas here an antithesis is 
 obviously meant. This must be either the' example of Thrasybulus, or the 
 moral of it — to wait for your opportunity — which Cicero intimates he should 
 approve. 
 
 8 It is quite possible to translate these words as they stand, ne depending 
 on vereor understood, as in De Fin. v. 3, 8, sed ne, dum huic obsequor, vobis 
 molestus sim ; Plautus, Most. 922 ; Tac. Ann. i. 47 ; Hist. iii. 46 ; etc. The 
 various conjectures, me for ne H and est for sit (Orelli, Boot) ; to make ne = 
 'even if it be not' (Hofmann) ; etc., are therefore unnecessary, in spite of 
 Boot's off-hand assertion of the violence to language done by a defence of ne. 
 But the insertion of accipere is absolutely required by the sense : it was not the 
 refusal of a triumph, but the acceptance of it from Caesar that would he an 
 offence with the 'good citizens.' 
 
ep. lv. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. VIII. 9.) 191 
 
 the question, it is quite possible, as is so frequently the case 
 in debates, that one side has more words, the other more 
 worth. Therefore I should be glad if when you give me your 
 opinion you would look upon me as making up my mind quite 
 dispassionately on a most important question. I have a ship 
 both at Caieta and at Brundisium. 
 
 But lo and behold, while I am writing you these very 7 
 lines by night in my house at Cales, in come the couriers, and 
 here is a letter to say that Caesar is before Corfinium, and 
 that in Corfinium is Domitius with an army resolute and even 
 eager for battle. I do not think our chief will go so far as to 
 be guilty of abandoning Domitius, though it is true he had 
 already sent Scipio on before with two cohorts to Brundisium, 
 and written a despatch to the consuls ordering that the legion 
 enrolled by Faustus should go under the command of one 
 consul to Sicily : but it is a scandal that Domitius should be 
 left to his fate when he is imploring him for help. There is 
 some hope, not in my opinion a very good one, but strong in 
 these parts, that there has been a battle in the Pyrenees be- 
 tween Afranius and Trebonius ; that Trebonius has been 
 beaten off; that your friend Fabius also has come over to us 
 with all his troops ; and, to crown it all, that Afranius is 
 advancing with a strong force. If this be so, we shall perhaps 
 make a stand in Italy. As for me, since Caesar's route is 
 uncertain — he is expected about equally by way of Capua and 
 of Luceria — I have sent Lepta to Pompeius with a letter, 
 while I myself, for fear of falling in with him anywhere, have 
 started again for Formiae. I thought it best to let you know 
 this, and am writing with more composure than I have written 
 of late, not inserting any opinion of my own, but trying to 
 elicit yours. 
 
 LV. (AD ATT. VIII. 9.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Feb. 25, 705 A.V.C. (49 B.C.) 
 
 This letter speaks of an answer to Caesar, which had somehow been made 
 public, and the expressions here quoted from it are found in Letter lxiv. But 
 
i 9 2 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 the latter not being mentioned in Letter lxiii., the date of which is March 18, 
 was probably not written until after that one, whereas this is dated Feb. 25. 
 Schiitz therefore supposes, and his conjecture is generally accepted, that it is a 
 combination of two, probably at the word eiyevTJ, which were written at 
 different times. 
 
 1 I am not at all troubled about what you tell me, that my 
 letter has got abroad : indeed I have myself given it to several 
 people to take a copy of; for after all that has happened, and 
 all that is hanging over us, I cannot but wish that it should be 
 left on record what my views are about terms of peace. Now 
 in using arguments towards this end, above all when addressed 
 to such a man as he is, I saw no more likely way of impressing 
 him than by saying that my object in writing would commend 
 itself to his ' wisdom.' If I have called that ' admirable,' 
 inasmuch as my object was to urge him to do what is essential 
 for the safety of our country, I had -no dread of the appearance 
 of flattering a man at whose feet in such a cause I would 
 willingly have flung myself. As to the passage about granting 
 some time, that has nothing to do with terms of peace, but is 
 to ask for some consideration for myself, and for what I owe 
 to my friends : for when I assure him that I have had no part 
 in the war, though that is plainly attested by facts, I have all 
 the same laid some stress on this to give more weight to my 
 recommendations ; and this applies also to my acceptance of 
 
 2 his claim. But why all this now ? If it had only done some 
 good ! Truly, I will make no objection, if this letter you 
 speak of is to be read in a public assembly, seeing that our 
 chief himself has published a letter he wrote to the same 
 correspondent in which these words occur : ' considering your 
 most distinguished services.' More distinguished than his own 
 then — more than Scipio's ? It was only the exigency of the 
 times ; why even such men as you and your friend go five 
 miles out on the road to meet him: — and why just now? 
 Ask yourself whence 1 he is coming; what he is doing now; 
 what he means to do. Why, how much more boldly will he 
 be able to trust his own claim, when he has found people like 
 
 1 Boot reads de for unde, when the meaning will be, ' What pledges is he 
 willing to give about himself?' This slight change, accepted also by Baiter, 
 avoids the different meaning given to quid in the two clauses, and the awkward 
 use of se recipere for a victorious march. 
 
 i 
 
ep. lv. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. VIII. 9.) 193 
 
 you not only thronging to him, but welcoming him with looks 
 of joy ? Are you to blame then ? No, you indeed are most 
 certainly not ; but all the same the signs are much confounded, 
 by which one might tell a real from a counterfeit sympathy 
 with him. Then what about these decrees of the Senate lying 
 before me ? This, however, is more open than I had intended. 
 I hope to be at Arpinum on the last day of the month, and 3 
 then to make the round of our country houses, which I 
 despaired of ever seeing again. 
 
 Your advice is that of an homme de cceur, and yet is not 
 too bold for our present times, and has my warm approval 
 Lepidus indeed, whose camarade I find myself most days 
 now, much to his gratification, never did approve of quitting 
 Italy ; far less does Tullus, whose letters are frequently passed 
 on to me by other people. But their opinion had less weight 
 with me ; they had not given their country so many pledges 
 for the future. Now your opinion, I give you my word, has 
 immense influence with me, since it holds out a way at once 
 of keeping all that I have in the present and recovering every- 
 thing in the future. But look at this : what can be more 
 wretched than that one man should be reaping applause in 
 the basest of causes, another in the noblest only odium : that 
 one should be looked on as the preserver of his enemies, the 
 other as the betrayer of his friends ! And, upon my honour, 
 with all the love for my friend Pompeius that I ought to and 
 do feel, I cannot possibly approve of his refusing to help suchi 
 men as this. For if he was afraid, what could be more 
 ignoble? if — as certain people fancy — he believed his cause 
 would be all the stronger if they were massacred — what more 
 iniquitous ? But let us say no more of this ; we only increase 
 a sore by touching it again and again. 
 
 On the evening of the 24th the younger Balbus came to 1 
 me, while hastening secretly on a mission from Caesar to the 
 consul Lentulus, bearing a letter with private instructions and 
 the promise of a province, on condition that he would return 
 to Rome ; but I do not think it will be possible to persuade 
 him unless there is to be an interview. He assured me too 
 that there was nothing Caesar wanted more than to overtake 
 
 o 
 
194 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 Pompeius (that I can quite believe), and come to a reconcilia- 
 tion with him ; this I do not believe, and am afraid that all 
 this moderation is being heaped up to pave the way to the 
 crowning act of atrocity. 2 It is true that the elder Balbus 
 writes to me that Caesar wants nothing more than to live in 
 peace and quiet with Pompeius as the first citizen of the state. 
 This (of course) you believe ! But even now (the 25th), while 
 I am writing, Pompeius may have got to Brundisium ; for on 
 the 19th he had already started in light marching order before 
 the legions from Luceria. But oh, the terrible watchfulness, 
 activity, and resolution of this Proteus ! 3 I am utterly at a 
 loss to know what will happen. 
 
 LVI. (AD ATT. VIII. 11.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 Feb. 27, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 As to the anxiety of mind you suppose me to be suffering 
 from, I am so, it is true, but not so much as you perhaps 
 imagine : trouble is always lighter when one's resolution is 
 fixed, or when brooding over it does no good. We are still 
 however allowed to lament, and this, in spite of what I have 
 said, 1 fills up my days; though I fear that while gaining nothing 
 by it at all I may at the same time be discrediting myself as 
 a scholar and a philosopher. So I am spending all my time 
 in reflecting what force of character there is in the ideal states- 
 man, whom I have portrayed with sufficient accuracy — at least 
 you tell me so — in my book. Do you remember then there 
 what I would have the guardian of the State take as his 
 
 2 Unam Mam is probably corrupt. Orelli proposes Sullanam, Boot 
 Cinnanam. 
 
 3 7^pas=a monster, a creature more than human. Mr. Watson says this 
 usage is not classical, but the word is used of the Sphinx (Eur. Phoen. 8o6), 
 and of Cerberus (Soph. Trach. 1098). Proteus, with his rapid power of 
 changing his form, may perhaps reproduce the idea. 
 
 1 Mud may = lamentor understood, from lamentari, or may refer to the 
 following sentence, given as a refrain of lamentation, but the sed is an objec- 
 tion to this latter view. Boot reads quidem for tamen, and makes illud agree 
 with lamentari, used as the subject of licet. 
 
ep. lvi. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. VIII. n.) 195 
 
 universal standard ? Because these are the words (in my fifth 
 book, I think) which are put into the mouth of Scipio :— 
 
 ' For just as the pilot's aim is a favourable voyage, the physician's health, 
 the general's victory, so is the happiness of his countrymen to our Ruler of the 
 State : that they may live secure in their possessions, rich in all resources, 
 full of honours, and ennobled by virtue. This is the work I would have him 
 accomplish, even the greatest and best of services to mankind.' 
 
 This consideration our friend Pompeius has at no time 2 
 thought of, least of all in the present dispute. Both have 
 been seeking for absolute power : it has not been their aim 
 to make the State happy and virtuous. Nor in truth did he 
 leave Rome because he despaired of defending it, nor yet 
 Italy because he was forced out of her, but from the very first 
 this was his intention, to ransack every land and every sea, to 
 arouse the passions of barbarous kings, to bring whole nations 
 of armed savages into Italy, to get immense armies together. 
 Such a reproduction of Sulla's tyranny he has long been 
 hankering after, and there are many with him who want to 
 see it. Do you think they have no common ground — that no 
 conditions could have been made between them? There 
 might this very day, only that our happiness does not enter 
 into the visee of either ; each wants to be despot. 
 
 These views I have propounded briefly at your request, 3 
 since you wanted me to give my opinion about our present 
 troubles. So I warn you tfavance, my dear friend, though 
 I am in no fine frenzy, like the maid whom nobody believed, 
 but merely guessing the future according to my lights, of some- 
 thing now 'far o'er the main.' 2 Yes, I cannot but prophesy 
 much in her strain : so big with woes is the mournful ' tale of 
 Troy ' now hanging over our heads. 
 
 There is this too which makes our case who stopped at 
 home worse than theirs who went in a body across the seas, 
 that while they dread only one of the combatants, we dread 
 
 2 Cicero is alluding to a wild prophecy by Cassandra of the fall of Troy in 
 Ennius's play 'Alexander,' which is given more at length in De Div. i. 31. 
 It may be thus rendered : — 
 
 ' Grows a fleet far o'er the main, 
 Myriad horrors fill her train ! 
 Lo, they come — along the shore 
 White-winged ships fierce hosts shall pour. ' 
 
i 9 6 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet ra, 
 
 4 both. Why did we stop behind then ? Well, perhaps because 
 we took your advice, or perhaps because we never fell in with 
 the others, or this was the better course. You will see, I 
 assure you, this very next summer unhappy Italy trodden 
 under foot by slaves, raked together on both sides from every 
 species under the sun. Nor is a proscription, which is said 
 to have been talked of by so many people at Luceria, so much 
 to be dreaded as utter extermination : 3 so crushing, I see, will 
 be the force exerted on both sides. Here you have my pre- 
 diction. Perhaps however you have been looking for a little 
 bit of consolation. I do not see my way to any : we could 
 not possibly be more wretched, more utterly lost, more dis- 
 graced than we are. 
 
 6 As to your question what Caesar has written to me, it is 
 the usual thing — that my remaining neutral is a great obliga- 
 tion to him personally, and he begs that I will steadily adhere 
 to it. Balbus the younger gives the same injunctions. What 
 he was on his way for was to convey a letter from Caesar to 
 the consul Lentulus, with a promise of rewards if he would 
 turn back to Rome. But in fact, on reckoning the days, I 
 rather think he will cross before a meeting can possibly occur. 
 
 6 I wanted you to notice the indifference shown in these two 
 letters I had from Pdmpeius, and the care I myself took in 
 
 7 replying, and have sent you copies of both. 4 I am watching 
 for the effect of this forced march of Caesar's on Brundisium 
 by way of Apulia. May it be like a chapter of Parthian 
 history ! As soon as I have heard anything to speak of I will 
 write to you, and I expect from you what the good sort of 
 people are saying. I am told there are a great many of them 
 at Rome. Of course I know that you do not go among the 
 public, but still you cannot help hearing a good ' deal. I re- 
 member your receiving a book, ' De Concordia,' that was sent 
 you [I know] by Demetrius of Magnesia. This I should be 
 much obliged if you would let me have. You see what is the 
 part I am conning. 
 
 3 The exact text here is uncertain, but the general sense is clear. 
 
 4 These two letters are Ad Att. viii. n A (Eetter xlix.) and C ; the reply is 
 viii. 1 1 B (Letter L. ) 
 
BP. lviti." FROM BALBUS. (AD ATT. VIII. 15 A.) 197 
 
 LVIL (AD ATT. VIII. 13.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 About March 1, 705 A.V.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 Let my use of an amanuensis be a sign of the weakness 1 
 in my eyes, and a reason too for the shortness of my letter : 
 though indeed at present there is nothing to write about ; all 
 our attention is fixed on the news from Brundisium. Suppos- 
 ing he has succeeded in overtaking our chief, then there is a 
 faint hope of peace ; but if he finds Pompeius gone across 
 already, there is danger of a bloody war. But do you appre- 
 ciate the man into whose hands the country has fallen — how 
 lynx-eyed he is, how watchful, how ready ? Upon my word, 
 if it should prove that he has put nobody to death, and has 
 not taken a single thing from anybody, he will be intensely 
 popular with the very people who before had dreaded him 
 most. I get a good deal of talk with the people of the 2 
 country-towns, a good deal with the small farmers : they care 
 for absolutely nothing but their fields, their little farm-houses, 
 their paltry savings. And see how the conditions are reversed : 
 they dread the man they formerly trusted ; they love the one 
 they used to fear. I cannot but bitterly reflect what follies 
 and crimes ours must have been to bring us to this. As to 
 what I believe is coming I have written to you, and am now 
 awaiting your answer. 
 
 LVIII. (AD ATT. VIII. 15 A.) 
 
 FROM THE ELDER BALBUS AT ROME TO CICERO AT FORMIAE. 
 About March 1, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 Lucius Cornelius Balbus the elder, a. native of Gades, had received the 
 gift of Roman citizenship from Pompeius, the validity of which was defended 
 by Cicero in the extant speech ' Pro Balbo.' He had been much trusted by 
 the triumvirs, and was now Caesar's financial agent at Rome. The adhesion 
 of Cicero, diplomatically suggested under the guise of mediation, would at this 
 period have been valuable, since a course that he was known to take would 
 
198 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet hi. 
 
 probably be followed by nearly all the waverers. Balbus is referred to in 
 Letters xxxiii. 2 ; xliv. 6 ; Ixxxv. 2. His nephew and namesake mentioned in 
 the last sentence of the letter is spoken of also in lv. 4 ; Ixxxii. 1. 
 
 Long, v. 30; Abeken, 293; Forsyth, 368; Froude, Caesar, 411; and 
 compare Letter lx. 
 
 My dear Cicero, 
 I earnestly commend a charge to you — a scheme well 
 worthy of your noble character, for bringing back Caesar and 
 Pompeius, estranged as they have been by the machinations 
 of others, to their former harmony. Believe me, Caesar will 
 not only place himself entirely under your directions, but will 
 consider himself indebted to you for a very great kindness if 
 you devote yourself to this. I should like to see Pompeius 
 do the same, but, as times are, I rather wish than hope to see 
 him consent to any terms at all. Once let him stop however 
 and get rid of this panic, and then I shall begin not to despair 
 of your authority having the very greatest weight with him. 
 
 ! Your wish that my friend Lentulus [the consul] should 
 remain in this country was gratifying to Caesar, while to myself, 
 I give you my word of honour, it was more than a gratification, 
 since I esteem him so highly that Caesar himself is not more 
 dear to me. If he had only permitted me to converse with 
 him as of old, and not turned his back on my overtures again 
 and again, I should be less wretched than I am. I entreat 
 you not to think that anybody can possibly suffer more than I 
 do at seeing one whom I love better than myself in the posi- 
 tion of a consul, but anything rather than a consul in reality. 
 Should he however once consent to be guided by you and 
 take my guarantee for Caesar, and to complete his period of 
 office at Rome, I shall begin to hope that with the sanction of 
 the Senate itself, when it has you to support the question and 
 Lentulus to put it to the house, some harmonious agreement 
 may yet be made between Pompeius and Caesar. This once 
 accomplished I shall consider that my life's work is done. 
 
 3 I know you will entirely approve of Caesar's way of dealing 
 with Corfinium, for circumstances being what they were,,nothing 
 better could fall out than that the affair should end without 
 bloodshed. I am very glad to hear that you were pleased 
 that your friend, my nephew Balbus, called upon you. What- 
 ever he has pledged himself to you for on Caesar's behalf, and 
 
ep. lix. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. VIII. 16.) 
 
 199 
 
 whatever Caesar's letters have promised, I am quite confident 
 that he has written in perfect sincerity ; and so his acts will 
 prove to you, whatever be the turn his fortunes take. 
 
 LIX. (AD ATT. VIII. 16.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 March 4, 705 A.v.C. (49 B.C.) 
 
 I have got everything ready except some safe and secret 1 
 road to the Adriatic, because one cannot venture upon our 
 waters at this time of year. But how am I to get to the place 
 where my feeling inclines and where my duty calls me ? For 
 go I must, and quickly, lest I be trapped and tied by some ill 
 chance. It is not the man himself however who is the attrac- 
 tion, as is supposed ; for I find him now to be as mauvais 
 general among generals as I knew him long ago to be mauvais 
 politique among statesmen. It is not he therefore who is the 
 inducement, but the talk of people about which I hear from 
 Philotimus, who tells me I am much 'cut up' now by the 
 ' nobles.' Nobles indeed ! Good heavens ! look how they 
 are hastening out in processions ; look how they are bargaining 
 themselves away to Caesar. To the country-towns indeed he 
 is really divine : none of the hypocrisy with which they used 
 to offer prayers for his rival during his illness. 1 The fact is, 2 
 that any violent act our modern Peisistratus 2 is thought to 
 have abstained from doing gives as much pleasure as if he had 
 stopped somebody else from doing it : he, they hope, may 
 prove benignant; his rival they fancy in a furious passion. 
 Do you take into account what an accueii he gets from the 
 crowd out of every town, what compliments are paid him ? All 
 fear, you will say. Just so, but then I give you my word it is 
 rather of his antagonist : they are charmed with the artful 
 moderation of one ; they shudder at the violence of the other. 
 
 1 This was about a year before. The allusion in Juvenal, x. 284, is well 
 known. 
 
 2 Peisistratus was the accepted type of a benevolent monarch, which 
 character Caesar had now established, as Phalaris was of a cruel one. 
 
200 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 Those who are on the jury-list of the three hundred and fifty, 
 and used to be the chief admirers of our Pompeius, are now 
 (I see one or other of them every day) horrified at something 
 or other of his Lucerian proceedings ; 3 and so, Task, who are 
 your ' nobles ' that they should try to drive me out from Italy 
 while they themselves stop at home ? But still, be they what 
 they may, 
 
 ' Ne mihi Pulydamas et Troiades — .' 4 
 
 Yet I see clearly all that I can hope for if I do start ; and I 
 am casting in my lot with one who is not so much prepared 
 for conquest as for laying Italy waste — in a word, 6 who will be 
 all I take him to be. Indeed, while penning these lines on 
 the 4th, I am expecting news from Brundisium. News indeed ! 
 — how he had disgraced himself by running away from there, 
 and by what road or in what direction his conqueror is return- 
 ing. When I have ascertained this, if he comes by the Appian 
 road, I think I shall to Arpinum. 
 
 LX. (AD ATT. IX. 6 A.) 
 
 FROM CAESAR AT BRUNDISIUM TO CICERO AT FORMIAE. 
 
 Early in March, 705 A. v. c. (49 B. c. ) 
 
 See Introduction to Letter xlix. 
 
 I had barely seen our friend Furnius, and was not able to 
 talk to him or hear his news without inconvenience to myself, 
 being, as I am, in a great hurry, indeed actually on the march, 
 and with my troops already gone on in advance, but I could 
 not let the opportunity pass of writing you a letter and getting 
 
 3 Eius Lucerias must mean, if anything, the proscription which had been 
 talked of at Luceria. See Letter lvi. 4. But the expression is scarcely toler- 
 able, though no satisfactory correction has been made. 
 
 4 Persius, i. 4 ; which is an allusion to the line of Homer (II. vi. 442 ; xxii. 
 105) quoted by Cicero. He means that he cannot face the sneers of his party, 
 however he may despise its members. 
 
 6 Demum (Manutius) is the simplest and not improbable correction of 
 domum. 
 
TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. IX. 7.) 
 
 him to convey it, and with it my thanks ; though I have done 
 this already many times, and it seems to me I shall have to 
 do so many times more, so well do you deserve this from me. 
 I must particularly request that, since I trust shortly to come 
 to the neighbourhood of Rome, I may see you there to avail 
 myself of your judgment, your influence, your position, and 
 your assistance in all that concerns me. To return to the 
 point : x excuse this hurry and the shortness of my letter : 
 anything further you will be able to hear from Furnius. 
 
 LXI. (AD ATT. IX. 7.) % 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 March 13, 705A.V.C. (49 B.C.) 
 
 I had written a letter to you to be sent on the 12th, but 1 
 the person to whom I intended to entrust it did not start that 
 day. However, on that very same day came the messenger 
 ' with flying feet ' (that was Salvius's description of him to me), 
 and brought your very full letter, which infused into me, so to 
 speak, some ' fleeting drops of life ;' for absolutely restored I 
 cannot say I am. But still what you have done for me is 
 certainly not a mere pis aller ; for, believe me, my one object 
 no longer now is to secure a happy ending, since I see it is 
 the fact that, whether both of them survive or only the one, 
 we shall never again have a free constitution. Therefore I 
 neither indulge in any visions of a quiet life for ourselves, nor 
 struggle against any measures, however harsh. The one thing 
 I used to be much afraid of was lest I should commit, or, 
 perhaps I should say, had already committed anything un- 
 worthy. So you may be sure that the letters you sent did me 2 
 good ; not only this longer one, which could not possibly be 
 
 1 Compare Letter cv. , where ad propositum is used in this sense. Boot 
 however renders ' I will return to this subject hereafter, ' and Hofmann ' I will 
 now return to the work I have in hand. ' Mr. Watson follows Boot here, but 
 in Letter cv. he renders it ' to resume. ' Ut revertar would certainly, as he 
 says, be more usual, but revertar is perhaps drawn into the same construction 
 as ignosces. 
 
202 LETTERS OF CICERO. part m. 
 
 more explicit or more complete, but also your shorter one. 
 Nothing gave me more delight in the latter than that my con- 
 duct and its motive met with the approval of Sextus Peducaeus : 
 and it is- a real pleasure to me that I owe this to you, of whose 
 affection and keen sense of honour I am always sure. But 
 your longer letter relieved not only me but all my friends from 
 anxiety; so I will take your advice and stop in my house 
 at Formiae, lest on the one hand my going to join in the 
 accueil he will receive when near town should attract attention, 
 or on the other my not seeing him either here or there should 
 
 3 make him think I purposely avoided him. As to your advice 
 that I should ask him to allow me to show that regard for 
 Pompeius which I have already done for himself, you will find 
 from the letter of Balbus and Oppius (of which I send a copy) 
 that that has long been my object. I enclose also Caesar's 
 letter to them, which is written in a sane enough spirit, at 
 least considering the depth of his insanity. But if Caesar will 
 not make me this concession, I see what you would like is 
 that I should try to bring about some pour-parlers to forward 
 a peace. Well, I am not much afraid of the risk — when there 
 are so many of them hanging over our heads why should I 
 not compound by taking the most respectable ? — but I am 
 afraid of laying any load on Pompeius — lest I should see his 
 angry brow bent upon me 'effulgens Gorgone saeva.' 1 It is 
 indeed perfectly astonishing how our friend has set his heart 
 on a despotism modelled on Sulla's — -Je park a ton escient. 
 He was never more open about anything. ' Is this the man 
 then,' you will say, 'you would range yourself with?' Believe 
 me, it is his past kindness, not his cause that leads me on ; as 
 
 i it was with Milo, and with — but I'll say no more. Is his 
 cause then not good ? Good ! it is the best of causes, but it 
 will be advanced, mind you, by the foulest means. His first 
 object is to take Rome and Italy by the throat and starve 
 
 1 Aen. ii. 616. The line of Homer quoted (Odyss. xi. 634) refers to the 
 fear of Odysseus lest Pallas should send some terrible spectre to meet his gaze ; 
 and this is — rather too magniloquently — applied by Cicero to his own fear of 
 the angry look of Pompeius, and the ' red spectre ' of a proscription. Com- 
 pare Tennyson, Maud, 
 
 ' Gorgonised me from head to foot 
 With a stony British stare.' 
 
ep. lxi. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. IX. 7.) 203 
 
 them ; then to waste and fire the country, and not to keep his 
 hand from plundering rich people : but as I fear just the same 
 from this side too, if I did not feel I owed a service to him, I 
 should think it better to bear at home whatever might happen. 
 But I hold that he has deserved so well of me that I dare not 
 risk being thought an ingrat ; though even of that have pro- 
 pounded a fair defence. 
 
 About my triumph I agree with you : indeed you will find 6 
 I have freely and fully given up all thoughts of it. I like 
 your idea very much indeed, that while we are moving about, 
 a good time for starting ' avec vent et marie ' may come almost 
 without our knowing it. If only, you say, he prove firm 
 enough ! As to firmness, he has more than even we ex- 
 pected : on that point you may be easy. I promise you, if 
 he is to get the upper hand, he will not leave a single tile on 
 a roof in Italy. And shall I then be found on his side ? 
 Yes, upon my word, it is against my own better judgment and 
 against the examples of history that I want to go, and not so 
 much to help what is done on his side, as to avoid seeing 
 what is done on this ; for you must not dream that you will 
 be able to put up with the mad passions of this party, or that 
 they will take one form only. Though indeed can you 
 possibly fail to see, that with law, and justice, and the Senate 
 alike swept away, neither private nor public resources can be 
 enough for the cravings and the license, the profusion and the 
 neediness, of so many of the neediest of mankind ? So let us 
 away by any passage we can get, though that indeed shall be 
 left to you, but anyhow let us away, because by then we shall 
 know what you are waiting for now, namely, how matters have 
 ended at Brundisium. 
 
 I am exceedingly glad (if there is room left for gladness 6 
 nowadays) that men who are on the right side approve, as 
 you say they do, of the way I have acted hitherto, and that 
 they know I have not left the country. I will inquire more 
 closely about Lentulus's views : this duty I entrusted to 
 Philotimus, a bold man, and an ultra aristocrat. 
 
 Lastly, if, as may be, you are at a loss for something to 7 
 write about — for one could not possibly write at the present 
 time on any other theme, and what more can now be elicited 
 
204 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 on this? — still as you have not only ample talents for the 
 purpose (upon my word I am saying what I really feel), but 
 also an affection which gives a stimulus to my talents as well, 
 go on as you are doing and write as much as ever you can. 
 I am slightly indignant that you do not ask me to come to 
 Epirus ; I am not a bad companion. But I must say good- 
 bye : just as you have to go for your walk or your shampooing, 
 so I have now to go to bed : indeed it is your letter which 
 has given me some hope of sleep. 
 
 LXII. (AD ATT. IX. 9.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 March 17, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 1 On the 1 6th of this month I received three letters from 
 you, which were dated the 12th, 13th, and 14th, so I will 
 answer them all in order of seniority. I agree with you that I 
 had best stop where I am in my house at Formiae, and also 
 about the Adriatic; and I will try, as I said in my letter 
 before, whether by any possible means I can get leave from 
 him not to touch anything whatever that has to do with political 
 questions. You praise me for telling you that I put out of 
 mind the old doings and demerits of our friend : and indeed 
 that is literally ' the case with me. Even the instances you 
 refer to of his dealing hardly by me I never recall ; so anxious 
 am I to let my recollection of kindnesses outweigh my resent- 
 ment of injuries. Let me do therefore as you advise, and 
 pull myself together ; for as soon as ever I begin going about 
 the country je fais le philosophe, and as I go I cannot give up 
 thinking over my ' Problems,' 1 but there are some of these 
 which are extremely difficult to determine. As to our nobles, 
 let us say by all means that your view is correct, but you know 
 
 1 A subject for discussion of general principles only is diets ; of particular 
 circumstances iirSdeais. Haec igitur quaestio a propriis personis et temporibus 
 ad unlversi generis orationem traducta appellatur Qiais. — Cic. Orator, 14, 46- 
 
bp. lxii. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. IX. 9.) 205 
 
 the Greek proverb about Dionysius at Corinth. 2 Titinius's 
 son is to be found with Caesar. As to your little pretence of 
 being afraid that your advice might not be very welcome to 
 me, the truth is that the only pleasure I have is in your counsel 
 and your letters. So put your professions into practice : 
 never forget to write to me whatever has come into your head : 
 nothing can possibly give me more pleasure. 
 
 Now I come to the second letter. You are quite right in 2 
 being incredulous about the number of soldiers ; Clodia's 3 
 letter puts it too high by just one-half. It is false too about 
 the ships having been disabled. As for your praise of the 
 consuls, I myself admire their intentions, but do not think 
 much of their judgment, because their departure has swept 
 away all negotiating for peace, which is what I was projecting. 
 After this, therefore, I have returned your ' Demetrius on The 
 Blessings of Peace,' which I entrusted to the care of Philotirhus ; 
 nor do I feel any doubt in fact but that a bloody war is 
 impending, of which the opening scene will be a famine. 4 
 Yet this is the war in which I sigh that I have no part ! a war 
 in which the mass of iniquity will be so vast that while it is 
 an abominable crime to neglect the support of our parents, 
 our leaders think they must murder by starvation that most 
 aged and venerable of all parents — the Fatherland. Moreover, 
 my fears are not founded on mere conjecture ; on the contrary,' 
 I was present at their discussions. All this fleet of ours — 
 
 2 Compare Tusc. Disp. iii. 12, 27 : Est autem impudens luctus maerpre_se 
 conficientis, quod imperare non liceat liberis. Dionysius quideffi, tyrdhytus, 
 Syracusis expulsus, Corinthi pueros docebat ; -usque eo imp'erip carer£?i$h 
 poterat. ' Mr. Watson, taking the saying as proverbial of the incotist^^jcf 
 fortune, suggests that the meaning is, ' But if Caesar were to fail, what would 
 the optimates then say?' But unless the proverb was differently applied in the 
 two passages, which is improbable, that in the Tusc. Disp. seems to determine 
 Cicero's application of it to a lust for power under any circumstances. The 
 precise application must necessarily be more or less uncertain without the 
 letter of Atticus which is here commented on ; Cicero perhaps means, ' I do 
 not dispute your view of the probable action of the nobles ; but remember 
 that what they intend is in any case power for themselves. ' The Dionysius 
 referred to is the younger one, who was expelled from Syracuse by Timoleon. 
 The story seems to have been well known, and is frequently quoted, like the 
 similar fate pf Louis Philippe. Compare Letter lxxxvii. § 1, where Cicero 
 jokingly applies it to his own instruction of Hirtius and Dolabella in rhetoric. 
 
 3 Not the famous Clodia, but the mother-in-law of the tribune Lucius 
 Metellus. 
 
206 LETTERS OF CICERO. PAET in. 
 
 from Alexandria, Colchis, Tyre, Sidon, Aradus, Cyprus, Pam- 
 phylia, Lycia, Rhodes, Chios, Byzantium, Lesbos, Smyrna, 
 Miletus, and Cos — is now being got together for the purpose 
 of cutting off the supplies of Italy and seizing on our corn- 
 growing provinces. Then what a rage he will come in — 
 especially indeed with those who most wished for his safety, 
 as though the people had left him whom he himself left 
 behind ! And so while I am in doubt what is the right thing 
 for me to do, my liking for him is a heavy weight in the scale : 
 take that away, and it would be better to die in one's father- 
 land, than overthrow one's fatherland by trying to save it. 
 
 That is certainly true about the north : Epirus, I fear, may 
 be overrun. But what spot in Greece do you suppose will 
 not be plundered ? For he openly professes, and holds out 
 the expectation to his soldiers, that even in the bounties to 
 be given he will outstrip his rival. This is an excellent hint 
 of yours, not to show too much deference when I have an 
 interview with the latter, but rather to speak as one in 
 authority. That is undoubtedly what one ought to do. I 
 think I shall to Arpinum when our meeting is over, so that 
 I may not be absent by any chance when he arrives, nor on 
 the other hand have to be running backwards and forwards 
 on such an abominable road. I hear that Bibulus arrived as 
 you mention, and that he started off again on the 14th. 
 3 Your third letter tells me you were expecting Philotimus, 
 whereas he only left me on the 15th, and that is the reason 
 why my answer to your letter, to which I replied immediately, 
 is late in coming to hand. As to Domitius, it is, I think, as 
 you say : namely that he is on his estate at Cosa, and that his 
 intentions there are a secret. 4 That basest and most abject 
 of human beings, who asserts that a praetor has the right to 
 hold an election of consuls, is only true to his invariable 
 character in politics. 5 And so of course here we have the 
 meaning of what Caesar says in the letter of which I sent 
 
 4 He was really equipping a small fleet at Cosa in order to occupy Massilia. 
 See Introd. to Letter lxxvi . ; Merivale, ii. 172. 
 
 5 This ferocious onslaught probably refers to Marcus Lepidus, afterwards., 
 a member of the second triumvirate ; since he. being one of the praetors for 
 this year, could, if the point were established that a praetor might in the 
 
ep. lxii. TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. IX. 9.) 207 
 
 you a copy: 6 that he wanted to avail himself of my 'judg- 
 ment ' — well, let that pass ; so far it is only a conventional 
 expression : my ' influence ' — that is ridiculous, but I suppose 
 he is making a pretence of this to catch certain votes in the 
 Senate : my ' position ' — perhaps he wants the support of one 
 who has been a consul : and, to wind up, ' my assistance 
 in all that concerned him.' After your letter I began to 
 suspect that here we had the real explanation, or something 
 very like it. For it is of the greatest importance to him 
 that there should be no interregnum : now if a consul can be 
 declared elected by a praetor he gains his point. We how- 
 ever find in our Statutes not only that a praetor cannot 
 declare a consul elected, but that even for praetors such an 
 election is illegal, and has no precedent. In the case of 
 consuls it is forbidden because it is declared 'illegal' for a 
 higher office to depend for its institution on a lower one ; 
 while with praetors it is because they are elected solely to 
 be the colleagues of the consuls, who hold the higher office. 
 We shall not be far out in supposing that he wants me to 
 sanction this, and will' not be satisfied with having Galba, and 
 Scaevola, and Cassius, and Antonius. 
 
 ' Sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ima dehiscat.' 7 
 
 You see however what a storm is hanging overhead. 
 
 I will let you know the names of those members of the 4 
 Senate who have crossed the sea as soon as I have certain 
 information. You are right in your view about the commis- 
 sariat. It cannot possibly be served without regular supplies 
 of money ; nor are your fears without reason both of the 
 insatiable demands of those men who now have our general's 
 ear, and of an iniquitous war. I should certainly like to see 
 our good friend Trebatius all the same, even though he is, 
 you tell me, quite despondent. Be sure you press him to 
 
 absence of the consuls (who were now in Epirus) assume their functions, 
 render an important service to Caesar by holding a legal election for the 
 consulship. See Merivale, ii. 225. The constitutional difficulty was eventually 
 solved by Caesar's being made dictator, and presiding at the election in that 
 capacity. ° This refers to Letter lx. 
 
 7 Aen. iv. 24, which is a rendering of the line quoted by Cicero, Iliad, iv. 
 182. 
 
2oS LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 make haste; because it will be convenient for him to have 
 paid me this visit before Caesar comes. 
 
 As to your purchase at Lanuvium, I had no sooner heard 
 that Phamea was dead than I wished (supposing we were 
 to be a free country at all) that it might fall to one of my 
 friends ; and yet somehow I never even thought of you my 
 greatest of all ; because I had seen your cipher 8 at Delos as 
 well as at Rome, and I knew your idea is generally to inquire 
 in how many years a place will begin to pay, and what is the 
 value of the whole stock on the estate. Still, pretty as it is, 
 I for my part think less of it now than I used to in the days 
 when Marcellinus was consul, when I fancied that those very 
 grounds of yours would, considering that I had a house at 
 Antium, give me more pleasure and come to less expense 
 than if I had been able to rebuild my house at Tusculum. I 
 offered ,£45 00, 9 and negotiated with a surety to pay the 
 money over, as the landlord was then offering it for sale at 
 Antium ; he refused it. But all this class of property is now, 
 I suppose, a drug in the market, owing to the tightness of 
 money. Certainly it will be very convenient for me, or rather 
 for both of us, when you have bought it. But mind you do 
 not make too little of his insane hobbies: it is an extremely 
 pretty place. All such ones however seem to me as if they 
 were already under sentence of devastation. I have now 
 answered your three letters, but I am hoping for more, for 
 your letters have hitherto been my support. 
 
 Formiae, the feast of Bacchus. 10 
 
 8 The general explanation of digamma is that it represents F, iotfenus = 
 interest, or fundi = estate, and so is virtually equivalent to ' ledger ' or ' rent- 
 roll. ' Boot remarks that he can see clearly enough what to avoid (namely all 
 explanations that have been suggested), but cannot see what to accept 
 
 9 Adopting the reading HS.Q. (= 500,000 sesterces) for N. S. Q. But 
 the whole passage is not only obscure but suspicious. Boot points out that 
 besides the strange construction egi daret, a surety could hardly be required 
 when no bargain was made. 
 
 10 The Liberalia = March 17. Tertia post Idus lux est celeteirima 
 Baccho. Ovid, Fasti, Hi. 713. 
 
bp. lxiii. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. IX. 10.) 209 
 
 LXIII. (AD ATT. IX. 10.) ^\- 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 March 18, 705 A.V.C. (49 B.C.) 
 
 At last Pompeius quitted Italy, to which he never again returned. The 
 great rendezvous was fixed at Thessalonica. The consuls with the larger half 
 of the army, which was about 30,000 in all, had sailed for Dyrrachium on the 
 4th of March ; on the 9th Caesar arrived before Brundisium and began a siege. 
 He attempted also to close the mouth of the harbour by moles and a floating 
 bridge, but Pompeius skilfully succeeded in keeping it open until the trans- 
 ports returned from Greece on the 17th, when, in spite of the hostility of the 
 town, he withdrew all but two vessels safely, and sailed for Dyrrachium. 
 
 It must be at once obvious that this immediate throwing down of the cards 
 was no panic-stricken flight from Italy, as Cicero usually represents it ; but 
 part of a deep-laid scheme, which (see § 6 of this letter) he himself admits to 
 have been fully resolved on two years before. We must remember that in 
 the East the influence of Pompeius, the ' king of kings, ' was still paramount, 
 while Caesar there was all but unknown. Now a victory over Caesar in Italy 
 would mean a victory for the Senate and the haughty nobles, who by no means 
 intended to leave supreme power in the hands of Pompeius. (Compare Letter 
 lxii. note 3. ) Out of Italy it would mean a triumph over the Senate also, and 
 would thus leave Pompeius supreme in the Republic. Mommsen asserts (iv. 
 382) that his intention had been — as was certainly the general belief at the 
 time — to go to Spain, where he had a strong army under Varro, Afranius, and 
 Petreius ; but that the rapidity of Caesar prevented his embarking from Cam- 
 pania instead of Brundisium. But this leaves no adequate explanation why, 
 being master of the sea, he should still not have reverted to this plan, and it 
 is perhaps more probable that he intended from the first to select Greece as 
 the theatre of the war. See on the whole subject an important passage of 
 Merivale, ii. 150-163 ; Mommsen, iv. 376-383 ; Long, v. ch. 3. 
 
 An enumeration of the relative forces will be found in Mommsen, iv. 362- 
 372, 400-402 ; Merivale, ii. 239-243 ; and Watson, Appendix vii. 
 
 I have nothing at all to write, for I have not heard any 1 
 news, and I answered all your letters yesterday ; but since my 
 anxiety not only deprives me of sleep, but will not even be 
 satisfied with keeping me awake unless it is in utter wretched- 
 ness, I have determined to write something to you, even without 
 any subject ready, in order to keep up as it were a conversation 
 with you, the only thing which tranquillises me. I seem to 2 
 myself to have acted like a madman from the first ; and the 
 one thing which tortures me is that I did not follow Pompeius, 
 when by every one of his acts he was drifting — or rather 
 rushing — to ruin, just as if I had been one of the rank and 
 
 p 
 
210 LETTERS OF CICERO. paetiii. 
 
 file. When I saw him on the 1 7th of January he was a panic- 
 stricken man ; and that very day I felt sure what was his 
 intention. Since that time he has never had my approval, 
 nor has he once ceased adding blunder to blunder. Meanwhile, 
 no writing to me — no thinking of anything beyond flight I 
 Well, just as in les affaires d'amour ladies who are wanting in 
 delicacy, or intelligence, or modesty, disenchant one, so the 
 ugly look of his running away without caring about me put a 
 stop to my affection ; for he never acted in a way to deserve 
 that I should make myself a partner of his flight. At the 
 present time my affection is coming again to the surface; I 
 cannot just now endure our separation. As to my books, my 
 studies, my philosophy, they have nothing that will do me any 
 good now. For whole days and nights, like the often-quoted 
 bird, 1 I gaze at the sea, longing to fly away. It is a penalty : 
 yes, I am paying the penalty of my rash confidence. Yet 
 where was the rashness in it ? What did I ever do without 
 the fullest deliberation? Had there been no object beside 
 that of escaping, of course I would have escaped with the 
 greatest pleasure ; but it was a war on the most cruel and ex- 
 tensive scale (and the real meaning of this is just what people 
 even yet do not see) which horrified me. What threats those 
 were against the country-towns — against really worthy indi- 
 vidual citizens — even against all who should be found to have 
 stayed behind ! How the phrase recurred : ' Sulla succeeded, 
 3 shall I not succeed ?' Then again I could not get rid of such 
 thoughts as these. Tarquinius acted badly, who appealed to 
 Porsena and to Octavius Mamilius against his own country; 
 Coriolanus very wickedly, who entreated aid from the Volscians; 
 Themistocles virtuously, who chose death in preference. 
 Hippias, the son of Peisistratus, who fell at the battle of 
 Marathon in arms against his own country, was a villain. But 
 surely Sulla, and Cinna, and Marius acted rightly ? Well, let 
 us say rather, perhaps, that they had a claim of right, 2 but 
 
 1 ■ After this then Dionysius and I lived there (at Syracuse) : I meanwhile, 
 like a bird, with far-off gaze, longing for the opportunity to fly away.' — Plato, 
 Ep. vii. 348 A. 
 
 2 Mr. Watson, though he adopts Boot's punctuation of a full stop after 
 recte, makes recie = utiliter, and immo iure fortasse — ' perhaps they even 
 had right on their side,' — thus making iure the stronger word. Orelli and 
 
ep. lxiii. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. IX. 10.) 211 
 
 what could be more savage, what more deadly, than the way 
 their triumph was carried out ? It was the essential character 
 of this war I shrank from, and all the more because I saw 
 that even worse atrocities were being planned and prepared. 
 Was I to bring up Thracian, Armenian, and Colchian hordes 
 against yonder city of which not a few have called me 
 ' preserver ' and ' father ' ? Was I to bring famine on my own 
 countrymen, desolation on Italy? As for the man himself, 3 
 I reflected, to begin with, that he must be mortal, and then 
 moreover that there were various ways in which he might 
 possibly be cut off at once, while I held that it was my duty, 
 as far as in me lay, to preserve our city and nation so long as 
 the world shall last. At the same time no doubt I was flattered 
 by some sort of hope that a basis of agreement would surely 
 be found before the one would proceed to such a crime, the 
 other to such cruel enormities. The whole scene is now 
 changed ; my own feeling is changed : it seems, in the expres- 
 sion of one of your letters, as though for me the sun had fallen 
 out of the sky. As we say of sick people, ' while there is life 
 there is hope,' so, as long as Pompeius was in Italy, I never 
 gave up hoping. This is the point where I was deceived ; 
 while — to be quite candid — my age declining from the toils of 
 day towards its rest softened me with thoughts of the pleasures 
 of home. Now, although the attempt be dangerous, I shall 
 certainly make it, and fly away from this spot. Perhaps it 
 should have been before, but all that I have just been telling 
 you kept me back, and so above all did your advice. For 4 
 after writing thus far I have opened a packet of your letters, 
 which I keep under seal, and guard most carefully. Well, in 
 
 Matthiae put the full stop after fortasse, which seems to imply a similar inter- 
 pretation. But this is a very unusual meaning to give to recte, which, as 
 Boot, following Manutius, argues, must convey stronger approbation than 
 iure, the latter not necessarily implying anything more than a legal or technical 
 right. Cicero's argument seems to be that Sulla, Cinna, and Marius perhaps 
 acted within their rights, because they did not appeal to foreign invaders 
 against their own country, but that their atrocious use of their triumph forbids 
 us to give them the unqualified approbation of having acted ' rightly.' 
 
 3 This is very dogmatically referred to Caesar by Mr. Froude, Caesar, 
 414, but by sounder critics, including Mr. Watson, to Pompeius. Cicero 
 then means that one's country has higher claims than a friend, inasmuch as 
 the. friend may die, while one's country cannot. 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 the one you wrote on the 2 1 st of January I find as follows : 
 ' Let us however look as much at what Pompeius intends, as 
 ' at the drift of his rival's policy ; but if the former decides on 
 ' abandoning Italy, he will certainly be acting wrongly, and, in 
 ' my own opinion, like a downright insensS ; however it will 
 ' only be when that occurs that we shall have to upset our own 
 ' plans.' The date of this letter is four days after I left Rome. 
 Next comes, on the 2 3rd of January : ' Provided only that our 
 ' friend Pompeius does not abandon Italy, just as he, insensi 
 ' qu'il ttait, abandoned the capital.' On the very same day 
 you write a second letter, which answers my questions very 
 explicitly. It is as follows : ' To turn to the point about which 
 ' you have consulted me — supposing Pompeius does quit Italy, 
 ' you ought, I think, to return to Rome, because where is there 
 ' any limit to this travelling from place to place ? ' This made 
 a distinct impression on me, and what I now see is this — an 
 interminable war, coupled with a hopeless flight, which you — 
 
 6 par adoucissement — call 'travelling.' Then on the 27th comes 
 this pronostic. ' For my part, if Pompeius stops in Italy, and 
 ' matters do not come to some settlement, I think the war will 
 ' be somewhat protracted; but if he leaves Italy, I am of opinion 
 ' that they are paving the way for a war a outrance which will 
 ' come later on.' And this then is the war of which I am driven 
 into becoming, not the mere partaker, but the counsellor and 
 instrument — one which is a outrance, and against my own 
 countrymen ! Then on the 7 th of February, when more 
 information about Pompeius's policy was now reaching you, 
 you end one of your letters as follows : ' I at any rate could 
 ' not advise that if Pompeius quits Italy you also should 
 ' follow his flight ; there will be the greatest risk in so doing, 
 ' nor will you be forwarding the interests of our country, which 
 ' you will be able to forward hereafter supposing you have stayed 
 ' behind.' Show me the man — patriote or politique — who would 
 not be moved by such advice, coming with the authority of a 
 
 6 far-seeing man and a true friend. Next in order, on the nth 
 of February, you again answer my question thus : ' When you , 
 ' ask me whether I consider a loyal flight or an idle lingering on 
 ' the more advantageous course, I am decidedly of opinion that a 
 ' sudden departure and a precipitate movement is at the present 
 
lxiii. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. IX. 10.) 213 
 
 ' time as inadvisable and dangerous for Pompeius himself as it is 
 ' for you ; and in my opinion it will be wiser for you two to be 
 ' separated and on your posts of observation. But, upon my 
 ' word, I think it is quite a disgrace to us even to entertain 
 ' the question of flight.' Disgrace ! this is what our friend has 
 contemplated for the last two years ; so much is it the desire 
 of his heart to be a Sulla, and indulge in a proscription. This 
 is the reason probably why, when you had used some expression 
 — perhaps un peu 'vague — and I fancied that you had been 
 giving me something of a hint to leave Italy, you carefully 
 enter a protest against it on the 1 9th of February : ' I certainly 
 ' never once have hinted in any letter that, supposing Pompeius 
 ' does leave Italy, you ought to go with him; or if I did so hint, 
 ' I was, I will not say inconsistent, but quite out of my mind.' 
 Another passage from the same letter : ' There is nothing left 
 ' but flight, which I think, and always have thought, you ought 
 ' under no circumstances to take part in.' Then you discuss 7 
 the whole question in a more elaborate letter dated February 
 22: 'If Manius Lepidus and Lucius Volcatius stop behind I 
 ' think it will be right to stop, with the condition that, if 
 ' Pompeius escapes and makes a stand anywhere, you should 
 ' leave this ghastly Inferno i behind, and consent more readily 
 ' to be defeated in battle with him than to sit on a throne with 
 ' his rival, in the midst of such a sink of iniquity as we clearly 
 ' see must come.' After giving various arguments tending to 
 this conclusion, you add at the end : ' But what if Lepidus 
 ' and Volcatius take their departure ? Frankly then, je n'y vois 
 ' goutte. So whatever is the result, and however it turns out 
 ' that you have acted, il faudra m'y /aire.' Even if you had 
 had any doubts then, surely you have none now when they 
 are still here. The next is at the very time of his flight, Feb. 8 
 25 : 'Meanwhile I have no doubt you will stay in your own 
 ' house at Formiae, because that will be for you the most 
 ' convenient place pour ipier les tvenements.' On the 1st of 
 March, when he had now been four days at Brundisium : 
 
 4 Neicuia = a 'hellish troop' (Parry) or 'troop of shadows' (Merivale) ; 
 in allusion to the lean and hungry ghosts (Odyss. xi.) who nocked around 
 Odysseus to drink the blood. The phrase is quoted and approved in Letter 
 bcvii. § 2. 
 
214 LETTERS OF CICERO. part in. 
 
 ' Then we shall be able to consider the question, not of course 
 ' as if you had all your plans intact, but certainly with fewer of 
 ' them broken up than if you were to join him in his leap in the 
 ' dark.' Again, on the 4th of March, though your letter, being 
 written in immediate expectation of the acch of your illness, 6 
 is but brief, you say : ' To-morrow I will write more at length, 
 ' and answer everything; still I must- just say this, that I do 
 ' not repent of my advice to you to stay ; and though it is with 
 ' great anxiety, still, holding that this has less disadvantages than 
 ' the alternative of departure, I abide by my opinion, and am 
 
 9 ' glad that you have stayed behind.' So again when I was 
 beginning to be tormented with the fear that I might have 
 exposed myself to discreditable imputations : ' Still I am far 
 ' from dissatisfied that you are not with Pompeius. This will 
 ' give no difficulty hereafter if there is any necessity, and to 
 ' him, whenever it be, you are sure to be le Uenvenu. But when 
 1 I say this it is with the reservation that if his rival goes on for 
 ' the future like the beginning he has made, of acting with 
 ' good faith, moderation, and prudence, I shall have to make a 
 ' thorough investigation, and consider more closely what our 
 
 10 ' interests advise.' On the 9th of March you write that our 
 friend Peducaeus, whose authority has great weight with me, 
 ' also approves of my having remained quiet.' By these letters 
 of yours I can console myself into thinking that I have as yet 
 committed no fault. Only you must defend the advice you 
 yourself have given ; against attack from me there is no such 
 need, but I want other people to be aware of it. For myself, 
 if I have not done wrong hitherto, I will be on my guard for 
 the future. Do you rouse yourself to play the part I described, 
 and above all help me with the result of your reflections. 
 
 There is no news here as yet about Caesar's return. After 
 all I have gained something by this letter : I have read all 
 yours through, and in doing this I have tranquillised myself. 
 
 6 Compare Letter xliv. § 3. 
 
ep. lxiv. TO CAESAR. (A£> ATT. IX. n A.) 215 
 
 ^" LXIV. (AD ATT. IX. 1 1 A.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO CAESAR AT BRUNDISIUM. 
 March 18 (?), 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 Written in answer to Letter lx. , but since expressions from it are quoted 
 and defended in Letter lv. , there must be some confusion of date : see Intro- 
 duction to the latter. On other attempts made at this period to secure 
 Cicero's adhesion, or at least his neutrality, see Letter lviii. , and Abeken, 293. 
 
 Upon reading your letter — which I received through our 1 
 friend Furnius — requesting me to stay somewhere within 
 reach of town, I was not so much surprised at your expressing 
 a wish to avail yourself of my 'judgment' and my 'position,' 
 as doubtful of the meaning you intended to convey by my 
 'influence and assistance.' Hope however led me to the 
 interpretation of concluding that — as might be expected from 
 one of your admirable, indeed pre-eminent wisdom — you were 
 anxious that negotiations should be opened on behalf of the 
 tranquillity, peace, and union of our countrymen; for which 
 purpose I could not but reflect that both by my nature and 
 the part I have played I was well enough suited. If this be 2 
 really the case, and if you feel any desire at all to show due 
 consideration for my friend Pompeius, and bring him into 
 harmony once more both with yourself and with the Republic, 
 you will assuredly find no one better fitted for that task than 
 I am; who have ever given pacific counsels to him, and to 
 the Senate so soon as I found an opportunity. Since the 
 appeal to arms not only have I not taken the smallest part 
 in this war, but have come to the conclusion that by the war 
 a grievous wrong is done to yourself, against whose rightful 
 privileges, granted by special favour of the Roman people, the 
 attacks of the spiteful and jealous were being directed. But 
 just as at that time I not only personally supported your right- 
 ful position, but counselled everybody else to lend you their 
 assistance, so now it is the rights of Pompeius for which I 
 am deeply concerned ; because it is now several years since I 
 first selected you men as the objects of my most loyal devo- 
 tion, with whom I would choose to be united, as I now am, 
 
216 LETTERS OF CICERO. part m. 
 
 3 in ties of the closest friendship. Consequently I have this 
 request to make — say rather I implore and beseech you with 
 every plea that I can use — even among your weighty anxieties 
 to allot some time to this consideration also, how I may be 
 allowed by your kind indulgence to show myself a man of 
 honour ; one in short who is grateful and affectionate from 
 the recollection of the very great kindness he once received. 
 Even if this concerned me alone, I should still flatter myself 
 that to me you would grant it ; but in my opinion it equally 
 concerns both your own honour and the public welfare, that I, 
 who am one of a very small number, should still be retained 
 in the best possible position for promoting the harmony of you 
 two and of our fellow-countrymen. 
 
 Thpugh I have already thanked you in the matter of 
 Lentulus 1 for being the preserver of a man who had once 
 been mine, yet for my part on reading the letter which he has 
 sent me, written in a spirit of the warmest gratitude for your 
 liberality and kindness, I even pictured myself as owing to 
 you the safety which you have granted to him ; and if' this 
 shows you that I am of a grateful nature in his case, secure 
 me, I entreat you, some opportunity of showing myself no less 
 so in the case of Pompeius. 
 
 LXV. (AD ATT. IX. 12.) 
 
 FROM CICERO, PROBABLY AT FORMIAE, TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 March 21, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 1 I had finished reading your letter on the 20th, when in 
 comes information from Lepta that Pompeius is under siege, 
 and even the mouths of the harbour blocked with boats; 
 what more, upon my honour, my tears prevent me from either 
 thinking or writing about — I enclose you a copy. Wretches 
 that we are ! Why have we not all gone with him to follow 
 his fate to the end ? And now here comes the same account 
 
 1 Lentulus Spinther, the consul of 57 B. c. , who had greatly helped Cicero's 
 recall in that year (Introd. to Letter xx. ), was among those dismissed unhurt 
 by Caesar after the capture of Cornnium. (Introd. to Letter li. ) 
 
EP. lxv. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. IX. 12.) 217 
 
 from Matius and Trebatius, who fell in with Caesar's couriers 
 at Minturnae. Oh ! I am in such tortures of despair that I 
 could even envy that fate of Mucius. 1 Still how honourable, 
 how clear your advice is ! how watchfully it has been thought 
 over ! whether about my route, or my voyage, or an interview 
 and discussion with Caesar — everything is as prudent as it is 
 careful of honour. As to your invitation to Epirus indeed, 
 how kind, how generous, how brotherly it is of you. 
 
 I am astounded about Dionysius, 2 who has shown a most 2 
 indecent contempt for my reverse — a man who was treated 
 with more respect in my house than even Panaetius was at 
 Scipio's. 3 I hate the fellow, and mean to hate him. Would 
 that I could punish him ! but his own character will be his 
 punishment. 
 
 Now if ever, I entreat you, consider what I must do. 3 
 Here is an army of the Roman Republic blockading Pompeius, 
 enclosing him with trench and fosse, cutting him off from 
 escape. Are we yet alive, and is yon city standing? The 
 praetors administer justice ; the aediles are preparing for the 
 sports ; respectable citizens are booking their profits ; I myself 
 am sitting still ! Ought I to make an attempt like a madman 
 to get where he is ? Or to appeal to the loyalty of the country 
 towns ? The good citizens will not follow ; the worthless ones 
 will mock me ; the revolutionists, particularly now that they 
 are armed and triumphant, will lay hands upon me. What is 
 your opinion therefore ? Have you any prescription in your 4 
 store for ending this wretched way of living ? Now it is that 
 I feel the pain, now comes the torment; at the very time 
 when somebody is perhaps thinking that I was either very 
 prudent or very lucky for not having gone too. With me it 
 is the very reverse : I never wanted to be a partaker of his 
 
 1 See Letter liv. § 6. 
 
 2 This Dionysius, a freedman of Cicero, and tutor to young Marcus and 
 Quintus, is mentioned in Letters xxviii. § 10; xliv. § 1. His offence -seems 
 only to have been refusing to go with Cicero, who eventually forgave him ; see 
 Letter Ixxiv. § 1. Compare Forsyth, 357. 
 
 3 The Stoic philosopher Panaetius, author of the work on Moral Obligation 
 on which Cicero's '.De Officiis' is based (Letter cxxii. 4), was introduced to 
 the celebrate literary circle at the house of Scipio Aemilianus, who treated 
 him with distinguished regard. 
 
218 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet hi. 
 
 -4 
 
 triumph; far rather had I been one of his adversity. Why 
 should I now entreat your letters, why the support of your 
 prudence and friendliness ? All is over ; there is nothing now 
 that can possibly help me, who no longer have even anything 
 to wish for — except perchance that from the enemy may come 
 some merciful way of release. 
 
 LXVI. (AD ATT. IX. 16.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT FORMIAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 March 26, 705 A.V.C. (49 B.c.) 
 
 Pompeius having finally escaped from Brundisium, Caesar was now 
 returning to Rome by way of Capua and Sinuessa {Mondragone). From the 
 former place he sent the letter here enclosed to Atticus in answer to one from 
 Cicero expressing admiration of his clemency at Corfinium, on which see 
 Introduction to Letter liv. , and lviii. § 3. 
 
 Abeken, 296 ; Forsyth, 370. 
 
 1 Though I have nothing to write to you about I send this 
 letter that I may leave no day without one. It is reported 
 that Caesar will stop on the 27 th at Sinuessa. I now — the 
 26th — have received a letter from him, wherein this time he 
 ' hopes to avail himself of my means of assistance,' not merely 
 my 'assistance,' as in the previous one. 1 In answer to a letter 
 to express my admiration of the generosity he showed at 
 Corfinium, he replied as follows. 
 
 COPY OF CAESAR'S LETTER. 
 
 2 You know me too well not to keep up your character as 
 an Augur by divining that nothing is more entirely alien from 
 my nature than cruelty : I will add that while my decision is 
 in itself a great source of pleasure to me, to find my conduct 
 approved by you is a triumph of gratification. Nor does the 
 fact at all disturb me that those people whom I have set at 
 liberty are reported to have gone their ways only to renew 
 
 1 Cicero, playing on the wider meaning of opes in the plural than in the 
 singular, insinuates that Caesar wanted money this time. For the juggle oi 
 words Caesar of course is not responsible. 
 
MP. LXTil. 2V ATTICUS. (AD ATT. IX. 18.) 219 
 
 the attack upon me ; 2 because there is nothing I wish more 
 than that I may ever be as true to my own character as they 
 to theirs. 
 
 May I hope that you will be near town when I am there, 3 
 so that I may as usual avail myself in everything of your 
 advice and means of assistance ? Let me assure you that I 
 am charmed beyond everything with your relation Dolabella, 
 to whom I shall acknowledge myself indeed indebted for this 
 obligation ; for his kindliness is so great, and his feeling and 
 affection for me are such, that he cannot possibly do otherwise. 
 
 LXVII. (AD ATT. IX. 18.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ARPINUM TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 March 29, 705 A. v. c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 On the 28th Caesar arrived at Formiae from Sinuessa, and had the inter- 
 view with Cicero here described, which produced no decisive understanding. 
 ' The reader cannot but observe from this letter how much our author's style is 
 influenced by his situation. He speaks as one out of breath after a terrible 
 fright, in half-broken, short sentences.' (Guthrie's Epistles to Atticus. ) It 
 may therefore have been written on the evening of the 28th, but more probably 
 not till the 29th, since after the interview Cicero left for Arpinum, Caesar for 
 Pedum, a town lying between Tibur and Praeneste. 
 
 Merivale, ii. 166 ; Long, v. 38 ; Abeken, 297 ; Forsyth, 370, 371. 
 
 As you advised in both respects ; in the first place my 1 
 language was calculated rather to make him respect than be 
 grateful to me, and in the second I stuck to my point — no 
 going to town. Where I was deceived was in having expected 
 to find him yielding : I have never seen anything less so. My 
 decision, says he, is a censure on himself, and the others will 
 be more inclined to hang back if I have refused to come ; I 
 reply that their case is not the same. After much of this, 
 'Well, come then and propose a peaceful settlement.' 'And,' 
 say I, 'with full discretion?' 'Am I,' says he, 'to dictate to 
 ' you?' 'This,' say I, 'is what I shall propose: that in the 
 
 2 This alludes to Domitius, who on his release from Corfinium proceeded 
 to occupy Massilia, and made there a determined resistance to Caesar. See 
 Letter lxii. note 5 ; and Introd. to lxxvi. 
 
220 LETTERS OF CICERO. past in. 
 
 ' opinion of the Senate it is inexpedient that you should pro- 
 ' ceed to Spain, and that troops should be conveyed to Greece ; 
 ' and I shall,' I add, ' fully express my sympathy for Pompeius.' 
 Then he, 'But that I cannot approve of your saying.' 'Just 
 ' what I was thinking,' say I, ' but the very reason why I do not 
 ' want to be there is that I must either speak in this way, and 
 ' about many things which I could not leave unsaid on any 
 ' terms if I were there, or else not go at all.' In the end, as if 
 he was anxious to quit the discussion, 'Would I then take 
 ' time to think over it?' This could not be refused. So we 
 parted. I fancy therefore that he is not much in love with 
 me, but I am in love with myself, a feeling to which I have 
 long been a stranger. 
 
 2 As for the rest, good heavens, what a following he has ! — 
 quite an ' Inferno,' as you are fond of describing it. 1 It con- 
 tained among others Celer's man Eros ! 2 O the utter villainy 
 — the gang of desperadoes ! What do you say to a son of 
 Sulpicius and another of Titinius being actually in an army 
 besieging Pompeius ! Six legions ! and he is as watchful as 
 he is bold — I see no limit to troubles. Well, now assuredly 
 you must produce your advice ; it was agreed that this was 
 
 3 the last thing to wait for. Still that finale of his — which I had 
 all but omitted — is annoying ; that if I would not allow him 
 to avail himself of my advice, he would take that of persons 
 who were available, and condescend to all counsels alike. 
 Have I then really seen the great man, as I had said, and 
 smarted for it ? Yes, indeed I have. Give you the sequel ? 
 After that, he to his house at Pedum, I to Arpinum; from 
 
 1 See Letter lxiii. , note 4. 
 
 2 This is the commonest reading, 'Eros Celeri' or ' Ceteris ' (probably 
 some freedman of Metellus Celer), which requires indeed no alteration of the 
 text, but then the allusion remains absolutely obscure. The corrections pro- 
 posed are almost infinite, but none of them carry conviction. Hofmann 
 suggests in qua erat area sceleris ( = ' in what an arena of crime was he 
 moving,' and this, with the substitution of scelerum, is adopted without 
 comment by Mr. Parry. Koch proposes in qua erant mera scelera, to which 
 Boot inclines ; and Peerlkamp quae cohors scelerum. Others suspect the cor- 
 ruption of a Greek word : Gronovius suggests in qua erat Zpos ( = cupiditas) 
 scelerum; Kayser, K^pas {= cornu copiae) scelerum; Hermann, with elaborate 
 ingenuity, in qua ego Tetpevlas. Probably the worst of all is OreUi's in qua 
 erat ipe<sxil^t (= raillery). 
 
ep. lxviii. TO ATT/CUS. (AD ATT. X. i.) 
 
 which place I for my part am on the look-out for the always 
 cheery babillage promised in your letter. 3 Come, plague on it ! 
 you will say, no doing what is already done with. Yet even 
 the great man we follow made many mistakes. But I am 4 
 expecting your letter, for your ' let us wait and see how this 
 will turn out ' is no longer any good. This meeting of ours 
 was to be the final thing ; and as I doubt not that I have by 
 it offended our friend we must act all the more promptly. An 
 you love me, a \&\.t<ZT—politiquant too; I am so anxiously 
 looking now for what you will have to say. 
 
 LXVIII. (AD ATT. X. i.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT HIS BROTHER'S HOUSE NEAR ARPINUM TO 
 ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 April 3, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 Caesar arrived at Rome on the 1st of April, and by means of an obsolete 
 privilege of the tribunes in the absence of the consuls proceeded at once to 
 convene a Senate. A sufficient number of members were in the capital to 
 form a quorum, but nearly all the nobler and more influential ones were to be 
 found in the so-called 'Three Hundred' of the emigrants, at the 'Roman 
 Coblentz, ' as Mommsen calls it, of Thessalonica, by whom the ' Caesarean 
 Senate of nobodies ' was invariably regarded as having no legal status 
 whatever. 
 
 Caesar's next step was to seize the public treasure stored in the vaults of 
 the temple of Saturn, which, by an almost incredible oversight, had been 
 left behind by the Pompeians in their hasty flight (Letter xlvi. Introd. ) A 
 tribune, Lucius Caecilius Metellus, attempted to bar the way, and either was 
 arrested, or, as Lucan (Phars. iii. 144) describes it, gave way to threats. 
 
 3 The reading of the Medicean MS. is AAATEACAN, which has never 
 been satisfactorily corrected. AaXaycvtrav (twittering) is a mere guess of Bos, 
 introduced from Ad Att. x. 2, where it is suppbsed to mean the swallow, or 
 perhaps the cicala ; it is quite discredited by his resting it on the imaginary 
 support of his fictitious MS. Mr. Watson however adopts that reading, and 
 explains it as 'the letter that is to warn me to start with the swallows in 
 spring.' Surely this is far-fetched to an extreme degree. If XaXayevvav be 
 retained at all it would be better to interpret it as ' chirruping, ' in the sense 
 of bright, cheerful, chatty ; which seems to have been the character of Atticus's 
 letters — for he was in comparatively little danger — contrasted with the doleful 
 spirit in which Cicero now generally wrote. Boot prefers diareXovffav (sc. 
 epistulam) = ' the decisive letter ; ' and this only involves a slight change of 
 the MS. reading. But is there any authority for this use of dunehiw without 
 an object ? 
 
222 LETTERS OF CICERO. part in. 
 
 This was undoubtedly a measure to Caesar of extreme necessity, or he would 
 not thus have risked the character he had steadily maintained by his scrupulous 
 avoidance of all confiscations. (Letter lxxi. § 6. ) Leaving his ablest officers 
 in charge of the corn-provinces (see Letter lxxi v. ), and the praetor Lepidus to 
 govern the capital, he himself now hastened across the Alps and Pyrenees to 
 crush the left wing of the Pompeians in Spain. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 378-399 ; Merivale, ii. 164-170 ; Long, v. ch. 4. 
 
 The last section of this letter is sometimes thought to be a distinct one, 
 which has become confused in the MSS. Compare Letter lv. , where also this 
 is probably the case. The section is at all events extremely obscure, and the 
 text in a corrupt state. 
 
 1 I have found your letter on my arrival here at my brother's 
 estate of Laterium on the 3rd, and drawn breath again a little ; 
 which I have not had a chance of doing before since this 
 catastrophe came ; for it is of the last importance in my eyes 
 that you should approve of my firmness of demeanour and the 
 step I have taken. When therefore you tell me that I have 
 the approval of our dear Peducaeus I am so delighted that I 
 could fancy myself strengthened also by the calm judgment of 
 his father, for whom I always had as high respect as for any 
 one man in the world. I still often call to mind how he once 
 said to me — it was on the 5 th of December 1 — in answer to 
 my ' Sextus, which way is it to be ? ' ' Nay,' said he, 
 
 ' Stat sua cuiquedies ; breve et inreparabile tempus 
 Omnibus est vitae, sed famam extendere factis 
 Hoc virtutis opus.' 2 
 
 His authority therefore still lives on with me, and the son has 
 to my mind no less weight than the father, whose image he is, 
 once possessed. Will you remember me to him most sincerely ? 
 
 2 Although it is not for any very long time that you post- 
 pone your advice — for I suppose that by this time that hired 
 peace-monger 3 has already made his peroration, and that 
 something has been done in this caucus of senators (a Senate 
 
 1 The day on which Catilina's associates were strangled. See Introd. to 
 Letter iii. , and compare xxix. § 12. 
 
 2 Aen. x. 467-469. The thought, though not the form of expression, may 
 perhaps be considered sufficiently parallel to the dying words of Hector (II. 
 xxii. 304, 303) here quoted by Cicero. They may be rendered more literally— 
 
 ' Let me not weakling nor unknown expire, 
 But in some deed long ages shall admire. ' 
 
 3 Boot and others refer this to Curio, but Mr. Watson suggests that 
 Lepidus, the future triumvir, may be meant. See Letter Ixii. , note 6. The 
 same person is called iste nummarius, § 3. 
 
ep. lxviii. TO ATTICUS. [AD ATT. X. I.) 223 
 
 it is not, in my opinion), — nevertheless you are keeping me 
 in great suspense about it, somewhat lessened however by the 
 fact that I have no doubt what you will think I must do. For 
 when you tell me that Flavius 4 has the offer of Sicily, and a 
 legion with it, and that this is already being carried out, how 
 can you but assume that some of their wicked schemes are 
 now being planned and thought over, while others will come 
 up as circumstances suggest ? As for myself, I shall disregard 
 the law laid down by your great townsman Solon — I fancy I 
 might even call him mine, — who made it a capital crime for 
 any one to have been neutral in a revolution, 5 and unless your 
 opinion is against me I shall keep out of both one side and 
 the other ; though I can say so more positively about one of 
 the two. I shall not however make a premature move ; I 
 mean to wait for your decision, and for the letter which — 
 unless you have already sent one off — I wrote that you were 
 to give to Cephalic 
 
 As to your saying in your letter, apparently not as though 3 
 you had heard it from some other quarter, but as an idea 
 which occurred to you, that the attraction thither will be too 
 much for me if the question of peace is discussed, I myself 
 can see no possibility that any question of peace will be raised 
 at all, since he is absolutely determined, if he has the power, 
 to deprive Pompeius of his army and of his provincial govern- 
 ment ; unless by any chance our well-paid friend can persuade 
 him to remain passive while delegates are going to and fro. 
 I see nothing left for me to hope for, or even at the present 
 time to conceive as possible. But even to entertain the idea 
 would show that a man was right-minded ? Well, it is a great 
 question, and quite one of the problems of la haute politique, 
 whether if a tyrant means to consider the proposition of doing 
 some virtuous act, one is bound to be a member of his cabinet. 6 
 
 4 Flavius was the person who when tribune had actually imprisoned the 
 consul Metellus for resisting an Agrarian law. (See Letter ix. § 8. ) Sicily was 
 not however assigned to him, but to Curio. (See'Letter Ixxiv. ) 
 
 5 Grote's Greece, part ii. ch. n. It was 'capital' only in the sense of 
 involving total loss of one's rights as a citizen. 
 
 6 Consilium is, I think, here used in its concrete sense of ' a select deliber- 
 ative body. ' (See Conington on Aen. ii. 89. ) If it had been abstract, tyranni 
 would probably have been put in the dative. 
 
324 LETTERS OF CICERO. past hi. 
 
 Consequently, supposing it to have so come about that I am 
 sent for — to which I for my part am indifferent, because I 
 have already told him, to his own great disgust, what I was 
 likely to say on the question of peace — however, supposing 
 something of the kind to have happened, be sure that you 
 write and tell me what you think I ought to do ; for nothing 
 as yet has occurred to me which would seem to require more 
 careful deliberation. I am very glad you were pleased with 
 the expressions of Trebatius, a good man and a good citizen, 
 and your repeated 'bravos' and ' bravissimos' are the sole 
 pleasure I have had hitherto. I am eagerly expecting your 
 letter, which indeed has already, I suppose, been despatched. 
 4 You, like Peducaeus, have maintained that dignity of 
 demeanour which you would impress upon me. Your man 
 Celer is more clever than sensible. All that you have heard 
 about the lads from Tullia is quite true. The circumstance 7 
 you mention seems to me to be not so bad in reality as it 
 sounds : this embrouillement of everything round us is to me 
 as the shadow of death ; for it was my duty either to make an 
 independent coup here among the bad, or be, at any cost of 
 danger, among the good. Let us either follow the rash venture 
 of good citizens, or run a tilt against the audacity of the 
 reckless. Both courses have their dangers, while this which 
 we are pursuing is discreditable, and yet not safe. 
 
 I think that the gentleman who sent his son to Brundisium 
 in the interests of peace 8 (and talking of peace, I entirely 
 agree with you that while they make outward pretences of it 
 
 7 ' Maconi ' is generally supposed to represent some Greek word, a fertile 
 source of corruption in the MSS. , but what word is quite uncertain. Tunstall 
 proposed 4/cpoc = a final step, referring it to an idea of suicide; Orelli hSd/ivxnv 
 = the family secret (see Letter xxxvi. § 14) ; Boot <pdpjj.ai<oi> = some violent 
 remedy suggested by Atticus. The latter also for 4Xi/ (distraction), etc., would 
 read ' Haec est dvdX-qipis (an alleviation). In quo nunc sumus,' etc. 
 
 8 It is possible, as Boot thinks, that the first de pace has simply crept in 
 from the error of a copyist Supposing it to be retained, there is the further 
 difficulty of deciding whether it is used seriously or ironically. It must be the 
 latter if Servius Sulpicius is the person referred to, because his son (Letter 
 lxvii. § 2) was actually serving in Caesar's army. Manutius suggests that the 
 elder Balbus is the person meant, but in that case Jilius must be used of his 
 nephew. The point indeed is one which it is now impossible satisfactorily to 
 clear up. 
 
up. lxix. FROM CAELIUS. (AD FAM. VIII. 16.) 225 
 
 the war is being vigorously pushed forward) will, and that I 
 shall not, be sent as their envoy, 9 seeing that, as I hoped, 
 nobody has hitherto mentioned me at all. This makes it not 
 so imperative on me to write or even to reflect beforehand 
 what I should do if circumstances hereafter have so brought 
 it about that I am made an ambassador. 
 
 LXIX. (AD FAM. VIII. 16.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CAELIUS RUFUS AT ROME TO CICERO AT 
 ARPINUM OR CUMAE. 
 
 Early in April, 705 A. v. c. (49 B. c. ) 
 
 For an account of Caelius see Introd. to Letter xxxiii. The letter of 
 Cicero to which this is an answer, hinting at his probable departure to join 
 Pompeius, has not been preserved. But Caelius had now changed his never 
 very permanent views, and believed in the superiority of Caesar. He therefore 
 writes to dissuade Cicero from his purpose, working on his fears by describing 
 Caesar's resentment, and laying particular stress on the importance of the war 
 in Spain, where he believed that success would be decisive of the whole 
 struggle. Cicero in his answer thinks it prudent to deny that he ever hinted 
 at any such intention. On the subsequent fate of Caelius see Introd. to 
 Letter lxxvi. 
 
 Caesar left Rome for Spain in the beginning of April. This letter seems 
 to have been written very near the time of his departure. Compare with it 
 the letters of Antonius and Caesar himself (lxxii. and lxxiii. ) 
 
 Abeken, 300 ; Forsyth, 373. 1 
 
 Alarmed beyond measure at your letter, which shows me 
 that your thoughts are bent only on some unhappy step, and 
 does not explicitly state what that is, — and yet it was impos- 
 sible for you not to disclose the nature of your design, — I 
 lose not a moment in writing you these lines. For your own 
 welfare, my dear Cicero, — for your children's sake — I implore 
 and beseech you not to take any step which must injuriously 
 
 9 For this peculiar construction (if the text be sound), which understands 
 an affirmative in the former of two clauses from a. negative in the latter, 
 compare the well-known venena magnum fas nefasqus non valent Convertere 
 humanam vicem (Hor. Epod. v. 87), according to the interpretation of 
 Lambinus, which is now generally accepted ; i.e. venena valent fas nefasqiie, 
 non valent humanam vicem convertere. Lambinus quotes this passage as a 
 parallel for his view. A similar construction occurs in Tacitus, Ann. xii. 64 ; 
 xiii. 56. 
 
 Q 
 
226 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 affect your safe position and immunity from danger. For I 
 call heaven and earth and the friendship there is between, us 
 to witness that I warned you beforehand, and did not give 
 you any' needless caution ; but that no sooner did I have an 
 interview with Caesar, and ascertain with regard to his views, 
 what they were likely to be when the victory was won, than I 
 gave you full information. If you imagine that Caesar's policy 
 will continue as it is now — letting his antagonists go free, and 
 offering them terms of peace — you are mistaken. His thoughts 
 and even his expressions show nothing but severity and cruelty; 
 he is gone away in a rage with the Senate; he is distinctly 
 stung by all this interference of the tribunes ; by Heaven, 
 
 2 there will be no room left for entreaties. Therefore if you 
 have any regard for yourself — if for your only son — for your 
 family — for your hopes of the future ; if I and your excellent 
 son-in-law have any influence at all with you — for you surely 
 do not wish so to break up our fortunes as to drive us into 
 hating or abandoning that cause, the triumph of which is our 
 only safety, or into entertaining unnatural hopes which are 
 inconsistent with your safety— then in short you will consider 
 this, that whatever odium may have been involved in your 
 hesitation you have already incurred : to declare against the 
 triumphant Caesar now, whom you were reluctant to injure 
 while his success was doubtful, and join a party of beaten men 
 whom you were reluctant to follow while they could still show 
 fight — why, this is for you the very height of folly. Mind 
 that while ashamed of seeming to care too little for the cause 
 of the nobles, you be not too little careful about choosing 
 that course which is really noble. 
 
 3 If however I cannot entirely convince you, at any rate wait 
 while we are getting information how we are doing in the 
 Spanish Provinces : and those I am able to report will be ours 
 on Caesar's arrival there. What your friends have to hope 
 for when both parts of Spain are gone I know not ; moreover, 
 upon my honour I fail to discover what is your ultimate object 
 
 4 in going to join men whose case is desperate. This purpose, 
 which you intimated to me sufficiently, if not by an explicit 
 statement, had already come to the ears of Caesar ; and the 
 very first thing he did after greeting me was to state what he 
 
ep. lxx. TO CAELIUS. {AD FAM. II. 16.) 227 
 
 had heard about you. I denied any knowledge of it ; but I 
 begged him all the same to write to you in such a way as you 
 would be most likely to consider an additional motive towards 
 staying. I myself have to go with him into Spain; or else before 
 going to town I would have instantly come to you wherever 
 you were, and pleaded with you to your face for this ; indeed 
 I would have exerted all the force I possessed to keep you 
 back. Again and again, my dear Cicero, reflect, lest you 5 
 utterly ruin yourself and those who love you ; lest deliber- 
 ately and with your eyes open you let yourself into a position 
 whence, as you can see, there is no means of escape. But if 
 either the clamour of the aristocrats influences you, or you 
 cannot abide the insolence and swagger of some of these 
 fellows, my advice is that you should choose some town which 
 is clear of the war, while these issues, which will be decided 
 immediately, are being fought out. Do that, and then not 
 only shall I consider you to have acted with discretion, but 
 you will be giving no offence to Caesar. 
 
 LXX. (AD FAM. II. 16.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ARPINUM OR CUMAE TO MARCUS CAELIUS 
 RUFUS AT ROME. 
 
 (An annuer to the preceding Utter.') 
 April, 705 A. v. c. (49 B. c. ) 
 
 Your letter would have caused me great distress, had not 1 
 both reason itself now banished all my disquietudes, and my 
 heart become callous to any new pang from the weariness of 
 utter despair. Nevertheless, how it can have happened that 
 my previous letter gave you any cause for suspecting what 
 you mention I do not understand ; what indeed did it contain 
 beyond lamentations of these evil days, which if they keep 
 my mind on the rack affect your own no less ? For I know 
 the keen edge of your penetration too well to imagine that you 
 are blind to what I see myself: what I wonder at is rather 
 that you, who ought to know me below the surface, could be 
 
228 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 induced to believe that I am either so reckless as to desert 
 a star in its zenith for one that is sinking and all but gone ; or 
 else so flighty as to throw away my whole stock of favour with 
 a man who is now in the full flush of success, voluntarily 
 be untrue to myself, and do what from the very first I have 
 throughout avoided, namely mix myself up in a civil war. 
 
 2 What therefore is this ' unhappy resolution ' of mine ? Can 
 it be that of retiring to some solitary spot? For you can 
 appreciate — you once used to feel like me yourself — not only 
 how indignantly I loathe, but also how disgusting it is to me 
 to see the scandal of these upstarts in place. Besides, there 
 is my embarrassing train of attendants, and the military title 
 by which I am still addressed : were I but free from the 
 burden of this honour I could be content with a hiding-place, 
 however humble, in Italy. But these laurels of mine not only 
 attract the eyes, but now even excite the cries 1 of my ill- 
 wishers. Yet this being the case, I have never once enter- 
 tained the idea of leaving Italy, except with the approval of 
 you all. But you know that I have estates, such as they are, 
 in the country : I am obliged to stay in these, that I may not 
 be a burden to my friends. Because however I find those 
 by the sea-side the easiest to pass the time in, I give rise in 
 some people to a suspicion that I want to take ship ; to which 
 perhaps, it is true, I should not be disinclined if that could 
 be a voyage to peace. Being as it is to nothing but war, 
 where is the advantage ? particularly to fight against, one man 
 who is, I hope, satisfied with my conduct, in the interests of 
 
 •another who now cannot possibly ever be satisfied. 
 
 3 Then again you have had the best opportunities for 
 knowing my sentiments ever since that occasion when we met 
 at my house at Cumae ; for I made no secret to you of my 
 conversation with Balbus. You saw how averse I was, when 
 I was told about it, to any abandonment of the capital. Did 
 I not solemnly declare to you that I would suffer anything in 
 the world rather than go to a civil war out of Italy? What 
 then has happened that could make me change my purpose? 
 Has not everything on the contrary tended to confirm me in 
 
 1 Evidently there is a weak play of words in oculos and voculas. 
 
ep. lxx. TO CAEL1US. {AD FAM. II. 16.) 229 
 
 my views ? I trust you will believe this, which is, I think, 
 your opinion of me already, that in all these troubles I have 
 had no other aim than to make people see at last that my 
 choice before anything else was peace : if this was not to be 
 thought of, my abhorrence beyond anything else was civil war. 
 Of my steadfastness in this I think I shall never in the end 
 have to repent. Indeed I well remember that it was a point 
 our dear friend Hortensius used to pride himself upon, that 
 he had never taken part in the Civil War. In this respect 
 my glory will be brighter than his, because in his case it was 
 attributed to want of resolution ; a supposition that cannot, 
 I think, be held about me. 
 
 Nor are my fears excited by such considerations as you — 4 
 most honestly and affectionately — put forward to arouse them ; 
 because there is no trouble so bitter but it seems to be hanging 
 over us all now in this universal ruin. From this indeed I 
 would most cheerfully have redeemed our country at the price 
 of some suffering to me and mine ; even of all that you bid 
 me have a care for. As to my son, who I rejoice to find is 5 
 dear to you, if the State in any form is to survive, I shall leave 
 him a patrimony enough and to spare in the memory of my 
 name ; if however this is not to be, his lot will be no excep- 
 tional one among his fellow-countrymen. For when you ask 
 me to have some regard for my own son-in-law — an excellent 
 young man, who is moreover very dear to me — since you know 
 how much both he and even more my Tullia are to me, can you 
 possibly doubt that this is the very care which causes me the 
 most distracting anxiety? And I feel it the more because in' 
 our common wretchedness I used to cheer myself at least with 
 this gleam of hope, that the Dolabella for whom I, and indeed 
 both of us, have so much regard would be set free from those 
 straits in which his openhandedness had involved him. I 
 should like you to make some inquiry what sort of days he 
 was forced to spend while he was in town — how bitter they 
 were to himself; how far from creditable even to me as his 
 father-in-law. 
 
 Consequently I am neither waiting for the coming event in 6 
 Spain, — about which I am thoroughly satisfied it will be as 
 you say, — nor artfully thinking over any plan at all. If this 
 
230 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 is ever to be a settled country, surely some place in it will be 
 found for me ; if however this is. not to be, you yourself, I 
 suspect, will come to the same solitary spot where you shall 
 hear that I have settled. But perhaps I am only a prophet 
 of evil, and all these things will have a happier ending ; for I 
 recollect the despairing fits of those who were old people when 
 I was young ; possibly I am now imitating them, and giving 
 way to the foible of age. I trust it may be so ; but still — ! 
 7 I suppose you have heard that a magistrate's robe is already 
 on the loom for Oppius ; for as to our good friend Curtius he 
 has his eye on the double colours ; but the person from whom 
 he takes his colour is keeping him waiting. 2 This by way of 
 seasoning, so that you may know that even amid my indignation 
 I keep up the habit of laughing. 
 r- As to Dolabella, I recommend you to look to what I said, 
 just as if your own interests were concerned. I will end with 
 this : I mean to do nothing defiantly, nothing rashly ; I entreat 
 you however, in whatever land my lot is to be cast, to extend 
 the protection to me and my children to which our friendship 
 i and your honour will give us a claim. 
 
 LXXI. (AD ATT. X. 8.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT CUMAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 May 2, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 In this letter are enclosed the two which follow from Antonius and Caesar, 
 warning Cicero against joining Pompeius in much the same spirit as Caelius 
 had done (Letter lxix.) To Antonius Cicero replied that he had no intention 
 of opposing Caesar, but thought of leaving Italy owing to the inconvenience 
 caused by the parade of his attendants, whom he still retained with a faint 
 hope of a triumph. Antonius answered briefly that no neutral could be allowed 
 to leave Italy without the express permission of Caesar, but that this would 
 probably be granted on application. Cicero remained therefore in his villa at 
 Cumae for about two months, waiting not only for fair weather (he was a very 
 bad sailor), but for a safe opportunity of leaving Italy without being arrested. 
 
 2 The ' double colours ' are the trabea, or robe of an Augur, which was of 
 purple and saffron. Infector, by which Caesar is meant, plays on the ambigu- 
 ous meaning of the word inficio, which signifies to corrupt as well as to dye. 
 It contains therefore a sneer — apparently undeserved — at Oppius and Curtius, 
 as if they were bribed by offers of place. 
 
m>. lxxi. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. X. 8.) 
 
 231 
 
 Meanwhile everybody was anxiously expecting the result of the war in Spain. 
 See Introd. to Letter lxxvi. 
 
 Merivale, ii. 220 ; Abeken, 300 ; Forsyth, 373-375 ; Froude, Caesar, 419. 
 
 Not only did circumstances suggest, but you had already 1 
 pointed out, and I myself was conscious, that it was time to 
 put a stop to our correspondence on such topics as it might 
 be dangerous to have intercepted ; but seeing that my daughter . 
 is perpetually writing to me to entreat that I will wait for the 
 issue of events in Spain, and invariably adds that your opinion 
 agrees with hers — as indeed I have myself perceived from 
 your letters — I do not think it is out of place to write to you 
 about my views on that question. 
 
 It seems to me that this advice of yours would be the 2 
 prudent one on the supposition that I intended to shape my 
 plans by the turn which fortune takes in Spain; which is 
 impossible. It surely must necessarily be the case that either 
 — as I should most like to see — the individual in question is 
 driven out of Spain ; or the war there is protracted ; or else 
 that person must make himself master (as he seems to be 
 confident of doing) of the two Provinces. Say that he will 
 be driven out. Very welcome or very honourable my joining 
 Pompeius would be then at a time when I should think that 
 Curio himself would be preparing to desert to his standard ! 
 Say then that the war is protracted : what event am I to wait 
 for, and for how long? The remaining alternative is that I 
 should quietly submit if we are beaten in Spain. I myself 
 think just the opposite ; I hold that such a person is even 
 more to be separated from in his day of triumph than of defeat, 
 and when he is doubtful rather than when in the confidence 
 of success. For whenever he has become the conqueror, I 
 look for a proscription, a raid upon private property, a recall 
 of exiles, a clean sweep of debts, 1 places given to the vilest of 
 creatures, and a tyranny that hardly any Oriental would put 
 up with, let alone a born Roman. Will my indignation then 3 
 be able to refrain from words? Will my eyes be able to 
 
 1 Compare Letter xlvii. § 1, where the corresponding Greek phrases are 
 employed instead. This is a crucial passage therefore to show that Cicero 
 did 7iot, as is often asserted, use Greek words only where there was no exact 
 equivalent in Latin. See further in the Preface to this book. 
 
232 LETTERS OF CICERO. fart hi. 
 
 endure a vision of myself expressing ray opinion side by side 
 with Gabinius — of his even being asked before mine 2 — or of 
 your dependent Clodius, 3 Ateius's Plaguleius, and the rest of 
 them looking on? But why string together a list of my 
 enemies when I cannot even see acquaintances whom I have 
 formerly defended sitting in the Senate House or mix among 
 them without degradation ? What if even this is by no means 
 certain, that they will give me the opportunity of doing so? 
 for some of his friends write me word that he most decidedly 
 does not think I have treated him fairly, by not having put in 
 an appearance in the Senate. Am I then all the same to 
 hesitate about selling myself at certain risk to a man with 
 whom I did not wish even with assured advantage to be allied ? 
 
 4 Then moreover notice this, that the final decision of the 
 contest is not entirely in the Spanish Provinces, unless indeed 
 you think that when they are lost Pompeius will throw down 
 his arms ; whereas his policy is entirely Themistoclean ; for he 
 holds that whoever is master of the sea, that is the man who 
 must of necessity gain the supremacy. 4 Accordingly he has 
 never made it a point to keep Spain for his own administra- 
 tion ; his first care has always been to keep the naval force well 
 supplied. Whenever the time shall come therefore he will 
 sail with an enormous fleet and come to the shores of Italy ; 
 and if I am idly waiting there, what am I to be ? for there 
 will be no more license given to neutrals. Shall I then take 
 
 • part against him [and his fleet] ? Could there be any greater 
 crime — could any indeed be so great ? What lower depth of 
 disgrace is left? Shall I, who all alone here have stoutly 
 endured his criminal behaviour to my absent friends, refuse to 
 endure it from the same hand when I am with Pompeius and 
 
 5 all our other foremost men ? 5 Whereas if I am now to let 
 
 2 See Letter vi. note 7. 
 
 3 This is supposed to be the Sextus Clodius, a freedman of Publius, 
 mentioned in Letter cix. , but it is not known that he had anything to do 
 with Atticus. I should be rather inclined to refer it to the rhetorician of 
 Letter xxviii. 
 
 4 This alludes to the famous interpretation put by Themistocles upon the 
 ' wooden walls ' which were counselled by the Delphic Oracle. Herodotus, 
 vii. 143, 144 ; Grote, part ii. ch. 39. 
 
 6 The whole of this passage is very corrupt, and the translation here given 
 is simply an attempt to render as closely as possible the text which Mr. Watson 
 
f.p. lxxi. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. X. 8.) 
 
 233 
 
 duty go, and calculate the risk, there is danger from that party 
 if I prove to have done what is wrong,, from this man if my 
 action is right, nor can any conceivable line of conduct in 
 these troubles be found which will be void of risk • so that I 
 have now no scruple in avoiding a [discreditable] course when 
 it is accompanied by danger, which I should naturally avoid 
 even were it accompanied by safety. But I did not cross over 
 with Pompeius ? That was absolutely out of my power ; the 
 dates are there for anybody to calculate. But still — let me 
 confess the truth — I did not even try very hard to make it 
 possible. The circumstance which deceived me — perhaps it 
 ought not to have deceived me, but still it did — is that I 
 thought they would come to terms ; and, if that was to be so, 
 I did not want to have Caesar embittered against me when 
 he was at the same time on friendly terms with Pompeius : 
 because I knew by experience what birds of a feather they 
 were. 6 It was this fear which led me into the snare of pro- 
 crastination. But if I make haste now I regain all; if I 
 delay I lose it. 
 
 Yet even so, my dear Atticus, there are some auguries too 6 
 which inspire me with no uncertain hope — not such as our 
 college has dealt in since the days of Attus, 7 but the famous 
 words of Plato about tyrants ; 8 for I do not see any conceiv- 
 able way by which that individual can stand much longer, 
 without falling of himself, even though we should be too 
 indolent to move ; when you consider that in spite of all his 
 flourishing condition, and the advantage of novelty, he has in 
 
 has adopted. The only correction indeed that this text absolutely requires 
 grammatically is to supply an antecedent to eiusdem. Perhaps cuius should 
 be read for qui. Some of the readings proposed for the first few words, which 
 are unintelligible in the Medicean MS. , may be here added. ' An qui invalidi 
 et absentis' (Schiitz). 'An invadentis in absenies' (Hofmann). 'An qui 
 valide huic obstans eius' (Kayser). 'An iram huius amentis' (Boot). 
 
 6 Billerbeck explains this as meaning the same as they were at the time of 
 Cicero's exile, and Mr. Watson says that this is supported by Letter xxv. § 1. 
 But surely the addition in the latter place of quifuerant makes all the differ- 
 ence. And enim seems to give the reason for saying amicus Pompeio. 
 
 7 Attus Navius was the well-known Augur who divided Tarquinius's whet- 
 stone with the razor. — Livy, i. 36. 
 
 8 Plato, Republic, viii. pp. 562 foil. ' He who is the real tyrant, whatever 
 men may think, is the real slave. ... All his life long he is beset with fears 
 and distractions. ' 
 
234 LETTERS OF CICERO. part hi. 
 
 a week or so incurred the bitterest hatred, even from that 
 hungry and desperate rabble : that in that short space of time 
 he has forfeited two of the pretensions to which he lays claim; 
 to gentle dealing, in the case of Metellus, and to ample 
 resources, in that of the Treasury. 9 Now what associates, or 
 subordinates if you like, is he to have in his work, if these 
 personages are to be made kings in the provinces — if they are 
 to be kings even in the Republic, — not one of whom has been 
 able as yet to keep his own estate in hand for so much as 
 7 a couple of months ? It is not for me here to put down 
 in detail all the facts through which you can see with such 
 acuteness : do you merely put them well before your eyes, and 
 you will at once perceive that his royalty can hardly be a 
 matter of even six months. 
 
 If however I am deceived here I shall bear it, as many of 
 the most eminent public men have borne it before : unless 
 indeed you have come to the conclusion that I should prefer 
 a death after the fashion of Sardanapalus [on his own bed at 
 home 10 ] to one in the exile of Themistocles ; who though he 
 had shown himself, as Thucydides says, 11 'at once the ablest 
 judge of the present, and that upon the most limited deliberation, 
 and also the best forecaster of coming events into the most distant 
 
 9 See Introd. to Letter lxviii. 
 
 10 The words in suo lectulo are put in brackets by Boot and Mr. Watson 
 as being probably a marginal gloss upon mori, inappropriately introduced 
 from Ad Att. x. 14, 3, or Letter Ixxxvii. § 2 ; and perhaps they are right 
 But the words in themselves present no difficulty ; suo (for which Wesenberg 
 reads meo) being used as though a participle, such as exstincti, followed, and 
 Sardanapalus being the governing subject of the separate thought. After a 
 long and determined defence of Nineveh, when further resistance became 
 impossible, Sardanapalus placed his wives and his treasures (including rich 
 couches, according to Ctesias, and this possibly suggested the word), upon a 
 funeral pyre, and perished with them. Cicero might thus be said to resemble 
 Sardanapalus if he determined to die where his life had been passed, amid the 
 old surroundings. The diminutive lectulo seems to give this suggestion of 
 familiarity and affection. The general argument is : ' If I am mistaken in 
 believing that Caesar's power will rapidly fall I shall have to go into exile like 
 Themistocles — a well-known instance of an acute intelligence entirely mistaken 
 in his forecast, — unless you think that I should prefer like Sardanapalus at 
 any cost to die at home. ' 
 
 11 Thuc. i. 136-138. Cicero is evidently quoting from memory, since the 
 passage is not quite accurately repeated. Themistocles promised Artaxerxes 
 that all Greece should be brought into subjection to the Persian crown. 
 
bp. lxxi. TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. X. 8.) 235 
 
 depths of the future,' fell nevertheless into such misfortunes 
 as he must have kept clear of if nothing had deceived him. 
 Though he was one who (as the same author tells us) ' most 
 of all men used to discern the better and the worse when yet 
 wrapped in obscurity' he none the less failed to see how he 
 would have to flee from the jealousy of the Spartans, or how 
 again from that of his own countrymen, or what promises he 
 would hereafter be brought to make to Artaxerxes. That 
 night had not been so untimely to Scipio Africanus, 12 one 
 of the wisest of men, nor Sulla's day so disastrous to Marius, 
 one of the shrewdest, had neither one nor the other ever been 
 deceived. 
 
 Nevertheless I can support my view by the saying of the 8 
 great prophet whom I have quoted : I am not deceived, nor 
 will there be a different ending. It is absolutely certain that 
 he will fall, whether it be through his enemies, or simply 
 through his own means, he being indeed his own one irrecon- 
 cilable enemy : what I hope for is that this will come to pass 
 before I die. Yet it is time for me to be thinking now of 
 that eternal life which is to come, not of this brief one here. 
 But should anything befall me before that time is ripe, it 
 surely will not have made much difference to me whether I 
 am to see it done, or have already seen from afar that it will 
 come to pass. And this being so, I cannot stoop to receive 
 orders from those against whom the Senate armed me with 
 powers to see 'that the State come to no harm.' 13 
 
 To you all that I have has been already commended, though 9 
 indeed your love for me makes it needless to commend it. 
 Nor, upon my word, do I see anything to write about, because 
 I am simply sitting on the watch ' pour que le vent soit propice ' : 
 though indeed I never before felt so bound to write about any- 
 thing as to tell you that among the innumerable pleasant things 
 you have done I never felt anything more gratefully than the 
 extremely tender and careful way in which you have watched 
 
 12 See Letter xxiii. note 8. 
 
 13 This was the celebrated formula by which in extreme cases the Senate 
 conferred absolute powers upon magistrates. A decree of this kind was hastily 
 passed on the reception of the ultimatum of Caesar (Introd. to Letter xlvi. ), 
 calling on all consuls, ex-consuls, and other magistrates, to do their duty. 
 Mommsen, iv. 359 ; Merivale, ii. 122. 
 
236 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt in, 
 
 over my dearest Tullia. She herself is perfectly charmed with 
 it ; nor do I feel it any less strongly. And indeed her courage 
 is astonishing. How well she bears up against the national 
 disasters — how well against her worries at home ! Then what 
 spirit she shows about my going away ! Though hers is no 
 mere tendresse, but the per feet fusion d'ame of love, yet her 
 wish is that I should do what is right, and have the good 
 word of all. But of this subject too much already, for fear I 
 now awake in myself the pitie de. soi-mime. 
 
 You will be sure to write me anything you hear which is 
 comparatively certain about the Spanish Provinces, and what- 
 ever else there may be while I am still here, and possibly when 
 I go I shall send you something ; all the more for this reason, 
 that Tullia fancies under present circumstances you will not be 
 away from Italy. I must represent to Antonius too, as well as 
 Curio, that my wish is to stay at Malta, by no means to take 
 any part at all in this war. I only hope I may find him as 
 goed and obliging to me as Curio was. He was said to be 
 coming to Misenum on the 2nd, that is to-day, but he has sent 
 me beforehand an annoying letter, of which I enclose a copy. 
 
 LXXII. (AD ATT. X. 8 A.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS ANTONIUS TO CICERO. 
 
 {Letter enclosed in the preceding one.) 
 
 May 1 (?), 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 1 But that I have a strong affection for you — much greater 
 indeed than you suppose — I should not have been greatly 
 alarmed at the rumour which has been published about you, 
 particularly as I took it to be a false one : but my liking for 
 you is far too great to allow me to pretend that even the report, 
 however false, is not to me a matter of great concern. That 
 you will really go across seas I cannot believe when I think 
 of the deep regard you entertain for Dolabella and his 
 admirable wife, your daughter Tullia, and of the equal regard 
 in which you yourself are held by us all, to whom, upon ray 
 
ep. Lxxni. FROM CAESAR. {AD ATT. X. 8 B.) 
 
 237 
 
 word and honour, your name and position are perhaps dearer 
 than they are to yourself. Nevertheless I did not think 
 myself at liberty as a friend to be indifferent to the remarks 
 even of unscrupulous people ; and I have been the more eager 
 to act because I hold that the part I have to play has been 
 made more difficult by the coolness between us, which origin- 
 ated more in jealousy on my part than in any injury on yours. 
 For I beg you will thoroughly assure yourself of this, that there 
 is no one for whom my affection is greater than for yourself, 
 with the exception of my dear friend Caesar ; and that among 
 Caesar's most honoured friends a place is reserved for Marcus 
 Cicero. 
 
 Therefore, my dear Cicero, I entreat you to keep your ' 
 future action entirely open : reject the spurious honour of a 
 man who did you a great wrong that he might afterwards lay 
 you under an obligation : do not, on the other hand, fly from 
 one who, even if he shall lose his love for you — and that can 
 never be the case — will none the less make it his study that 
 you should be secure and rich in honours. I have been 
 careful to send Calpurnius, who is my most intimate friend, to 
 you, to let you know that your life and high position are to 
 me a matter of deep concern. 
 
 On the same day Philotimus brought a letter from Caesar, 
 of which this is a copy. 
 
 LXXIII. (AD ATT. X. 8 B.) 
 
 FROM CAESAR TO CICERO. 
 {Enclosed in Letter LXXI. ) 
 April 16, 705 A.v.c, (49 B.C.) 
 
 Though I had fully made up my mind that you would 1 
 do nothing rashly, nothing imprudently, still I was so far 
 impressed by the rumours in some quarters as to think it 
 my duty to write to you, and ask it as a favour due to our 
 mutual regard that you will not take any step, now that 
 the scale is so decisively turned, which you would not have 
 
238 LETTERS OF CICERO. part in. 
 
 thought it necessary to take even though the balance still 
 stood firm. For it will really be both a heavier blow to our 
 friendship, and a step on your part still less judicious for 
 yourself, if you are to be thought not even to have bowed the 
 knee to success — for things seem to have fallen out as entirely 
 favourably for us as disastrously for them,— nor yet to have 
 been drawn by attachment to a particular cause — for that has 
 undergone no change since you decided to remain aloof from 
 their counsels, — but to have passed a stern judgment on 
 some act of mine, than which, from you, no more painful thing 
 could befall me ; and I claim the right of our friendship to 
 entreat that you will not take this course. 
 2 Finally, what more suitable part is there for a good, peace- 
 loving man, and good citizen, than to keep aloof from civil 
 dissensions ? There were not a few who admired this course, 
 but could not adopt it by reason of its danger : you, after 
 having duly weighed both the conclusions of friendship and 
 the unmistakable evidence of my whole life, will find that 
 there is no safer nor more honourable course than to keep 
 entirely aloof from the struggle. 
 
 I am writing this while on the march, April 16. 
 
 LXXIV. (AD ATT. X. 16.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT CUMAE TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 May 14, 705 A.v.c. (49 B.C.) 
 
 One of Caesar's first objects on his departure for Spain was to secure the 
 corn provinces, and so render ineffectual the savage threat of the Pompeians to 
 reduce Italy by famine. Pompeius had given Sardinia in charge to Marcus 
 Aurelius Cotta, and Sicily to Cato, but by another striking blunder both were 
 provided with inadequate forces. To the former Caesar sent Quintus Valerius, 
 who was soon successful in taking the island ; the latter was assigned to Curio, 
 who had succeeded to the position of Labienus, with no less than four legions. 
 Cato with honourable and characteristic independence refused to sacrifice 
 lives in making a hopeless defence,, and left Sicily without striking a blow. 
 Cicero's judgment on his supposed pusillanimity is not only undeserved, but, 
 as Dean Merivale says, ' formed with the utmost levity. ' It was enough that 
 Cato ha'd opposed a thanksgiving for Cicero's own successes. (Introd. to 
 Letter xxxix. ) From Sicily Curio proceeded to Africa with two legions, and 
 was at first so far successful as to besiege the great city of Utica, but it being 
 
ep. lxxiv. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. X. 16.) 239 
 
 relieved by Iuba, King of Numidia, Curio's army was destroyed, and he him- 
 self perished. 
 
 From Cumae Cicero moved to Pompeii, to divert the suspicion of his 
 intended voyage. While there he received overtures from three cohorts to 
 strike a blow in the interest of Pompeius, but suspecting some trap he 
 prudently enough declined, and returned to Cumae. Abeken erroneously 
 asserts that he remained at Pompeii until he left Italy. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 390-394 ; Merivale, ii. 212-222 ; Abeken, 300-302 ; 
 Forsyth, 374-375 ; Froude, Caesar, p. 422. 
 
 As to Dionysius, see Letter lxv. § 2. This letter is expressly mentioned as 
 having been written when a letter from Atticus arrived on the 14th, Ad Att. 
 x. 17, 1. 
 
 I had just sent off a letter to you on various subjects, 1 
 when, though it was still very good time in the morning, enter 
 Dionysius ; whom indeed, so far am I from showing myself 
 implacable to him, I should have entirely forgiven, had he 
 come to me at all in the spirit which you had described. I 
 mean that in the letter which I received at Arpinum you said 
 that he was coming, and ' would do what I wished.' Now it 
 was my wish, or rather my particular desire, that he should 
 stay with me ; and it was because he had made such short 
 work of this suggestion, when he came to my house at Formiae, 
 that I used to write to you rather roughly about him. He 
 said very little however, arid this is the gist of it all : would I 
 excuse him ? private business made it quite impossible for 
 him to go with me ! My answer was short. I felt the blow 
 severely : I saw that my present position was to him a subject 
 for contempt. Well, well; perhaps you will be surprised at 
 me : I assure you I look upon this as one of the most painful 
 incidents I have undergone in these times. I hope he may 
 be a friend to you : in wishing you this I am wishing that you 
 may continue in prosperity, for that is the exact length of time 
 he will be one. 
 
 I have hopes that my purpose will prove free from danger, 2 
 because I have concealed my intentions, and shall, I fancy, 
 keep them very emphatically to myself. Only let the voyage 
 be what I want, and everything else — so far at least as care 
 beforehand can go — shall be provided for. You, I hope, will 
 while I am near you write to me not only about what you 
 know or have heard, but what you foresee is likely to happen. 
 Cato — so Curio has sent me word — who had it in his power 3 
 
240 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt hi. 
 
 to defend Sicily without the least trouble (and all good patriots 
 would have flocked to join him if he had defended it), evacu- 
 ated Syracuse on the 23rd of April. If only Cotta succeeds, 
 as they are saying is the case, in keeping Sardinia ! — this is 
 really the report now. Oh, if it has been so, shame on Cato ! 
 
 * As for myself, to lessen suspicion of my departure or of 
 my intentions, I left this for my house at Pompeii on the 12 th, 
 meaning to stay there until what was necessary for a voyage 
 could be got ready. On my arrival at the villa there was an 
 application : ' the centurions of the three cohorts ' (which are 
 stationed at Pompeii) ' desired an interview on the following 
 day : ' wishing indeed — this is the communication of our good 
 friend Ninnius — to put themselves and the town at my disposal. 
 But between you and me I was off from the house next day 
 before daylight, so that they should not get a glimpse of me 
 at all. For what was the good of three cohorts? What if 
 even they had been more ? How was I to keep them up ? 
 I thought of the very same exploits of Caelius 1 which I have 
 now been reading of in your letter, having received it that 
 same day the moment I reached my house at Cumae, and [at 
 the same time] there was the possibility that it was only done 
 to tempt me : so I have put myself outside all suspicion. 
 
 6 But while I am on my way back Hortensius had been 
 calling, and had come out of his road to pay his respects to 
 Terentia. He had used most complimentary expressions about 
 me. I shall probably have an opportunity of seeing him though, 
 because he has sent his man to announce a call upon me. 
 This at any rate is better than our colleague Antonius, who has 
 an actress with him in his litter among lictors ! 2 
 
 1 This allusion is somewhat doubtful. A certain Caelius, probably Caelius 
 Caldus, grandfather of Cicero's quaestor in Cilicia, is said to have joined with 
 Carbo in raising an army in the south of Italy to oppose Sulla, who easily 
 overthrew him ; and the passage is generally explained as referring to him. 
 Mr. Watson however thinks it may refer to Cicero's well-known correspondent, , 
 Caelius Rufus, who although now nominally a supporter of Caesar was rapidly 
 drifting back again to the other side, and perhaps had already hinted at a 
 revolt. Compare Introd. to Letter lxxvi. 
 
 2 ' The letter in which these circumstances are related was written from 
 Cicero's villa at Cumae at the very time when he was in correspondence with 
 Antonius and Curio about the course which it would be prudent for him to 
 take. In the speech (Phil. ii. 24) he expressly says that he was not in Italy 
 
ep. lxxv. TO TERENTIA. {AD FAM. XIV. 7.) 241 
 
 Since you are free now from quartan fever, and have shaken 6 
 off not only your new complaint s but even the heaviness that 
 it leaves, mind that you bring yourself strong and well to 
 Greece when we meet. And in the meantime plenty of letters. 
 
 LXXV. (AD FAM. XIV. 7.) 
 
 FROM CICERO ON A VESSEL IN THE HARBOUR OF CAIETA 
 TO HIS WIFE TERENTIA AT CUMAE (?). 
 
 June 7, 705 A.V.C. (49 B.C.) 
 
 At last Cicero made up his mind to take the decisive step, and embarked 
 for Greece on the vessel which had long been kept ready for him at Caieta 
 (Letter liv. § 6), accompanied by his son Marcus, his brother Quintus, and 
 his nephew, the younger Quintus. Terentia and Tullia — the latter had lately 
 
 (implying that he was already in the camp of Pompeius) at the time. It is 
 impossible after this to attach any special weight to the scandalous imputations 
 he throws out about Antonius. . . . Even if we were to admit everything that 
 Cicero says against him, the progress of Antonius through Italy would still 
 stand in luminous contrast to the devastating march of most of its previous 
 conquerors.' — Merivale, ii. 222. The actress was the famous Cytheris, the 
 Lycoris of Verg. Eel. x. 2. Antonius was ' colleague ' of Cicero as an Augur. 
 (Letter xli. 1.) The characteristic weak play of words in ' lectica,' ' lictores,' 
 should here be noticed. 
 
 8 According to Boot nedum in the sense of non modo, that is in an affirma- 
 tive clause, is not found in Cicero's own writings. But he admits that it is 
 found in the letter of Balbus and Oppius (Ad Att. ix. 7 A), ' nedum hominum 
 kumilium sed etiam amplissimorumvirorum consilia . . . probari solent :' so 
 that whether it occurs elsewhere in Cicero or not is of little consequence. 
 Compare however Ad Fam. vii. 28 : ' Erat domicilium huius urbis aptius 
 quam tota Peloponnesus, nedum Patrae.' Nedum in fact is to non modo 
 precisely as /i7) Situs to oi)x Situs, and like pi) Situs does not require any verb 
 to be expressed, but when the verb is expressed it is naturally put in the 
 conjunctive. Had removisti here occurred after etiam or gravedinem, or had 
 sed been omitted, there would not have been the slightest difficulty. Now the 
 emphasis laid on Atticus's entire recovery from his disease, which is more 
 important than his recovery also from its minor consequences {gravedo), has 
 attracted the verb from its usual place into the more important clause. But 
 to state this principal fact in the conjunctive ( = I do not say anything about 
 your complaint), would have been to destroy the true emphasis, and to lay 
 the stress on the accessory fact. The reading is therefore fully capable of 
 defence, though the rare usage has apparently given rise to some confusion in 
 the MSS. between nedum and the following word novum. 
 
 It seems from Ad Att. x. 10, 3 that this new complaint of Atticus was ac- 
 companied by strangury, Svffovpia. Gravedo seems to be used here as a 
 symptom, rather than in its ordinary sense, = an ' influenza cold. ' 
 
 R 
 
242 LETTERS OF CICERO. part lit. 
 
 been confined of a seven-months' child, which soon died — were left behind, 
 probably at Cumae. Cicero found however to his surprise that his tardy 
 arrival in the Pompeian camp was by no means welcome either to the leader 
 or his party. 
 
 ' From the time of Cicero's departure from Italy till the beginning of the 
 following February we are without any letters ; and there are but four letters 
 to Atticus written from Epirus and from the camp of Pompeius, besides a few 
 brief notes to Terentia from that month till the middle of July. The few 
 letters to Atticus which remain evince the mental dejection into which he fell. ' 
 — Abeken. 
 
 The date of this letter is given in several edd. as July n (Hi Idus), but mi 
 Idus seems to be the true reading. 
 
 Merivale, ii. 243 ; Abeken, 302-304 ; Forsyth, 375-37S. 
 
 1 All those annoyances and causes of anxiety, by which I 
 made you so miserable — indeed this was to me the most 
 annoying part of it all — and my Tullia too who is dearer to 
 me than life, I have now put aside and got clear rid of. I 
 discovered the origin of them all the very day after leaving 
 you. In the night I was relieved of a quantity of bile — toute 
 pure : x immediately I was so much better that it looked as if 
 some god had been working my cure : and to this god [be it 
 Apollo or Aesculapius] I have no doubt you will, as you always 
 do, render your pure and grateful thanks. 
 
 2 I am in hopes that we have got a first-rate vessel : (I write 
 this immediately on coming on board). I shall next write 
 numerous letters to our more intimate friends entrusting you 
 and my darling Tullia to their tenderest care. I would exhort 
 you both to keep up your courage, if I had not found already 
 that your courage beats any man's. Yet after all I am in 
 hopes that matters are so going on that I may look forward to 
 your being comfortably off where you are now, and to my own 
 return hereafter with those who think with me to be the defence 
 of the Republic. 
 
 3 Above all things I trust you will not neglect your health ; 
 to which I may add that you will do well to make use, at your 
 own discretion, of those villas which will be most out of the 
 way of the soldiery. You will be able conveniently to occupy 
 
 1 Mr. Watson suggests that Cicero uses Greek words here for delicacy's 
 sake. But medical terms are with him usually expressed in Greek, just as our 
 physicians' prescriptions are usually written in Latin. Compare Letters civ. 
 1 ; cvii. 8 ; and Prof, Tyrrell's Introd. i. 67. 
 
ep. lxxvi. FROM CAELIUS. (AD FAM. VIII. 17.) 243 
 
 the farm at Arpinum with our town establishment, if ever pro- 
 visions should have become dearer. Our boy Marcus, who is 
 a splendid fellow, sends you much love. Again and again 
 good-bye. 
 June 7. 
 
 LXXVI. (AD FAM. VIII. 17.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CAELIUS RUFUS IN ITALY TO CICERO AT 
 THESSALONICA. 
 
 Early in 706 A.v.c. (48 B.C.) 
 
 Between this letter and the preceding one comes the important decision of 
 the struggle in Spain. Caesar first proceeded to Massilia (Marseille), which 
 had been occupied by Domitius since his release from Corfinium (Letter lxvi. 
 § 2), and staying there himself a month to advance the siege of the town, sent 
 on the main part of his army under Gaius Fabius to hold the Pyrenees. The 
 Pompeian army under Afranius and Petreius rinding the passes gone, then took 
 up its position at Ilerda (Lerida), on the Sicoris (Segre), between the Pyrenees 
 and the Ebro. Here for forty days an extremely interesting campaign of 
 military tactics went on, all of which are fully described by Caesar himself in 
 his ' Civil War. ' After various alternations of success the Pompeian army 
 capitulated on Aug. 2, and was treated with extraordinary generosity. Further 
 Spain, which was held by the celebrated scholar but incompetent general, 
 Marcus Terentius Varro, then immediately declared for the conqueror. Mean- 
 while Decimus Brutus and Gaius Trebonius had vigorously pressed the siege 
 of Massilia, at which place Caesar arrived from Spain just in time to xeceive 
 its surrender in person. Sardinia and Corsica having been conquered by 
 Valerius, and Sicily by Curio, the only Pompeian gains to be set against this 
 ' vast success of Caesar over the whole of the West were the death of Curio in 
 Africa (Introd. to Letter lxxiv. ), and a naval victory over Gaius Antonius, a 
 younger brother of Marcus, in the Illyrian gulf. 
 
 From Massilia Caesar returned to Rome, quelling on his way a serious 
 mutiny of the 9th legion at Placentia (Piacenza), which arose from his stern 
 refusal ever to give up a town, as the Pompeians always did, to pillage and 
 massacre. He had already been elected dictator on the nomination of the 
 praetor Lepidus (see Letter lxii. note 3), in which capacity he presided at the 
 election of consuls, and was returned with Publius Servilius Isauricus, an un- 
 decided politician who is called by Cicero an imitator of Cato (Letter ix. § 10). 
 Though Caesar remained dictator for only eleven days he carried three measures 
 of great importance: (1) a compromise, the substantial justice of which is 
 proved even by this letter, on the vexed question of debts ; (2) amnesty to exiles, 
 with the sole exception of the turbulent Milo, under the acts of Pompeius and 
 Sulla ; (3) full extension of the franchise, which had probably been informally 
 granted before (see Introd. to Letter xxxi.) to the Transpadane Gauls, and to 
 the citizens of Gades (Cadiz) ; the latter not being even an Italian town marks 
 a new departure in policy. At the end of the year (which by the true time 
 was only mid-autumn) he left Rome for Brundisium, and sailed with six greatly 
 
244 LETTERS OF CICERO. PART m. 
 
 thinned legions for Epirus ; and as Pompeius was now moving from Thessa- 
 lonica to Dyrrachium the two great rivals were at last to meet face to face. 
 
 As to Caelius see Introd. to Letters xxxiii. and Ixix. This is the last 
 letter Cicero received from him, and his subsequent fate may be here narrated. 
 Becoming again discontented with Caesar, whom he had for a short time 
 warmly supported, and thinking his reward insufficient, he tried a revolutionary 
 programme ; and being suspended from his praetorship by the Senate left 
 Rome to raise, in conjunction with Milo, an insurrection in South Italy in 
 favour of Pompeius (see Letter lxxiv. note i) ; in this both were speedily 
 killed. The present letter is apparently written on the eve of his leaving Rome ; 
 and the date is fixed, Mr. Watson says, on the one hand by Caesar's army 
 (§ 2) being already in presence of Pompeius, on the other by the death of 
 Caelius, which occurred early in the year 48. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 382-404 ; Merivale, ii. 172-257 ; Long. v. ch. 5-9 ; Forsyth, 
 280 ; Froude, Caesar, ch. 22. 
 
 1 And this is what my being in Spain instead of at Formiae 
 when you went to join Pompeius has come to ! Would to 
 Heaven indeed that either Appius Claudius had been on this 
 side or Gaius Curio on yours ! It was only my intimacy with 
 him which by degrees threw me into the arms of this accursed 
 cause ; for I am conscious that rage and affection have between 
 them robbed me of my good sense. I must say that you too, 
 when I came from Ariminum to pay you a nocturnal visit, 
 forgot the part of a friend in playing the sublime patriot ; and 
 while giving me instructions of peace for Caesar, you gave me 
 no hint for my own advantage. And I am not saying this as 
 though I had any want of confidence in our cause, but, take 
 my word for it, it is better to die than have the sight of these 
 
 2 creatures. Indeed but that people dread the atrocities of your 
 party, we should long ago have been turned out of this ; for 
 at present here, with the exception of a few usurers, there is 
 neither individual nor class that is not Pompeian. I myself 
 indeed have not only thoroughly brought round the rabble, 
 but even the mass of burghers, who used to be ours, to your 
 side. Why so ? Nay, you must all wait and see : I shall 
 have made you win in spite of yourselves. I mean to pose as 
 a second Cato : you are all asleep, and do not yet perceive, it 
 seems to me, how exposed or how defenceless we are. More- 
 over I shall do this with no hope of any reward, but entirely 
 from resentment and indignation, which generally with me has 
 the principal weight. 
 
 What are you doing over there ? Waiting for a battle 
 
ep. lxxvii. FROM DOLABELLA. (AD FAM. IX. 9.) 245 
 
 which is the strongest card in his hand P 1 I do not know your 
 forces : our men's way is to fight stoutly to the last, and make 
 light of cold and hunger. 
 
 LXXVII. (AD FAM. IX. 9.) 
 
 FROM DOLABELLA IN CAESAR'S CAMP TO CICERO IN 
 POMPEIUS'S AT PETRA NEAR DYRRACHIUM. 
 
 ' May, 706 A.v.c. (48 B.C.) 
 
 On Caesar's arrival in Epirus Oricum and Apollonia at once submitted to 
 him, and Pompeius was only just in time even to save the great arsenal of 
 Dyrrachium ; to cover which he took up his position on the right bank of 
 the river Apsus, while his opponent was on the left. Here it daily became 
 more absolutely necessary for Caesar, not having the command of the sea, that 
 Antonius should speedily bring the remaining forces from Italy. The main 
 body of the Pompeian fleet, under the feeble Marcus Bibulus, was stationed 
 at Corcyra ; but a strong squadron, under the abler Lucius Scribonius Libo, 
 was watching the harbour of Brundisium. Antonius however, just when 
 Caesar's situation was nearly desperate, at last effected a start, and after an 
 extraordinarily narrow escape landed his transports at Nymphaeum, some 
 distance to the N. of Dyrrachium, and in a few days succeeded in joining his 
 forces with those of his commander. 
 
 Pompeius having been thus cut off from the land -communication with 
 Dyrrachium took up a new position at Petra (The Rock) in the neighbour- 
 hood, and there enclosed himself in a strong entrenchment, open only to 
 the sea. Round this entrenchment Caesar actually carried a double line of 
 counter-rampart through an arc of seventeen miles ; and thus ' presented to 
 the world the extraordinary spectacle of a superior force, commanded by the 
 most experienced general of the age, blockaded in the centre of the country 
 which he had himself chosen for the campaign. ' — Merivale. 
 
 It is apparently at this juncture, when Caesar's fortune seemed most 
 triumphant, that the present letter — not at all an unkind one, though Dola- 
 bella already meant to divorce Tullia (see note 5 of the next letter) — is written 
 to induce Cicero to withdraw in time. It is exceedingly stilted and verbose, 
 like most of the formal letters of the Romans. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 402-408; Merivale, ii. 247-268; Long, v. ch. 10, n; Abeken, 
 306 ; Forsyth, 380 ; Froude, Caesar, ch. 22. 
 
 I hope that you, like Tullia and myself, are quite well. 1 
 Terentia has been comparatively indisposed, but I am in- 
 formed beyond doubt that she is now quite recovered. With 
 that exception everything at your house is going on most 
 satisfactorily. 
 
 Although there has never been a time in which I could 
 
 1 This use of Jirmum hatere is rare (compare Letter xii. 4), and seems to 
 be almost technical. 
 
246 LETTERS OF CICERO. PART m. 
 
 with any justice be met by you with the suspicion that it 
 was more for the sake of our party than of yourself that I 
 advised you either to join Caesar and the rest of us, or else 
 at any rate to retire into neutrality, it is clear that now, when 
 the scales have already dipped towards victory, I cannot 
 possibly lay myself open to any criticism of my motives, except 
 that which represents me as recommending you a course, 
 which duty forbids me to leave unsaid. 1 Will you then, my 
 dear Cicero, so receive what I have to say that, whether it is 
 to meet with your approval or your disapproval, you will at any 
 rate confess yourself convinced that both these reflections and 
 the present statement of them have originated only in the 
 sincerest and most devoted feelings towards yourself? 
 ! You have before your eyes the fact that neither the 
 greatness of his name and of his achievements, nor yet the 
 patronage he exercises over divers kings and peoples, of which 
 he used so often to make his boast, 2 has been a protection 
 to Pompeius himself: nay more, that to him alone is denied 
 what to his meanest private has not been denied — the chance 
 of an honourable retreat; — chased from Italy, the Spanish 
 Provinces lost, his veteran army captured, finally himself now 
 blockaded, which I should think has probably never happened 
 to any Roman general before. Use your good judgment 
 therefore and consider what hopes either he or you can have ; 
 for this will be the easiest way of arriving at that decision 
 which will be most to your advantage. Now I have this 
 request to make of you, that supposing he has by this time 
 extricated himself from the present danger and hidden himself 
 away in his fleet, you will consult your own interests, and 
 think it time at last to be your own friend rather than anybody 
 else's. You have already paid your claims in full, whether 
 
 1 In spite of the clumsy verbiage of this sentence the meaning ought not 
 to present any difficulty. The apodosis clearly begins at 'praecipue nunc,' 
 which is opposed to ' nulla tempore? and it would be better to add a comma 
 after ' nunc? l iam inclinata victoria* being explanatory of it. '/» aliam 
 incidere opinionem ' is thus opposed to ' in suspitionem venire, ' of which it is 
 the weaker form, an antithesis which would be utterly destroyed by the feeble 
 rendering ' to come to any other opinion. ' ' In earn in qua ' is only an awkward 
 periphrasis for 'ut' or 'quod.' 
 
 2 He was called the 'king of kings.' See Mommsen, iv. 402 ; Merivale, 
 ii. 239-240. 
 
up. lxxviii. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. XI. 4.) 
 
 247 
 
 they are those of duty or of intimacy : you have even paid 
 those of your party, and of that form of government which 3 
 you considered the best. What remains' for us is to range 
 ourselves wherever the government of the day is found, rather 
 than follow in search of the old one only to find ourselves 
 under none at all. 
 
 If therefore, my dearest Cicero, it should happen that 
 Pompeius is driven from these parts too, and forced to betake 
 himself to some other country, I should hope that you would 
 withdraw, say to Athens, or to any undisturbed city you 
 please : and if you intend to take this course I trust that 
 you will write to me, so that I, if in any way I possibly can, 
 may fly to your side. Anything which it will be necessary to 
 obtain our general's consent to, in order for you to assert your 
 position, it will be perfectly easy — so great is Caesar's courtesy 
 — for you to obtain from him yourself; I think however that my 
 entreaties will be found to have no little influence with him. 
 
 I may add that in honour and good feeling you will no 
 doubt see that the bearer whom I send with. this is allowed 
 to pass the lines again, and that he brings me back a letter 
 from you. 
 
 LXXVIII. (AD ATT. XI. 4.) 
 
 FROM CICERO IN POMPEIUS's CAMP AT PETRA TO ATTICUS 
 AT ROME. 
 
 June or July, 706 A.v.c. (48 B.C.) 
 
 Between the time of this and the preceding letter the fortune of war had 
 apparently changed. In Caesar's two lines of rampart a. small part was yet 
 uncompleted when an attack, based on information from deserters, was made 
 by Pompeius, and the line of entrenchment broken. It was necessary for 
 Caesar at once to retire, first to Apollonia, and then to Thessaly, where the 
 war was finally decided in the great battle of Pharsalus. See Introd. to the 
 next letter. 
 
 There is a distinct difference of tone between the two sections of this letter, 
 which has occasioned the suspicion that it is a compound of two, written at 
 different times, or at least that the latter half is a postscript after the temporary 
 success of Petra. Cicero was left behind in ill health at Dyrrachium when 
 Pompeius and his army followed Caesar, and was there at the time of the 
 battle of Pharsalus. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 408-412; Merivale, ii. 274-280; Long, v. ch. 13-15; 
 Abeken, 305 ; Forsyth, 381 ; Froude, Caesar, ch. 22. 
 
■448 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabtiii. 
 
 1 I have received a letter brought by Isidorus, and also two 
 ■ of later date. I find from the latest one that the farms have 
 
 not been sold ; so will you see about making some provision 
 for maintenance ? As far as regards the one at Frusino 1 the 
 arrangement will be a convenient one for me — that is if we 
 are to be allowed to exist. You ask what has become of my 
 letters, but the fact is I am stopped by sheer want of matter, 
 having nothing at all worth putting on paper; since I find 
 myself equally unable to be satisfied with either accidental 
 results or deliberate acts. Oh, if I could but have discussed 
 things with you some time ago, instead of by letter ! I am 
 keeping an eye on your property here, as far as I can among 
 these people — ask Celer for more. As for myself, I have 
 hitherto avoided any official position — all the more because 
 there was nothing to be done which would in any way suit 
 me or my interests. 
 
 2 Since you" are anxious to know what has happened in the 
 way of news, you will be able to learn this from Isidorus. It 
 is not probable that for the rest of our task the difficulties are 
 greater. You, I hope, will take particular care about what 
 you know I have most at heart, as you tell me you. will, and 
 as you are now doing. 2 Mental anxiety is wearing me out, 
 and this is creating extreme bodily weakness also : but when 
 this is relieved I shall stay with him : 3 he is bestirring himself 
 and is in high spirits. Brutus 4 is very friendly : he is engag- 
 ing vigorously in the cause. This is as far as I can go in a 
 letter with prudence. Good-bye. 
 
 P.S. — As to paying a second instalment, 5 I entreat you to 
 use the greatest .care in considering the question what I must 
 do, as I said in the letter which Pollex took. 
 
 1 A town in Latium, now Frosinone. Mr. Forsyth is unhappy in both 
 forms, which he gives as ' Frusinum ' and ■ Frussilone. ' 
 
 2 This probably means the care which Atticus was taking of Tullia. 
 
 3 Pompeius. 
 
 4 This is Marcus Brutus (see Letter xiii. note z) ; Decimus Brutus was one 
 of Caesar's best generals. 
 
 5 Cicero refers to Tullia's dowry on her marriage with Dolabella, which was 
 due on the ist of July. She was afterwards divorced by him ; and Cicero s 
 reluctance to pay is probably because this already seemed likely to happen, 
 and it might be difficult — as afterwards indeed proved to be the case — to 
 recover the money. 
 
PART IV. 
 
 THE REIGN OF CAESAR. 
 
PART IV. 
 
 FROM THE BATTLE OF PHARSALUS (Aug. 9, 48 b.c.) TO 
 THE MURDER OF CAESAR (March 15, 44 b.c.) 
 
 LXXIX. (AD ATT. XI. 5.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT BRUNDISIUM TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Early in November, 706 A. v. c. (48 B. c. ) 
 
 After the important disaster of Dyrrachium which so nearly imperilled all 
 Caesar's hopes (see Introd. to the preceding letter), he was forced to re- 
 treat towards Thessaly. With great difficulty, and in spite of the efforts of 
 Pompeius, he effected a junction on the borders with the two legions under 
 Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus. The two main divisions of Pompeius's army united 
 at Larissa, the capital of Thessaly, when they amounted to a force of no less 
 than 47, 000 men and 7000 horse, or more than double that of Caesar. The 
 battle was fought on the 9th of August, near the town of Pharsalus (Fersala) 
 on the river Enipeus, about twenty-five miles S. of Larissa, where Caesar gained 
 the decisive victory which made him absolute master of Rome. Pompeius, 
 though his situation was still anything but desperate, fled to the coast, and 
 took ship for Cilicia, and thence for Egypt ; where, on September 28, he was 
 treacherously murdered by the ministers who ruled for the young king Ptole- 
 maeus the Twelfth. His death is mentioned somewhat coldly in Letter lxxx. 
 There is a well-known sketch of his character in Mommsen, iv. 10-12 ; ' a man 
 thoroughly ordinary ; created by nature to be a good sergeant, called by cir- 
 cumstances to be a general and a statesman. ' 
 
 Cicero, as has been already mentioned, was, or pretended to be, ill at 
 Dyrrachium at the time of the battle of Pharsalus. He was indeed in far 
 greater danger from the furious Pompeians than from Caesar. Lucius Domitius 
 Ahenobarbus (who fell in the battle) had already proposed a sentence of death 
 and forfeiture of property against every senator who had remained in Italy 
 (see Letter lxxx. ) ; and when in a rendezvous of the Senatorial party at Corcyra 
 Cato offered the command to Cicero as being the senior ex-consul, he was 
 threatened with death on declining it, by Pompeius's elder son, Gnaeus, and 
 apparently owed his life to the intervention of Cato. Without waiting for a 
 permission therefore he returned to Italy, and landed at Brundisium early in 
 
252 LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 November, where he remained until the following September. ' The letters to 
 Atticus. written from Brundisium,' says Abeken, 'are the most melancholy of 
 the whole collection. ' Among other causes for bitterness was the ungenerous 
 conduct of Quintus Cicero, of which the four succeeding letters complain; 
 because in making his peace with the conqueror he had thrown the blame 
 of his defection upon his brother. Cicero was moreover considerably em- 
 barrassed by the presence of his lictors, whose staves of office were still crowned 
 - with laurels for the successes in Cilicia (see Introd. to Letters xxxix. xlii. 
 and xlvi.), and so attracted more observation, in spite of which he could not 
 bring himself to part with these now useless vestiges of his dignity. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 410-425; Merivale, ii. 278-309; Long, t. ch. 16-18; 
 Abeken, 306-322 ; Forsyth, 379-387 ; Froude, Caesar, ch. 22, 23. 
 
 1 What the causes are that have moved me thus — so bitter, 
 so grievous, so strange were they — and forced me to rely as 
 it were on an impulse of feeling rather than on any deliberate 
 resolution I cannot describe to you without the greatest pain ; 
 at all events they were enough to have produced the result 
 you now see. The consequence is that I am at a loss both 
 what explanation to write to you of my proceedings, and what 
 to ask for : you see the circumstances and the gist of the whole 
 matter. I perceived indeed from your letters, including both 
 the common communication from you and several friends, and 
 the private one from yourself, what indeed I was not slow to 
 see, that you, though almost crippled, I may say, by my sudden 
 action, were now casting about for fresh ways of protecting me. 
 
 2 As to the course you recommend in your letter, that I 
 should come nearer you, and arrange the journey so as to pass 
 through the towns by night, I really do not see how that could 
 be managed ; because in the first place there are no suitable 
 houses for me to lodge at where I could possibly spend the 
 whole of the daytime, and secondly, it makes no great difference 
 for the purpose you intend whether 1 people see me in a town 
 or on the road. But all the same I will take this particular 
 plan equally with others into consideration, to see how it could 
 be most conveniently carried out. 
 
 3 Owing to more illness of both mind and body than one 
 would believe, I have not felt myself equal to the task of 
 writing many letters; I have merely sent answers to such 
 people as I had heard from. Will you kindly write in my 
 name x as you may think proper to Basilus, and any one 
 
 1 See Letter xvi. note 7. 
 
ep. lxxx. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. XI. 6.) 253 
 
 else, just as you think good, and also to Servilius. 2 That 
 for so long a time I have not written any of you a single word, 
 is, you will no doubt see from this letter, because I lack matter 
 for writing, not inclination. 
 
 As to your question about Vatinius, I should not want for 4 
 the services either of him or of any one else if they could find 
 in what to help me. At Patrae I found that Quintus was in a 
 most hostile mood towards me : his son came over from Corcyra 
 to meet him there. I suppose they have now left it and gone 
 in the same direction as the rest. 
 
 LXXX. (AD ATT. XI. 6.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT BRUNDISIUM TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Nov. 27, 706 A.v.c. (48 B.C.) 
 
 I am sensible that your anxiety is not only about your own 1 
 prospects and those of us all alike, but is in an especial degree 
 about me and my trouble : indeed this same trouble of mine, 
 so far from being lessened, is positively aggravated by the fact 
 that it includes you as a fellow-victim. It is simply what would 
 be expected of your discernment that you feel in what topic of 
 consolation I can find the greatest relief; because you give 
 your approval to the step I have taken, and admit that under 
 the circumstances there was nothing better for me to do. You 
 add moreover this, — a trifling matter to me indeed when 
 compared with your judgment, but not trifling in itself, — that 
 everybody else also, that is among people of any weight, 
 approves of what I have done. Could I but think that this 
 was really so I should be less troubled. But I may take it on 
 your word ? Of course I take your word ; but then I know how 2 
 eager you are that my trouble should be lightened. It has 
 never been a regret to me that I left the camp behind : there 
 was such ferocity to be found in those men, such intimate 
 alliance with savage tribes, that a proscription had been already 
 sketched out, not of isolated individuals but of whole classes ; 
 
 2 Now consul with Caesar. See Introd. to Letter Ixxvi. 
 
254 LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 while it had been already settled by general consent that the 
 estates of you all were to be made the prize of his victory. I 
 expressly say all of you ; for even about yourself there never 
 were any but the most ferocious intentions. Consequently I 
 never shall regret my object ; I do regret the means I adopted. 
 A better way would have been to settle down in some country 
 town, until such time as I should be sent for ; I should then 
 have had fewer remarks to undergo, fewer stabs to feel inflicted : 
 I should be spared even my present feeling of vexation. To 
 be lying thus at Brundisium is annoying in every point of view. 
 How is it possible for me to come nearer, as you recommend, 
 without the official retinue given me by the nation, which 
 cannot be taken away from me without a robbery of my rights ? 
 I have for the present made these men when I am near the 
 town go separately into the midst of the crowd with nothing 
 but single staves, for fear of exciting an attack of the soldiery ; 
 5 [at the proper time I shall resume their attendance. Will you 
 now send word to Oppius and Balbus, because if these people 
 were to favour the idea of my coming nearer in the same fashion 
 as at present I would consider the question further. 1 ] My 
 belief is that they will approve ; because to this they pledge 
 themselves — that Caesar will make it his care not only to guard 
 the rights of my position but even to add yet more to them, 
 and they exhort me to be of good cheer, and to entertain the 
 highest hopes. All this, though they promise and give me 
 strong assurances of it, I should feel was more beyond doubt 
 if I had stayed behind. But I am thrusting upon you what 
 is now done with. Look therefore for my sake into what is 
 still to come, and sift the question thoroughly in conference with 
 the men you allude to ; and if you think this is essential, and 
 if the people in question are likely to approve, make use of 
 Trebonius, Pansa, and anybody else, so that Caesar may be 
 the more inclined to give his sanction to this step of mine if 
 it is thought to have been taken at the suggestion of his own 
 
 1 The passage in brackets is extremely corrupt, and leaves room for widely 
 different conjectures. Boot's emendation, which I have here translated, involves 
 the least amount of change. ' Recipi am [sc. lictorcs) tempore idoneo. MITle nunc 
 ad Oppium et Balbum, q-uoniam his S[ placeret EO modo ( = cum lictoribus) pro- 
 plus accedere hoc de re tonsiderarem. ' 
 
ep. lxxxi. TO ATTJCUS. (AD ATT. XI. 9.) 255 
 
 friends, and get them to write to Caesar that anything which I 
 have done has only been done at their suggestion. 
 
 The illness of my dear Tullia and her feeble constitution • 
 is to me a deadly anxiety. To her I see you have shown 
 much attention, which is the greatest kindness you could do 
 to me. 
 
 As to the fate of Pompeius I never had any doubt ; 
 because such despair of his success had impressed itself on the 
 minds of all the kings and peoples, that I believed wherever 
 he betook himself this would come to pass. I cannot but 
 lament his fall ; I knew him to be, as a man, single-minded, 
 pure, and earnest. 
 
 Am I to condole with you about Fannius ? He was > 
 using dangerous expressions about your staying behind. 
 Lentulus Crus indeed had made himself sure of Hortensius's 
 house, Caesar's pleasure-gardens, and the Baiae estate ! 2 
 Exactly the same is done by this party here, only that on the 
 other side there was no limitation at all, because everybody 
 who had stayed in Italy was accounted an enemy. But more 
 of this I hope when our feelings are easier. 
 
 I hear that my brother Quintus is gone to Asia to make 
 his peace ; about his son I have heard nothing. But ask 
 Diochares, Caesar's freedman — I have not seen him myself, 
 but he is the man who brought you your letter from Alexandria : 
 — he is reported to have seen him [either] on the road, or 
 else already in Asia. I am expecting a letter from you, as 
 present circumstances demand ; and will you kindly see that 
 it reaches me as soon as possible? Nov. 27. 
 
 LXXXI. (AD ATT. XI. 9.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT BRUNDISIUM TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 Jan. 3, 707 A.v.c, (47 B.C.) 
 
 It was not long before Cicero repented of his return to Italy. Antonius, 
 who was acting for Caesar there, informed Cicero, though in civil terms, that 
 
 2 A curious parallel to this is the popular (but probably untrue) story that 
 the Admiral of the Spanish Armada, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, had selected 
 Mount Edgcumbe for his own residence. 
 
256 LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 he could not be allowed to remain in the country ; and the new tribunes, of 
 whom Dolabella was one, seem to have introduced a bill excluding from Italy 
 all who had served in the Pompeian army. On the intercession of Dolabella 
 however a special edict excepting him and Decimus Laelius 1 (Ad Att. xi. 7) 
 by name was issued ; which in itself was both an annoyance and a real danger 
 to Cicero, since it exposed him to the certain vengeance of his party if they 
 should ever again be triumphant ; and this contingency at the present time — 
 Caesar being now besieged in Alexandria— seemed far from improbable. See 
 Introd. to Letter lxxxiii. 
 
 On the complaints about Quintus Cicero, whose treachery is denounced in 
 this letter, see Introd. to Letter lxxix. 
 
 Abeken, 319-320 ; Forsyth, 382. 
 
 1 Yes, it is quite true : I have acted both incautiously, as 
 you say, and with greater haste than was right ; and now I 
 am without the least hope of any kind, being kept back here 
 by the very exceptions that have been made in the edicts, which 
 if your unwearied care and kindness had never succeeded in 
 procuring for me, I should be free to go into some solitary spot 
 or other : as it is, even that is denied me. What advantage 
 again do I get from having returned before the new tribunes 
 came into office, if the fact of my having returned is itself no 
 advantage at all ? What help moreover can I expect from a 
 man who never was really friendly to me, when I find myself 
 at last struck down and crushed even by process of law? 
 Balbus's letters to me now grow daily cooler : and various 
 others from various people to the great man keep on coming 
 — possibly to run me down. The fault was mine if I am 
 ruined : fortune did me no ill turn at all ; I drew it all upon 
 myself by my own folly ; for I had determined immediately 
 on seeing the real character of the war — how everything was 
 feeble and disorganised, against forces in perfect organisa- 
 tion — what was the line I would take ; and I had adopted 
 not perhaps so much a bold policy as one that was more 
 
 2 legitimate for me than for any one else. I yielded to my 
 friends, or rather I obeyed their orders : and what the real 
 attitude of one of those friends was — the very one for whom 
 you ask my consideration 2 — you will learn from himself in the 
 
 1 Not Coelius (Caelius), as Mr. Forsyth absurdly says. 
 
 2 This refers to Quintus Cicero. Atticus probably thought that Caesar 
 would be more angry with Quintus, who was one of his own officers, than 
 with his brother Marcus. 
 
257 
 
 ep. lxxxi. TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. XI. 9.) 
 
 letters he has sent to you and other people. These I should 
 never have opened but for a circumstance which occurred in 
 the following way. A packet was brought to me : I opened 
 it to see if there was anything in the way of a note for myself : 
 nothing, but there was a letter for Vatinius and another for 
 Ligurius. I gave orders for them to be forwarded. Imme- 
 diately in came these people in a burning rage, crying what 
 shameful conduct it was of him : they read me their letters, 
 which were full of every kind of insult to me. Hereupon 
 Ligurius broke into a passion : he knew for a fact that the 
 writer was extremely disliked by Caesar, who nevertheless had 
 not only shown him much attention, but had given him all 
 that sum of money as a mark of attention to me. I myself 
 after receiving such a blow as this wanted to know what he 
 had written to other people, because I thought that even to 
 himself it would be ruinous, if such a crime on his part had 
 once got abroad. Having ascertained that they were of the 
 same character, I have sent them on to you : if you think it 
 will be well for himself that they should be forwarded, will 
 you forward them ? It will not hurt me at all, because, as to 
 their having been opened, Pomponia, I imagine, has his seal. 3 
 He gave way to just the same outburst of temper at the 
 commencement of our voyage, and affected me so painfully 
 that I haVe since been quite prostrate ; and even now they 
 say he is trying hard not so much to benefit himself as to 
 injure me. 
 
 Thus you see I am burdened by troubles in every way, 3 
 which I am hardly able, or in plain truth am quite unable to bear : 
 out of which miseries there is one equal in weight to all the 
 rest put together, that I shall leave that poor child stripped of 
 the patrimony which is her whole fortune : for which reason 
 1 should particularly wish to see you, according to your pro- 
 mise. I have no one else to whose care I can commend her, 
 because I have seen that the same fate is intended for her 
 mother as for myself. 4 But supposing you find me gone, 
 
 3 See Letter xxxi. note 6 ; xlii. note 4. 
 
 4 Mr. Watson justly remarks that severity to women was in Roman' revolu- 
 tions very rare, and therefore that Cicero's apprehensions were hardly justified, 
 even apart from the proved clemency of Caesar. 
 
 S 
 
258 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt iv. 
 
 consider nevertheless that she has virtually been commended to 
 your care, and soften her uncle towards her as far as you can. 
 I write this letter on my birthday. Would that on that 
 day I never had been allowed to live, or that of my mother no 
 other son had afterwards been born ! My tears prevent me 
 from writing more. 
 
 LXXXII. (AD ATT. XI. 12.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT BRUNDISIUM TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 March 8, 707 A.v.c. (47 B.C.) 
 
 1 This evening — the 8th of March — Cephalio has brought 
 me a letter from you. Now it was only this very morning that 
 I had sent off some messengers to whom I entrusted a letter 
 for you ; but still after reading yours I thought some answer 
 to it was required ; principally because you show me that you 
 are doubtful what reason I shall assign to Caesar for my going 
 away at the time when I left Italy. There is no need in my 
 case of any fresh reason : I have frequently said in letters to 
 him, and charged many others to do so, that, earnestly as I 
 had desired it, I could not bear the reflections that people 
 were making, and much to that effect. For the last thing I 
 should ever wish him to think was, that in a matter of such 
 importance I had not acted upon my own judgment. And 
 when I learnt at a subsequent period, by a letter I received 
 from the younger Cornelius Balbus, that in his opinion my 
 brother Quintus had been 'the trumpet which sounded the 
 call for me to come ' — these were his words, — not knowing as 
 yet what Quintus had written about me to various' people (for 
 though it is true that to my very face he had said and done a 
 great deal in a bitter temper, yet all the same this did not 
 deter me), I wrote to Caesar in the following terms : — 
 
 2 ' It is not because I am less anxious for my brother Quintus 
 ' than for myself if in my present condition I do not presume 
 ' to request your consideration for him. Still this at all events, 
 ' which I entreat you to grant, I will presume to ask from you ; 
 
ep. lxxxii. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. XL 12.) 259 
 
 ' namely, not to believe that anything has been done by 
 ' him to infringe upon my unbroken recognition of your claims 
 ' upon me, or to weaken my regard for you : on the contrary, 
 ' that he has always endeavoured to promote a closer connec- 
 ' tion between us, and that when I did depart, if he was my 
 ' companion, he was not my leader. On any occasions there- 
 1 fore that may arise you will not, I am sure, refuse to accord 
 ' him all that your own courtesy and your mutual regard 
 ' demands. As for myself, that I may not in any way injure 
 ' him in your good opinion is what I plead for again and again 
 ' with all the strength I possess.' 
 
 Supposing therefore that later on I have secured some 3 
 kind of interview with Caesar, though I entertain no doubt — 
 this indeed he has already shown — that he will be disposed 
 to treat him with kindness, yet for myself I shall be what I 
 have always been. But I see that we ought to be much more 
 concerned about Africa, which you tell me indeed is daily 
 gathering such strength as to encourage our hopes, probably 
 rather of some agreement than of a victory. May it prove 
 to be so ! My reading of the situation however is widely 
 different, and I imagine that even you so take it in your 
 heart, though your letters represent things in another light, 
 not to deceive, but to encourage me ; especially since Spain 
 is coupled with Africa. 
 
 As to your advice that I should write to Antonius and to 4 
 the rest of them, will you kindly do for me what you have 
 often done before, if there is anything hereafter which you 
 consider essential ? Nothing has suggested itself to me which I 
 consider it necessary to write about. When people tell you that 
 I am less depressed in spirits, what is your own opinion when 
 you see these glorious proceedings of my son-in-law coming on 
 the top of my previous vexations P 1 Still I should hope you 
 would never forget to write to me to the fullest extent of your 
 opportunities for so doing, even whenever you have no special 
 
 1 Dolabella, who like Clodius had been adopted into a plebeian family in 
 order to be elected tribune, and was now taking up the role of Caelius Rufus 
 (see Introd. to Letter lxxvi.), proposed again a cancelling of rents and 
 loans, and thus caused several riots, which were at once stopped on Caesar's 
 return. Mommsen, iv. 460 ; Merivale, ii. 330 ; Abeken, 322. 
 
260 LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 subject for writing about, because your letters always bring me 
 some advantage. 
 
 I have formally accepted Galeo's legacy ; for I imagine I 
 was the only person who had to accept, since no notice of any 
 one else doing so has reached me. 2 March 8. 
 
 LXXXIIL (AD FAM. XV. 15.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT BRUNDISIUM TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS 
 IN THE CAMP OF CAESAR AT ALEXANDRIA (?). 
 
 July or August {?), 707 A.v.c. {47 E.c.) 
 
 After the battle of Pharsalus Caesar accepted the submission of most of his 
 opponents, including the recipient of this letter, Gaius Cassius, afterwards one 
 of his murderers, whom he took on to his own staff ; Marcus Brutus, whom 
 he made Governor of Cisalpine Gaul ; even Marcus Marcellus, who had so 
 largely contributed to the immediate rupture ; and many others as well. Fol- 
 lowing Pompeius then with all speed, he arrived at Alexandria only a few .days 
 after the murder had been committed. A struggle for the Egyptian crown was 
 at this time going on between the younger Ptolemaeus and his sister Cleopatra, 
 whom, according to Oriental usage, he had married. When Caesar claimed 
 to decide the dispute in the name of the Republic, a cry of national independ- 
 ence was raised, and the populace, who supported a younger sister, Arsinoe, 
 blockaded Caesar in the' island of Pharos, where again he was within an ace 
 of destruction (see Introd. to Letter lxxxi. ) Relief at length came from 
 Mithradates of Pergamus, and on the 27th of March the Egyptian army was 
 routed in the battle of the Nile, and Cleopatra made Queen of Egypt 
 
 In Asia Minor Pharnaces, a son of the great Mithradates, had seized the 
 provinces which once belonged to his father ; and Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, 
 Caesar's able lieutenant, was unable to hold him in check. Caesar therefore 
 left Alexandria in July, and gained a decisive victory at Zela, or Ziela, in Pontus, 
 on the 3d of August ; after which he returned to Rome. It was on this occa- 
 sion that he is said to have sent his celebrated despatch, ' Veni, vidi, via.'— 
 Suetonius, Caesar, 35-37. 
 
 The present letter seems to have been written before the news of this victory 
 arrived, but after the Alexandrine war, and therefore may probably be dated 
 July or August. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 418-433; Merivale, ii. 309-335; Long, v. ch. 19-22; 
 Froude, Caesar, ch. 23. 
 
 2 Mr. Watson, after Boot, renders this passage : ' I imagine that it is an 
 acceptance and nothing more, since no legacy has reached me,' supplying 
 hereditas with nulla. The majority of commentators however supply cretio; 
 and 'np other acceptance' for 'no other notice of acceptance' is an easier 
 ellipse. But it is impossible to decide with certainty between the explanations. 
 
EP. lxxxiii. TO CASSIUS. {AD FAM. XV. 15.) 261 
 
 Although the hope of peace and the horror of bloodshed 1 
 among our own countrymen made both of us equally wish to 
 abstain from obstinate persistence in the war, yet since I, as it 
 seems, was the first to insist on this policy, I may perhaps be 
 expected rather to furnish you with advice than look to you 
 for it : yet, as I often remind myself, my friendly arguments 
 with you and yours with me have equally availed to bring 
 both of us to the same conclusion — the opinion, I mean, that 
 it would be well to let a single battle determine, if not the 
 whole cause, at any rate our own decision. Nor has any one 
 in fact ever blamed us for this opinion, except those people 
 who hold it better that the Republic should be entirely over- 
 thrown than continue to exist under a weakened and mutilated 
 form ; while I of course had no hope to look forward to from 
 its extinction, much from such remains as were left. 
 
 But the subsequent events have been of such a nature, that 2 
 it is more surprising how they could ever have come to pass at 
 all than that we should neither have been able to foresee their 
 occurrence, nor, being but human, foretell the future. For 
 my own part, I confess it was my belief after that great battle 
 on which, one may say, hung the issues of fate, that not only 
 were the conquerors disposed to consult the national interest, 
 but the conquered to consult their own, holding however that 
 both events rested on the assumption that the victor would 
 act with all speed ; and had this been the case, Africa would 
 have found his clemency to be no less than was the experi- 
 ence of Asia, and even, I may safely say, of Greece, seeing 
 that it had yourself, I believe, as its spokesman and apologist. 
 Now however that we have let the right moment slip — a thing 
 of the greatest importance, particularly in a civil war — the 
 lapse of a year has beguiled some into hopes of a victory, 
 others into thinking lightly even of their defeat. Moreover 
 it is chance which must bear the blame of all these untoward 
 circumstances ; for who could suppose either that the time 
 consumed in the Alexandrian war would have to be added to 
 the length of this war, or that this Pharnaces, or whatever 
 they call him, would be able to threaten Asia ? Nevertheless 3 
 you and I have found that an identical policy has ended in 
 a difference of fate : for the party you have joined is one 
 
262 LETTERS OF CICERO. past vt. 
 
 where you could not only take part in deliberation, but — and 
 this is the greatest alleviation of anxiety — have an opportunity 
 of seeing beforehand what was intended to be done : I, who 
 hastened to Italy to meet Caesar there (for that was what we 
 expected) and spur, as the proverb says, the horse going 
 well, — that is, that after extending his .protection to so many 
 of our most distinguished men he was returning of himself on 
 the road to peace — both was and am kept widely apart from 
 him. My way meanwhile Hes in the very midst of the groans of 
 Italy, and the piteous lamentations of the city, which we both 
 of us could have done something to relieve in our own way, 
 you in yours and I in mine, if any one had been here to give 
 4 us authority. So I hope that you with your unfailing kind- 
 ness will write to me about- your own views and inclinations, 
 and your opinion as to what we ought to wait for or what to 
 do. Your letter will be of great consequence to me. And, 
 oh that I had followed the advice of your first one, which 
 you sent me from Luceria ! Then I should without the least 
 annoyance have kept up the dignity of my position. 
 
 LXXXIV. (AD ATT. XII. i.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ARPINUM TO ATTICUS AT ONE OF HIS 
 SUBURBAN VILLAS. 
 
 March (?) 25, 708 A.v.C (46 B.C.) 
 
 In September 47 B.C. Caesar landed at Tarentum, whither Cicero hastened 
 to meet him, and though he does not mention the interview in his letters, we 
 learn from Plutarch that he was treated with the utmost courtesy. He then 
 left Brundisium for Tusculum, where he stayed some weeks, and at last, resign- 
 ing all hope of a triumph, entered the walls of Rome for the first time since he 
 left it in the year 51 to be Governor of Cilicia. For the next two years he 
 divided his time principally between Rome and Tusculum, and abstaining in 
 general from politics, wrote several of his philosophical works. ' In the letters 
 which now follow the great orator appears like one just awakened from slumbers 
 oppressed by frightful dreams. ' — Abeken. Compare Introd. to Letter xci. 
 
 Caesar remained in Italy barely two months, where he quelled a serious 
 mutiny in Campania, and accepted from the obsequious Senate the consulship 
 for 46 B. c. in conjunction with Lepidus. He then left for Africa,' where the 
 Senatorial party was now endeavouring to reorganise its shattered forces. 
 
ep. Lxxxrv. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. XII. i.) 263 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 439-441 ; Merivale, ii. 336-343 ; Long, v. ch. 23 ; Abeken, 
 324-330 ; Forsyth, 388, 389 ; Froude, Caesar, ch. 24. 
 
 The dates in this letter depend of course on the month it was written in, 
 which is uncertain. Baiter and Schiitz give May ; Mr. Watson now thinks 
 March. If April, each date will be one day earlier. 
 
 It being now eleven days since I left you, I am scrawling 1 
 this little bit of a note just as I am leaving my country-house 
 before it is light. I think of being at my place at Anagnia 
 to-day, and Tusculum to-morrow ; only one day there, so that 
 I shall come up all right to time on the 28th; and, oh, if I 
 could but run on at once to embrace my Tullia and give 
 Attica a kiss ! Talking of this, by the by, do please write 
 and let me know while I am stopping at Tusculum what her 
 prattle is like, or, if she is away in the country, what her 
 letters to you are about. Meanwhile either send or give her 
 my love, and Pilia too. And even though we shall meet 
 immediately, yet will you write to me anything you can find 
 to say ? 
 
 P.S. — I was just fastening up this letter, but your courier 2 
 has arrived here after a long night-journey with your letter. 
 I was very sorry, you may be sure, to find on reading it that 
 Attica is feverish. Everything else that I was waiting for I 
 now know from your note ; but when you tell me that to 
 have a little fire in the morning ' sent le vieillard,' I retort il le 
 sent plus for one's poor old memory to begin to totter : because 
 it was the 29th I had promised to Axius ; the 30th to you; 
 and the day of my arrival, the 31st, to Quintus. So take 
 that for yourself — you shall have no news. Then what on 
 earth is the good of writing? And what good is it when 
 we are together and chatter whatever comes to our tongues ? 
 Surely there is something in causerie after all ; even if there is 
 nothing under it, there is always at least the delicious feeling 
 that we are talking with one another. 
 
264 LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 LXXXV. (AD ATT. XII. 2.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO ATTICUS AT ONE OF HIS 
 SUBURBAN VILLAS. 
 
 April (?), 708 A.v.c. (46 B.C.) 
 
 In November Caesar left Rome to crush the last vestige of opposition in 
 Africa. The rendezvous of the Senatorial party was fixed at first at Utica, on 
 the bay of Carthage, but afterwards this city was entrusted to Cato, and the 
 quarters moved southward to Hadrumetum. The nominal generalissimo was 
 Scipio, but Iuba, King of Numidia, who had destroyed Curio (Introd. 
 to Letter lxxvi. ), knowing his aid to be indispensable, treated the Romans with 
 great insolence. Part of Iuba's forces being diverted by the attacks of Publius 
 Sittius on his dominions, and fresh reinforcements having arrived, Caesar at 
 length gave battle at Thapsus, sixteen miles from his camp, on the 4th of April, 
 and again won a decisive victory. Scipio, Cato, and Iuba all committed 
 suicide ; and Caesar returned to Italy, arriving there in July. 
 
 Since Cicero had evidently not heard the news of the battle of Thapsus when 
 this letter was written, which would not take more than three weeks at most to 
 arrive, it cannot (as Mr. Watson points out) be dated later than April. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 434-449 ; Merivale, ii. 343-368 ; Long, v. ch. 24-27 ; 
 Froude, Caesar, ch. 24. 
 
 1 The report here is that Statius Murcus has been lost in a 
 shipwreck ; that Asinius Pollio has fallen into the hands of the 
 soldiery, who are keeping him prisoner ; that fifty ships have 
 been carried into Utica owing to the violence of this gale; 
 that Gnaeus Pompeius is nowhere to be seen, and, according 
 to the account of Paciaecus, has never even been in the Balearic 
 Islands at all ; but not a soul can positively vouch for any- 
 thing. I give you here what people have been saying while 
 you are away. Meanwhile the games are on at Praeneste. 
 
 2 Hirtius and all the set are there, and indeed there are to be 
 eight days of games. Feasting and enjoying themselves like 
 this, and meanwhile very likely the crisis has been decided ! 
 What strange creatures ! As for Balbus — que voulez-vous 1 — 
 he is amusing himself with building. However, if you ask 
 my opinion, when a man's object is not duty but enjoyment 
 fia-t-il pas assez vku ? You yourself all the time are taking a 
 nap : in this question ilfaut didder, and at once, if you are to 
 do any good. If you ask me what I think, I say enjoy while 
 
ep. lxxxvi. TO VARRO. {AD FAM. IX. 5.) 265 
 
 we may. 1 But no need for more ; I shall see you immedi- 
 ately. You will, I hope, after your journey straight to my house ; 
 then we will arrange together a day for Tyrannio, 2 and any- 
 thing else there may be. 
 
 LXXXVI. (AD FAM. IX. 5.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO AT 
 TUSCULUM. 
 
 June, 708 A.v.c. (46 B.C.) 
 
 Marcus Varro, the greatest of all Roman scholars, after his failure as a 
 general in Spain (see Introd. to Letter lxxvi. ) went over to Greece, and 
 was one of the many who made submission to Caesar after the battle of Phar- 
 salus. Caesar wisely as well as generously engaged his services in superintend- 
 ing the formation of his great new library at Rome. The date of this letter 
 is probably late in June, since the 7th of July would be about the time that 
 Caesar would be expected to land in Italy. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 592 ; Merivale, ii. 403. 
 
 Yes, I think that the 7 th will be quite early enough, not 1 
 only taking into account the state of public affairs, but even 
 the time of year. I agree therefore to your day, and so I 
 shall keep to the same one myself. 
 
 I should be far from thinking that we ought to regret our 2 
 determination,' even if those who did not adopt it had no 
 cause to regret that now. It was the call of duty, not of 
 hope, that led us on, while what we turned our backs on was 
 not duty, but the absence of all hope. So that we were really 
 more sensitive to the touch of honour than those who did not 
 move from home ; more clear-headed than those who did not 
 return home after they had spent all their resources. But 
 
 1 If fructum be the true reading, Cicero probably means that after all 
 those are wisest who trouble least about their country, and care for themselves. 
 Wesenberg suggests fractum, alluding no doubt to Sextus Pompeius, in which 
 case the knot that Atticus was called on to untie was whether he would abet 
 the last struggle against Caesar or not, Cicero giving provisionally his own 
 opinion that it is hopeless. 
 
 2 From Ad Att. xii. 6 Boot infers that Tyrannio, a grammarian, was to 
 read to Cicero and Atticus a new work on accents. One is reminded of Hegel 
 going to the publisher at Jena, unconscious that the great battle had just been 
 fought 
 
266 LETTERS OF CICERO. j-akt iv. 
 
 there is nothing I am so impatient of as criticism from those 
 who stopped at home at their ease ; and whatever is the real 
 state of the case, I pay more honour to those who fell in the 
 war than attention to those who are discontented with us 
 3 because we presume to exist. Should I have an opportunity 
 of getting to Tusculum before the 7 th" I shall see you there; 
 if that fails I will go after you to your house at Cumae, and 
 let you have notice beforehand, so that everything may be 
 ready for having a good bath. 
 
 LXXXVII. (AD FAM. IX. 18.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT TUSCULUM TO LUCIUS PAPIRIUS PAETUS 
 IN CAMPANIA. 
 
 Late in July, 708 A.v.c. (46 B.C.) 
 
 Lucius Paetus was a learned and well-to-do friend of Cicero, to whom he 
 wrote many amusing and chatty letters (Ad Fam. ix. 15-26), touching little 
 on politics, but much on dining. He is mentioned in Letter ix. § 12. 
 
 Considering that TuUia had already left Dolabella's house, and that a 
 divorce between them was imminent — it certainly took place before Dolabella 
 left for Spain — it is amazing to find Cicero still living on intimate terms with 
 his worthless son-in-law. Hirtius, who here appears only as a bon vivant, rose 
 into political importance in the next period, after his election to the consulship. 
 The date of this letter is approximately fixed by Caesar's return to Rome from 
 Africa on July 26 ; Abeken erroneously gives it as written in June. It was 
 probably sent from Tusculum, and not from Rome ; hie (§ 4), as Mr. Watson 
 says, need not mean more than ' in these parts, ' including, that is, both Rome 
 and Tusculum. 
 
 Abeken, 330 ; Forsyth, 392 ; Diet Biog. i. p. 1060. 
 
 1 I was staying in my house at Tusculum and taking a 
 holiday because I had sent my ' pupils ' to meet this friend of 
 theirs, 1 so that they might thereby as far as possible gain his 
 good graces for me too, when your inexpressibly charming 
 letter reached me. I perceive from it that you approve of my 
 scheme of opening a kind of school, now that [owing to the 
 
 1 These ' pupils ' of Cicero in rhetoric are Hirtius and Dolabella, and the 
 ' friend ' of course is Caesar, who was just at this time returning in triumph 
 from the conclusion of the African war. 
 
ep. lxxxvii. TO PAETUS. {AD FAM. IX. 18.) 267 
 
 abolition of the law-courts 2 ] I have lost my throne at the 
 Bar : just as they say that Dionysius, being expelled from his 
 kingdom at Syracuse, started a school at Corinth. 3 Well, I 2 
 must say I am pleased with the scheme too, because it gives 
 me many advantages : principally — which is now of the very 
 greatest importance — I am throwing up an entrenchment for 
 myself against the dangers of the times. Of what quality this 
 may be I do not know ; I only see that no one has struck out 
 a plan which I prefer to it, unless perhaps a better way was to 
 die. That I grant — on one's own bed, 4 but such was not my 
 fate ; as to the field of battle, I was not on it. The others at 
 any rate — Pompeius, your friend Lentulus, Afranius, and 
 Scipio — all came to an ignominious end. 5 But Cato's was a 
 noble one ? Well, this suggestion at any rate we can adopt 
 whenever we like ; only let us take precautions not to make 
 it as much the only possibility for us as it was for him, which 
 is just what I am doing. 
 
 That then is the first thing ; next comes this — that I : 
 myself am getting better : in my health, to begin with, which 
 had been seriously injured by the temporary loss of this kind 
 of exercise ; -and secondly, any facility of speaking I may have 
 ever had would have been dried up at the source if I had not 
 betaken myself to the exercise of it again. Lastly, there is 
 
 '1 he Roman judicial system, though near falling by its own corruption, 
 was never abolished, and only partially reformed, by Caesar. See Mommsen, 
 iv. 484. Perhaps Cicero (if the words are genuine) only refers to the natural 
 stoppage of justice in the troubles of the Civil War, or he may be using an ex- 
 aggeration, as if all free institutions were gone. 
 
 3 See Letter lxii. note 3. 
 
 4 See Letter lxxi. note 10. Cicero was ill in bed at the time of the battle 
 of Pharsalus (see Introd. to Letter Ixxviii.), but lectulo need not specially 
 refer to this. 
 
 5 For the fate of Pompeius see Introd. to Letter lxxix. Metellus 
 Scipio after the battle of Thapsus endeavoured to escape to Spain, but, his 
 small squadron being overpowered by Publius Sittius, an adventurer acting in 
 Caesar's interest, committed suicide ; Afranius attempted to escape into 
 Mauretania, but also fell into the hands of Sittius, and was put to death. The 
 Lentulus here alluded to may be either Lentulus Crus, consul 49 B. C. , or Len- 
 tulus Spinther, consul 57 E. c. The former was murdered in prison by the 
 agents of the young king Ptolemaeus ; the latter is spoken of by Cicero (Phil, 
 xiii. 14, 29) as having been lost to his friends in the Civil War, and he may 
 have perished unhappily, like nearly all the leaders of the Senatorial party. 
 Mommsen, iv. 446 ; Merivale, ii. 328, 359-366 ; Froude, Caesar, 478. . 
 
268 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt iv. 
 
 this — which you probably would consider first — I have lately 
 been demolishing more peacocks than you have paltry little 
 pigeons ! You are regaling over there on the saws of Haterius, 
 I here on the sauces of Hirtius. 6 So come like a good man 
 and true, and learn from me the 'Prolegomena' of your 
 ambition; though it will be like the pig who would teach 
 Minerva. r But I will see that some way is found. 
 
 If you cannot sell your valuation-holdings and get a good 
 potful of silver you must migrate back to Rome : indigestion 
 in these parts is a better ending than famine in yours. I see 
 that you have diminished your income, and expect to hear 
 that it is the same thing with all your friends over there. So 
 it is all up with you unless you are prudent. You can manage 
 to make your way to Rome on the mule you tell me you still 
 have left, since your cob is gone to provide you a dinner ! 
 There shall be a chair for you next to mine in my school as 
 my usher ; and it shall be followed by a cushion in time. 
 
 LXXXVIII. (AD FAM. VII. 3.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO MARCUS MARIUS, PROBABLY 
 AT POMPEII. 
 
 July or August, 708 A. v. c. (46 B.C. ) 
 
 Marcus Marius, a member of the family of the great Marius, but of the 
 Senatorial party in politics, was an intimate friend of Cicero, being like him a 
 native of Arpinum, and one of his nearest neighbours at Pompeii. The present 
 rather elaborate letter in vindication of Cicero's present abstention from politics 
 scarcely bears out the remark of the Dictionary of Biography (ii. 959) that 
 ' the four letters to him (Ad Fam. vii. 1-4) are written in a sportive tone. ' 
 
 This and the seven succeeding letters illustrate, perhaps more fully than 
 was necessary, Cicero's phases of feeling during Caesar's stay in Rome as 
 Dictator for the third time, and between the two great battles of Thapsus and 
 Munda. Of the far-reaching nature of Caesar's legislation at this period he 
 seems entirely unconscious, but warmly praises his generosity to opponents. 
 
 On Caesar's legislation see Mommsen, vol. iv. book v. ch. n (Mommsen 
 however attributes more to Caesar directly than the evidence strictly warrants) ; 
 
 6 Haterius was no doubt a lawyer, but nothing is known of him. The play 
 on ius is one of Cicero's stock puns ; a better known form of it is the ivs 
 Verrinum, Verr. iii. 46. 
 
 7 This proverb seems rather a favourite with Cicero ; it is found also in 
 Acad. Post. i. 18 ; De Oratore, ii. 233. 
 
bp. lxxxviii. TO MARIUS. (AD FAM. VII. 3.) 269 
 
 Merivale, ii. ch. 20 ; Long, v. ch. 32 ; Froude, Caesar, ch. 26 ; Watson, 
 Appendix ix. 489. 
 
 Thinking as I very often do of the national calamities 1 
 through which our way has lain these many years, and must 
 still, I see full well, continue to lie, the recollection constantly 
 comes back to my mind of the last time we two were together : 
 nay, I can tell you the very day. It was on the 1 3th of May, 
 in the year when Lentulus and Marcellus were consuls, 1 that 
 arriving one evening at my house at Pompeii I found you 
 already there in much anxiety of mind. Now your anxiety 
 arose partly from concern about what was incumbent upon me, 
 but also from the thought of the risk I was running. If I 
 were to stay in Italy, this, you feared, might be a neglect of 
 duty ; if I were to go to the war, you were disturbed by the 
 risk. And on this occasion you no doubt saw that I too was 
 so agitated that I could not solve the problem, what would-be 
 the best thing to do ; still I preferred to bow to loyalty and to 
 public opinion rather than take into account what was safest 
 for myself. 
 
 Now if I have repented of that resolution, it is not so much 2 
 on account of any danger to myself as of the many things I 
 found to censure on my arrival. In the first place the troops 
 were neither numerous, nor soldier-like ; then, with the excep- 
 tion of our chief himself and a few others, all — I am speaking 
 of the more prominent men — were, in the first place, so 
 rapacious even during the war, and, secondly, so savage in 
 their conversation, that I positively dreaded our success ; and 
 to add to this, the debts of men in the very highest position 
 were enormous. In short, they had nothing to recommend 
 them beyond their cause. Having seen all this then, and 
 entertaining no hope of a victory, I at first attempted to give 
 pacific counsels, which had always had my approval ; afterwards 
 seeing that Pompeius strongly dissented from my opinion I 
 adopted the policy of recommending him to protract the war. 
 Of this course he was at times inclined to approve, and by this 
 opinion it seemed probable that he would abide, as indeed he 
 
 1 49 B. C. The incident is mentioned in Letter lxxiv. § 4, and is there said 
 to have occurred on the 12th. Either therefore Cicero's memory was less 
 accurate than he supposed, or iiii in that passage should be corrected to iii. 
 
270 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet rv. 
 
 very possibly would have done had he not after his success in 
 a particular attack 2 begun to feel confidence in the soldiers 
 under his command. Thenceforward that peerless man became 
 a mere cipher as a general. He gave battle with a motley 
 army of raw recruits to the most irresistible legions, and, being 
 defeated, fled all alone in the most disgraceful manner, actually 
 
 3 abandoning his camp. This I determined should be an end 
 of service for me, not thinking it likely that we, who had been 
 too weak when our forces were unbroken, should ever be the 
 victors after this crushing blow. I would have no more to do 
 with a war in which one only had the choice of falling on the 
 field of battle, falling into a snare, running away to king Iuba, 
 selecting some place in which to live like a banished man, or 
 dying by one's own hand. At least no other alternative was 
 possible, unless you were either not unwilling or not afraid to 
 trust yourself to the conqueror. 
 
 Now of all the disagreeable courses I have mentioned, the 
 least intolerable is a banishment, particularly for an innocent 
 man, and where there is no disgrace attached : I may add 
 when it means separation from a city, in which nothing is left 
 that you can look on without pain. For myself, I chose rather 
 to remain both in the company of and surrounded by what is 
 my own — if anything now is anybody's own. 
 
 4 Everything that has happened I said would come to pass. 
 I came home, not as though one would live there under the 
 happiest 1 conditions, but that I might regard myself as living, 
 if any shadow of the Republic was to be preserved, in my 
 own country ; if not, as in a sort of exile. For deliberately 
 hastening my own death I saw no reason ; for longing for it a 
 great deal of reason ; it is, you know, an old saying, 
 
 ' When we are not what we were, 
 Still to live why should we care ? ' 3 
 
 But yet it is a great solace to have a clear conscience, particu- 
 larly as I have a double support to lean upon : familiarity with 
 the noblest branches of learning, and the fame that attends on 
 
 2 This refers to the successful attack which broke up Caesar's camp at 
 Dyrrachium. See Introd. to Letter lxxviii. 
 
 3 This saying is probably quoted from one of the old dramas. 
 
ep. lxxxviii. TO MARIUS. (AD FAM. VII, 3.) 271 
 
 glorious deeds. Of the former I shall never be deprived so 
 long as I live ; of the latter, not even when I am dead. 
 
 I have been somewhat prolix in writing thus to you, and 5 
 have tried your patience, because I feel sure of your strong 
 attachment both to myself and to the Republic. I was anxious 
 that you should be made acquainted with the whole of my 
 views, so that you might see that in the first instance it never 
 was my wish that the power of any single individual should 
 outweigh that of his whole country, but that after a certain 
 person had been to blame for making one man so strong that 
 it was impossible to resist him, my wish was all for peace; 
 when our army was lost, and the one general on whom our 
 hopes rested, I wanted every one else to join me, and failing 
 in this attempt, adopted for myself the policy of no more war ; 
 as to the present, if this is a free country, then I am a free 
 citizen ; if not, I am an exile living in a place quite as con- 
 venient as if I had betaken myself to Rhodes or Mytilene. 
 
 I should have preferred to keep this until we meet ; but 6 
 as it was now getting a long time I have purposely put just 
 what I should say into a letter, so that you might have an 
 answer to give if you ever came across any of my detractors ; 
 because there are certain people who, though my death was 
 never likely to be of service to the Republic, yet hold it as a 
 kind of imputation on my character that I still exist — people, 
 as I myself know for a fact, who think that the victims that 
 have already fallen are not enough. Even these, if they had 
 but listened to me, might now have been alive, and without 
 dishonour, however hard the terms of peace, for it would not 
 have been their cause but only their swords that would have 
 been proved inferior. 
 
 Here then is a letter for you of more pages perhaps than 
 you would have bargained for, and I shall fancy you think it 
 is so unless I find that you write me a still longer answer. I 
 myself shall see you, I hope, in a short time, if I have suc- 
 ceeded in setting right some things that I wish. 4 
 
 4 The allusion is no doubt purposely obscure. It may refer to Tullia's 
 divorce from Dolabella (Introd. to Letter lxxxvii.), orto Cicero's unsatisfactory 
 relations with Terentia, and the money difficulties in which he declared that she 
 had involved him (Introd. to Letter xciv. ) 
 
272 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet iv. 
 
 LXXXIX. (AD FAM. IX. 17.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO LUCIUS PAPIRIUS PAETUS 
 IN CAMPANIA. 
 
 August, 708 A.V.C. (46 B.C.) 
 See Introd. to Letter lxxxvii. , and Abeken, 336. 
 
 1 What an odd man you are to ask me, after you have had 
 a visit from our friend Balbus, what I think they will do with 
 the country-towns and farms in your neighbourhood ! As if I 
 were either likely to know anything which that gentleman is 
 unacquainted with, or as if whenever I do know anything I 
 did not generally get my knowledge entirely from him. On 
 the contrary, be sure an you love me that you let me know 
 what they are going to do about us : you have had at your 
 mercy a man who would certainly let you tap his information 
 when the wine was in, if not when he was sober. But such 
 matters as these, my dear Paetus, I never inquire into : in the 
 first place because I have every reason to be satisfied with 
 being alive these last four years or so, so far as one can call 
 this a satisfaction, or even a life at all, to survive our country's 
 freedom ; and secondly, because I fancy that I know just as 
 well as anybody else what must come : those who are in power 
 will always have their will, and power will now always go by 
 the sword. Whatever is left to us therefore we ought to be 
 satisfied with ; any one who could not put up with this, was 
 
 2 in duty bound to die. At any rate they are taking measure- 
 ments of the lands about Veii and Capena ; this is no great 
 distance from Tusculum. 1 Still I have no fears ; I enjoy 
 while I may, and hope that I always may. If that hope falls 
 short of being accomplished, still since, for all my stout heart 
 and all my philosophy too, I took life to be the most attractive 
 thing after all, why I cannot but love a man whose kindness 
 has let me have it : though even if he were really eager for a 
 
 1 Veii, the old antagonist of Rome, and about twelve miles N.W. from 
 it, is now Isola Farnese ; Capena was on the right bank of the Tiber, near 
 Mount Soracte. Both are therefore on the side of Rome farthest from 
 Tusculum. 
 
ep. xc. TO SULPICIUS RUFUS. (AD FAM. IV. 4.) 273 
 
 free constitution — such as perhaps he does himself admire, 
 and as all of us are bound to prefer — he has nevertheless no 
 power of action at all; so deeply has he entangled himself 
 with a variety of people. 
 
 But I am running into unnecessary length, because it is 3 
 you to whom I am writing. Of this however you may be 
 sure, that not only I, who am not taken into council, but even 
 our lord himself does not know what wilL happen, for we are 
 the slaves of him, and he of circumstances ; consequently he 
 can no more know what circumstances will demand of him 
 than we what he is thinking of doing. If I did not send 
 you this answer before, it is not that I am generally neglectful, 
 particularly in the matter of letters, but as I knew nothing 
 for certain, I was unwilling either to create anxiety in you 
 by my hesitation, or hope by my assertions. I will however 
 add this, which is most unquestionably true, that as matters 
 stand up to the present time I have heard nothing about that 
 danger you allude to. Still, for a man of your wisdom this 
 will be the right course — to hope for the best issue, be prepared 
 for the hardest, and bear whatever is to happen. 
 
 XC. (AD FAM. IV. 4.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS 
 IN ACHAIA. 
 
 August or September, 708 A. V. c. (46 E. c. ) 
 
 Servius Sulpicius, to whom this letter is addressed, was consul together 
 with Marcus Claudius Marcellus, whose pardon by Caesar is here described, 
 in the important year 51 B.C. (see Introd. to Letter xxxi.) He was a cele- 
 brated jurist and orator, but somewhat colourless politician of the ' moderate 
 Conservative' party ; and apparently took little or no part in the war. But 
 Mr. Long's inference (Diet. Biog. iii. 946) that he was a partisan of Caesar, on 
 the ground of his now being made — apparently against his own inclination — 
 proconsul of Achaia, is not justified ; Marcus Brutus, for example, having 
 been made Governor of Cisalpine Gaul. See Introd. to Letter lxxxiii. ; 
 Merivale, ii. 340-342. And everything in the letter seems to show that he 
 and Cicero agreed in their views. The province of Achaia, which must have 
 been but recently separated from the unwieldy one of Macedonia, com- 
 prehended the whole of Southern Greece, and Sulpicius was not only its first 
 . Governor, but probably had the task of organising the province. Two letters 
 
 T 
 
274 LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 of Sulpicius are extant (Nos. xcviii. and ci. ), the former of which is the cele- 
 brated letter of consolation on Tullia's death ; the other describes the murder 
 of this Marcellus. Letter xcix. is addressed to him. 
 
 It is a disputed point whether the extant oration ' Pro Marcello ' is the one 
 actually delivered by Cicero on this occasion, but a majority of the com- 
 mentators maintain its genuineness. 
 
 Long's Cicero (Bibliotheca Classica), vol. iv. pp. 349-352 ; Merivale, ii. 412, 
 and note on Abeken, 330 ; Forsyth, 393. 
 
 1 I accept the excuse you have offered for yourself, for send- 
 ing me the same letter more than once ; but I only accept from 
 the point of view of half the reason you give — namely, that the 
 letters may possibly fail to reach me through some negligence 
 or breach of faith on the part of those who undertake to 
 despatch them. The other half of your plea, in which you 
 allege that from ' poverty of language ' — this is your own term 
 — you often repeat the same letter over again, I neither under- 
 stand nor admit as valid. Why, even I myself, whom you 
 ironically — for so, I suppose, you mean it — describe as pos- 
 sessing ' the key to the treasures of language,' am not obliged 
 to confess myself — for is there any call for a fausse modestie ? 
 — so absolutely devoid of a command of words : however, 
 even as I am — there is no fausse modestie, I assure you, in 
 this — I at once yield the palm to the refinement and elegance 
 which characterise your writings. 
 
 2 Those grounds upon which you say you have acted in 
 deciding not to refuse this work that has been offered you in 
 Achaia, though they had always seemed to me to be strong, 
 were yet much strengthened in my opinion after I had read 
 your last letter ; because every one of the reasons you allege 
 is perfectly just, and perfectly in accordance with your high 
 position and sound judgment. What I cannot at all sympathise " 
 with you in, is your opinion that the result has proved to be 
 different from what you expected ; but the fact is that the 
 chaos and confusion is so universal, and everything is lying 
 so shattered and beaten down by this horrible war, that every- 
 body thinks that the particular place where he happens to 
 be is, like himself, more afflicted than any other. Accordingly 
 you not only regret your decision, but regard all of us at 
 home as being fortunate ; to us on the contrary you seem to 
 be, not indeed exempt from annoyances, but still fortunate in 
 
bp. xo. TO SULPICIUS RUFUS. (AD FAM. IV. 4.) 275 
 
 comparison with ourselves. Moreover this in itself is a point 
 where your lot has an advantage over ours, that you can 
 venture to speak of your annoyance in a letter; we cannot 
 even do that with safety ; not that for this our conqueror is 
 to blame — it would be impossible to be more moderate than 
 he is — but simply the fact of victory, which in a civil war 
 is invariably tyrannical. In one respect only we have had 3 
 the advantage ; namely in hearing of the restoration of your 
 colleague Marcellus a little earlier than you, and also, I may 
 add, upon my honour, the fact of seeing how that result was 
 brought about. For believe me when I say that since these 
 troubles began — that is since might was called in to decide a 
 national question of right — this is the one dignified proceeding 
 that has taken place. For Caesar himself, after complaining 
 of the ' acrimony ' — this was the word he used — of Marcellus, 
 and speaking in most complimentary terms of your fairness 
 and discretion, suddenly announced his determination, which 
 we scarcely hoped for, not to let his personal relations to 
 Marcellus make him refuse the entreaty of the Senate on 
 his behalf. I should say that when Lucius Piso had called 
 attention to the case of Marcellus, and Gaius Marcellus 1 had 
 gone on his knees to Caesar, the Senate went so far as to rise 
 in a body, and approach Caesar in an attitude of entreaty. 
 Well, I will only say that this day seemed to me so bright 
 that there hovered, as it were, before my eyes a vision of the 
 Republic springing into new life. 
 
 Consequently when all who had been asked to speak 4 
 before me 2 had expressed their gratitude to Caesar, with the 
 exception of Volcatius, — he said that if he had been in the same 
 place he would certainly not have done the like, 3 — I changed 
 my resolution when called on for my opinion ; for I had 
 
 1 On the question whether this Gaius was the brother or the cousin of 
 Marcus Marcellus see Letter xcv. note 1. 
 
 2 See Letter vi. note 7. 
 
 J Lucius Volcatius Tullus, consul 66 E. c. This clause is understood by 
 Orelli and Matthiae to mean that had Volcatius been in Marcellus's place he 
 would not have condescended to accept pardon from Caesar — a sentiment 
 appropriate perhaps to Domitius, but utterly inappropriate to Volcatius, who 
 was one of the neutrals. It is rather an expression of wonder at this generosity 
 to an opponent who had treated Caesar with outrageous violence (see Introd. 
 to Letter xxxi. ), and perhaps of personal dislike for Marcellus. 
 
276 LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 quite determined, not, I may solemnly assure you, from 
 indifference, but from regret at the loss of my former position, 
 to maintain uninterrupted silence. This resolution of mine 
 was broken down by Caesar's magnanimity and the loyalty of 
 the Senate, and accordingly I spoke at some length of our 
 gratitude to Caesar, and am afraid that now for other occasions I 
 may thus have been putting out of my own power that retirement 
 without disgrace, the possession of which was my one consola- 
 tion under my troubles. But all the same, since I have 
 avoided the danger of giving offence to one who might perhaps 
 infer that I do not recognise this as a Constitution at all if I 
 preserved an absolute silence, I shall repeat the experiment 
 with moderation — or even err on this side of moderation, — 
 but only enough to gratify at once his sovereign will and my 
 own inclinations. For although from quite early years every 
 form of study and of liberal accomplishments, and above all 
 philosophy, have been my delight, yet day by day this passion 
 is mastering me more — partly, I suppose, because age makes 
 us riper to receive lessons of wisdom, and partly because of 
 the corruption of the age — so that now there is nothing else at all 
 5 which can relieve my mind from petty cares. You, I gather from, 
 your letters, are hindered by business in your literary work, 
 but still the nights will now be a considerable help to you. 
 
 Your son Servius (ought I not rather to call him my son 
 too?) is most respectful in paying his attentions to me. I am 
 as much delighted with his strong sense of justice and his lofty 
 character as with his tastes and great acquirements. He 
 frequently comes to talk over with me the question of your 
 staying or coming home. I am still of this opinion, that we 
 ought to take no step at all, unless it is such as Caesar would 
 seem most to wish ; things are at such a pass that even if you are 
 to be at Rome it can give no pleasure to any beyond your own 
 personal friends. As for the rest, nothing could be better than 
 he is in himself : his surroundings, persons and things, are of 
 such a character that if you had to choose you would rather 
 hear of them than see them with your own eyes. This advice 
 of mine is anything but agreeable to myself, who long so much 
 to see you ; but it is your interests that I am consulting. 
 Farewell. 
 
EP. xct. TO AULUS CAECINA. (AD FAM. VI. 6.) 277 
 
 XCI. (AD FAM. VI. 6.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO AULUS CAECINA IN SICILY. 
 
 October (?), 708 A.v.c. (46 B.C.) 
 
 Aulus Caecina of Volaterrae was a son of the Caecina defended in an 
 ejectment case by Cicero, whose speech is extant, in the year 69 B.C. He 
 was the author of an important work on the Etruscan system of Augury 
 (see § 3). During the war he published a vehement attack on Caesar ; and as 
 the opposition authors were now more dangerous than the opposition warriors, 
 permission to return ,to Italy was refused to Caecina, Nigidius Figulus, and 
 other pamphleteers, while it was readily accorded to the leading Pompeians. 
 Caecina then published a retractation, probably in the form of a poem (see 
 § 8, note 4) ; but whether it attained its object is doubtful. 
 
 The present letter and the answer to it are interesting in two points of view : 
 first as illustrating the hardships of authors ; and secondly because of Cicero's 
 candid and striking admissions about the strong impression made on him by 
 the unprecedented generosity of Caesar. ' I consider the key to much of 
 ' Cicero's recent despondency, and the sudden rebound of cheerfulness which 
 ' we observe at this time, to be the apprehension he was led by his study of earlier 
 ' Roman history to entertain of slaughter and confiscation upon the establish- 
 ' ment of Caesar's authority. It requires no little insight into the frightful 
 ' character of the Roman revolutions to appreciate Caesar's merits in this respect, 
 ' and the deep and lasting sense his countrymen entertained of it. ' — Merivale, 
 note to Abeken, 336. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 462, 463 ; Long, v. ch. 29 ; Forsyth, 395. On the Etruscan 
 and Chaldean arts of divination at Rome, see Merivale, iii. 1 1-16 ; Mommsen, 
 iv. 362. 
 
 I am afraid you may feel the absence of those attentions 1 
 in which, considering the many services you have done to me 
 and the many tastes we have in common, I certainly ought 
 never to be found wanting by you, yet cannot but fear that 
 you may now be complaining of my neglect to pay you the 
 attention of a letter: But I should have written to you long 
 before now, and many a time too, if I had not preferred — 
 being in daily expectation of better news — that congratulation, 
 instead of encouragement to persevere, should be the subject 
 of my letter. As it is, I hope to congratulate you before long, 
 and so postpone that topic to a future letter. On the present 2 
 occasion I think it incumbent upon me again and again to fortify 
 your resolution, which stands, I hope and believe, still utterly 
 
278 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt it. 
 
 unimpaired, by all the influence of one who is among the 
 truest, if not the wisest, of your friends. They will not indeed 
 be such words as I should use to console you were you a man 
 broken down and robbed of all hope of restoration ; but such 
 as I may employ to one of whose entire recovery of rights I 
 entertain no more doubt than you, I remember, did of mine. 
 For when I. was driven out from our country by a set of men. 
 who believed that while I still stood it was impossible for her . 
 to fall, I remember hearing from many of my acquaintances 
 who called upon me on their way from Asia, where you were 
 at the time, that you were confident of a striking and speedy- 
 
 3 return for me. If a certain marvellous knowledge of the 
 principles of the Etruscan art, which you ha'd inherited from' 
 your lamented and illustrious father, did not lead you astray, 
 no more shall I be misled by that system of divination which 
 I have mastered, partly from the writings and teachings of the 
 wisest of minds, studied, as you yourself know, with unwearied 
 ardour, while part also is due to my long apprenticeship to, 
 practical politics, and the immense vicissitudes of fortune' 
 
 4 which I have seen; in which system of foretelling the future 
 I have the more confidence from the fact that, dark and 
 distracted as are these times, it has never once deceived me 
 in any single particular whatever. I would mention various 
 things which I had predicted if I were not afraid that I 
 should seem to be inventing them after the result ; but there 
 are many people who will at least bear me witness that my 
 warning to Pompeius was at the beginning not to ally him-, 
 self with Caesar, and afterwards not to break with him. I saw 
 that an alliance between them broke down the power of the 
 Senate, a rupture kindled a civil war. Moreover with Caesar 
 I was on most intimate terms, for Pompeius I had the highest 
 respect ; yet my advice, while perfectly loyal to Pompeius, 
 
 5 was salutary to both alike. Of other events which I foresaw I 
 say nothing : I should not like one who has treated me in a 
 way so deserving of gratitude even to suspect that I gave such, 
 advice to Pompeius that had rfe adopted it his opponent would 
 be an eminent citizen, it is true, and the first man in the state, 
 but would not possess the vast powers he now holds. I gave 
 him my opinion that he ought to go to Spain ; if he had done 
 
ep. xci. TO AULUS CAECINA. (AD FAM. VI. 6.) 279 
 
 so, there would never have been a civil war at all. 1 I fought 
 for the validity of the election of an absentee, not so much to 
 legalise the principle as to maintain its observance, since the 
 'people had already enacted this law, which was championed 
 by the consul himself. 2 When the pretext for war had arisen, 
 when did I ever lose an opportunity for advice or remonstrance ! 
 Why I would choose the most unfair peace in preference to the 
 fairest of wars. My advice was scouted, not so much by 6. 
 Pompeius himself, on whom it was making some impression, 
 as by those who, having full confidence in Pompeius as a 
 general, thought that a victory in this war would be singularly 
 well adapted to the state of their fortunes and their greed of 
 plunder. The war began ; I took no part. It was shifted 
 from Italy ; still I remained behind as long as I could endure : 
 but my sense of honour was too strong for my fears ; I had a 
 horror of failing Pompeius in his danger, who in former days 
 had not failed me in mine. Consequently when my sense of 
 duty, or respect for the opinion of good citizens, or, if you 
 like, the feeling of honour, was too strong for me, I too went, 
 like Amphiaraus in the tragedies, knowingly and with my eyes 
 open to 
 
 ' The grim fate that loomed upon my view ; ' 3 
 
 and in this war not a single misfortune has happened without 
 my .telling it beforehand. 
 ' You will admit then that — since I too, being a political 7 
 augur, have first, after the manner of augurs and astrologers 
 in general, established to your satisfaction my claims to a 
 knowledge of augury and prophecy by an appeal to predictions 
 which I have previously made — my method of predicting will 
 now ~be entitled to your confidence. I give you an augury 
 
 1 Contrast Letter xxxi. § 3 : ' Pompeius is sure to go to Spain. I could 
 not at all approve of this.' This shows how little we can trust Cicero's claim 
 for the fulfilment of his predictions. The utter falsification again of his pre- 
 diction about Caesar's cruelty and avarice, which were to rival Cinria and Sulla 
 (Letter xliv. § 7), is acknowledged in this very letter. 
 
 2 Pompeius, in his Sole consulship, £3 B. c. See Introd. to Letter xxx. 
 
 3 Amphiaraus, knowing by the gift of prophecy that he must fall if he went 
 against Thebes,' concealed himself ; but his hiding-place being betrayed by his 
 wife Eriphyle, he joined at last in the fatal expedition. The quotation seems 
 to be from some tragedy, perhaps the Eriphyle of Accius. 
 
2 8o LETTERS OF CICERO. pap.t iv. 
 
 therefore ; but it is drawn neither from the motions of a bird 
 whose flight is significant, nor from the notes of one with an 
 ominous cry, as in our augural system, nor yet from the eager- 
 ness of the feeding, or the sound of the food as it drops on 
 the ground : no, far different are those signs which are given 
 to my observation, not more infallible indeed .than the others, 
 but at least not so full of darkness and perplexity. 
 
 8 Now the signs which I have to use for my predictions are 
 noted by me on a sort of double system, one half of which I 
 draw from observation of Caesar himself, the other from the 
 nature and the theory of our present political relations. In 
 Caesar I find as follows : a mild and forgiving disposition, 
 as you have painted it in your beautiful work, the 'Stanzas 
 written in Dejection ; ' * to this must be added the extra- 
 ordinary pleasure he takes-^n talents of the highest order, such 
 as are your own ; moreover he gives way to the wishes of any 
 numerous body of people when they are reasonable and 
 inspired by real warmth of regard, not merely frivolous or self- 
 interested ; and in this case the unanimous feeling of Etruria 
 
 9 will influence him to an extreme degree. Why then have all 
 these points done so little good hitherto ? Because he thinks 
 that if he has once relented towards you, against whom he 
 apparently has better grounds for resentment, he cannot resist 
 the pleas of many others. Then you will say : ' What hope 
 have I of one who is so angry ? ' He is not blind to the fact 
 that he will have a copious draught of praises from the same 
 fountain by which he has been — shall I say just a little 
 bespattered? Finally, he is a man of most acute judgment, 
 and much foresight ; he perceives that you, as being by far the 
 most eminent man in a part of Italy which it is impossible to 
 ignore, and even in the whole of our commonwealth a match 
 for any of the foremost men of your time, whether we look to 
 talents, or influence, or popularity in the Roman world, cannot 
 any longer be excluded from political life ; he will not like to 
 
 4 I have adopted Billerbeck's conjecture, that the 'Querellae' of Caecina 
 was an elegiac poem, of the same character as Ovid's 'Tristia.' Caesar could 
 hardly have been addressed in prose on this subject in any form but that of a 
 letter ; and the title is much more appropriate to a poem. 
 
ep. xoi. TO AULUS CAECINA. {AD FAM. VI. 6.) 281 
 
 leave this to be sooner or later the concession of time, instead 
 of at the present moment making it his own. 
 
 So much as to Caesar. I will now say a word on the 10 
 nature of the times, and of circumstances round us. No 
 human being is so bitter against the cause which Pompeius 
 took up, with more spirit than prudence, as to dare to assert 
 that we are either an unpatriotic or an unprincipled party. 
 And speaking of this, I am constantly struck by the dignity, 
 justice, and good sense of Caesar ; he never speaks of Pompeius 
 but with the deepest respect. But, you will say, he did many 
 things against him, that is, in his public character, with great 
 harshness. The things you allude to were the deeds of war 
 and of victory, not of Caesar. Look how warmly he received 
 us all. He has taken Cassius on to his own staff; he has 
 made Brutus Governor of Gaul, and Sulpicius of Greece ; 
 Marcellus, with whom he was most indignant of all, he has 
 recalled under circumstances which give him the highest 
 possible honour. What then is the drift of all these argu- 11 
 ments? Why here is a case which neither the nature of 
 things in general, and of political vicissitudes will permit, 
 nor will any system of government, be it the same as before 
 or be it changed, endure; in the first place, that where all 
 are equally involved in a cause, the same lot and measure 
 should not be meted out to all alike ; and secondly, that good 
 men and good citizens, without a stain of disgrace on their 
 character, should be forbidden to return to a country, to which 
 so many have already returned though they were sentenced for 
 infamous crimes. 
 
 Here then you have my prophecy, which had I the least 12 
 doubt about it I should not choose now to dwell upon instead of 
 such topics of consolation as these, however easily with them 
 I could cheer so stout-hearted a man as yourself: that if you 
 had taken up arms for the cause of your country — for so you 
 then regarded it — only when victory was already a certainty, 
 you deserved no extraordinary credit ; but if you had made 
 up your mind that owing to the uncertainty of the issues and 
 results of war it was a possible contingency that we might be 
 defeated, it would be wrong for you to have made yourself 
 fully prepared for success, while hopelessly unable to bear a 
 
282 LETTERS OF CICERO. fart it. 
 
 failure. I would argue too what a consolation the conscience 
 of the way you have acted, and what a pleasure your studies 
 ought to be to you under your misfortunes ; I would adduce 
 the instances, not only from olden time but even in our recent 
 experience, of heavy calamities that have befallen your own 
 leaders or associates ; I would name many illustrious examples 
 too among foreign nations ; because it soothes our pain to 
 recollect that this is as it were a law under which we all live, 
 13 and a condition of human life. I would enlarge to you too 
 on the way in which we are living here — what a scene of 
 confusion and utter chaos this is ; because we cannot but feel 
 milder regret at being debarred from the political life of our 
 country when it has been hopelessly corrupted than when it 
 was sound. But all this kind of thing is quite unnecessary : 
 very soon I hope — nay rather, I look upon it as certain — we 
 shall see you here in the enjoyment of all your rights. Mean- 
 while I have long ago not only consented but volunteered to 
 give the help of such zeal and loyalty, perseverance and energy 
 as I may possess to your absent self, and your other self in 
 mind and body now present with us here, I mean your devoted 
 and excellent son. And my power herein is now enlarged by 
 the fact that Caesar is making me most friendly advances — and 
 I may even add that his friends are too — such as day by day are 
 increasing in warmth, and are paid to no one else* Whatever 
 influence or authority I find any power to exert with him I 
 will exert in your service : it is for you to show that you bear 
 yourself as one who has not only a resolute mind, but also the 
 best of hopes. 
 
 XCII. (AD FAM. VI. 7.) 
 
 FROM AULUS CAECINA IN SICILy/tO CICERO AT ROME. 
 
 {A reply to the preceding letter.') 
 
 December (?), 708 A.v.c. (46 B.C.) 
 
 1 If my book was not delivered to you so soon as you ex- 
 pected 1 you must pardon my fears, and allow some indulgence, 
 
 1 It is doubtful what this book is, but as it clearly contained a panegyric on 
 
ep. xcn. FROM AULUS CAECINA. (AD FAM. VI. 7.) 283 
 
 for my unhappy circumstances. My son, I am told, was afraid, 
 and not unreasonably, that if the book had been allowed to 
 appear-— for the spirit in which it is written is not so important 
 as that in which it is received — this fact might prove unreason- 
 ably injurious to me; and all the more because I am still 
 paying heavily the penalty of authorship. And herein I am 
 condemned to a destiny as yet unique ; for while a slip of the 
 pen is removed by an erasion, while incompetence is punished 
 by publicity, my error is chastised by expatriation, when the 
 sum of the offence amounts to this, that I spoke bitterly of an 
 antagonist against whom I was actually fighting ! There is 2 
 not one man amongst us, I suppose, who did not seek to woo 
 the Goddess of Victory by his prayers ; not one who even if 
 his sacrifice was being offered with another object did not, ay 
 and at that very moment, make it still his first prayer that 
 Caesar might be very speedily mastered. If he is in ignorance 
 of this, he is indeed in a state of perfect bliss : if he knows 
 and is assured of it, why is he angry with a man who has 
 written something or other to give him offence, when he has 
 pardoned all those who have offered up many a prayer to the 
 gods for his ruin ? 
 
 But to come back to the point where I was, this was the 3 
 origin of my timidity ; I have alluded to yourself in the book, 
 with reserve and caution, I give you my word ; not so much 
 checking as, if I may say so, dreading myself. Now who does 
 not know that this kind of composition in particular ought to 
 be not merely unfettered, but impassioned and enthusiastic ? 
 It is supposed that to satirise your opponent leaves you a clear 
 field — you have to take care however that you do not slip into 
 libel ; to praise yourself is hampered by the difficulty that the 
 imputation of egotism may immediately follow ; the only thing 
 indeed that is really free, is for each to praise somebody else, 
 since any faults you may find in him are sure to be put down 
 to feebleness or jealousy. Perhaps, after all, this may be to 
 you a more gratifying and appropriate way ; for what I could 
 not do really well, my best course was to leave entirely alone ; 
 
 Caesar, and mention of Cicero, Mr. Watson suggests a. continuation of the 
 ' Querellae ' mentioned in the preceding letter. 
 
284 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt it. 
 
 failing that [the kindest thing was], to be as chary of words as 
 possible. Nevertheless, the fact is. that I did hold myself in: 
 there are many circumstances which I have toned down ; many 
 which I have suppressed ; several I did not even put on paper 
 at all. The consequence is that just as if in a flight of stairs 
 you remove some, cut down others, and leave a few here and 
 there just contriving to hang together, you will make not a 
 thing for going up, but a likely means for tumbling down, 
 exactly so where one's inspiration is at once fettered and 
 crushed, what can it possibly produce that deserves a listener 
 
 4 or can gain any approval ? But indeed, whenever I have come 
 to Caesar's name I feel a fit of trembling all over ; not from 
 fear of vengeance, but of his criticism, because I do not know 
 Caesar thoroughly. What heart can a man have in it when 
 he says to himself : ' He will be pleased with this ; that phrase 
 ' is objectionable. Supposing I make such and such a change ? 
 ' No, I am afraid it may make matters worse. Come now, 
 ' this is complimentary to a certain individual ; can it really 
 ' be regarded as an attack upon him ? Well, supposing it is 
 ' an attack, what happens if he objects ? He takes vengeance 
 ' on a foe still in arms for using a pen : what will he do if the 
 ' foe is beaten and not yet brought back home?'' You your- 
 self add to my alarm, when in ' The Orator ' you use Brutus 
 as your shield, and in order to excuse yourself try to make 
 him equally responsible with you. When the advocate of 
 us all does this, what must I, who once depended on your 
 advocacy, and do now on that of all my countrymen, be 
 expected to feel ? In this forged indictment of terror therefore, 
 this tormenting sense of blind suspicion, seeing that one is 
 perpetually writing to suit the imaginary sentiments of another 
 person, and not one's own judgment, we at any rate, even if 
 you have had little experience of this, because your great and 
 extraordinary talents have armed you completely at all points, 
 feel how difficult it is to come out safely. Nevertheless I had 
 already told my son he was to read my book to you and take 
 it away again, or only give it to you on the condition that you 
 would undertake to revise it, that is to say, if you would rewrite 
 it entirely. 
 
 6 As for my going to Asia, though the necessity laid upon 
 
ep. xcn. FROM AULUS CAECINA. (AD FAM. VI. 7.) 285 
 
 me was most imperative, I have done as you have bidden. 
 What need for me to plead with you on my own behalf? You 
 see that the time is now come in which my fate must of 
 necessity be determined. There is no reason, my dear Cicero, 
 why you should wait for my son : he is but a lad ; owing to 
 prejudice, or inexperience, or timidity, he cannot possibly see 
 all the arguments for every measure. It is only right that you 
 should undertake the whole responsibility in this matter ; my 
 hopes rest entirely on you. You, with your judicious observa- 
 tion, already hold the knowledge of what things Caesar will be 
 pleased with, what he will be persuaded by : it is necessary 
 that everything should originate with you, and by you be 
 carried through to the end. Your influence with himself is 
 considerable ; with all his creatures it is unequalled. If it 6 
 should be that you have come to the conclusion that your part 
 consists not simply in doing anything for which you have been 
 asked — though even that is noble and generous — but that the 
 whole burden rests upon your shoulders, then you will carry it 
 through ; unless, as may be the case, I am from my misery 
 too unreasonably, or from our intimacy too shamelessly thus 
 imposing a burden upon you. But your life and habits offer 
 me a defence against both accusations ; for because you have 
 made it a rule to spare no exertions on behalf of your friends, 
 those who are most intimate with you do not now expect this 
 from you ; they demand it. 
 
 As for the book, which my son will let you have, do not, I 
 entreat you, let it get abroad, or else correct it so that it may 
 not do me any harm. 2 
 
 2 This paragraph (compare § 4, Mum attum faceres) illustrates the way in 
 which letters and other works were altered by critics before publication, even 
 independently of the author himself. It is unfortunately impossible to ascertain 
 how far this may have affected Cicero's own letters, but the fact should be 
 remembered. 
 
286 LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 XCIII. (AD FAM. XIII. ii.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO MARCUS IUNIUS BRUTUS 
 IN CISALPINE GAUL. 
 
 708 A.V.C. (46 B.C.) 
 
 Marcus Brutus had now been made by Caesar (see Introd. to Letter 
 Ixxxiii. ) Governor of Cisalpine Gaul, that is, of Northern Italy. It seems to 
 have been customary for the Italian municipalities to invest the .town funds in 
 the purchase of land there, land in Italy not being very safe under the frequent 
 allotments to veteran soldiers. This not very important letter may be considered 
 as a set-off to the pressure put upon Cicero (Letters xxxvi. and xxxviii.) to 
 support the outrageous conduct of Brutus to the Salaminians ; it is written to 
 ask for special favour to the interest of Cicero's native town, Arpinum. On 
 the great temptation to provincial governors under the Senatorial system to 
 exercise their vast powers in favour of their private friends, see Introd. to 
 Letter xv. 
 
 1 Noticing, as I always have done, that you are most careful 
 not to be uninformed on any matter in which I am interested, 
 I cannot in consequence doubt but that you are aware, not 
 only what is my native borough, but also how eager I am to 
 give any assistance to my fellow-citizens [of Arpinum]. The 
 fact is that all their income and all the means they possess for 
 keeping up public worship and preserving the fabric of their 
 temples and public buildings in good repair consists in the 
 revenues of their estates in the province of Gaul. We have 
 despatched a commission, consisting of three Roman gentlemen 
 of independent means — Quintus Fufidius the younger, Marcus 
 Faucius the younger, and Quintus Mamercus the younger— to 
 report upon these, and exact what is still owed to us by the 
 tenants, and in short to inquire into and regulate the entire 
 
 2 administration of them. My intimacy with you is an excuse 
 for making it a particular request that you will take an interest 
 in this business, and see that, so far as you are concerned, 
 every facility may be given for the discharge and speedy settle- 
 ment of this commission from our town ■ and as to the com- 
 missioners whose names I have mentioned, that you would show 
 them, as you, I know, would naturally be inclined to do, every 
 
 3 possible mark of consideration and hospitality. While you 
 will find that you have been adding some excellent men to 
 
bp. xciv. TO GNAEUS PLANCIUS. (AD FAM. IV. 14.) 287 
 
 the roll of your acquaintance, and laying a most grateful 
 municipality under a permanent obligation by this kindness, 
 to myself you will have done what is even yet more gratify- 
 ing, because though I have always made it a rule to regard 
 myself as the patron of my fellow-townsmen, the present year 
 has unusual claims upon my attention and my services. For 
 this year, in order satisfactorily to complete the organising of 
 the corporation, I recommended my son for election as an 
 aedile, as also my nephew, and Marcus Caesius, one of my 
 greatest friends, for that is the name of the magistrate — -there 
 are no others at all — that we always elect in our borough. 
 And you will have been enhancing the reputation of all these, 
 and especially of myself, if, thanks to the kind help and atten- 
 tion you have given, the organising of the corporation shall 
 prove to have been satisfactorily dealt with. That you will do 
 this I earnestly entreat you again and again. 
 
 XCIV. (AD FAM. IV. 14.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO GNAEUS PLANCIUS IN CORCYRA. 
 About October, 708 A. v. c. (46 B. c. ) 
 
 Gnaeus Plancius had been quaestor of Macedonia at the time of Cicero's 
 exile there in 58 B. c. , and had thus been able to render him important services. 
 (Letter xviii. § 3. ) These Cicero repaid by successfully defending Plancius in 
 an extant speech on his trial for bribery four years later. As one of the most 
 vehement though not most distinguished Pompeians Plancius was now living 
 in exile in Corcyra (Corfu), 
 
 In this summer Cicero divorced Terentia, to whom he had been married for 
 more than thirty years, and married his own ward, a young heiress named 
 Publilia. The marriage was, as it deserved to be, an unhappy one ; Cicero 
 soon lived apart from his wife, whom he divorced in the very next year, and 
 was to the end of his life hampered with difficulties about repaying her dowry. 
 The true grounds of his behaviour to Terentia, with whom he had lived on 
 most affectionate terms (see Letters xvii. xviii. xliii. and lxxv. ) until the Civil 
 War, are difficult to ascertain, but he accused her, apparently unjustly, of 
 having neglected him at that time, and mismanaged his property. Publilia's 
 wealth was probably one of the chief considerations. According to St. Jerome, 
 Terentia afterwards married, first the historian Sallust, and then Marcus Valerius 
 Messalla Corvinus ; arid Dion Cassius says that one Vibius Rufus prided him- 
 self on the possession of two things — Cicero's wife (no doubt Publilia), and 
 Caesar's chair ! 
 
 Forsyth, 397-402 (Mr. Forsyth here criticises Middleton, who is anxious to 
 lay the blame on Terentia) ; Abeken, 351, 361. 
 
288 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt iv. 
 
 I have received two letters from you, dated from Corcyra ; 
 in one of which you congratulate me on the news that I hold 
 my old position ; in the other you express your hopes that 
 this step which I have taken may turn out well and happily. 
 Well, as to myself if there is any ' position ' implied in holding 
 true constitutional opinions, and gaining the approbation of 
 all good constitutionalists for those opinions, I certainly hold 
 my position. If, on the other hand, to hold a position in the 
 State means to be able either to put your sentiments into 
 practice, or to be able in the last resort to assert them with 
 perfect freedom of speech, then I have not so much as a 
 shadow of position left me ; and we are doing remarkably well 
 if we can school ourselves to bear with moderation all that is 
 either present or impending; no such easy thing in a war 
 of the kind, which holds this probability before our eyes, 
 massacre from one side, slavery from the other. 
 
 i Amid this danger however I find a certain consolation 
 when I reflect that I saw all this as long ago as when I used 
 to shiver at the thought of our success, not only of our defeat ; 
 and saw at what a risk we were referring to the sword a point 
 of constitutional law. Even if by it that party had proved 
 victorious whose cause I adopted, not from any desire for war, 
 but only from the hope of peace, I was still aware how ruthless 
 the triumph of passionate, greedy, and insolent men would 
 assuredly be ; while if on the contrary they should be defeated, 
 it would make terrible havoc among my fellow-countrymen, 
 some of them in high rank, some also most excellent men ; who 
 nevertheless chose to think me, for forewarning them of these 
 things, and giving them the best advice against the danger, 
 rather over-cautious than moderately prudent. 
 
 i As to your congratulations on the step I have taken, I am 
 sure you really mean them ; but in these unhappy times I 
 should never have chosen a new life for myself, had I not 
 found on my return that my household was in no respect 
 better off than our country itself. For it was only when I 
 saw that those to whom my welfare and all that was mine 
 ought above all to have been dear for the undying acts of 
 kindness I had shown them were the very people whose wicked 
 behaviour left nothing secure to me in my own house, nothing 
 
FROM MARCELLUS. {AD FAM. IV. u.) 2 Sg 
 
 free from treacherous snares, that I thought it necessary to 
 protect myself by new and faithful ties against the perfidy of 
 older friends. 
 
 But enough — perhaps even too much — about my own 
 affairs. As to yours, I trust that your feeling will be what it 4 
 ought to be : I mean that you should regard yourself as having 
 nothing to dread more than other people. For if our State is 
 to continue to exist at all, whatever the form of it is to be, I 
 see that you will be free from all possible dangers ; because I 
 notice that one party is already appeased with you, the other 
 never was offended ; while with respect to my own desire to 
 help you, I trust that this is the conclusion you will form : 
 that in anything which I can find any use for, though I am 
 not blind to the truth about myself and the limits of my powers 
 nowadays, still whether it be in exertions and advice, or at 
 any rate in warmest sympathy, I shall be ready to assist your 
 interests, your reputation, and your welfare. I should be glad 
 if you would let me know without fail how you are doing now, 
 and what you think you are likely to do. 
 
 XCV. (AD FAM. IV. n.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS AT MYTILENE TO CICERO 
 AT ROME. 
 
 End of 708 a.v.c. (46 B.C.) 
 
 This letter is an answer to a lost one of congratulation from Cicero to 
 Marcellus on his pardon by Caesar at the entreaty of the Senate. See Introd. 
 to Letter xc. 
 
 You have good reason for believing that if your advice is 1 
 always decisive with me, it has been so more particularly upon 
 this occasion. Though my own kinsman, 1 Gaius Marcellus, 
 
 1 It is not certain whether by frater Marcellus means his brother or his 
 cousin. It must be remembered that three of the Marcelli were consuls in three 
 successive years ; Marcus, the writer of this letter, in 51 B. c. ; Gaius, first 
 cousin of Marcus and the other Gaius, in 50 B.C. ; and Gaius, brother of 
 Marcus, in 49 B.C. A majority of commentators think that the cousin, not the 
 brother, is here meant, because nothing is heard of the latter after the year 
 48, and he is mentioned as dead in 43 (Cic. Phil. xi. 29), The word is cer- 
 
 U 
 
290 LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 who is most deeply attached to me, not only recommended, 
 but even prayed and entreated, he could not persuade me, 
 until your letter had the effect of making me adopt the course 
 which you both recommend in preference to all others. Your 
 letters describe to me how the matter was transacted. 
 Although your congratulations are particularly valued by me, 
 because they originate in the kindest feeling, yet it becomes 
 to me a far more cheering and gratifying circumstance from 
 the fact that, in such an extreme dearth of friends, connections, 
 and relations who would really wish for my recall, I have 
 found you to be the one who longed for me most, and have 
 2 given most extraordinary proofs of kindness. Everything else 
 now is such as I — times being what they were — was finding 
 it an easy thing to forego with equanimity ; whereas this I hold 
 to be so essential that without the warm regard of such good 
 men and good friends no man can be said to live, whether he 
 be in prosperity or in adversity. It is upon this therefore that 
 I specially congratulate myself; you however, I promise you, 
 shall have reason to see by my acts that your kindness has 
 been bestowed upon one who is your most sincere friend. 
 Adieu. 
 
 XCVI. (AD ATT. XII. 21.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ASTURA TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 March, 709 A.V.C. (45 B.C.) 
 
 This is the first letter in which the nominal coincides with the real date. 
 Up to the time of Caesar's reform of the Calendar the year consisted of 355 
 days, with an extra month inserted at intervals at the arbitrary discretion of. 
 the Pontifiees, who had managed this so badly that the true time was ninety 
 days later than the civil reckoning. Caesar inserted three intercalary months, 
 and made the civil year consist, as it has done ever since, of 365 days, with an 
 extra day every fourth year. 46 B.C. is known as 'the year of confusion.' 
 The year henceforth began with January instead of March. 
 
 On the complicated subject of this reform of the Calendar, about which 
 
 ly used of a first cousin ; elfe. Cicero, in the Oratio post Red. in Sen. c x., 
 ce&Us Metellus Nepos the f rater of his enemy Clodius ; but, on the other hand, 
 it would be less likely to be so used where, as in this case, an ambiguity might 
 arise. Compare Letter i. note 8 ; Diet. Biogr. ii. 933 ; Diet. Bible, i. 231 ;■ 
 Mr. Watson's note on Letter xc. § 3 ; Abeken, 342. 
 
ep. xcvi. TO ATTICUS. {AD ATT. XII. 21.) 291 
 
 slightly different views are held, see Watson, Appendix viii. ; Diet. Ant. 231 ; 
 Merivale, ii. 403-408 ; Monimsen, iv. 555 ; Long, v. 377 ; Abeken, 301 ; 
 Forsyth, 390 ; Froude, Caesar, 482. 
 
 In the early part of this year, apparently in February, the heaviest blow of 
 Cicero's life fell upon him in the death of his beloved daughter Tullia. In 
 January, after the divorce from Dolabella, she gave birth to a child at her 
 father's house at Tusculum, after which her strength gradually sank. Cicero 
 at first went to stay with Atticus, but afterwards, desiring solitude, retired to 
 his estate in the beautiful little island of Astura, close to the Latian coast, not 
 far from Antium. 
 
 Forsyth, 400-402 ; Abeken, 353, 354. 
 
 I have read Brutus's letter, and return it to you ; a careless 1 
 answer truly to the points you had questioned. That however 
 must be his own affair, though as to this at least his ignorance 
 is discreditable j 1 he imagines that Cato was the first to give 
 an opinion in favour of execution, which had been expressed 
 by all who had spoken with the exception of Caesar ; and 
 also that as the proposal of Caesar himself, who spoke on that 
 occasion in his place as a praetor, was so rigorous, those of 
 the ex-consuls, Catulus, Servilius, both the Luculli, Curio, 
 Torquatus, Lepidus, Gellius, Volcatius, Figulus, Cotta, Lucius 
 Caesar, Gaius Piso, and even Manius Glabrio, and the consuls- 
 elect, Silanus and Murena, were more lenient ! But why then 
 divide for Cato's proposal? Because it expressed the very 
 same thing in fuller and clearer words. As for me, our author 
 commends me for having 'brought the question before "the 
 House,' forsooth, not for having made the disclosures, used my 
 influence with others, or even having made my own decision 
 before I took their opinion • all of which things were the very 
 reason why the division resulted in favour of Cato's motion, 
 just because he extolled them to the skies, and moved that 
 they should be entered on the minutes. Whereas our friend 
 actually thinks that he is paying me a very handsome tribute 
 when he has written me down ' our excellent consul.' Why, 
 
 1 The work which gave so much dissatisfaction to Cicero, who had lately 
 published an encomium on Brutus, was a panegyric upon Cato. The contro- 
 versy which raged, even under the new empire, over the grave of Cato is one 
 of the most striking features of the time. Caesar himself entered the literary 
 lists against Cicero and Brutus with a work entitled Anti-Cato. See Momm- 
 sen, iv. 448, 449 (Mommsen's harsh criticism of Cato has found Jess acceptance 
 than almost any other portion of his great work) ; Merivale, ii. 449 ; Abeken, 
 344 ; Forsyth, 391. 
 
292 . LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 has any unfriendly critic doled me out more meagre praise ? 
 As to your other points, what an answer it was for him to give ! 
 he merely begs that you will make the correction about the 
 form of the decree. Had his secretary 2 pointed out the 
 blunder to him he would at least have done this much. But 
 again, this must be his own look-out. 
 
 2 As to these grounds, since you approve of my idea make a 
 bargain for me: you know the state of my means. 3 If however 
 anything is returned by Faberius there is no trouble about it, 
 but even without him I think I can make a push for it. Those ' 
 of Drusus are certainly for sale, as also possibly those of Lamia 
 and Cassius ; but we will have a meeting. 
 
 s As to Terentia I cannot use more fitting terms than the 
 words of your letter. Let duty be our first consideration : if 
 we are to find that any injustice has been done, I should wish 
 to feel that it is she who ought to be ashamed rather than I. 
 
 4 We must see about paying that ^900 to Gaius Lollius's 
 wife, Ovia. Eros says it is impossible without me ; I suppose 
 because I have got to accept some valuation, and hand it over 
 to her. I wish he had told you, because if everything is really 
 ready, as his letter tells me it is, and he is not playing me false 
 in this very point, it was capable of being settled by you. 
 Will you inquire into this and make some settlement ? 
 
 6 When you call me to come back to the law-courts you are 
 calling me to a place which I was beginning to shun even 
 while there was happiness still left to me. For what have 
 I to do with the courts when there is no show of justice, no 
 
 2 A librario is a simple and probable emendation of Koch for rario, which 
 is adopted by Baiter and Wesenberg. 
 
 8 Cicero was anxious to purchase some grounds across the Tiber in order to 
 erect there a shrine to the memory of Tullia. This legal form of deification, 
 besides being a testimony of his affection, would exempt him from the penalty 
 for excessive expenditure on sepulchral monuments. Atticus however seems 
 to have suggested various difficulties, and the shrine was probably never 
 erected. Ad Att. xii. 35, 36 ; Forsyth, 401 ; Abeken, 356, 357. Mr. Forsyth 
 mentions an essay in the Mdmoires de VAcacUmie des Inscriptions, i. 370, on 
 this shrine of Tullia, by the Abbe Mongault, the French translator of the letters 
 to Atticus. Middleton appositely quotes the Book of Wisdom, xiv. 15 : 'The 
 father afflicted with untimely mourning, when he hath made an image of his 
 child soon taken away, now honoured him as a god, which was but a dead 
 man, and delivered to those that were under him ceremonies and sacrifices. 
 
ep. xcvir. TO CAESAR. (AD FAM. XIII. 16.) 293 
 
 Senate House ; when everywhere people keep forcing them- 
 selves on my eyes whom I cannot abide the sight of? And 
 as to the argument in your letter that people are ' insisting ' 
 that I shall live at Rome, and ' will not hear ' of my stopping 
 away, or your telling me for how long they are willing to make 
 the concession, I may assure you it is no new thing for me to 
 think more of you than of all those people put together. I 
 do not even mean to undervalue myself, and prefer .standing 
 firmly by my own deliberate judgment rather than by that of 
 every one except ourselves. And yet I am going no further 
 than I find that our greatest philosophers allow, every one 
 of the passages from whom that support this view I have not 
 only read — though this in itself, that is, taking one's medicine, 
 shows a courageous patient at any rate — but have even trans- 
 ferred into my own compositions, which certainly was not like 
 a crushed or broken spirit. Do not think of calling me back 
 from such a regimen into your life of bustle, for fear of my 
 having a relapse. 
 
 XCVII. (AD FAM. XIII. 16.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ASTURA TO CAESAR IN SPAIN. 
 April, 709 A.V.C. (45 B.C.) 
 
 After the great defeat of Thapsus only one more stand against Caesar was 
 made by the Senatorial party, under the two sons of Pompeius, Gnaeus and 
 Sextus. The theatre of war this time was Spain, whither Caesar marched 
 with his usual promptness towards the end of the year 46 B. c. The details of 
 this campaign are less known than any of the others ; but on the 17th of March 
 a decisive though desperately contested battle was fought at Munda. This 
 place is generally supposed to be Monda, between Malaga and Gibraltar ; but 
 from the rather vague account in the Bellum Hispanense, appended to Caesar's 
 Bellum Civile, c. 30, seqq. , it appears to be near Cordova. There is a ruined 
 town by the road to Granada, near Alcaudete. The abler brother Gnaeus was 
 assassinated soon after the battle, while Sextus lived for a long time as a brigand 
 in the mountains of Spain. (See Introd. to Letter cxxix.) Caesar returned 
 to Rome in September. ' 
 
 This letter was written in April, but before the arrival of news of the victory. 
 It is simply a letter of recommendation in favour of one Apollonius, a freedman 
 of Publius Crassus, the younger son of the triumvir, Who fell with his father 
 in the disastrous Parthian expedition of 53 B. c. Compare Letter xxvii., the 
 remarks on which will apply to this one also. 
 
 Merivale, ii. 379-383 ; Abeken, 365 ; Long, v. ch. 30 ; Froude, Caesar, 
 ch. 25. 
 
294 LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 1 Out of our whole nobility Publius Crassus was the youth 
 for whom I had most regard ; and while I had always enter- 
 tained good hopes of him even from his first entry into life, 
 I began to have more than a good impression after I learnt 
 the judgment which you had formed about him. Now even 
 while he was alive I. myself always esteemed and thought 
 very highly of his freedman Apolldnius, he being not only 
 devoted to Crassus, but an admirable companion for his 
 highest pursuits, and therefore always much beloved by him. 
 
 2 After Crassus's death however I thought him all the more 
 worthy to be admitted to the confidence of an intimate friend 
 from the fact that he used to regard it as a duty on his part 
 to pay special respect and attention to all such people as had 
 enjoyed his master's friendship, and to whom he had been 
 dear. Npt only therefore did he come out to me in Cilicia, 
 where many a time both his loyalty and his sagacity were most 
 valuable to me, but you also, I imagine, in the Alexandrian 
 campaign found that, as far as zeal and fidelity can go, he 
 
 3 never failed you. And it is in the hope 'that you too' are of 
 my opinion in this that he, acting it is true principally on his 
 own resolution, but also not without my advice, has set out 
 now for Spain to join you. I did not however promise him 
 a recommendation, not that I imagined it would not have 
 any weight with you, but in the first place it seemed to me 
 that no recommendation could be needed for one who has 
 not only been in service with you, but who also for Crassus' 
 sake may claim to be of the number of your friends ; more- 
 over if he wanted to make use of recommendations I saw 
 that he could gain his object just as well by means of other 
 people :' a little mention like this of my opinion about him 
 I was very willing to give, because he himself made a great 
 point of it, and also because I have found by experience that 
 you do allow them to influence you. 
 
 4 What I know of him then is that he is a man of cultiva- 
 tion, who has always, even from his boyhood, had a' taste for 
 the most intellectual pursuits ; for while he was still a boy he 
 used to be much at my house in company with the Stoic 
 philosopher Diodotus, — one of the most profoundly learned, 
 in my opinion, of men, — while now in his enthusiasm for your 
 
ep. xovm. FROM SULPICIUS RUFUS. (AD FAM. IV. 5.) 295 
 
 achievements he is fired with the ambition of placing them 
 on permanent record in the Greek language. That he is 
 equal to this I believe : his talents are decided ; he possesses 
 experience ; he has long been familiar with literary work and 
 studies of the kind ; it is with him an intense ambition not 
 to prove himself unworthy of the immortal fame which your 
 deeds have won. 
 
 I give you this only as a statement of my own opinion 
 about him, but you with your extraordinary insight will be far 
 better able yourself to judge of the point. And yet after all 
 my denial of it, I do recommend him to you ; any attention 
 that you have shown him will be a peculiar gratification to 
 myself. 
 
 XCVIII. (AD FAM. IV. 5.) "f 
 
 FROM SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS AT ATHENS TO CICERO 
 AT ROME. 
 
 April (?), 709 A.V.C. (45 B.C.) 
 
 On the death of Tullia Cicero received many letters of condolence from his 
 friends, including Brutus, Atticus, and Lucceius ; and even the great Dictator, 
 though he was now engaged in quelling the last desperate struggle against his 
 power in Spain, found time to do this act of kindness to one of his old opponents. 
 The most celebrated of these, and perhaps better known than any single letter 
 from the pen of Cicero himself, is the following graceful one from Sulpicius, 
 who was now residing at Athens as Governor of Greece. (See Introd. to 
 Letter xc. ) ' Sulpicius has drawn together in this admired letter whatever 
 ' human philosophy has of force to compose the perturbations of a mind under 
 ' the disquietude of severe afflictions. But it is evident that all arguments of the 
 ■ sort here produced tend rather to silence the clamours of sorrow, than to soften 
 ' and subdue its anguish. It is a much more exalted philosophy indeed that 
 ' must supply the effectual remedies for this purpose ; to which no other but 
 ' that of Christianity alone will be found on the trial to be in any rational degree 
 ' sufficient.' — Melmoth. 
 
 Abeken, 355, 363 ; Forsyth, 403. 
 
 For some time after I had received the information of the 1 
 death of your daughter Tullia you may be sure that I bore it 
 sadly and heavily, as much indeed as was right for me. I 
 felt that I shared that terrible loss with you ; and that had I 
 but been where you are, you on your -part would not have 
 found me neglectful, and I on mine should not have failed to 
 
296 LETTERS OF CICERO. paut iv. 
 
 come to you and tell you myself how deeply grieved I am. 
 And though it is true that consolations of this nature are 
 ^painful and distressing, because those [dear friends and rela- 
 """ tions] upon whom the task naturally devolves are themselves 
 afflicted with a similar burden, and incapable even of attempt- 
 ing it without many tears, so that one would rather suppose 
 them in need of the consolations of others for themselves than 
 capable of doing this kind office to others, yet nevertheless I 
 have decided to write to you briefly such reflections as have 
 occurred to me on the present occasion ; not that I imagine 
 them to be ignored by you, but because it is possible that you 
 may be hindered by your sorrow from seeing them as clearly 
 as usual. 
 
 2 What reason is there why you should allow the private 
 grief which has befallen you to distress you so terribly ? 
 Recollect how fortune ' has hitherto dealt with us : how we 
 have been bereft of all that ought to be no less dear to men 
 than their own children- — of country, position, rank, and every 
 honourable office. If one more burden has now been laid 
 upon you, could any addition be made to your pain ? Or is 
 there any heart that having been trained in the school of such 
 events ought not now to be steeled by use against emotion, 
 and think everything after them to be comparatively light ? 
 
 3 Or it is for her sake, I suppose, that you are grieving? 1 
 How many times must you have arrived at the same conclu- 
 sion as that into which I too have frequently fallen, that in 
 these days theirs is not the hardest lot who are permitted 
 painlessly to exchange their life for the grave ! Now what 
 was there at the present time that could attach her very 
 strongly to life ? what hope ? what fruition ? what consolation 
 for the soul ? The prospect of a wedded life with a husband 
 
 1 It seems to be generally agreed that credo in an interrogative sentence 
 is a solecism, though it apparently occurs both here and in Lucr. v. 175. 
 Lachmann says flatly, did non potest, and adopts the suggestion of Manutius, 
 at for an: Munro in his Lucretius calls this ' a necessary correction, ' but in 
 the Journal of Philology, iv. 249, he thinks the mistake is in credo, for which 
 he would read Cicero^ to a contracted form of which he supposes the do of doles 
 to have become attached. In ib. v. 52, Mr. J. E. Yonge criticises the sug- 
 gestion, and defends the correction at. The ironical use of credo occurs, it 
 may be noticed, a few lines below. 
 
ep. xovm. FROM SULPICIUS RUFUS. (AD FAM. IV. 5.) 297 
 
 chosen from our young men of rank ? Truly, one would think 
 it was always in your power to choose a son-in-law of a position 
 suitable to your rank out of our young men, one to whose 
 keeping you would feel you could safely entrust the happiness 
 of a child ! Or that of being a joyful mother of children, 
 who would be happy in seeing them succeeding in life ; able by 
 their own exertions to maintain in its integrity all that was 
 bequeathed them by their father ; intending gradually to rise 
 to all the highest offices of the state ; and to use that liberty 
 to which they were born for the good of their country and the 
 service of their friends ? Is there any one of these things that 
 has not been taken away before it was given ? But surely it 
 is hard to give up one's children ? It is hard ; but 2 this is 
 harder still — that they should bear and suffer what we are doing. 
 
 A circumstance which was such as to afford me no light 4 
 consolation I cannot but mention to you, in the hope that it 
 may be allowed to contribute equally towards mitigating your 
 grief. As I was returning from Asia, when sailing from Aegina 
 in the direction of Megara, I began to look around me at the 
 various places by which I was surrounded. Behind me was 
 Aegina, in front Megara ; on the right, the Piraeus, on the left, 
 Corinth : all of them towns, that in former days were most 
 magnificent, but are now lying prostrate and in ruins before 
 one's eyes. ' Ah me,' I began to reflect to myself, ' we poor 
 feeble mortals, who can claim but a short life in comparison, 
 complain as though a wrong was done us if one of our number 
 dies in the course of nature, or has met his death by violence ; 
 and here in one spot are lying stretched out before me the 
 corpses of so many cities ! Servius, be master of yourself, 
 and remember that it is the lot of man to which you have 
 been born.' B elieve nre Vl found myself in no small degree 
 strengthened by these reflections. 3 Let me advise you too, 
 
 2 Nisi is probably used here in its colloquial meaning of ' but, ' which is 
 common in the comic poets (Terence, Andria, 660 ; Adelph. 153, 545, etc. ) 
 On the many parallels of Cicero's letters with the Comic Drama see an inter- 
 esting discussion in Prof. Tyrrell's Introduction, i. 54-64. 
 
 3 Byron has alluded to this celebrated description in a passage (Childe 
 Harold, iv. 44) which will be well worth comparing here in extenso : — 
 
 ' Wandering in youth I traced the path of him, 
 
 The Roman friend of Rome's least mortal mind, 
 
298 LETTERS OF CICERO. part it. 
 
 if you think good, to keep this reflection before your eyes. 
 How lately at one and the same time have many of our most 
 illustrious men fallen ! how grave an encroachment has been 
 made on the rights of the sovereign people of Rome ! every 
 province in the, world has been convulsed with the shock: if 
 the frail life of a tender woman has gone too, who being born 
 to the common lot of man must needs have died in a few 
 short years, even if the time had not come for her now, are 
 you thus utterly stricken down ? 4 
 5 Do you then also recall your feelings and your thoughts 
 from dwelling on this subject, and, as beseems your character, 
 bethink yourself rather of this : that she has lived as long as 
 life was of value to her ; that she has 1 passed away only together 
 
 The friend of Tully ; as my bark did skim 
 The bright blue waters with a fanning wind 
 Came Megara before me, and behind 
 
 Aegina lay, Piraeus on the right, 
 
 And Corinth on the left : I lay reclined 
 
 Along the prow, and saw all these unite 
 
 In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight 
 
 ' For time hath not rebuilt them, but upreared 
 Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site, 
 Which only make more mourned and more endeared 
 The few last rays of their far-scattered light, 
 And the crushed relics of their vanished might. 
 The Roman saw these tombs in his own- age, 
 
 These sepulchres of cities which excite 
 Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page 
 The moral lesson bears drawn from such pilgrimage. 
 * Melmoth compares this passage with Addison's Reflections in Westminster 
 Abbey (Spectator, i. 26) : 'When I look upon the tombs of the great, every 
 ' emotion of envy dies within me ; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, 
 ' every inordinate desire goes out ; when I meet with the grief of parents upon 
 ' a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion ; when I see the tomb of the 
 ' parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must 
 ' quickly follow ; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I 
 ' consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world 
 ' with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on 
 ' the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the 
 ' several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred 
 ' years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, 
 ' and make our appearance together. ' Both the similarity and the contrast of 
 these two celebrated passages are in more than one respect instructive and 
 important. Compare the criticism of Melmoth quoted in the Introduction to 
 this letter. 
 
ep. xcvin. FROM SULPICIUS RUFUS. (AD FAM. IV. 5.) 299 
 
 with her country's freedom ; that she lived to see her father 
 elected Praetor, Consul, Augur; that she had been the wife 
 of young men of the first rank ; that after enjoying wellnigh 
 every blessing that life can offer she left it only when the 
 Republic itself was falling. The account is closed, and what 
 have you, what has she, to charge of injustice against Fate? 
 In a word, forget not that you are Cicero — that you are he 
 who was always wont to guide others and give them good 
 advice; and be not like those quack physicians who when 
 others are sick boast that they hold the key of the knowledge 
 of medicine, to heal themselves are never able ; but rather 
 minister to yourself with your own hand the remedies which 
 you are in the nabit of prescribing for others, and put them 
 plainly before your own soul. There is no pain so great ■ but 6 
 the lapse of time will lessen and assuage it : it is not like your- 
 self to wait till this time comes instead of stepping forward by 
 your philosophy to anticipate that result. And if even those 
 who are low in the grave have any consciousness at , all, such 
 was her lcjye for you and her tenderness for all around her, 
 that surely she does not wish to see this in you. Make this 
 a tribuje then to her who is dead ; to all your friends and 
 relations who are mourning in your grief; and make it to your 
 country also, that if in anything the need should arise she may 
 be able to trust to your energy and guidance. Finally, since 
 such is the condition we have come to that even this considera- 
 tion must perforce be obeyed, do not let your conduct induce 
 any one to believe that it is not so much your daughter as the 
 circumstances of the Republic and the victory of others which 
 you are deploring. 
 
 I shrink from writing to you at greater length upon this 
 subject, lest I should seem to be doubtful of your own good 
 sense ; allow me therefore to put before you one more con- 
 sideration, and then I will bring my letter to a close. We 
 have seen you not once but many times bearing prosperity 
 most gracefully, and gaining yourself great reputation thereby : 
 let us see at last that you are capable also of bearing adversity 
 equally well, and that it is not in your eyes a heavier burden 
 than it ought to seem ; lest we should think that of all the 
 virtues this is the only one in which you are wanting. 
 
300 LETTERS OF CICERO. part iv. 
 
 As for myself, when I find you are more composed in 
 mind I will send you information about all that is being done 
 in these parts, and the state in which the province finds itself 
 at present. Farewell. 
 
 XCIX. (AD FAM. IV. 6.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ASTURA TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS AT 
 ATHENS, IN ANSWER TO THE PRECEDING LETTER. 
 
 April (?), 709 A.V.C. (45 B.C.) 
 
 1 Yes, my dear Servius, I could indeed wish you had been 
 with me, as you say, at the time of my terrible trial. How 
 much it was in your power to help me if you had been here 
 by sympathising with, and, I may almost say, sharing equally 
 in my grief I readily perceive from the fact that after reading 
 your letter 1 1 now feel myself considerably more cornposed; 
 for not only was all that you wrote just what is besH-alculated 
 to soothe affliction, but you yourself in comforting me showed 
 that you too had no little pain at heart. Your son Servius 
 however has made it clear by every kindly attention which 
 such an occasion would permit of, both how great his respect 
 was for myself, and also how much pleasure his kind feeling 
 for me was likely to give you ; and you may be sure that, while 
 such attentions from 'him have often been more pleasant to 
 me, they have never made me more grateful. 
 
 It is not however only your arguments and your equal 
 share, I may almost call it, in this affliction which comforts 
 me, but also your authority ; because I hold it shame in 
 me not to be bearing my trouble in a way that you, a man 
 endowed with such wisdom, think it ought to be borne. But 
 at times I do feel broken down, and I scarcely make any 
 struggle against my grief, because those consolations fail me 
 which under similar calamities were never wanting to any of 
 those other people whom I put before myself as models for 
 imitation. Both Fabius Maximus, for example, when he lost 
 a son who had held the consulship, the hero of many a famous 
 exploit ; and Lucius Paulus, from whom two were taken in 
 
3U>. xcix. TO SULPICIUS RUFUS. (AD FAM. IV. 6.) 301 
 
 one week ; and your own kinsman Gallus ; and Marcus Cato, 
 who was deprived of a son of the rarest talents and the rarest 
 virtue, — all these lived in times when their individual affliction 
 was capable of finding a solace in the distinctions they used to 
 earn from their country. For me however, after being stripped 2 
 of all those distinctions which you yourself recall to me, and 
 which I had won for myself by unparalleled exertions, only 
 that one solace remained which has been torn away. My 
 thoughts were not diverted by work for my friends, or by the 
 administration of affairs of state ; there was no pleasure in 
 pleading irfthe courts ; I could not bear the very sight of the 
 Senate House ; I felt, as was indeed too true, that I had lost 
 all the harvest of both my industry and my success. But when- 
 ever I wanted to recollect that all this was shared with you and 
 other friends I could name, and whenever I was breaking 
 myself in and forcing my spirit to bear these things with 
 patience, I always had a refuge to go to where I might find 
 peace, and in whose words of comfort and sweet society I 
 could rid me of all my pains and griefs. Whereas now under 
 this terrible blow even those old wounds which seemed to 
 have healed up are bleeding afresh ; for it is impossible for 
 me now to find such a refuge from my sorrows at home in 
 the business of the State, as in those days I did in that conso- 
 lation of home which was always in store whenever I came 
 away sad from thoughts of State, to seek for peace in her 
 happiness. And so I stay away both from home and from 
 public life ; because home now is no more able to make up for 
 the sorrow I feel when I think of our country than our country 
 is for my sorrow at home. I am therefore looking forward all 3 
 the more eagerly to your coming, and long to see you as early 
 as that may possibly be : no greater alleviation can be offered 
 me than a meeting between us for friendly intercourse and 
 conversation. I hope however that your return is to take 
 place, as I hear it is, very shortly. As for myself, while there 
 are abundant reasons for wanting to see you as soon as possible 
 my principal one is in order that we may discuss together 
 beforehand the best method of conduct for present circum- 
 stances, which must entirely be adapted to the wishes of one 
 man only, a man nevertheless who is far-seeing and generous, 
 
302 LETTERS OF CICERO. part rr. 
 
 and, also, as I think I have thoroughly ascertained, to me not 
 at all ill-disposed and to you extremely friendly. But admitting 
 this, it is still a matter for much deliberation what is the line, 
 I do not say of action, but of keeping quiet, that we ought by 
 his good leave and favour to adopt. FarewelL 
 
 C. (AD FAM. VI. 2.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ASTURA TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS 
 AT ATHENS. 
 
 April, 709 A.V.C. (45 B.C.) 
 
 Aulus Torquatus was an intimate friend of Cicero, now living in exile at 
 Athens, he, like Caecina (Letter xci. ), not yet having been allowed to return to 
 Italy. It appears from Ad Att. xiii. 9 ; ib. 20, that he did come back not long 
 after this date. Four letters from Cicero to him are extant (Ad Fam. vi. 1-4). 
 
 Abeken, 372. 
 
 1 I entreat you not to think it is because I have forgotten 
 you that I do not write to you so often ; but that it is either 
 from the low state of my health — which however I fancy has 
 been rising a little, — or because I have been away from town, 
 and so have no opportunity of hearing when anybody is going 
 out to you. I hope therefore you will always assume at once 
 that I keep up a most affectionate recollection of you, and 
 that everything which concerns you affects me no less than if 
 it were happening to myself. 
 
 2 If your case has hitherto been subject to greater fluctuations 
 than we all either hoped or thought probable, I assure you 
 that under the evil circumstances of the times you have no 
 reason to complain. For it is inevitable that either the country 
 must groan under an interminable war ; or when it is concluded 
 she must at length recover herself; or she must be utterly 
 extinguished. If arms are to prevail, you have no cause for 
 fear either from those who will admit you to grace, or from 
 those whom you have supported ; if arms are laid aside because 
 terms have been made, or are flung aside in sheer weariness, 
 or wrested away by some victory, and so the State has gained 
 breathing-time, then you will have full permission to enjoy the 
 rights both of your position and property. If on the other 
 hand all should be utterly lost, and if once that catastrophe 
 
ep. oi. FROM SULPICIUS RUFUS. (AD FAM. IV. 12.) 303 
 
 has come about which Marcus Antonius, one of the most 
 sagacious of men, used even then to apprehend when he fore- 
 boded all these evils in store for us, then you have at any rate 
 this consolation — a wretched one it is true, especially for one 
 who is what he is both to his country and his friends, but 
 which nevertheless is forced upon us — that what is the common 
 lot of all cannot be a special grief to any individual in 
 particular. If you will earnestly weigh — as you are doing 3 
 now — the force that is contained in these few words (it was 
 not well to put more into a letter), you will surely see, even 
 without my telling you, that while you have a fair amount of 
 grounds for hope, you have none under either this or any 
 conceivable form of government for fear : and if it should 
 prove that all is lost, inasmuch as — even were it offered — you 
 would never consent to be the survivor of your country's 
 freedom, that we must bear our lot, particularly one which 
 stands outside reproach. But enough of this. I hope you 
 will write to me how you are going on, and where you are 
 likely to be, so that I may know where to write, or where to 
 come to you. 
 
 CI. (AD FAM. IV. 12.) 
 
 FROM SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS AT ATHENS TO CICERO 
 AT ASTURA. 
 
 May 31, 709 A.V.C. (45 B. c. ) 
 
 This interesting letter from Sulpicius describes the assassination of Marcus 
 Marcellus, who was now about to return from exile (see Letters xc. and xcv. ), 
 by Magius, one of his friends and clients. It appears from Ad Att. xiii. 10 
 that some people foolishly attempted to throw suspicion upon Caesar, who was 
 still in Spain, as the instigator of the Grime, but this was refuted by the imme- 
 diate suicide of the assassin. Cicero expressed to Atticus his belief that the 
 deed was done by Magius in a sudden fit of rage at the refusal of a loan. . 
 
 Abeken, 372 ; Forsyth, 404. Compare Merivale, ii. 399. But surely 
 assassination was much less common than would be inferred from this passage 
 of Dean Merivale, except when a reformer was murdered by the oligarchy. 
 Indeed, considering the very unsatisfactory administration of justice at this 
 period, the rare use of the dagger by the Roman contrasts very favourably with 
 its frequency among modem Italians. 
 
 Though I am aware that I have to communicate to you 1 
 anything but pleasant news, still since chance no less than 
 
304 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt iv. 
 
 nature lords it over our lives I decided, be the circumstances 
 what they might [that I was bound], to give you information 
 of them. 
 
 On the 23rd of May I landed at the Piraeus from Epidaurus, 1 
 and finding my old colleague 2 Marcellus there I spent a day 
 in the place to enjoy his company. When I parted from him 
 the next day with the intention of going from Athens into 
 Boeotia and finishing the rest of my judicial business, he was 
 intending, as he told me, to sail round Malea 3 to or in the 
 
 2 direction of Italy. Two days after this date, I being then just 
 about to arrange for starting from Athens, about three o'clock 
 or so in the morning 4 Publius Postumius, a friend of his, came 
 to me and brought me the news that our colleague, Marcus 
 Marcellus, had been stabbed after dinner-time by one of his 
 friends, Publius Magius Cilo. He had received two wounds, 
 one in the stomach, 6 the other on the head just by the ear, but 
 still it was hoped that he might possibly recover : Magius had 
 subsequently committed suicide. He himself had been sent 
 to me by Marcellus to bring this news, and ask that I would 
 summon my own physicians. I summoned them, and started 
 at once for the place just as day was breaking. When I was 
 only a short distance from the Piraeus I met a slave of 
 Acidinus coming with a note, in which it was stated that 
 a little before daybreak Marcellus had breathed his last. So 
 one of the noblest of men has fallen a victim to a most 
 untimely death at the hand of one of the vilest ; to one whom 
 his very enemies had spared for his worth a friend had been 
 found to deal the death-blow ! 
 
 3 However I continued on my way to his pavilion. I found 
 only two of his freedmen and a mere handful of slaves ; the 
 
 • 1 An important town on the east coast of Argolis. Sulpicius had been there 
 on circuit as Governor of Greece. 
 
 2 . Or possibly our colleague as Augur. But compare Letter xc. § 3, which, 
 as Mr. Watson says, rather suggests the former. In the next sentence, on the 
 other hand, the juxtaposition of mihi rather makes for ' our. ' 
 
 3 The south-east promontory of Laconia, now Cape Malia. It was much 
 dreaded by sailors. Aen. v. 103. 
 
 4 See Letter xxjii. note 3. 
 
 5 Stomachus occasionally retains its earlier meaning, the usual one in Greek, 
 of 'gullet,' or ' throat' (Cic. Nat. Deor. ii. 54), and it may have that meaning 
 here, but the later usage is more probable. 
 
ep. 01. FROM SULPICIUS RUFUS. (AD FAM. IV. 12.) 305 
 
 rest had fled they told me in a panic of terror because their 
 master had been slain in front of his own pavilion. 6 I was 
 forced to use the very sedan-chair in which I had myself been 
 carried there and my own bearers to bring him back to the 
 city ; where I took care that, as far as the available means at 
 Athens would allow, he should have a sufficiently sumptuous 
 funeral. I could not prevail on the Athenians to allow a 
 burial-place within the walls of the city, because it was for- 
 bidden, so they said, by their ceremonial law (I must admit 
 however that this never had been conceded to any one 
 before)] 7 the next privilege to that, namely the right of 
 burying him in any of the Gymnasia we thought proper, they 
 did grant. I have chosen a place in the Academy, the noblest 
 training-school in the whole world, where I have burnt his 
 remains, and have since then given instructions that the people 
 of Athens should also provide for the erection of a marble 
 monument to his memory on the same spot. I have therefore 
 now paid to him in death as in life all those duties that were 
 to be expected from one who had been both his colleague 
 and his close friend. Farewell. 
 Athens, May 31. 
 
 6 The Piraeus was at this time in ruins (see Letter xcviii. § 4), so that a 
 tent or pavilion had to be erected. The terror of the slaves arose from the 
 merciless severity of the law towards them in the case of a murdered Roman. 
 Tacitus says on the murder of Pedanius Secundus in the reign of Nero (Ann. 
 xiv. 42), that, ' according to ancient custom, the whole family of slaves abiding 
 at the time under the roof are subject by law to capital punishment. ' And the 
 same rigour ' for the vindication of justice and security ' was extended to the 
 freedmen also (Ann. xiii. 32). 
 
 7 This interesting passage shows, as Mr. Long justly points out, the tolera- 
 tion of the Romans for the national and religious customs of the different people 
 in their empire. In this respect indeed the Romans were often superior to the 
 most enlightened of modern imperial States. 
 
306 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet iv. 
 
 CII. (AD FAM. XIII. 4.) 
 
 -. ROME TO QUINTUS VAL! 
 '., LAND-COMMISSIONER FO 
 
 October, 709 a.v.c. (45 B.C.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO QUINTUS VALERIUS ORCA THE 
 YOUNGER, LAND-COMMISSIONER FOR ITALY. 
 
 Quintus Valerius Orca, an ex-praetor, had been placed by Caesar, as a 
 moderate and respectable politician, upon his new commission for the assigna- 
 tion of lands to his veterans. The immediate result of such an appointment, 
 like a proconsulship (see Letter xv. ), was a shower of letters from more or less 
 powerful people, endeavouring to make interest on behalf of some individual or 
 place, and those towns fared badly which had no powerful patron at Rome. 
 Cicero wrote similar letters to Cluvius on behalf of Atella (Ad Fam. xiii. 7) ; 
 to Rutilius on behalf of a friend, Albinius (xiii. 8) ; and to Valerius Orca again 
 for the estate of Curtius (xiii. 5). 
 
 Volaterrae (Volterra), one of the most ancient and famous cities of Etruria, 
 on behalf of which the present appeal is made, was exposed to peculiar dangers. 
 Owing to its sturdy support of Marius its lands had been confiscated by Sulla, 
 though never actually divided, and this Cicero puts forward as constituting a 
 claim upon Caesar. Cicero's patronage of the town began with his pleading 
 for their rights as Roman citizens, from which Sulla had excluded them in his 
 consulship, 63 B. c. ; but he successfully defended them a second time against 
 the agrarian law of Flavius in 60 (see Letter ix. § 6 ; x. § 1). It seems most 
 probable also that he was again successful in this appeal. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 527, 528 ; Merivale, ii. 394-396 ; Diet Geogr. ii. 1319. 
 The name of Valerius Orca is accidentally omitted in the Dictionary of 
 Biography. 
 
 1 Between the good townsfolk of Volaterrae and myself there 
 exists a tie of the warmest attachment, because having been 
 under very considerable obligations to me they have most abund- 
 antly repaid them, nor have they ever failed me either in my 
 triumphs or my struggles. And even if I had no such relation 
 with them, my very warm affection for yourself and my sense of 
 your high esteem for me would still induce me to offer you 
 the advice and earnest appeal to do the best you can for their 
 interests ; particularly as they have almost the primary claim 
 to protection of their rights : first because, by a providential 
 intervention, they somehow managed to escape from the 
 barbarities of Sulla's time ; and secondly because it was with 
 enthusiastic sympathy from the people of Rome that they were 
 
 2 defended by me in my consulship. For the tribunes having 
 proposed a most iniquitous bill affecting their lands, I without 
 
ep. on. TO VALERIUS ORCA. (AD FAM. XIII. 4.) 307 
 
 difficulty convinced both the Senate and people that it ought 
 to be our pleasure to respect the rights of citizens for whom 
 the Goddess Fortune had shown such kindness. The line 
 which I thus took received the sanction of Caesar in the Land 
 Act of his first consulship, and he exempted the town and 
 district of Volaterrae from liability to such proposals for ever ; 
 so that I have no doubt but that he, being a man who is con- 
 tinually forming new connections, would wish the privileges 
 he long ago granted to be maintained. Consequently it will 
 only be in accordance with your discretion either to follow the 
 authority of one amongst whose followers you have ranked 
 yourself and whose orders you obey, though with perfect self- 
 respect, or at least to leave the case entirely open for his 
 decision. About this, at any rate, you ought to have no 
 hesitation : that it would be desirable by so great a kindness 
 on your part to attach for ever to your interests a town so 
 consistent, so staunch, 1 and so distinguished. 
 
 But so far I have only been writing with the view of 3 
 convincing or persuading you ; what remains for me to say is 
 rather by way of petition, so that you may not suppose it is 
 for your sake only that I am thus advising you, but that it is 
 also a favour to myself, and one that I feel obliged to ask, for 
 which I now am pleading with you. Let me say then that 
 you will have done me the most acceptable of services when 
 you have given your consent to leaving the people of Volaterrae 
 entirely untouched, and with undiminished rights. Their 
 houses and lands, their estates and revenues, which have, with 
 enthusiastic approval from the Roman Senate and People, 
 been spared to them by the will of a good providence and of 
 the most illustrious citizens of our Republic, I commend to 
 your honour, your justice, and your humanity. If circumstances 4 
 would but give me an opportunity of protecting the Volaterrans 
 against the present emergency in any way to be compared with 
 the power I used to have of throwing my shield oyer my friends, 
 there is no tribute I could pay them, no sort of encounter even 
 that I would decline. But since I am well assured that my 
 influence with you at the present time is as great as it has 
 
 1 Firmum may mean ' strong in resources, ' as Manutius renders it. 
 
308 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet iv. . 
 
 never failed to be with all [good patriots], I entreat you for 
 the sake of our intimate friendship, and the cordial liking that 
 each of us feels is equally reciprocated by the other, to give 
 the Volaterrans such reason for gratitude that they may look 
 upon it almost as a providentially ordered circumstance that 
 the person who was appointed to execute this commission on 
 which you are engaged is the very one on whom I, their con- 
 stant patron, am able to exercise most influence. 
 
 CIII. (AD FAM. XII. 1 8.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS IN ASIA 
 Late in 709 A.v.c. (45 B.C.) 
 
 Fourteen of Cicero's letters (Ad Fam. xii. 17-30), including also Nos. cxix. 
 and cxxiv. , are addressed to Cornificius, a son of the person of that name 
 mentioned in i. § 1 ; vi. § 3 ; with whom, though he was a member of the 
 Caesarian party, Cicero always remained on friendly terms. After the battle 
 of Pharsalus Cornificius was made Governor of Illyria, but being an energetic 
 and capable officer was before long transferred to the troubled province of Syria, 
 where Quintus Caecilius Bassus was now raising a formidable insurrection against 
 Caesar. At the date of this letter Cornificius was apparently in the East (Ad 
 Fam. xiii. 17, 1), and uncertain about undertaking the government of Syria 
 He must however either have refused it, or held it only for a very short time, 
 since in the next year he was Governor of the old province of Africa. He is 
 called the colleague of Cicero, and of Antonius (Letter cxxiv. ), probably as 
 Augur. 
 
 From a passage of Quintilian (Inst. Or. iii. 1, 2T ; cf, ix. 3, 98), Cornificius 
 has been thought, but perhaps erroneously, to be the author of the ' Rhetorica 
 ad Herennium ' usually included with Cicero's works. 
 
 Diet Biogr. i. 837, 727 ; Merivale, ii. 383; Abeken, 368. 
 
 1 It was what came last in the letter I have just received 
 from you which I now intend to answer first, because I have 
 noticed that this is what you great orators sometimes do. 
 ' Where are the letters I am expecting from you ?' Why I have 
 never failed to send one, when I have had " notice from your 
 friends that somebody was starting. As for what I gather, if 
 I am not mistaken, from your letter, that you would not take 
 any imprudent step, nor make your final decision before you 
 had ascertained what the pranks of that creature — Caecilius 
 Bassus, or whatever his name is — would end in, this is no 
 
ep. cm. TO CORNIFICIUS. (AD FAM. XII. 18.) 
 
 3°9 
 
 more than my confidence in your judgment had already led 
 me to expect ; and then again you made me perfectly at rest 
 about it by writing a most welcome letter. Do this as often 
 as possible, I earnestly entreat you, so that I may have the 
 opportunity of learning how you yourself and how everything 
 is going on, and also what you propose to do. 
 
 Although I only submitted with very great regret to your 
 going away from us, still I used always to console myself by 
 the belief I then had that you were not only passing at once 
 into a scene of absolute tranquillity, but from one where terrible 
 troubles were impending. Both cases have been exactly re- 2 
 versed, for in your parts war has just broken out, in ours it 
 has been followed by a peace, but still a peace of such a 
 nature that you, were you here, would find much in it that 
 would be far from pleasing ; things however, I must admit, with 
 which Caesar himself is not satisfied, because this is always 
 the result of civil war, not to bring about simply what the 
 conqueror wishes, but also to make it necessary to propitiate 
 those by whose assistance the victory has been won. For my 
 own part I have now got so totally callous that at Caesar's 
 games I could with supreme indifference see Titus Plancus 
 making a show of himself, and hear Laberius and Publius 
 reciting their own plays. 1 I can assure you there is nothing I 
 miss so much as a friend with whom to enjoy in confidence a 
 philosophic laugh at it all. You will be the man if you arrive 
 
 1 In the games given by Caesar after the victory of Munda several of the 
 Equites, of whom Plancus was one, took part in the performance ; and Laberius, 
 the celebrated writer of mimes, was requested to enter into public competition, 
 and paid for doing so. Mr. Watson differs from all accepted criticism 
 when he speaks of ' the badness of the poems of Laberius. ' ' Full of pungent 
 delineation of character, in language and metre they exhibited the hand of a 
 master.' — Mommsen, iv. 581, and compare p. 456 ; Merivale, ii. 427 ; Abeken, 
 369 ; Diet Biogr. ii. 695. The strange part of the spectacle was that a Roman 
 gentleman should himself act or recite on the stage. This however, it is true, 
 does not apply to Publius Syrus (Publilius is an incorrect form), and I now 
 think it is possible that Cicero, whose critical judgment was easily swayed by 
 prejudice, may really intend a sneer at Laberius, owing to a shrewd rap he 
 received on this occasion. As Laberius was sulkily returning to the equestrian 
 seats, Cicero called out from the senatorial stalls : ' If we were not so crowded 
 here, Laberius' (a sarcasm on Caesar's recent 'peerages'), 'I would make 
 room for you. ' ' It is a wonder you should be crowded, Cicero, ' replied 
 Laberius, ' because you generally sit on two stools. ' The story is in Macrobius. 
 
310 LETTERS OF CICERO. tart iv. 
 
 as speedily as possible ; and I think it will be not only to my 
 interest, but your own also, that you should do so. 
 
 CIV. (AD ATT. XIII. 52.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT PUTEOLI (?) TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 December 19, 709 A.v.c. (45 B.C.) 
 
 This well-known and interesting letter describes a visit paid to Cicero by 
 Caesar, who had recently returned from Spain., It was probably at Puteoli, in 
 the neighbourhood of which Caesar was staying during the Saturnalia with 
 Lucius Marcius Philippus, his niece's husband. The letter is written in a style 
 which more resembles those of an earlier period than was usual with Cicero at 
 this date, and contains allusions, especially the one about Mamurra, which are 
 very difficult to explain. From what place it is dated is not clear : Mr. Watson 
 says Puteoli ; Boot that it was certainly not from Puteoli or Tusculum, but 
 perhaps from Formiae, and this seems to be adopted by Munro ; Heberden 
 from Astura. 
 
 Merivale, ii. 433 ; Abeken, 370 ; Long, v. 424 ; Forsyth, 411 ; Munro, 
 Criticisms on Catullus, 80-95. 
 
 1 Oh, what a formidable guest to have had ! and yet je ne 
 m'en plains pas, because he was in a very agreeable mood. 
 But after his arrival at Philippus's house on the evening of the 
 second day of the Saturnalia the whole establishment was so 
 crowded with soldiers that even the room where Caesar himself 
 was to dine could hardly be kept clear from them ; it is a fact 
 that there were two thousand men ! Of course I was nervous 
 about what might be the case with me next day, and so Cassius 
 Barba came to my assistance; he set some men on guard. 
 The camp was pitched out of doors; my villa was made 
 secure. On the third day of the Saturnalia he stayed at 
 Philippus's till near one, 1 and admitted nobody (accounts with 
 Balbus, I suppose) ; then took a walk on the beach. After 
 two to the bath : then he heard about Mamurra ; he made 
 no objection. 2 After the toilet he sat down to dinner. He 
 
 1 See Letter xxiii. note 3. 
 
 2 Aulus Mamurra was commandant of the engineers in Caesar's army in 
 Gaul. This allusion to him is very obscure, and is explained in various ways. 
 The old one, adopted, among others, by Mr. Forsyth, Mr.- Parry, Abeken, and 
 Heberden, is to refer it to the terrible epigrams of Catullus (especially xxix. 
 and lvii. ) on Mamurra and Caesar himself. Compare Ellis, Notes on Catullus, 
 
ep. civ. TO ATTICUS. (AJD ATT. XIII. 52.) 311 
 
 was under the 'emetic cure,' 3 and consequently he ate and 
 drank sans peur, and with much satisfaction. And certainly 
 everything was very good, and well served ; nay more, I may 
 say that 
 
 ' Though the cook was good, 
 'Twas Attic salt that flavoured best the food.' 4 
 
 There were three dining rooms besides, where there was a 2 
 very hospitable reception for the gentlemen of his suite ; while 
 the inferior class of freedmen and slaves had abundance at 
 any rate ; for as to the better class, they had a more refined 
 table. In short, I think I acquitted myself like a man. 6 The 
 
 p. 75 ; Mommsen, iv. 321. But this explanation is made almost impossible 
 by the fact that the epigrams on Mamurra had been written for ten years, and 
 that Catullus was now probably dead ; it may therefore be finally rejected. 
 Manutius explains it that Mamurra had been convicted of transgressing the 
 sumptuary laws (compare the mention of him in Letter xliv. § 6), which Caesar 
 strictly enforced, and this Mr. Watson, though doubtfully, adopts. Boot 
 inclines to the idea that it was the mention of Mamurra' s death ; and Munro 
 (on Catullus) refuses to decide between these two interpretations. .The mean- 
 ing of non mutavit of course depends on the explanation adopted : some 
 inferior MSS. and a few editions insert the word voltum, which rather favours 
 the latter. 
 
 3 Mr. Goldwin Smith in an interesting article on ' The Last Republicans 
 of Rome' (Macmillan's Magazine, April 1868), mistranslates the imperfect 
 tense, ' we find the great man, when he is the guest of Cicero, preparing him- 
 self for the pleasures of the table by taking an emetic,' and makes it a charge 
 of gluttony against Caesar. The real truth is, as Munro (Criticisms on Catullus, 
 p. 92) has shown, that this was the common medical prescription of the time 
 for all ailments, just as emetics, purges, and letting blood were in our own 
 country even fifty years ago. Cicero speaks of it without the least surprise, 
 both here and in Pro Rege Deiotaro, vii. 21. Indeed against Caesar a charge 
 of this kind is grotesque, seeing that he was, by the universal testimony of 
 both friends and enemies, very sparing in the use of wine, and utterly indiffer- 
 ent to the pleasures of the table. See Suetonius, Iulius, cc. S3 an d 63 '< 
 Velleius Paterculus, ii. 41; Munro, I.e. ; Mommsen, iv. 451; Merivale, iii. 
 7 ; Long, v. 424, etc. Greek is used here simply because it is a medical 
 term. See Letter lxxv. note 1. iptenicbv (Peerlkamp, adopted by Munro) is 
 more probable than ifierw/iv. 
 
 4 A line from Lucilius, quoted also in the De Finibus, ii. 25. Sermone may 
 either be an ablative of the instrument after cocto, condito (as I have rendered 
 it), or a descriptive ablative parallel to them. 
 
 6 This rendering of nearly all the commentators, which refers the sentence 
 to Cicero himself alone, is decidedly preferable to that of Messrs. Prichard and 
 Bernard : ' we seemed on friendly terms as men should be. ' The preceding 
 words refer only to Cicero's providing as host ; his account of the entertain- 
 ment itself does not come till afterwards. 
 
. 312 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet it. 
 
 guest however was not the sort of person to whom you would 
 say ' I shall be most delighted if you will come here again on 
 your way back ;' once is enough. Nothing was said au grand 
 sirieux ; much on 'literary' chat. In short, he was greatly 
 pleased, and seemed to enjoy himself. He told me that he 
 should be one day at Puteoli, and the next near Baiae. Here 
 you have the story of his visit — or, I may call it, his billeting 
 — which, as I told you, was a thing one would shrink from, 
 but did not give much trouble. I am for Tusculum next after 
 a short stay here. 
 
 When he was passing Dolabella's house, but nowhere else, 
 the whole guard was paraded in arms on either side of him as 
 he rode ; I have it from Nicias. 
 
PART V. 
 THE CLOSE OF CICERO'S LIFE. 
 
PART V. 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF CAESAR (March 15, 44 B.C.) TO THE 
 DEATH OF CICERO (December 7, 43 b.c.) 
 
 CV. (AD ATT. XIV. 1.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT THE HOUSE OF MATIUS NEAR ROME TO 
 ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 About April 7, 710 A.V.C (44 B.C.) J 
 
 On the Ides (15th) of March, 44 B.c. , the great Dictator was murdered in 
 the Senate House, at the foot of the statue of Pompeius. The conspiracy 
 against his life included from sixty, to eighty members, many of whom had 
 been prominent Caesarians in the Civil War. The most active was Gaius 
 Cassius Longinus, one of the praetors ; but Marcus Iunius Brutus, now praetor 
 or warden of the city, has attained even greater notoriety, partly from the 
 additional horror which was given by the belief, though probably unfounded, 
 that he was Caesar's own son. 1 The most noteworthy of the other members 
 were Decimus Iunius Brutus, who had been one of Caesar's most trusted 
 generals, and Gaius Trebonius, who had just been consul. The objects of the 
 conspirators were no doubt various, and probably some really regarded his 
 murder as tyrannicide, and necessary for liberty, but the chiefs of the con- 
 spiracy seem by general testimony to have been actuated by most unworthy 
 motives of jealousy, cupidity, or disappointment. The most favourable 
 criticism of their action worth notice is Mr. Goldwin Smith's article on ' The 
 
 1 The well-known Et tu, Brute, rests on no authority. Mr. Goldwin 
 Smith suggests that, if said at all, it was said not to Marcus, but to Decimus 
 Brutus, who was one of Caesar's best generals. But ko.1 <rb, rixvov, is the 
 expression reported by Dion Cassius and Suetonius, which obviously refers to 
 the scandal about Caesar's liaison with Marcus Brutus' mother, Servilia. 
 Caesar however was only fifteen when Brutus was born, or perhaps seventeen, 
 if with Mommsen (iv. 15) we place his birth in 102, and Brutus, who was 
 much attached to his mother, certainly did not believe it See Merivale, ii. 
 457 ; Froude, Caesar, 516 ; Letter xiii. note 3. 
 
3i6 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 Last Republicans of Rome ' (Macmillan's Magazine, April 1868) : a much 
 sterner judgment is passed by Dean Merivale, vol. ii. ch. 21. 
 
 Cicero was not taken into the plot ; see the opening sentence of Letters 
 cxxvi. and cxxvii. Plutarch no doubt gives the true reason, which would 
 have amazed Cicero himself, that ' they feared his character as being too timid.' 
 — Plut. Cic. xvii. 42. He was perhaps however an eye-witness of the murder 
 (see Ad Att. xiv. 14, ' oculis cepi'). His letters generally express a satisfac- 
 tion which, after Caesar's great generosity to him and his profuse, if not 
 servile acknowledgment of it, is nothing less than ferocious ; and no portion 
 of the whole collection of his letters exhibits his character in so unpleasant a 
 light as those of this year. But he soon discovered, what ought to have been 
 obvious before, that the conspirators had ' done away with the king, but not 
 with the kingdom. ' 
 
 The attitude of the people was at first one of simple stupefaction, but it 
 was soon clear that the conspirators met with no sympathy from them, and 
 they were forced to entrench themselves in the Capitol. The most powerful 
 men in the city before the arrival of Octavianus, Caesar's intended heir, were 
 Marcus Antonfus, the surviving consul, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, after- 
 wards the third of the Triumvirs. Antonius, as consul, at once seized the 
 enormous treasure amassed in the temple of Ops, and his power was very 
 greatly increased by receiving from Caesar's widow, Calpurnia, the disposal of 
 her husband's money and private papers. A hollow peace was patched up 
 between the two parties, but the real weakness of the conspirators became 
 evident, and most of them soon fled from Rome. Octavianus landed in Italy 
 about a month after the murder, at once assumed the name of Caesar, to 
 which he was entitled as the adopted son and heir of the Dictator, and 
 announced his intention of claiming his inheritance. From this time forward 
 he becomes one of the central figures in the very intricate drama that was to 
 be played. 
 
 Merivale, ii. ch. 21 and iii. ch. 24 ; Long, v. ch. 33, 34 ; Abeken, 375- 
 386 ; Forsyth, 414-427. 
 
 This letter is written from the suburban house of Gaius Matius Calvena, 
 who though a warm and disinterested supporter of Caesar, even after his 
 death, yet remained on most friendly terms with Cicero. For more about 
 Matius see Introd. to Letter cxiii. * The date, April 7, is made probable by a 
 comparison of Ad Att xiv. 2, 4, with xiv. 5, 3.' — Watson. 
 
 I have come on a visit to the subject of our conversation 
 this morning. Desperation can go no farther. * The entangle- 
 ment was hopeless : for if so great a genius could find no way 
 out of it, who will find it now? In short all,' he said, 'was 
 lost.' And I am not sure but that he may be right, only he 
 says it with satisfaction, and is positive about a rising in 
 Gaul before three weeks are over. As for himself, 'since the 
 Ides of March he had not entered into conversation with 
 anybody at all except Lepidus,' and the summary was that 'it 
 would be impossible for such deeds to get off so lightly.' Oh, 
 for your delicacy, Oppius ! He grieves for his friend just as 
 
ep. cvi. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. XIV. 2.) 317 
 
 truly, and yet never says a word that could offend any good 
 patriot. But enough of this. Please do not think it a trouble 2 
 to write me any news there may be — there is much indeed that 
 I am expecting to hear ; — among other things whether it is fully 
 known about Sextus Pompeius, and above all what about our 
 friend Brutus ? As to him indeed, I hear from the friend with 
 whom I am staying that Caesar used to say, 'It makes all the 
 difference what our friend sets his heart on, but whatever he 
 does it is with his whole heart;' and that he had impressed 
 him with this characteristic in his speech for Deiotarus 2 at 
 Nicaea ; he seemed to be speaking with such extreme vehemence 
 and freedom from restraint. Another fact — for I like jotting 
 anything down just as it occurs to me : — quite recently when 
 I called upon him at the entreaty of Sestius, and was sitting 
 there waiting till I should be summoned, they say he remarked : 
 ' Can I have any doubt but that I must be intensely disliked 
 when Marcus Cicero is sitting there, and cannot come in and 
 see me at his own convenience? Yet if anybody is easy- 
 tempered it is he ; but for all that I have no doubt he hates 
 me bitterly.' This and plenty more of the kind for you. But 
 to my point : 3 will you write anything, whatever it is, not only 
 an important thing, but any little one as well ? I for my part 
 will omit nothing at all. 
 
 CVI. (AD ATT. XIV. 2.) 
 
 FROM CICERO IN THE SUBURBS TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 April 8, 710 A.V.C. (44 B.C.) 
 
 I received two letters from you yesterday : from the first 1 1 
 learnt about Publius Syrus x and the theatre — capital signs that 
 the people are with us : to applaud Lucius Cassius however 
 struck me as quite ludicrous. 2 The second letter is the one 2 
 
 2 King of Galatia. He was also defended by Cicero in an extant speech 
 on the charge of attempting Caesar's life. (Letter cviii. § 1. ) 
 
 3 Compare Letter lx. note 1. 
 
 1 See Letter ciii. note 1. 
 
 2 Some applause was apparently given to the conspirators at the theatre, 
 probably on the occasion of the Megalesian games, April 5. when a piece of 
 
3i8 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt v. 
 
 you wrote about ' the Baldhead' ; but there was nothing of this 
 at his house, as you seem to think, for I did go on some way, 
 though not for so long a time as I meant, because his conversa- 
 tion detained me. 3 
 
 3 As to what I wrote to you, perhaps rather enigmatically, it 
 comes to this. He told me that Caesar had said in his presence, 
 because I was sitting waiting on that occasion when I called 
 upon him at the entreaty of Sestius, 'Can-I possibly be such 
 a fool now as to believe that even this easy-tempered man can 
 really like me, when he sits there such a long time waiting for 
 my convenience ?' You have therefore in Monsieur le Chauve 
 a bitter opponent of peace, or in other words of Brutus. I 
 
 * think I shall to Tusculum to-day, be to-morrow at Lanuvium, 
 and after that at Astura. Every thing is ready for Pilia's 
 reception, but I should like Attica too — however I forgive you 
 — kind regards to both of them. 
 
 Syrus was being played. But to include Lucius Cassius, the brother of the 
 chief conspirator, seemed amusing to Cicero, because he was not in the plot 
 at all. 
 
 a This passage is so extremely obscure, partly from the doubtful reading, 
 and partly from the want of Atticus's letter to which the allusions are made, 
 that translation is almost hopeless. By general consent of the commentators 
 the second <pa\&Kpwfia, like ' Madarus, " is a mere play upon the name Calvena, 
 derived from calvus, bald, and represents Matius himself. But the first 
 (paKdnpaina is a very doubtful correction of the MS. , which has ^aXckwfitt, or 
 caX6.K(afia. Gronovius, who is followed by Orelli, proposed aa\aKuvia/ia, 
 ' swaggering ' (a word which is not found elsewhere) ; Boot, not very happily, 
 fi.a\a.Kbv Kui/ita, ' a quiet sleep, ' which he supposes to have been interrupted by 
 the conversation of Matius. If <pa\&Kpu/j.a be right — which I do not believe — 
 Atticus may have said jokingly : ' So you have been to see Calvena. What a 
 pair of bald-pates you must have been. You would never be able to get away 
 from his house.' Cicero then replies : ' Not a, bit of it : I did not drivel on 
 like a bald-pate there at all ; I actually did move on that day, though not so 
 far as I meant, because I own his talking did keep me -a long time.' In any 
 case the Greek word probably refers to Cicero, not to Matius, because afud 
 quern does not mean 'in him,' but 'at his house.' Diu is better taken with 
 retentus than w\ih processi, which would probably require longe. But under 
 the circumstances nothing better than a guess at the meaning is even possible. 
 
EP. evil. D. BRUTUS TO M. BRUTUS. (AD FAM. XI. I.) 319 
 
 CVII. (AD FAM. XI. 1.) 
 
 FROM DECIMUS IUNIUS BRUTUS, PROBABLY AT ROME, TO MARCUS 
 IUNIUS BRUTUS AND GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS. 
 
 April, 710 A.V.C. (44 B.C.) 
 
 This letter ' shows clearly enough the embarrassed position in which the 
 conspirators found themselves. Decimus's first thought was to retire into 
 voluntary exile, but as soon as the Senate's decree passed, confirming Caesar's 
 dispositions, he changed his mind, and proceeded to take the command of the 
 three legions destined for Cisalpine Gaul, and to possess himself of the govern- 
 ment of that province, upon which Antonius seemed already to be turning his 
 eyes.' Abeken, 387 ; compare Merivale, iii. 114. As the letter is apparently 
 written from Rome, Marcus Brutus and Cassius must have already left the city, 
 though probably they were still in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Let me inform you both of the position we are in. Yester- 1 
 day evening Hirtius was at my house ; he convinced me about 
 the real intentions of Antonius, as being, that is, most malicious 
 and treacherous. For he was now asserting that, so far from 
 it being in his power to give me the province, he did not think 
 that any one of us could be at Rome without risk, so excited 
 were the feelings of the soldiery and the populace ; both of 
 which statements are, you no doubt perceive, false, while this, 
 which Hirtius pointed out to me, is true : that he is really 
 afraid lest, if our rightful claims were even moderately sup- 
 ported, these people would have no part left them to play in 
 the Republic at all. Finding that I was in this strait, I 2 
 decided on applying for an honorary ambassadorship for my- 
 self and the rest of us, so as to look about for some decent 
 reason for leaving town. This he has promised that he will 
 procure ; and yet I am by no means confident that he will 
 succeed ; there is so much insolence and desire to persecute 
 us in these creatures : even if they grant our request, I think 
 we shall find ourselves all the same in a very short time being 
 declared public enemies or proscribed as outlaws. 
 
 What then, say you, have I to suggest ? We must give 3 
 way before fortune : we must retire, I think, from Italy and 
 emigrate to Rhodes, or somewhere else abroad : then if the 
 chances ever prove better, we will return to Rome ; if indifferent 
 
320 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet v. 
 
 we will live in exile ; if as bad as can be, we will come at last 
 
 4 to the extreme expedient. At this point it will possibly occur 
 to one of you : ' why wait for extremities instead of making an 
 effort at once ? ' Because we have no rallying-point, except 
 Sextus Pompeius and Caecilius Bassus, who will be, it seems 
 to me, in a stronger position when this news about Caesar has 
 reached them. Time enough for going to them, when we 
 shall have learnt what their strength is really worth. 
 
 I will make any engagements on behalf of you and Cassius 
 that you may wish me to make, for Hirtius stipulates that I 
 
 5 should do so. I must ask you to let me have an answer at 
 once, because I have no doubt that Hirtius will let me know 
 about these matters before ten o'clock. Tell me in your 
 answer of some place where we can meet, which you would 
 like me to come to. 
 
 6 P.S. — After the final conversation I have just had with 
 Hirtius I have decided to apply for leave while we are at 
 Rome to have a guard allowed us by the State. I do not 
 suppose they will grant us this, because we shall be making 
 them very unpopular. Still I thought I ought to omit no 
 appeal that I could regard as being reasonable. 
 
 CVIII. (AD ATT. XIV. 12.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT PUTEOLI TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 April 22, 710 A.v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 The possession of Caesar's papers gave Antonius a powerful advantage, 
 which he was not slow to use. Caesar's acts had been ratified by the Senate, 
 many members of which would have lost their own appointments if Caesar's 
 reign were declared an usurpation. This was most dangerously extended to 
 the ratification even of intended acts about which memoranda could be found 
 among Caesar's papers, so that Cicero's repeated accusation against Antonius 
 of a wholesale forgery of documents, and of being under the corrupt influence 
 of his notorious wife Fulvia, the widow of Clodius, is anything but improbable. 
 But a grant of the full Roman franchise to the Sicilians, which Cicero attacks 
 in this 1/stter, was perfectly in accordance with Caesar's definite policy. 
 — Mommsen, iv. 545-547 ; compare Introd. to Letter xxxi. , on the franchise 
 given to the Transpadane Gauls. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 96-98 ; Abeken, 389. 
 
ep. oyiii. TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. XIV. 12.) 321 
 
 O Atticus ! I fear me the Ides of March have given us x 
 nothing beyond the pleasure, and the satisfaction of our hatred 
 and indignation. What news reaches me from you — what 
 sights do I see here ! fl f acinus altum, fine quam caret tamen. 1 
 You know how attached I am to the Sicilians, and what a 
 distinction I consider it is to be their patron. Caesar was 
 generous in his grants to them, nor was I inclined to object, 
 although the idea of Latinizing was intolerable ; however, let 
 that be. Well, lo and behold, Antonius, after receiving for 
 it a very considerable sum of money, has posted a law as 
 having been carried by the Dictator in the assembly, under 
 which the Sicilians find themselves Roman citizens — a proposal 
 of which no hint was ever given in his lifetime ! Nay, is it 
 not the same thing too with my client Deiotarus ? 2 Certainly 
 he deserves to have his whole kingdom, only not through 
 Fulvia. There are hundreds of things of this kind ; but I 
 pin the question down to this : 8 shall we or shall we not, 
 to a considerable extent, make good a claim so clear, so well 
 attested, and so equitable as this, the case of Buthrotum j ay, 
 and all the more strongly, the more grants this very person 
 has been making ? With me here Octavius is in a most 2 
 complimentary and friendly mood. His own attendants 
 indeed wanted him to be styled Caesar : not so Philippus, 
 and not so therefore I myself. I say that for him it is im- 
 possible ever to be a truly good citizen, there is such a crowd 
 of people at his elbow who even threaten our friends with 
 death. The present state of things, he says, ' cannot be 
 acquiesced in.' What do you make of this lad having come 
 to Rome, when our deliverers cannot be there safely ? They 
 themselves indeed will ever be illustrious, nay, will even be 
 blessed in the recollection of what they have done ; but we, 
 unless I am much mistaken, shall be under foot. Consequently 
 I long to get away from this, to where ' Of all the race of Pelops 
 
 1 The words in Cicero are no doubt a quotation from a lost drama. 
 
 2 See Letter cv. note 1. 
 
 3 Or, as Boot renders, ' I apply what I have said to the case of Buthrotum.' 
 Kefero is surely transitive, whether we regard the object as being understood, 
 or illuc as being the neuter of the old form illic, like istuc. Letter lxxxvii. § 2. 
 The case of the Buthrotians was thai Caesar had promised in writing to remit 
 a sentence of confiscation passed against their territory. - See Ad Att. xvi. 16. 
 
 Y 
 
322 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt t. 
 
 none may come,' as somebody says. 4 I am far from being in 
 love even with these consuls-elect, 5 who have positively driven 
 me into writing declamations for them, so that even here at the 
 waters I am not allowed to live in peace. But after all, this 
 comes of my own too great good-nature ; for if all this used 
 jpnce upon a time to be virtually compulsory, it is not so now, 
 however things stand. 
 3 Though for this long time past I find myself without 
 anything to write to you about, still I write all the same, not 
 for any pleasure I can give you by my letters, but for the 
 sake of eliciting yours. You of course will send me any news 
 about the others, whatever it be, particularly about Brutus. 
 I am writing this on the 2 2nd, while at dinner with Vestorius, 6 
 who, poor man, is as much at sea in logic, as he is at home 
 in ledgers. 
 
 CIX. (AD ATT. XIV. 13 A.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS ANTONIUS IN SOUTH ITALY TO CICERO AT 
 PUTEOLI. 
 
 About April 20 (?), 710 A.v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 Sextus Clodius, the descendant of a freedman of the great Claudian family, 
 and the instrument of Cicero's enemy, Publius Clodius, in all his acts of 
 violence, had been banished for riot in 52 B.C. Antonius, on the ground of a 
 memorandum found among Caesar's papers, or perhaps, as Cicero declared to 
 Atticus, only fabricated, intended now to restore him ; but contrived to put 
 Cicero into a difficulty by making the restoration conditional on his consent. 
 This and the following letter are enclosed in one written to Atticus, in which 
 Cicero says that he has consented, because Antonius was sure in any case to 
 have done as he pleased. But the very superfluous and insincere warmth with 
 which Cicero replies placed him afterwards in an embarrassing position, since 
 in answer to his First Philippic this letter was read by Antonius in the Senate 
 as a proof of his inconsistency. — Phil. ii. 4-7. The young Clodius here 
 mentioned was the son of Publius Clodius and Fulvia. Antonius, who had 
 -married Fulvia, Was therefore his guardian. 
 
 The date of Cicero's reply is probably about April 25. Antonius was at 
 
 4 From some tragedy ; Boot suggests the Atseus of Attius, 
 
 5 Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Vibius Pansa, who fell at Mutina ; Letter cxxxvi. 
 On these declamatory exercises compare Letter lxxxvii. 
 
 6 A banker of Puteoli ; see Letter xxxiv. § 1 ; xxxviii. note 4. The pass- 
 age is a curious example of Roman manners. 
 
ep. ois. FROM ANTONIUS. (AD ATT. XIV. 13 A.) 323 
 
 this time in South Italy, endeavouring to secure the adhesion of Caesar's 
 veterans ; Cicero was staying at a beautiful estate near Puteoli (Pozzuoli) in 
 Campania, which had been lately bequeathed to him by his friend, the banker 
 Cluvius. 
 
 Forsyth, 432-434 ; Abeken, 394. 
 
 Owing to the pressure of my work and your sudden de- 1 
 parture from Rome it has come about that I could not speak 
 to you in person about this matter ; and therefore I fear that 
 the fact of my being away should be a loss in importance in 
 your eyes. 1 If however I find that your good-nature comes up 
 to the high opinion I have ever entertained of you I shall be 
 greatly pleased. 
 
 I entreated Caesar to grant a recall to Sextus Clodius. s 
 This request I obtained. Even then it was my intention only 
 to make use of his concession to me on the condition that 
 you had first given your sanction, which makes me all the 
 more anxious that you should kindly give your consent now 
 to my carrying this out myself. If however you show yourself 
 inclined to be hard on his unhappy and broken fortunes I 
 for my part will not enter into a contest with you, though 
 I suppose I am really bound to pay respect to a written 
 memorandum of Caesar's. But I must protest that if you 
 are inclined to think of me with kindness and consideration 
 and friendliness, you will undoubtedly show yourself ready to 
 be convinced, and be glad that Publius Clodius, a youth 
 surrounded with a halo of the brightest hopes, should bear 
 in mind that you refused, when it was in your power, to 
 persecute his father's friends. Let it, I entreat you, be seen ; 
 that the feud you waged with his father was on political 
 grounds — you surely would not think this family deserves 
 contempt — because it is more honourable and easy for us to 
 lay aside quarrels arising from some political reason than from 
 an arrogant temper. Allow me then forthwith to train the lad 
 in this opinion, and instil into his young mind the persuasion 
 that personal quarrels are not to be transmitted from genera- 
 
 1 In the first edition I rendered this, ' that in my absence it may seem to 
 you only of lighter weight, ' taking absentia as ablative, and supplying res from 
 re as the subject of Uvior. But I now abandon this, because absentia, would 
 then probably be proper aisentiam. 
 
324 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet v. 
 
 tion to generation. Although your fortunes, my dear Cicero, 
 are, I know, now unquestionably beyond the reach of any 
 danger, yet I imagine that you would rather spend an old age 
 of tranquillity and honour than one which is harassed with 
 anxieties. Finally, when I ask you for this favour I am within 
 my rights, for I have never failed to do anything for your sake. 
 If however I do not obtain my request I propose not to make 
 this concession to Clodius on my own responsibility, so that you 
 may see how high your authority is with me, and be therefore 
 the more inclined to show that you are open to conciliation. 
 
 CX. (AD ATT. XIV. 13 B.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT PUTEOLI TO MARCUS ANTONIUS IN THE 
 SOUTH OF ITALY. 
 
 (A reply to the preceding Letter.} 
 
 About April 25 (?), 710 A.v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 1 The request contained in your letter I could wish for one 
 reason that you had rather pleaded in person, because then 
 not only from my words, but, as we say, ' from speaking face 
 and eye and brow,' you might have been able to see my 
 affection for you. For while I have always had a great regard 
 for you, which began with your zealous support, and was after- 
 wards demanded as a return for your kindness, in the present 
 times the welfare of our country has established your claims 
 upon me so strongly that there is no one whom I hold more 
 
 2 dear. Your letter however, by its most affectionate and com- 
 plimentary tone, has so impressed me that instead of con- 
 
 a ferring a favour upon you, I seem to be actually receiving one 
 
 / from you, when you make such an appeal as even to refuse to 
 
 >. reinstate without my consent a kinsman of your own who has 
 
 ) been an opponent of mine, though you could do so without 
 
 / the least trouble. 
 
 / 3 Yes, my dear Antonius, I put this matter entirely in your 
 hands ; and not only so, but I consider myself most generously 
 and courteously treated by you after the terms in which you 
 
ex. TO ANTONIUS. [AD ATT. XIV. r 3 B.) 
 
 325 
 
 have written to me. And while I should think it right, what- 
 ever the circumstances might be, unreservedly to make you 
 this concession, I make it also to my own sympathy and dis- 
 position ; for — so far from my being vindictive — there never 
 was in me- even the faintest inclination to sternness or severity 
 beyond what the necessities of the Commonwealth demanded. 
 I may add that even while Clodius himself was alive I never 
 showed any conspicuous dislike for him, 1 and I have always 
 asserted the principle that our enemies' friends ought not to 
 be persecuted, particularly those of humbler rank, nor ought 
 we ourselves to be deprived of the protection which we derive 
 from them. For as to young Clodius, I consider it your 4 
 proper course, as you suggest in your letter, to instil such 
 precepts into his yet tender mind that he may not imagine 
 any trace of hostility to remain between our houses. Publius 
 Clodius I withstood, because I was asserting the public interest, 
 he his own : upon our dispute the country has now given its 
 deliberate decision. Were he alive now I should have no 
 cause of quarrel still remaining with him. 
 
 Since therefore you put your request to me in such a way 5 
 as to say that even in what is entirely a matter of your own 
 discretion you will not use it against my wishes, will you 
 kindly allow this to be a concession on my part to the lad 
 himself as well ? Not as though my old age need look for 
 any danger to come from his youth, or my position had much 
 to dread from any opposition whatever, but that you and 
 I may be linked more closely to each other than we have 
 hitherto been; for owing to the interference of these feuds 
 your heart has been more open to me than your house. But 
 of these things enough. I will end with this : that always 
 with the warmest pleasure I shall without any hesitation do 
 whatever I have reason to believe is in accordance with your 
 wishes, and connected with your interests : of this I hope you 
 will make yourself thoroughly assured. 
 
 1 This is a flagrant instance of Cicero's insincerity. His language about 
 Clodius was on every occasion of the most offensive character (see Index, 
 Clodius) ; and, as Mr. Watson notes, two years after Clodius's murder (Ad 
 Att. vi. 1, 26) he still counted the days with savage exultation from that event. 
 
326 LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 CXI. (AD FAM. IX. 14.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT POMPEII TO PUBLIUS CORNELIUS DOLABELLA 
 AT ROME. 
 
 May 4, 710 A.v. c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 Upon the murder of Caesar Dolabella at once assumed the consulship, which 
 had been promised to him for the following year, and joined the conspirators 
 in the Capitol ; but before long Antonius secured his adhesion by a very large 
 bribe. Shortly before this letter Dolabella had, in the absence of Antonius, 
 destroyed an altar and column erected by an impostor named Herophilus or 
 Amatius, who had pretended to be a grandson of Marius, and put to death 
 many people who assembled to worship at it. Cicero's eulogies of this act 
 seemed rather ridiculous, and were probably dictated by the desire to see 
 Tullia's dowry restored by Dolabella. They were more than once found fault 
 with by the more prudent Atticus. — Ad Att. xiv. 18, 1. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 100-102 ; Abeken, 400 ; Forsyth, 434. 
 
 1 My dear Dolabella — 
 
 Though your reputation had always contented me, and 
 though from it I used to derive enough delight and satisfac- 
 tion, yet I cannot but own that this is now a crowning 
 pleasure, that in popular opinion my own name is linked with 
 the praises you have earned. I have not met a single person, 
 many as I meet every day (for numbers of our best men are 
 coming to these parts in quest of health, besides the crowd of 
 my acquaintances who come from the country-towns), without 
 finding that when they have been praising you to the skies 
 they invariably go on to express their warm gratitude to me ; 
 because they say it is impossible to doubt that it is all in 
 obedience to my advice and instruction that you are now 
 proving yourself so patriotic as a citizen and distinguished as 
 
 2 a consul. Now though I might answer with perfect truth that 
 whatever you are doing you do of your own judgment and 
 your own free-will, and that you are not one to need any 
 man's advice, yet I neither altogether admit this to be true, 
 for fear of diminishing the credit due to you if all this should 
 be thought to have originated in my counsels, nor yet give 
 it a very emphatic denial, because I do indeed covet honour, 
 perhaps more than enough. Yet, after all, this which was an 
 honour to the king of kings, great Agamemnon himself, in 
 
ep. cxi. TO DOLABELLA. (AD FAM. IX. 14.) 32? 
 
 taking counsel to have a Nestor by him, is no detraction from 
 your dignity ; while to me it is a pride that you, our young 
 consul, should be winning golden opinions, as if you were 
 a pupil who had profited by my training. Lucius Caesar x 3 
 indeed, when I paid him a visit during his illness at Naples, 
 although he was racked with pain in his whole body, said, 
 almost before he had fairly bidden me welcome : ' I con- 
 ' gratulate you, my dear Cicero, on having such influence with 
 '. Dolabella. Had I as much with my sister's son we now 
 ' might possibly be secure. And as for your Dolabella, I not 
 ' only congratulate him, I feel grateful to him ; he is indeed 
 ' the one consul since yourself whom we in the true sense can 
 ' call a consul.' He then enlarged on the fact and the action 
 you had taken, and added that nothing was ever more nobly 
 or more splendidly done ; nothing ever more salutary for the 
 commonwealth : and indeed this is the unanimous expression 
 of everybody. 
 
 Now my petition of you is that you will allow me, even in 4 
 default of a title, to accept this inheritance, so to speak, of the 
 glory really due to another, and consent to my coming in for 
 a fair share at least of the applause you have earned. And 
 yet, my dear Dolabella, I have only been joking with you ; 
 for I should be far more glad to have poured all my 
 glories — if mine indeed exist at all — into your lap than to 
 have absorbed any portion of what is yours ; because while 
 my affection for you has always been quite as strong in reality 
 as you have had the opportunity of seeing, my heart 
 has been so warmed by this action of yours that no love 
 can ever be more ardent. Believe me indeed, there is 
 nothing fairer, nothing more beautiful, nothing more lovely, 
 than well-doing. I have always, as you know, loved Marcus 5 
 Brutus for his lofty genius, his winning courtesy, his extra- 
 ordinary honesty and consistency, 2 yet, in spite of this, on 
 the Ides of March so much was added to my affection that 
 I was astonished at there being any room for increase in what 
 I had long looked upon as actually overflowing. Would 
 
 1 See Introd. to Letter ii. He was uncle of Marcus Antonius. 
 
 2 See Introd. to Letter xxxvi. for a startling illustration of these virtues of 
 Brutus. 
 
328 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v, 
 
 any one have dreamed that a grain could possibly be added to 
 the affection I entertained for you ? So much was added that 
 it seems as if it is only now I love you, that before this I 
 
 6 esteemed you. What excuse therefore have I for exhorting 
 you to obey the dictates of high position and of fame ? Am 
 I to hold up illustrious examples to you, as people generally 
 do when they are exhorting us? I find no example more 
 illustrious than yourself. It is yourself you are called on to 
 imitate, yourself the rival against whom you must be measured ; 
 you cannot even gain indulgence now if after such great deeds 
 done you do not act up to your character. 
 
 7 And this being so, admonition is uncalled for; I must 
 rather resort to congratulation ; for you have had a privilege 
 which perhaps no one before you has ever enjoyed, of finding 
 a most rigorous administration of justice not only not unpopular 
 but positively acceptable to the people, and as gratifying to the 
 lowest of the mob as it was to every good citizen. Had this 
 been the result of some lucky chance, I would congratulate 
 you on your good fortune ; but it is a result of the greatness 
 not only of your courage, but also your genius and prudence ; 
 for I have read your address, and nothing could be more- 
 skilful than it is ; so cautiously and gradually are made now 
 the approaches to action, now the retreats from your position, 
 that by universal admission the very logic of facts showed the 
 
 8 immediate necessity for strong measures. You have thus 
 delivered Rome from danger, and the whole country from the 
 apprehension of it, and the noble service which you have 
 contributed is not one of the moment only, but also a 
 precedent for the future. And after this action you are 
 bound to see that the. Republic now rests upon you, and that 
 it is for you not only to protect but to give honour to those 
 men by whom the first step was taken to a new era of liberty. 
 But on these subjects more when we meet, as I hope we shall 
 do very shortly. Only do you, since you are now the protector 
 of the Republic and of us all, be sure, my dear Dolabella, that 
 you take every precaution for guarding your own security. 
 
cxn. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. XIV. 21.) 
 
 329 
 
 CXII. (AD ATT. XIV. 21.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT PUTEOLI TO ATTICUS AT LANUVIUM (?). 
 May 11, 710 A.v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 I had only a short time before handed a letter for you to 1 
 the courier of Cassius when on the nth our own courier arrived, 
 and positively — it must be a miracle — without a letter from 
 you ! I soon guessed however that you had been at Lanu- 
 vium. As for Eros, he* made all haste to get a letter from 
 Dolabella delivered to me — not about my money, because he 
 had not yet received mine, but an answer to the one of which 
 I sent you a copy, 1 and, I must admit, very clearly put. Well, 2 
 I had hardly dismissed Cassius's courier when enter Balbus. 
 Oh, good heavens ! how easy it was to see that he is afraid of 
 a peace. You know the man too, how close he is. Well, in 
 spite of this he began telling me all about the plans of 
 Ahtonius : how he was going the round of the veterans to 
 persuade them to confirm Caesar's acts, and swear that they 
 will insist on this, that eyerybody should regard them as valid, 
 and that two commissioners should report upon them monthly. 
 He complained also about his own unpopularity ; and on the 
 whole what he said came to this, that he is apparently devoted 
 to Antonius. It is needless to say there is no trusting him. 
 As for myself, I have no doubt that things are looking in the 3 
 direction of war, because the deed itself was done, if with manly 
 conception, with puerile execution. For who could not see 
 that an heir to the throne was still left? Now what can be 
 more absurd than 
 
 ' To fear the one, but count the other nought ? ' 
 
 Nay, even at this very time there are numerous things which 
 seem perhaps de mauvais gout. Pontius's estate at Naples in 
 the possession of the Regicide's mother ! 2 I must read again 
 
 1 The reference here is to the preceding letter. 
 
 2 This alludes to Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus, who was in posses- 
 sion, either by the gift of Caesar or by purchase, ofthe estate of Lucius Pontius 
 Aquila (Letter i. 3), a member of the senatorial party. 
 
33° LETTERS OF CICERO. past v. 
 
 and again my ' De Senectute,' which I sent you ; because old 
 age makes me inclined to be bitter ; I am angry with every- 
 thing. But then mot, j'ai vkcu — these are the affairs of 
 younger men. 
 4 Will you keep an eye on my concerns, as you are doing 
 now? I am writing, or rather dictating this at Vestorius's, 
 with the last course already on table. The day after to-morrow 
 I propose to be at Hirtius's — indeed he is now le survivant s 
 of the five. Thus it is that I have designs of bringing the 
 man over to the good side — a vraie folie of mine. There is 
 not one of all those gentlemen but is afraid of a peace. Let 
 us therefore see that we have wings to our feet, because 
 anything is better than fighting. 
 
 Please give Attica my best love. I am looking for the 
 address of Octavius, and whatever else there may be; par- 
 ticularly whether Dolabella is beginning to rattle any money 
 at all, or whether, so far as regards his account with me, he 
 has declared for a repudiation of debts. 
 
 CXIII. (AD FAM. XL 27.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT TUSCULUM TO GAIUS MATIUS CALVENA 
 NEAR ROME. 
 
 May 28, 710 A.v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 Matius was undoubtedly one of the most amiable and attractive characters 
 among all the correspondents of Cicero, and his reply to this letter is one that 
 does him honour. The facts were as follows. Caesar had founded a temple 
 to The Parent Venus, with annual games in honour of the victory of Pharsalus. 
 The expense of these games was this year borne by Octavianus; assisted by 
 Matius and a few others of Caesar's friends. This gave great offence to the 
 more violent party, and it seems that Cicero also had hurt Matius by some of 
 his expressions. His letter to explain himself is neither ingenuous nor con- 
 sistent with what he was at the same time writing to Atticus. Abeken criticises 
 his conduct here with unusual severity. ' This letter forces us to acknowledge 
 with pain that obstinate devotion to a party will too often induce men, great 
 
 3 This allusion it is impossible to explain with certainty. Atticus may 
 have called five people with whom Cicero was engaged to dine the irevrPkouroi, 
 which Cicero puts into the singular to apply to Hirtius. But, unless the word 
 is corrupt, the Abbe Mongault is most probably right : ' il y a quelque 
 plaisanterie cachee, dont le sens ne nous est pits connu.' 
 
EP. cxiii. TO MATIUS. {AD FAM. XI. 27.) 331 
 
 and honourable in every other respect, to forget all the sentiments of modera- 
 tion and mercy. ' 
 
 Merivale, ii. 420; iii. m ; Long, v. 444; Abeken, 410; Introd. to 
 Letter cv. 
 
 I have not as yet quite made up my mind whether our 1 
 good friend Trebatius, though he is as thoroughly affectionate 
 to you and me as he is always ready to do us a service, has 
 been causing me more pain or more pleasure. For the very 
 day after the evening when I reached my house at Tusculum 
 he came to see me early in the morning, though he had not 
 yet fully recovered his strength ; and when I began to find 
 fault with him for making so little allowance for his health, he 
 replied that there was nothing he had waited for so long as to 
 see me. On my saying, 'Why, has anything fresh occurred?' 
 he explained to me your grievance. Now before I give you 
 my answer on this I must point out to you a few considerations. 
 
 As far as my memory will go back into the past I have no 2 
 friend of longer standing than yourself ; but in the length of 
 our friendship many people partake to some degree, not in its 
 affectionate character. The very day I first knew you I felt 
 a liking for you, and was satisfied that you had a likir g for 
 me. After this your withdrawal from Rome, such a long one 
 too as it was, my own taking to politics, and the dissimilarity 
 of our lives would not admit of our mutual inclination being 
 cemented by constant intercourse. Still I had reason to know 
 your feeling towards me years before the Civil War, while 
 Caesar was still in Gaul ; because you succeeded, as you 
 thought would be very advantageous for me, and no disadvan- 
 tage to Caesar himself, in gaining me his liking and respect, . 
 and a place in the number of his friends. 
 
 I pass over many instances in those days of the perfect 
 familiarity with which we conversed, wrote, and sent messages 
 to one another, because more serious events followed. On 3 
 the breaking out for example of the Civil War, when you were 
 on your way towards Brundisium to meet Caesar, you came 
 to see me at my house at Formiae. To begin with, how much 
 this meant in itself, especially at such a time ! Then do you 
 think I have forgotten your advice, your conversation, your 
 kindness, in all of which, I remember, Trebatius had a par$? 
 
332 LETTERS OF CICERO. patit t. 
 
 No, nor yet have I forgotten the letter you wrote me after 
 your meeting with Caesar in the district, I think it was, of 
 
 4 Trebula. 1 Next came the time when something, whether it 
 was my own sensitiveness, or a feeling of obligation, or, if you 
 like, a mere chance, made me set out to join Pompeius. Was 
 any possible act of kindness, any zealous service, ever wanting 
 on your part, either to me when far away, or to my dear ones 
 who were left behind ? Was there any one indeed whom all 
 these of mine had reason to consider a truer friend than you 
 either to me or to themselves ? I returned to Brundisium ; 
 do you think I have forgotten the eagerness with which, 
 immediately on receipt of the news, you flew from Tarentum 
 to meet me ; or your sitting down by me and talking, and 
 encouraging my spirits when they were quite broken down, 
 from dread 6f the misery in which we were all involved ? 
 
 5 That long time passed, and we began to live at Rome ; 
 was anything then wanting to make our intimacy complete? 
 Upon those occasions which were most important I followed 
 your advice about my bearing towards Caesar, on all others 
 the dictates of duty. To whom but myself, with the exception 
 of Caesar, did you ever pay the compliment of coming con- 
 stantly to his house, and there many a time spending long 
 hours in delightful conversation? It was then too, if you 
 remember, that you urged me to write these brochures upon 
 philosophical questions. 2 After Caesar's return what object 
 was dearer to you than that in which you were successful — of 
 seeing me established among his most intimate friends ? 
 
 6 And now therefore to what is all this argument — a longer 
 one than I had intended — leading up ? It is because I was 
 surprised that you, who ought to know all this, should ever 
 have believed that I had done anything which was inconsistent 
 with our friendship ; for besides the instances I have recalled 
 to your memory, which are seen and attested by everybody, I 
 have many of a far less obvious kind, which I can hardly 
 
 1 Probably the Trebula in Campania, now Treglia ; Letter xliv. note i. 
 The letter referred to seems to be one from Matius and Trebatius jointly : a 
 copy is given in Ad Att. ix. 15. 
 
 2 The Academics, The Limits of Virtue and Vice (De Finibus), the - 
 Tusculan Disputations, etc, , his philosophical works belonging almost wholly 
 to the years 45 and 44. 
 
ep. cxni. TO MATIUS. {AD FAM. XI. 27.) 333 
 
 succeed in reducing to words. All your qualities delight me, 
 but chiefly in one kind the [unrivalled] fidelity in friendship, 
 the judgment, the balance of mind, the consistency ; in another, 
 the grace, the refinement, the learning. So now I come back 
 to your grievance. 
 
 In the first place, I for my part never believed that on the 7. 
 question of the law you allude to you had recorded your vote 
 at all ; 3 and then if I had believed it I should never suppose 
 you had done so without some adequate reason. It is your 
 high character which makes everything you do be exposed to 
 comment, while it is the malevolence of the world which makes 
 some things be published in a less kindly way than that in 
 which they were done. If such things never reach you I 
 scarcely know what to say ; for myself, if I ever hear them, I 
 defend you just as much as I am sure to be defended by you 
 against my carping critics. Now I have two ways of defend- 
 ing. There are some things which I should always explicitly 
 contradict, as for example about that particular vote of yours ; 
 others which I should maintain were done by you from kind 
 feeling, and regard for the memory of a friend ; for example, 
 your undertaking the management of the games. 4 But to you 8 
 with your great learning it must be obvious that if Caesar was 
 a king — as to me at least seems to be the case — two opposite 
 lines of argument may be taken about the regard you show 
 him ; either the one which I myself am in the habit of employ- 
 ing, that your loyalty and kindly feeling, in thus paying the 
 tribute of affection to a friend even after his death, are truly 
 praiseworthy; or the other, which some people do use, that 
 the liberty of our country ought to be put before the life of a 
 friend. After we have been discussing these questions how I 
 wish my arguments were repeated to you ! But as to those 
 two which are the chief among your distinctions, who is there 
 that dwells upon them either more warmly or more frequently 
 than I ? that it is you who had the greatest weight both when 
 
 3 This refers to Caesar's equitable act for the relief of debtors : see Introd. 
 to Letter lxxvi. Matius answers that so far from supporting the act from 
 interested motives he was a loser by it. 
 
 4 To Atticus however (xv. 2) Cicero writes : ' I am not pleased with this 
 preparation for the games, nor with Matius and Postumus for managing 
 them.' 
 
334 LETTERS OF CICERO. part t. 
 
 you pleaded against beginning a civil war, and when you urged 
 moderation in the hour of victory ; and in this I have not 
 found a single person but would agree with me. 
 
 For these reasons I am grateful to our good friend 
 Trebatius, who has given me the opportunity of writing this 
 letter. If you are not convinced by it, it will seem that you 
 have persuaded yourself that I am entirely wanting in loyalty 
 and generous feeling ; than which nothing could be either a 
 heavier blow to me, or more unlike your character. 
 
 CXIV. (AD FAM. XI. 28.) 
 
 FROM GAIUS MATIUS CALVENA AT HIS HOUSE NEAR ROME 
 TO CICERO AT TUSCULUM. 
 
 (A reply to the preceding letter.) 
 
 End of May, 710 A.V.C. (44 B.C. ) 
 
 ! I received great pleasure from your letter, because I found 
 that your opinion of me was what I had hoped and wished 
 it to be ; not that I was in any doubt about it, but for the 
 very reason that I valued it so highly I was most anxious that 
 it should remain unimpaired. ConseitJus however that I had 
 done nothing which could give offence to the feelings of any 
 good citizen, I was naturally the less inclined to believe that 
 you, adorned as you are with so many excellences of the most 
 admirable kind, could have allowed yourself to be convinced 
 of anything on mere idle report ; particularly seeing that you 
 were a friend for whom my spontaneous attachment had been 
 and still was unbroken. And knowing now that it has been 
 as I hoped, I will answer those attacks which you have often 
 opposed on my behalf, as was fairly to be expected from your 
 well-known generosity and the friendship existing between us. ' 
 
 2 For I am well aware of all they have been heaping on me 
 since Caesar's death. They make it a reproach against me 
 that I go heavily for the loss of a friend, and think it cruel 
 that one whom I loved should have fallen, because, say they, 
 country must be put before friends — as though they have 
 
ep. cxiv. FROM MATIUS. (AD FAM. XI. 28.) 335 
 
 hitherto been successful in proving that his death really was 
 the gain of the commonwealth. But I will not enter any 
 subtle plea ; I admit that I have not attained to your higher 
 grades of philosophy : for I have neither been a partisan of 
 Caesar in our civil dissensions — though I did not abandon 
 my friend even when his action was a stumbling-block to me 
 — nor did I ever give my approval to the Civil War, or even 
 to the actual ground of quarrel, of which indeed I earnestly 
 desired that the first sparks should be trampled out. And so 
 in the triumph of a personal friend I was never ensnared by the 
 charms either of place or of money ; prizes which have been 
 recklessly abused by the rest, though they had less influence 
 with him than I had. I may even say that my own private 
 property was impaired by that act of Caesar, thanks to which 
 many of those who are rejoicing at Caesar's death continued to 
 live in their own country. That our defeated fellow-country- 
 men should be spared was as much an object to me as my own 
 safety. Is it possible then for me, who wanted all to be left 3 
 uninjured, not to feel indignation that he by whom this was 
 secured is dead ? above all when the very same men were the 
 cause at once of his unpopularity and his untimely end. You 
 shall smart then, say they, since you dare to disapprove of 
 our deed. What unheard-of insolence ! One man then may 
 boast of a deed, which another is not even allowed to lament 
 without punishment. Why, even slaves have always been 
 free of this — to feel their fears, their joys, their sorrows as 
 their own, and not at anybody else's dictation ; and these are 
 the very things which now, at least according to what your 
 'liberators' have always in their mouths, they are trying to 
 wrest from us by terrorism. But they try in vain. There is 4 
 no danger which has terrors enough ever to make me desert 
 the side of gratitude or humanity ; for never have I thought 
 that death in a good cause is to be shunned, often indeed 
 that it deserves to be courted. But why are they inclined to 
 be enraged with me if my wishes are simply that they may 
 come to regret their deed, desiring as I do that Caesar's death 
 may be felt to be untimely by us all ? It is my duty as a 
 citizen to desire the preservation of the constitution?. Well, 
 unless both my life in the past and all my hopes for the future 
 
336 LETTERS OF CICERO. past v. 
 
 prove without any words of mine that I do earnestly desire 
 this, I make no demand to prove it by my professions. 
 
 5 To you therefore I make a specially earnest appeal to let 
 facts come before assertions, and to take my word for it that, 
 if you feel that honesty is the" best policy, it is impossible I 
 should have any association with lawless villains. Or can you 
 believe that the principles I pursued in the days of my youth, 
 when even error could pass with some excuse, I shall renounce 
 now that I am going down the hill, and with my own hands 
 unravel all the web of my. life P 1 That I will not do ; nor yet 
 will I commit any act that could give offence, beyond the fact 
 that I do lament the sad fall of one who was to me the dearest 
 friend and the most illustrious of men. But were I otherwise 
 disposed, I would never deny what I was doing, lest it should 
 be thought I was at once shameless in doing wrong, and false 
 and cowardly in dissembling it. 
 
 6 But then I undertook the management of those games 
 which Caesar's heir celebrated for Caesar's victory ? Well, 
 this is a matter which belongs to one's private obligations, not 
 to any political arrangement j it was however in the first place 
 a tribute of respect which I was called upon to pay to the 
 memory and the eminent position of a man whom I dearly 
 loved, even though he was dead, and also one that I could 
 not refuse at the request of a young man so thoroughly pro- 
 mising, and so worthy in every way of Caesar as he is. 
 
 7 Again, I have frequently paid visits of compliment to the 
 consul Antonius. And you will find that the very men who 
 think me but a lukewarm patriot are constantly going to his 
 house in crowds, actually for the purpose of soliciting or carry- 
 ing away some favour. But what a monstrous claim it is, that 
 while Caesar never laid any such embargo as this to prevent 
 me from associating freely with anybody I pleased — even if 
 they were people whom he personally did not like — these men 
 who have robbed me of my friend should attempt by malicious 
 insinuations to prevent my showing a kindness to whomsoever 
 I will ! 
 
 s I have however no fear that the moderation of my life will 
 
 1 This rather curious expression is perhaps an allusion to Penelope undo- 
 ing by night the web she herself wove by day. 
 
ep. cxv. TO CASSIUS. {AD FAM. XII. i.) 
 
 337 
 
 hereafter prove an insufficient defence against false insinua- 
 tions, and that even those who do not love me, because of my 
 loyalty to Caesar, would not rather have their own friends 
 imitate me than themselves. Such of life as remains to me, 
 at least if I succeed in what I desire, I shall spend in quiet 
 at Rhodes ; but if I find that some chance has put a stop to 
 this I shall simply live at Rome as one who is always desirous 
 that right should be done. 
 
 I am deeply grateful to our good friend Trebatius for 
 having thus disclosed to me your sincere and friendly feeling, 
 and given me even an additional reason for honouring and 
 paying respect to one whom it has always been a pleasure to 
 me to regard as a friend. Farewell heartily, and let me have 
 your esteem. 
 
 CXV. (AD FAM. XII. i.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT TUSCULUM (?) TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS 
 AT LANUVIUM. 
 
 End of May, 710 A.V.C. (44 B.C.) 
 
 The date of this letter is given by Mr. Watson as the end of May, because 
 it speaks of Dolabella's punishment of the rioters on May 1 as well known, 
 but does not allude to the important meeting of the Senate on June 1, at which 
 Syria was assigned to him, and Macedonia to Antonius. During May Cicero 
 was staying at different country-houses ; by the 27th (Ad Att. xv. 3 ; ib. 8) 
 he was at Tusculum. Brutus and Cassius quitted Rome, which was now 
 hardly safe for them, at the end of April or the beginning of May, and went 
 first to Lanuvium, and thence to Antium. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 114 ; Abeken, 390. A table of the probable dates of this 
 period is given by Abeken, 401. 
 
 Believe me, Cassius, 1 never cease thinking about you 1 
 and our dear friend Brutus, or, in other words, about the 
 Republic itself, the chances of which now rest entirely on you 
 two and on Decimus Brutus. Of this indeed I myself now 
 hold better hopes, since my good Dolabella has done his duty 
 to the constitution so splendidly, because the plague of our 
 city was so spreading, and gathering daily so much additional 
 strength, that I at any rate was beginning to despair of Rome 
 and of any prospect of peace for the city ; but the thing has 
 
338 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 been so stamped out that for all future time it seems to me 
 we shall be free at least from that most humiliating risk. 
 The remainder of our work is both important and varied, but 
 it depends entirely upon you ; let us however take each thing 
 in its proper order. 
 
 The fact is that — so far as has been done at present — we 
 seem to have been emancipated from the king's person, but 
 not from the kingly power, for though the king has been put 
 to death we still anxiously watch for every royal nod. Even 
 this is not all ; there, are things which he himself would not 
 carry out if he were still alive, but which we positively allow on 
 the theory of ' carrying out his ideas.' Nor in this particular 
 proceeding do I see where we are to stop. Schedules of grants 
 are posted, exemptions from taxes allowed, vast sums of money 
 distributed, banished men recalled, spurious decrees of the 
 Senate registered : so that we seem only to have relieved our- 
 selves of our hatred for one loathsome man, and of the galling 
 sense of slavery ; the Republic is still wallowing in that slough 
 of disorder into which it was he who first plunged her. 
 ! Out of all this it is for you to clear the way ; nor must 
 you entertain such a thought as this, that you have done 
 enough for the Republic. She has indeed from' you already 
 a thing so great that even to wish for it never came into my 
 mind, but satisfied she is not, and the very grandeur of your 
 courage and your noble gift is her reason for still wanting 
 great things from you. By your hand she has avenged her 
 own wrongs in the fall of her tyrant; that is all. Of her 
 former glories indeed what has she gained back ? Shall we 
 point to her obedience to the very man when dead who was 
 intolerable to her when living ; or to our making valid even 
 the mere memoranda of one whose acts it was our duty to 
 blot from the Statute-Book ? But then we. have voted that this 
 should be so? 1 Yes, it is true that we did do this, yielding to 
 the force of the times, which in politics has ever the greatest 
 
 1 The validity of Caesar's acts, a phrase extended afterwards to include 
 the intended acts for which memoranda could be- found, was carried in the 
 important meeting of the Senate in the Temple of Tellus, March 17. But 
 even in the First Philippic, which was spoken on September 1, Cicero declared 
 (§ 16) : ' In the first place I hold that Caesar's acts ought to be maintained.' 
 
i?p. cxvi. BRUTUS TO ANTONIUS. {AD FAM. XI. 3.) 
 
 339 
 
 influence ; but there are certain people who outrageously and 
 ungratefully abuse our willingness to make concessions. Of 
 this however, and many other things, in a day or two when we 
 meet. Meanwhile I hope you will rest assured that for the 
 sake, not more of our mutual affection than of the Republic 
 which I have always loved so well, the maintenance of your 
 rightful position is one of my most anxious cares. Farewell, 
 and do not neglect your health. 
 
 CXVI. (AD FAM. XI. 3.) 
 
 FROM THE PRAETORS MARCUS IUNIUS BRUTUS AND GAIUS 
 CASSIUS LONGINUS AT NAPLES (?) TO THE CONSUL MARCUS 
 ANTONIUS AT ROME. 
 
 August 4, 710 A.v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 In the important meeting of the Senate on June 1, Syria and Macedonia, 
 which had been promised respectively to Cassius and Brutus, were given to 
 Dolabella and Antonius ; while on the 5th Brutus and Cassius were assigned 
 the charge of providing the city with grain, to serve as a reason for their 
 absence from Rome. The next day Cicero had an interview with them at 
 Antium, described in one of his letters to Atticus (xv. 11), in which the utter 
 want of forethought and energy on the part of the conspirators is strikingly 
 conspicuous. They were very unwilling to leave Italy, and remained in the 
 neighbourhood of Naples for some time, applying meanwhile for a formal 
 release, probably from their obligation as praetors to reside at Rome. Antonius 
 seems to have replied by a letter of intimidation to hasten their departure from 
 Italy, and by a proclamation denouncing their conduct as illegal, which pro- 
 duced this angry but impotent manifesto. At the end of September Brutus 
 sailed for Macedonia, and Cassius for Syria, in order to secure those provinces 
 before the arrival of Antonius and Dolabella. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 116-123, 132 ; Abeken, 402-410; Forsyth, 438-441. 
 
 Sir 1 — We have read your letter, which is thoroughly in 1 
 keeping with your proclamation, being an insulting, intimidating, 
 and in every way improper one for you to have written to us. 
 We, Sir, have given you no provocation to injury, nor did we 
 believe that you would think it extraordinary for men in such 
 a position as ours, and praetors too, to have made in a public 
 manifesto an appeal to the consul for some privilege. If 
 
 1 s. v. b. See Letter iii. note 1. 
 
340 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabi v. 
 
 however you are indignant at our daring to do this, permit 
 us at least to regret that to a Brutus and a Cassius you would 
 refuse even this. 
 
 2 For as to your denial that you have ever made a complaint, 
 that troops were being levied, requisitions of money enforced, 
 the army tampered with, and secret, despatches sent abroad, 
 we indeed give you credit for having made it in all sincerity ; . 
 but yet while we refuse to admit the truth of any one of these 
 assertions we are surprised to find that, if you have been able 
 to refrain from making these statements, you have been so 
 little able to control your passion as to make the death of 
 Caesar the subject of an attack upon us. 
 
 3 We leave it however for you to reflect how far it can be 
 considered tolerable that two praetors should not be allowed 
 in the interests of peace and liberty to publish a proclama- 
 tion that they withdrawSfrom' some of their rights without 
 being menaced with armed violence by the consul. Your 
 confidence in that resort however has nothing to terrify us ; 
 because it would be as degrading or even unnatural for us in 
 view of any personal risk to surrender the freedom of our 
 convictions, as it is wrong for Antonius to claim lordship over 
 those by whose exertions he is a free man. As to ourselves, 
 did other considerations call upon us to seek to fan the flame 
 of civil war, your letter would have no effect at all, for a free 
 man acknowledges no authority in a threat. But your eyes 
 are quite, keen enough to see that we are not to be driven in 
 any direction at all; and probably the real reason for your 
 threatening attitude is that our deliberate resolve may seem 
 like timidity. 
 
 4 Our personal sentiments are these. We are anxious to see 
 you held in dignity and honour if it be in a free Republic. 
 We challenge you to no antagonism, but nevertheless we 
 value our liberty more than your friendship. Do you then 
 consider again and again what you are undertaking, what 
 your strength is able to endure ; and be sure you bear in 
 mind not how long Caesar lived, but how he was not long 
 a king. May God grant that your counsels be guided to 
 the welfare of the Republic and of yourself; if this be too 
 much to hope, our wish for you is that they may do you as 
 
ep. cxvn. TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. XVI. 7.) 
 
 34i 
 
 little injury as is consistent with the safety and dignity of 
 the Commonwealth. 
 August 4th. 
 
 CXVII. (AD ATT. XVI. 7.) 
 
 FROM CICERO ON BOARD SHIP TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 August 19, 710 a.v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 On the 6th of August Cicero sailed from Leucopetra, the extreme south- 
 west promontory of Italy, for Syracuse, en route for Athens. Contrary winds 
 however twice drove him back to his starting-point, and on the second occasion 
 he heard an unfounded report that Brutus and Cassius had come to a friendly 
 understanding with Antonius, and had pressed their friends to muster in full 
 force in the Senate on September 1. Abandoning his intention therefore, he 
 sailed for Pompeii, in order to proceed to Rome, and touching at Velia, on 
 the coast of Lucania, met Brutus, who destroyed his hopes of any such under- 
 standing, but encouraged him still to go on, informing him of a bitter attack 
 which had been made upon Antonius by Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Caesar's 
 father-in-law. Cicero reached Rome just in time for the meeting of the Senate, 
 and seems there to have met with a warm reception. 
 
 This letter was written on board shortly before reaching Pompeii. It is 
 exceptionally abrupt and difficult in style. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 133, 134 ; Abeken, 414-418 ; Forsyth, 445, 446. 
 
 After making a start on the 6th of August from Leuco-i 
 petra — that being the place from which I intended to cross — 
 I had sailed about thirty or forty miles when a violent south- 
 wind drove me back to Leucopetra again. While waiting there 
 for a fair wind — for our old friend Valerius has a villa there, 
 so that I was making a very pleasant stay in his hospitable 
 house — some gentlemen of position who live at Rhegium 
 came there, just arrived of course from Rome ; among them 
 was one who had been staying with Brutus and had just left 
 him, so he told me, at Naples. The budget they brought us 
 was the proclamation of Brutus and Cassius, and that there 
 was to be a full Senate on the 1st; also that Brutus and 
 Cassius had written to the ex-consuls and praetors to entreat 
 their attendance. They reported that there were strong 
 expectations that Antonius would in the end give way, a 
 compromise be made, and our friends be allowed to return 
 to Rome : they added moreover that I was much missed, 
 
342 LETTERS OF CICERO, part v. 
 
 a little blamed. Having heard all this I without any hesita- 
 tion abandoned the idea of sailing, which even before this, 
 I give you my word of honour, I was not inclined to like ; 
 
 2 though it is true that when I read your letter I was certainly 
 somewhat surprised that you had so emphatically changed 
 your opinion, but I concluded it was not without some reason. 
 Still even granting that you were not the adviser and instiga- ' 
 tor of my going, there is no doubt that you were one of those 
 who approved of it, on condition that I would be at Rome 
 on the first day of the year ; that is, in effect, that I was to 
 be away so long as there seemed to be not so much danger, 
 and only to step back straight into the fire. But all this, 
 even if it was not quite prudent, against you at any rate 
 leaves nothing pour trien prendre a vous, because in the first 
 place it was done on my own responsibility, and secondly, 
 even supposing you were the first to advise it, what is a friend 
 answerable for when he does give advice except that his 
 
 3 intentions are faithful ? There is one thing at which I could 
 not wonder sufficiently — your having written to me in such 
 terms as these : ' go then and desert your country ; it is well 
 in you — well in the man who was pro patria non timidus 
 mori f' 1 What ! was I abandoning or did I 'seem to you to 
 be abandoning it then ? You yourself, so far from objecting 
 to this course, gave it your approbation. What remains is 
 still more severe. ' I wish you would draw me up in a 
 finished shape some sort of resumt to show that you felt 
 bound to take the course you did.' My dear Atticus, is it 
 
 1 Horace, Ode iii. 19, 2. I render it thus because eidavaaia seems to be 
 generally taken here of an honourable death, but it may be questioned whether 
 the idea intended is not rather that of desirable (Keats's ' easeful death '), as it 
 certainly is in Suetonius, Octavius, c. 99. The MS. reading here, bene igitur 
 tu qui eidavacrtap bene relinque patriam, is intolerably harsh, though it is just 
 capable of translation. Most editors adopt Orelli's reading, Veni igitur tu 
 qui efflavaalav. Relinques patriain f Boot suggests visne and relinquere. It 
 is not certain whether any extant passage of Cicero is referred to by Atticus. 
 Manutius suggests Ad Att. xv. 20, 2 : 'I have determined to make my way out 
 of this trap, not to escape, but in hopes of the death which is preferable." 
 Billerbeck and Schiitz refer it to Tusc. Quaest. i. 45 : ' But surely death is 
 then met with the greatest equanimity when the life as it closes can console 
 itself with its own glories.' Dean Merivale, iii. 134, thinks that either this or 
 the lost Treatise on Glory (see Introd. to Letter cxxii. ) may have supplied the 
 allusion. 
 
F.P. cxvil. TO ATT/CVS. (AD ATT. XVI. 7.) 
 
 343- 
 
 really come to this ? Does my conduct stand in need of any 
 defence, and before you of all people, who gave it such marked 
 approval ? However I certainly will compose the ' Apologia ' 
 which you want, but it shall be for the use of some one of 
 those people in spite of whose wishes and dissuasions I started. 
 And yet where is the use of this ' resumk ' now ? If I had 
 persisted in my intention it might have been needed. But 
 this is just where I was not acting consistently? No 
 philosopher, much as has been written on this subject, has 
 ever yet affirmed that a change of plans is the same as incon- 
 sistency. So you follow this up with the remark, ' Had 4 
 our good friend Phaedrus indeed been responsible, 2 the defence 
 would have been obvious : what answer is there under present 
 circumstances ? ' It follows then that my action was such as 
 I could not have got Cato to sanction — it was loaded, I 
 suppose, with infamy and disgrace ! Would that this had been 
 your view from the first, you would have been the Cato to 
 me, as you so often are. 
 
 Positively the most vexatious of all is your conclusion : 5 
 'For as to our friend Brutus, he holds his tongue.' That 
 means that he does not presume to lecture a man of my years. 
 I find no other meaning I can suppose to be intended by you 
 in these words ; and I give you my word that this is the truth. 
 For when my arrival at Velia on the 17th of August reached 
 the ears of Brutus (he was then with his squadron inside the 
 mouth of the river Hales, some three miles this side of Velia), 
 he was on foot at once to find me. And, O heavens ! in his 
 delight at my return — I should rather say my turning back — 
 how he did pour out everything he had kept silence about 
 before ! so that I could not help thinking of your remark : 
 'as to our friend Brutus, he holds his tongue.' What he 
 particularly regretted was that I had not been in the Senate 
 on the 1 st of August. Piso he extolled to the skies. It 
 
 2 The reading esset, retained by Mr. Watson, necessitates a harsh 
 omission, such as factum. The Medicean MS. has esse, from which Boot 
 happily conjectures esses ; then si a Phaedro esses = ' if you were of the school 
 of Phaedrus, ' an Epicurean philosopher who died seven years before (Ad 
 Fam. xiii. 1). This gives the far more spirited meaning : Had you been an 
 Epicurean like Phaedrus, one would know what to say ; but what about a 
 professed Stoic ? Would Cato approve ? 
 
344 LETTERS OF CICERO. part t. 
 
 however was to him a pleasure to think that I had cleared 
 myself of two heavy imputations : the one — that of want of 
 spirit, and of deserting my post in the Republic, — which I 
 saw I was incurring by undertaking this journey, was made 
 a reproach against me, even with tears, by numbers of people 
 whom I could not get to believe in my speedy return ; the 
 other was what Brutus and his friends (and they were very 
 numerous) were so pleased about — I mean my having got out 
 of the scandal of really only going to the Olympic games ! 
 Certainly nothing could have been more contemptible than 
 this, let the circumstances o'f the Republic be what you will ; 
 in their present state it would indeed have been a thing sans 
 excuse. Truly I owe wonderful thanks to the' south-wind for 
 
 6 having kept me out of such a disgrace. Here you have 
 [presentable] reasons for my turning back, and indeed they 
 are both just and weighty, though none are juster than what 
 came from yourself in another letter : ' Be sure if you have 
 any creditor at all to provide yourself with means for paying 
 up in full, because the alarm of a war has produced a quite 
 unparalleled disette in the money-market' When I read this 
 letter I was in mid-channel, so that no possible way of making 
 any provision occurred to me, except that I should be on 
 the spot, and defend my own interests. But enough of this 
 
 7 now — the rest when we meet. 
 
 I got from Brutus the manifesto of Antonius to read and their 
 own counterblast. It is a noble composition : but honestly I 
 do not see what can be the effect or what is the use of these 
 manifestoes ; nor am I for my part coming back amongst you, 
 as Brutus was supposing, with any view of taking part in 
 politics. For what is there which can be done ? Did a soul 
 support Piso ? Did even he return to the charge next day ? 
 But my age, as they say, ought not to be far from its 
 grave. 3 
 
 8 But do tell me, I entreat you, what this means which I 
 have heard from Brutus. He told me you had spoken of 
 
 8 Boot follows the explanation of Manutius, that an old man ought to re- 
 main at home if he wants to be buried at home. Mr. Watson explains the 
 passage as = a man of my age ought not to shrink from death, because it 
 must anyhow be near. 
 
ep. oxvm. TO CASSIUS. (AD FAM. XII. 2.) 345 
 
 Pilia in a letter as ' menacee d'une paralytic' 4 I was terribly 
 shocked, though he also added that your letter spoke of there 
 being better hopes. I trust it is so, I am sure. Will you give 
 her and my pet Attica my kindest remembrances ? 
 
 I am writing this on board, just as we are getting near my 
 house at Pompeii. 
 August 19. 
 
 CXVIII. (AD FAM. XII. 2.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS 
 IN SYRIA (?). 
 
 Late in September, 710 A. v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 Cicero did not make his appearance in the Senate on the 1st of September, 
 and in his absence was violently attacked by Antonius. Cicero retorted next 
 day by the delivery of the First Philippic, in a meeting of the Senate at which 
 Dolabella presided, Antonius being on this occasion absent. Though moderate 
 in the extreme compared with the remainder of these fourteen terrible invec- 
 tives it infuriated Antonius, who in another meeting on the 19th unwisely 
 entered the oratorical lists with Cicero, and assailed him in a speech which 
 apparently was quite incoherent with passion. Cicero remained in Rome till 
 October, when he withdrew to Puteoli, and was at this time engaged in com- 
 posing his greatest speech, the celebrated Second Philippic. 
 
 Some time after their interview with Cicero at Velia, Brutus and Cassius 
 left Italy, the former for Macedonia, the latter for Syria, in order to occupy 
 those provinces before the consulship of Antonius and Dolabella, to whom they 
 were now assigned by the Senate, had expired. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 135-139, 145 ; Abeken, 418-424 ; Forsyth, 451-456. 
 
 I am intensely delighted to have your approval of my 1 
 opinion, and also of my speech ; were I allowed to use this 
 privilege more frequently, it would be no trouble at all to 
 regain the Republic and our lost liberties. But this fellow, 
 lost to all reason in his abandoned career, and more wicked 
 by far than even he of whom you said ' now the most wicked 
 of mankind has fallen,' is anxious to begin murdering ; and 
 charges me with having been an instigator of killing Caesar, 
 
 4 The Greek words here have no special significance. Greek is generally 
 used for medical terms, see Letter lxxv. note 1 ; but in this case Cicero 
 seems merely to be quoting the words used by Atticus, who wrote nearly as 
 much in Greek as in Latin. 
 
346 LETTERS OF CICERO. past v. 
 
 for no other reason except that the veterans may be excited 
 against me — a danger which I myself do not greatly dread, 
 if it but impart to my reputation some little share in the glory 
 of your deed. Neither Piso therefore, who was — without a 
 single supporter — the first to inveigh against him, nor I myself 
 who did the same thing exactly a month afterwards, nor 
 Publius Servilius who followed my lead, can make our appear- 
 ance with safety in the Senate-house : because the butcher is 
 eager for the slaughter, and expected to begin with me on the 
 1 9th of September, by which day he came up quite ready for 
 his part, having studied it ever so many days before in Scipio's 
 villa. What study however can there possibly be in the midst 
 of drinking and debauchery ? And so, as I told you in my 
 previous letter, everybody thought that he seemed, quite 
 characteristically, to be bringing up his eloquence rather than 
 bringing it out. 
 
 ! As to the confidence therefore which you express in your 
 letter, that a good deal is capable of being done by my 
 authority and eloquence, some progress, considering what 
 great troubles we are in the midst of, has now been made, 
 because all Rome sees that there are three ex-consuls who, 
 simply because they have as free men spoken their patriotic 
 sentiments about the Republic, cannot without risk take their 
 place in the Senate. And beyond this there is nothing for 
 you to expect ; for your kinsman is delighted with the new 
 match in his family; 1 and so he is no longer enthusiastic 
 about the games, and quite ready to burst at the immense 
 applause which is given to your brother. For another of your 
 family again a sop has been provided by some fresh memoranda 
 of Caesar. All this however one can put up with ; the one 
 thing which is quite intolerable is that a man can be found to 
 
 1 Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, afterwards the triumvir, was connected with 
 Cassius by marriage, both of them having married sisters of Marcus Brutus ; 
 and a son of his had recently married a daughter of Marcus Antonius. It was 
 the right of Brutus, as the city praetor, to. preside at the Games of Apollo, 
 which were held on July 6, but in his absence Lucius Cassius took his place. 
 On such an occasion some applause of the President was natural ; but at this 
 period applause was seldom given without being interpreted as having a poli- 
 tical meaning. See Letter cvi. note 2. The other connection of Cassius here 
 alluded to, and the man who expected his son to be consul, are quite unknown. 
 
isp. cxix. TO C0RN1FICIUS. (AD FAM. XII. 23.) 347 
 
 think of his son being elected consul in the year which properly 
 belongs to you two, and openly boast for such a reason that 
 he is the bond-slave of this cut-throat. For as to my dear 3 
 friend, Lucius Cotta, he cannot help, he says, being somehow 
 filled with despair, and he does not come so much to the 
 Senate ; Lucius Caesar, one of our best and bravest citizens, 
 is hindered by his health; Servius Sulpicius, who has both 
 very great authority and most truly patriotic sentiments, is not 
 here. Excuse me if I do not take into account any other 
 people as being of consular rank, excepting the two who have 
 been nominated for next year. 2 Here you have all the leaders 
 of the national policy : and if it would be a scanty number 
 enough at the best of times, what does it seem to you in such 
 a hopeless case ? All our hope therefore is in you two ; and 
 if you have no reason for absence now except that you may 
 be in some place of safety, it is not to be found even in you. 
 But if you are now engaged on some scheme worthy of your 
 glorious name, may this happen before I am taken ! If however 
 that be too great a boon, the Republic shall nevertheless in a 
 short time re-assert by your hands her ancient rights. I for 
 my part am not nor ever will be forgetful of those whom you 
 love ; whether they appeal to my judgment or not, my devotion 
 and loyalty to you shall always be manifest. Adieu. 
 
 CXIX. (AD FAM. XII. 23.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS IN AFRICA. 
 October, 710 A.v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 For an account of Quintus Cornificius see Letter ciii. At this time he was 
 Governor of the old province of Africa, but Antonius now wanted to supersede 
 him and replace the ex-Governor Gaius Calvisius Sabinus. Phil. iii. 10, 26. 
 
 The hollow friendship between Octavianus and Antonius did not last long. 
 Much excitement had even been caused at Rome by the report of an attempt 
 made by Octavianus upon the life of the consul, which is mentioned by a great 
 many writers, but was vehemently denied by Octavianus, and rests upon 
 doubtful evidence at best. ' Cicero alludes to the rumour, ' says Dean Merivale, 
 ■ and insinuates its truth, but he is evidently trying to encourage his corre- 
 
 Gaius Vibius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius. 
 
348 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v, 
 
 ' spondent Cornificius by representing the precariousness of the consul's power ; 
 'and after all he cannot help admitting that it was generally disbelieved.' 
 Two months later (Phil. iii. 8, 19) he asserts it as notorious, and that he had 
 himself suggested it ! Soon afterwards Antonius left for Brundisium to en- 
 courage the four legions commanded by" his brother Gaius, which had been 
 summoned from Macedonia, but were now greatly irritated at the immunity 
 allowed to Caesar's murderers. Octavianus meanwhile was enlisting a strong 
 force in Campania. 
 
 The date of this letter is apparently about the middle of October, because 
 we find that by the 25th Cicero was at Puteoli. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 139-143 ; Abeken, 422-426 ; Forsyth, 465. 
 
 1 The whole position of your government and the state of 
 affairs in the province has been fully described to me by 
 Tratorius. Oh, how many intolerable burdens there are in 
 every quarter ! But in proportion as your position is higher, 
 that which has befallen you is even less to be endured ; for it 
 does not follow that what you calmly bear, thanks to the 
 magnanimity, both of your temper and intellect, is not to be 
 avenged, even if it is not to be repined at. But of this 
 hereafter. 
 
 2 I am quite sure that a gazette of the news in town is sent 
 to you ; if I did not suppose this to be the case I would 
 myself describe things in full, and above all the attempt of 
 Octavianus Caesar. About this the opinion of the mass of 
 people is that it is a charge trumped up by Antonius, to 
 enable him to make a raid upon the young heir's estate : men 
 however who are keen-sighted and patriotic not only believe 
 that it really happened, but commend it. At any rate there 
 are great hopes in him : there is nothing in the world that he 
 is not thought likely to do for the sake of name and fame. 
 As to our very dear friend Antonius, he perceives that he is 
 such an object of hatred that after having himself detected 
 men employed to assassinate him in his own house he does 
 not venture to make the matter public ! On the 9th of 
 October he was off for Brundisium to meet the four legions 
 from Macedonia, which he proposes to bring to Rome, having 
 first attached them to himself by bribery, and plant them firmly 
 on our necks. 
 
 3 Such is the form of our constitution, if a ' constitution ' can 
 possibly exist in a camp ; and in this respect I often am sorry 
 on your account that owing to your age you have never been 
 
ep. oxx. FROM BRUTUS. (AD FAM. XI. 4.; 349 
 
 able even so much as to taste the good things of a sound and 
 healthy Republic. Moreover it was always open, at least until 
 the present time, at any rate to live in hope. Now even that 
 has been snatched away ; for what hope is there when Antonius 
 has dared to say before the people that Cannutius was trying 
 to get himself a place with men who if he was spared could 
 never have any place allowed them in the commonwealth. 
 For my own part, "if I endure this and anything else that can 4 
 befall a human being I feel that I owe a great debt to philo- 
 sophy, which not only beguiles me of my anxiety, but even 
 arms me against all the buffets of fortune ; and it is my opinion 
 that not only should you do the same, but that nothing which 
 is free from reproach can be reckoned among misfortunes. 
 But all this it is better to leave to yourself. 
 
 Though I have always had reason to esteem our friend 
 Tratorius, it is most particularly in your service that I have 
 learnt to know his extreme loyalty, thoroughness, and tact. 
 Be sure you keep yourself well; you cannot give me any 
 greater pleasure than this. 
 
 CXX. (AD FAM. XI. 4.) 
 
 FROM DECIMUS BRUTUS IN CISALPINE GAUL TO CICERO 
 AT PUTEOLI. 
 
 About November, 710 A. v. c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 On the dispersion of the conspirators, Decimus Brutus, after remaining in 
 the city longer than the others, assumed the government of Cisalpine Gaul 
 (Northern Italy), which had been promised him by Caesar. Here instead of 
 attempting to play any important part in the critical struggle of the Common- 
 wealth, he amused himself and his soldiers by some useless raids upon the 
 Inalpini, the mountaineers of Savoy and Piedmont, This brief and soldier- 
 like letter is written to ask for Cicero's support for his slender claim to a 
 triumph, which was readily promised. Such anxiety in the circumstances of 
 this terrible crisis curiously reproduces Cicero's own at the very commencement 
 of the Civil War (see Introd. to Letter xlii. ) : yet Decimus Brutus was prob- 
 ably on the whole the ablest of the conspirators. 
 
 Decimus Brutus in this letter styles himself ' Imperator,' having been so 
 saluted by his soldiers after one of these petty successes, and also ' consul- 
 designate,' as having been nominated by Caesar, together with Lucius Plancus, 
 for the consulship of the year 42 B.C. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 114-116 ; Abeken, 422. 
 
350 LETTERS OF CICERO: part v. 
 
 1 Were I in any doubt about your willingness to oblige me 
 I would use many words in making an appeal to you to watch 
 the interests of my position ; but there is no doubt that the 
 truth is in reality just what I have convinced myself that it is, 
 namely that you take an interest in me. 
 
 I marched against the mountaineers of the Alps, not so 
 much from any ambition of being saluted with military 
 honours, as because I desired to satisfy my troops, and make 
 
 2 them firmly attached to the support of our interests. This 
 object I have now, it seems to me, attained, since they have 
 had proof of both my liberality and my courage. I have 
 waged war against the most warlike people in the world, 
 taken many and plundered many of their villages : I felt 
 justified in sending a despatch to the Senate. Give me the 
 advantage of your, support in the House ; when you do this 
 you will to an important extent have been subserving the 
 interests of the Commonwealth. 
 
 CXXI. (AD ATT. XVI. 8.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT PUTEOLI TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 November 2, 710 A.v.c. (44 B. c. ) 
 
 Octavianus having by lavish bounties succeeded in enlisting 10,000 men in 
 Campania, marched with them to Ravenna, where his numbers were still 
 further increased, and then fixed his head-quarters at Arretium (Arezzo). It 
 was now evident that the sword would shortly be drawn. Antonius hearing of 
 these proceedings hastened back from Brundisium to Rome, in order to obtain 
 further powers from the Senate against Octavianus. See Introd. to Letter 
 cxxiii. 
 
 Merivale, iii, 140-144 ; Abeken, 428-432 ; Forsyth, 464-466. 
 
 1 As soon as I know on what day I am likely to come I 
 will take care to let you know. I must wait for the heavy 
 baggage, which is on its way from Anagnia, and there is some 
 illness in the house. A letter for me from Octavianus on the 
 evening of the 1st; — he has great schemes. The veterans 
 who are at Casilinum and Calatia 1 he has entirely brought 
 
 1 Casilinum is the modern town of Capua, about three miles from the old 
 town ; Calatia is now Le Galazze, about six miles in the opposite direction. 
 Many of Caesar's veterans had received grants of land in these parts. 
 
ep. cxxi. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. XVI. 8.) 351 
 
 over to his views — no wonder; his bounty is 500 denarii 
 apiece ! a He proposes to go the round of the other military 
 settlements : obviously what he has in view is to put himself 
 at the head of an army to fight Antonius ; and so I see that 
 in a few days we shall be under arms. Who however is to 
 be our leader ? Think of his name, think of his age. And 
 he writes to ask that in the first place I will grant him a 
 strictly private interview either at Capua, or somewhere in the 
 neighbourhood of Capua. Surely it is childish if he supposes 
 that this could possibly be private. I have written to inform 
 him that what he asks is neither necessary nor practicable. 
 He sent one Caecina of Volaterrae, an intimate friend of his, 3 2 
 to me ; who brought the news that Antonius was advancing 
 with the Fifth i towards Rome, exacting loans from the country 
 towns, and marching under flying colours. He wanted to 
 consult me whether he should set out for Rome with three 
 thousand of the veterans, or occupy Capua and cut off the 
 route of Antonius, or go to meet the three Macedonian legions 
 now making their way by the coast-road along the Adriatic, 
 which are, he hopes, all for him. They refused, at any rate 
 according to this man's account, to accept a largess from 
 Antonius, and after some vehement abuse of him left him in 
 the middle of his harangue. In short he offers himself as our 
 leader, and thinks it will not be right for us to fail him. I 
 myself recommended that he should proceed to Rome, because 
 it seems to me that he will have not only the starveling mob 
 of the city, but — provided he has given guarantees of his 
 sincerity — the good men too on his side. Oh, Brutus ! where 
 are you now ? what a belle occasion you are losing ! I did not 
 indeed prophesy this, but I expected that something of the 
 kind would happen. 
 
 Now I am trying every way to get your advice. Am I 
 
 2 The denarius at this time was worth (see Diet. Ant. 393) about 8£d. , 
 which would make the bounty between £17 and £zZ. Antonius was after- 
 wards obliged to raise his own bounty to the same sum. 
 
 a This is perhaps the son of Cicero's friend Caecina, mentioned Letter 
 xci. 13. 
 
 4 The famous Fifth legion, called the Alaudae (Larks) from a crest on the 
 helmet, was first raised in Transalpine Gaul by Caesar. It remained through- 
 out faithful to Antonius. 
 
352 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 coming to Rome, or stopping here, or shall I take refuge at 
 Arpinum — it is a place which is now & Pabrit Rome, I 
 think, 5 in case I should be wanted if it shall hereafter appear 
 that something has really been done. So give me the answer 
 to this : I have never felt more aux abois in my life. 
 
 CXXII. (AD ATT. XVI. n.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT PUTEOLI TO ATTICUS AT ROME. 
 
 November 5, 710 A.V.C. (44 B.C.) 
 
 Towards the end of October Cicero completed the Second Philippic, and 
 sent it to Atticus to be revised. The present letter is in part An acknowledg- 
 ment of the criticisms passed, which, considering the length and passionate 
 imprudence, as well as the splendid eloquence of the great Philippic, are of the 
 most trivial character, and not calculated to raise our ideas of the critical power 
 of Atticus. The allusions in the first paragraph are taken by Boot and others 
 to refer to the treatise on ' Glory, ' which had been sent in July to Atticus (Ad 
 Att. xvi. 2, 6), but it is quite possible that the whole section refers to the 
 Second Philippic only. 
 
 The Second Philippic was never delivered, but was published at the end of 
 November, after the departure of Antonius, as though it had been spoken on 
 September 19. Its immediate effect was very considerable, as it made Cicero 
 again the virtual leader of the Senate, and this period of his life is generally 
 considered its most admirable one by his biographers. 
 
 Cicero's literary activity at this time was no less than his political. Besides 
 a mass of letters to nearly all the members of the Senatorial party abroad, the 
 series of Philippics, the two books on Glory {a MS. of these was in the posses- 
 sion of Petrarch, but has since been lost), and other works, he published about 
 this time his graceful treatise on Duty (De Officiis), based on the Stoic philo- 
 sopher Panaetius.. 
 
 The present letter, which is unusually difficult and abounds in obscure 
 allusions, is the last in this selection addressed to Atticus. Only four or five 
 of the extant letters to Atticus are of later date, and it is probable that hardly 
 any others were written, because early in December Cicero joined Atticus at 
 Rome, and the two friends were not again separated till shortly before Cicero's 
 murder. Atticus remained, characteristically, on friendly terms with both 
 Antonius and Octavianus, and died in 32 B. c. His daughter Attica, so often 
 mentioned in these letters, married Marcus Agrippa ; and their daughter, 
 Vipsania Agrippina, was the first wife of the Emperor Tiberius. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 150, 151; Abeken, 426-429; Forsyth, 457, 465, 468; 
 Diet. Biog. i. 733 ; Watson, Appendix iii. 
 
 1 To-day — the 5 th — I have received two letters from you, 
 one of which you had written on the 1st, the other the day 
 before : so now for the earlier one first. 
 
 5 The omission of the verb is very harsh, and Boot would insert malo. 
 
TO ATTIC US. (AD ATT. XVI. n.) 353 
 
 I am very, glad you like my work ; of which you have 
 certainly named 'lesfieurs '/ and it seems to me now after your 
 criticism to blossom with these more than it did before, 
 because I was terribly afraid of that little red pencil of yours! 
 As to the affair of Sicca it is just as you say; only it was 
 difficult to keep myself clear of the woman. 1 And so without 
 the slightest defamation of Sicca or Septimia I will lay the 
 lash on just sufficiently for ' our sons' sons, to ages yet unborn ' 
 to possess the knowledge — and that too not 'walled up,' as 
 Lucilius used to say he liked 2 — that this man has had children 
 born to him by a daughter of Fadius Gallus. 3 And oh ! that 
 I may live to see the day when that speech may go about 
 everywhere so freely as actually to make its way into Sicca's 
 own house : but to do that we must have such times back as 
 there were under the triumvirs.** May I die if that is not 
 rather neatly put ! You however will of course read it to 
 Peducaeus, and write his opinion of it in full — son avis seul en 
 vaut dix mille autres. You will be careful that Fufius and 
 
 1 See Phil. ii. 2, § 3. Sicca was a Sicilian friend of Cicero, with whose 
 wife Septimia Antonius had an intrigue (compare note 4, below) ; and it seems 
 that at Atticus's suggestion Cicero suppressed the details of a suit improperly 
 hushed up by Antonius, out of regard for his friend Sicca, whose wife was 
 compromised. For asta ea, ast ab ea or ab ista (Boot) is an easy correction. 
 
 2 ' Lucilius used to say that he did not wish to be read by the learned or 
 the unlearned.' Cicero, DeOratore, ii. 6, 25. Many of his fragments are only 
 
 tpwavra ffVVCToifflV. 
 
 3 Phil. ii. 2, 3. Antonius's second wife, Fadia, was the daughter of a freed- 
 man, Quintus Fadius. This was regarded as a terrible misalliance. 
 
 * This is one of the most disputed passages in the whole of the letters. 
 Mr. Watson says 'which we had under the triumvirs, i.e. from 59-53 B.C., 
 a reference perhaps to the greater freedom which prevailed.' Surely this 
 would be a simple statement, without the least trace of the wit discovered in it by 
 Cicero. Prof. Nettleship has suggested to Mr. Watson, ' the times which are 
 aver norm that those three Antonii, Marcus, Gaius, and Lucius, are our trium- 
 virs.' This might just possibly be considered a joke by Cicero, but it is intoler- 
 ably harsh, and also involves a doubtful use of illis, which would rather be 
 his or istis. Gronovius and Orelli explain somewhat similarly, but read quo 
 fuerint, = when these three Antonii are dead. Schutz, Boot, and Billerbeck 
 think Caesar and Pompeius are called ' iii viri ' as having both been married 
 three times — a very forced joke. I believe the point referred to in 'facete ' to 
 be a double entendre of iii viri (triumvirs) and the tres viri (lovers) of 
 Septimia. Cicero says, ' I want my speech to make its way into Sicca's house, 
 however he may try to keep it out, but to penetrate there we ought to have 
 the days of the "triumvirate" back again, when Antonius and two unnamed 
 lovers who had an intrigue with Septimia used frequently to make their way in." 
 
 2 A 
 
3S4 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 2 Matius 5 do not drop in at the time. As for your fear of 
 being thought a 'jaseur,' could any one be less ? and to me too, 
 to whom every letter of yours seems best when it is longest, 
 just as Aristophanes said of a satire of Archilochus. And as 
 for your ' lecturing ' me, why even if you were to begin fault- 
 finding I should not only put up with it easily, but should be 
 positively pleased, since your fault-finding combines penetra- 
 tion with bienveittance. So I will willingly correct those points 
 which have been noted by you : ' the same title, I suppose, as 
 he had to the wealth of Rubrius ' instead of to that of Scipio; 6 
 and I will cut down the piling-up of Dolabella's praises. And 
 yet in the very place you mean there is, it seems to me, a 
 delicate soupgon of irony in saying that ' thrice upon the battle- 
 field he met his fellow-countrymen.' 7 Again, I prefer 'it is 
 more disgraceful that he should be still alive ' to ' what can 
 be more disgraceful?' 8 
 
 3 I am not sorry to find you approve of the ' Procession of 
 Worthies ' which Varro (from whom I have not succeeded in 
 getting his ' Heracleidia ') is thinking of. 9 And as to your 
 exhortations to me to write, from you it comes in a friendly 
 
 5 Quintus Fufius Calenus, who is mentioned in Letter xi. § i, had been a 
 supporter of Clodius, and was now a personal friend of Antonius, and there- 
 fore hateful to Cicero : on Matius, see Letter cvi. note i. 
 
 6 Phil. ii. 40, 103. Cicero seems to have accused Antonius of getting 
 Scipio's villa at Tibur by underhand means, but owing to this suggestion of 
 Atticus the name of Lucius Rubrius was substituted, who had bequeathed to 
 him, apparently rather for political than personal reasons, a villa at Casinum in 
 Latium. 
 
 7 Phil. ii. 30, 75. ' Thrice did Caesar fight with his own countrymen — in 
 Thessaly, in Africa, in Spain. At each of these battles was Dolabella present 
 . . . but what shall we say of you?' Cicero therefore did not expunge the 
 passage, but he may have toned it down. 
 
 8 Phil. ii. 34, 86. As the passage however retains the second of these two 
 forms it is uncertain whether Cicero changed, though reluctantly, at Atticus's 
 suggestion what he had written, or whether he omitted to make a change which 
 he thought a good one. 
 
 8 The work which Cicero here calls ' Peplographia ' is apparently Varro's 
 ' Hebdomades, sive Imagines, ' one of the most curious and interesting pro- 
 ductions of antiquity. It consisted of a series of 700 portraits of celebrated 
 men, apparently reproduced by some lost method of engraving which had 
 been lately discovered, with a short life and an epigram attached to each. The 
 name is difficult to render adequately : it alludes to the Athenian procession of 
 the ' Peplus, ' or sacred vestment of Athene, on which were embroidered 
 mythological and heroic subjects. Varro had a fondness for strange Greek 
 
EP. pxxn. TO ATTICUS. (AD ATT. XVI. n.) 355 
 
 way, but I can assure you that I do nothing else as it is. 
 Your influenza is troubling me ; do, I entreat you, be as care- 
 ful as ever. It is pleasant to hear that my 'De Senectute' 10 
 is doing you good. As to those people of Anagnia, I meant 
 'le Capitaine' Mustela, and Laco, who is a mighty toper. 11 
 The book which you ask for 12 I will give the last polish to, 
 and let you have it. 
 
 Now I have to answer the second letter. The ' De Officiis,' 4 
 so far as Panaetius goes, I have completed in two books ; there 
 are three in his, but though in the prefatory part he divides 
 , the methods of inquiry about duty into three — the first being 
 when we deliberate whether anything is honourable or base, 
 the second, whether it is or is not to our interest, the third 
 how we are to make our decision when these two characteristics 
 seem to be mutually conflicting, as was the case for example 
 with Regulus, when honour bade him go back, self-interest 
 remain where he was — he has treated the first two splendidly, 
 and promises to proceed at once to the third, but has not 
 written anything; this part has been thoroughly followed up 
 by Posidonius. I have not only sent to get his book, but 
 have written to Athenodorus Calvus to send me a precis of, his 
 divisions, which I am- now expecting ; will you please remind 
 and intreat him to lose no time ? In this comes the chapter 
 which he entitles ' On the Casuistry of Duty.' And speaking 
 
 titles. See Teuffel, Roman Literature, i. 240, 244 ; Bekker., Gallus, 30 ; 
 Crattwell, Roman Literature, 150 ; Diet. Biogr. iii. 1226 \ Diet. Ant. 856. 
 The principal ancient account of it is in Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxv. 2. The 
 ' Heracleidia ' seems to be a philosophical work based on Heracleides of 
 Pontus. 
 
 10 The treatise on Old Age is called here ' O Tite,' because it begins with 
 some verses of Ennius, addressed to Titus Flamininus, the conqueror of 
 Macedonia. 
 
 11 In' the Second Philippic (42, § 106) Cicero speaks of Antonius ' having 
 with him two men of Anagnia, Mustela and Laco, one of whom is his first 
 swordsman, the other his first cups-man. ' As Atticus did not understand the 
 allusion these names must have been omitted in the first draft. 
 
 12 This is generally supposed to be the ' Topica, ' an adaptation in Latin of 
 Aristotle's work of the same name, which treats of the Invention of Arguments. 
 The history of this book is interesting. Trebatius the jurist had complained 
 to Cicero that he could not find any plain explanation of Aristotle's meaning. 
 When Cicero started on his interrupted voyage, the sight of Velia, with which 
 Trebatius was connected, reminded him of this, and he drew up the work from 
 memory. Ad Fam. vii. 19 ; Diet. Biog. i. 726 ; Forsyth, 444 ; Abeken, 415. 
 
356 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 of your question about the name ot the book I have no doubt 
 but that officium is a proper equivalent of Kadfjuov, unless you 
 have any other suggestion, but the title more in full will be 
 ' De Officiis.' As for the dedication, it is ' <z mon fik ': this 
 seemed to me not at all mal-h-propos. 
 
 > As to Myrtilus, it was clear to the bottom. 13 How you 
 always did hit off those fellows ! And against Decimus Brutus 
 too ! May they have their deserts ! 
 
 i I did not do as I said in my letter, and hide away in my 
 house at Pompeii, first because of the weather, which could 
 not possibly have been fouler, and moreover every day I had a 
 letter from Octavianus asking me to undertake his cause, and 
 be a second time the saviour of the Republic ; and to come 
 to Capua, or at all events at once to Rome. Between fear of 
 accepting and shame at refusing 
 
 *hac urget pudor, hac metus, aiunt.' 14 
 
 However he certainly has acted and is acting with vigour. 
 He will bring a large force to Rome, but then he is the merest 
 boy ; he thinks that the Senate can be convoked in a moment. 
 Who will come ? Who, if he does come, will where everything 
 is so doubtful make an enemy of Antonius ? When the new 
 year comes perhaps he will be a protection, or else indeed the 
 struggle will actually be fought out to the end before then. 
 Boy though he is, the country-towns seem to be marvellously 
 in favour of him, for when he passed through Cales on his 
 march to Samnium, and halted at Teanum, the accueil he 
 received was startling, and the address he gave. Could you 
 believe this? Owing to this circumstance I shall to Rome 
 quicker than I had arranged for : as soon as ever I have made 
 my plans I will write. 
 
 Though I have not read the conditions — Eros has not yet 
 arrived — still I should like you to effect a settlement by the 
 
 13 A man named Myrtilus had heen accused of attempting the life of 
 Antonius, and it was said, not unnaturally, that he was instigated by Decimus 
 Brutus. Cicero's indignation makes him here too spasmodic for literal 
 translation. 
 
 14 Cicero is quoting from Homer, II. vii. 93, where the Greeks are afraid 
 to accept but ashamed to refuse Hector's challenge. The line given is of 
 course a variation of the proverb in Horace, Sat. ii. 2, 64. 
 
ep. cxxiii. TO DEC1MUS BRUTUS. {AD FAM. XI. 5.) 357 
 
 1 2 th. I shall be better able to send letters to Catina, Tauro- 
 menium, and Syracuse, when the interpreter, Valerius, has let 
 me have the names of the influential people, because these 
 vary at different times, and those whom I was intimate with 
 have mostly died off; still I have written some in an official 
 form, which Valerius can make use of if he thinks good, or else 
 he can let me have the names. 
 
 I hear from Balbus about Lepidus's vacation — it is to last 8 
 until the 30th. 15 I shall wait for a letter from you, and I 
 suppose I shall hear about the little matter of business with 
 Torquatus. I send you Quintus's letter to show you how 
 much he loves his boy, and he is hurt to find you do not 
 much like him. Give Attica a kiss for being such a merry 
 little thing — it is the greatest charm in children, — and tell her 
 that it comes from me. 
 
 CXXIII. (AD FAM. XI. 5.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO DECIMUS IUNIUS BRUTUS IN 
 CISALPINE GAUL. 
 
 About the middle of December, 710 A.v.c. (44 B.C.) 
 
 This letter, like Nos. cxxv. cxxvi. and cxxvii. , seems to be one of a series 
 which Cicero wrote to encourage the leading partisans of the Senate in the 
 provinces, Decimus Brutus in Northern Italy, Marcus Brutus in Macedonia, 
 Cassius in Syria, and Trebonius in Asia Minor. 
 
 The consuls for the new year were Gaius Vibius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, 
 both moderate Caesarians, but opposed to the proceedings of Antonius. The 
 latter was an officer and author of some ability ; he wrote the conclusion of 
 Caesar's Gallic War. Antonius on the 28th of November marched with four 
 legions against Decimus Brutus, who shut himself up in Mutina (Modena), the 
 strongest fortress of his province, where he was immediately besieged. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 144, 153, 158 ; Abeken, 434, 435 ; Forsyth, 472-475. 
 
 Though our friend Lupus did come from you and was 1 
 staying some days in town, I was at the time in different places 
 wherever I thought I could most safely be ; thus it happened 
 
 33 Lepidus had succeeded Caesar as Pontifex Maximus, and it is thought 
 that this refers to days fixed by him in that capacity for taking the auspices, 
 which would imply a vacation of the Senate. But the allusion is somewhat 
 doubtful. 
 
358 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 that Lupus returned to you without a letter from me, and 
 that too though he had taken care to see that yours was 
 safely delivered to me. I came to Rome however on the 
 nth of December, and considered it my earliest duty to call 
 at once on Pansa, from whom I have learnt about you the 
 very things I most wanted to hear. And assuredly you are 
 not one to need encouragement in this matter, if you wanted 
 no one to encourage you even in that great deed of yours, 
 the greatest ever done in the history of mankind. This 
 
 2 much however should perhaps be briefly pointed out : that 
 the people of Rome expect everything from you, and rest 
 upon you all the hope they have of one day recovering their 
 liberties. But if you bear in mind night and day — as full 
 well I know you do — how great that work is which you have 
 already done, then assuredly you will never forget how great 
 are those which you are called upon even now to do : for if 
 the province is once in the possession of your opponent (to 
 whom I myself indeed was always friendly until I saw not only 
 confessedly but even with wanton malice he was waging war 
 against the liberties of his country), I see no hope of salvation 
 
 3 yet left. I therefore approach you with the prayer which is 
 offered also by the Senate and people of Rome, that for ever 
 you will set the Republic free from the tyranny of a king, and 
 let the last act of your drama be suited to the first. Yours 
 only is this duty^ yours to play the part : from you your 
 country, nay rather the whole world, not only looks for this, 
 but even demands it as a right. And yet since, as I said 
 before, you do not need encouragement, I will not attempt it 
 here at any length. That which really is my part I will do — 
 I will promise you my zeal and service, my care and study, 
 in all that shall be seen to concern your name and glory. I 
 trust therefore you will rest fully assured that not only for the 
 welfare of our country, which is dearer to me than life itself, 
 but also that from personal regard, and a desire to see your 
 position yet more raised in honour, I shall on no occasion 
 whatever fail to support your truly excellent policy, your dignity, 
 or your fame. 
 
ep. cxxiv. TO C0RN1FICIUS. {AD FAM. XII. 22.) 359 
 
 CXXIV. (AD FAM. XII. 22.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS, GOVERNOR 
 OF AFRICA. 
 
 End of December, 710 A.v.c. (44 B. c.) 
 
 After the departure of Antonius for Gaul, both consuls being absent Jfrom 
 the city, the tribunes convened the Senate for the 20th of December, when 
 Cicero delivered his Third Philippic, proposing to annul the grant of Cisalpine 
 Gaul to Antonius. This was followed immediately by his Fourth Oration, 
 which was addressed to the people with the same object. 
 
 Cornificius was now Governor of the Old Province of Africa (compare 
 Letters ciii. and cxix. ) He subsequently resisted the authority of the triumvirs, 
 and was killed in battle. 
 
 Abeken, 437 ; Forsyth, 484. 
 
 We are waging war here against the vilest hired bravo in 1 
 the world, our own colleague Antonius, but with weapons 
 unfairly matched, the tongue against the sword. He positively 
 even makes harangues about you, and that shall not go un- 
 punished, for he shall feel who they are that he has wantonly 
 attacked. I suppose however that you have full accounts 
 about all that has happened from other people ; from me you 
 have a right to know what is coming. And of this the fore- 
 cast is truly not difficult : everything is utterly depressed, nor 2 
 have the good men got any one to lead them, while our 
 Harmodius and Aristogeiton are far away in foreign lands. 
 Pansa is sound at heart, and speaks boldly. Our friend 
 Hirtius is slow in recovering from his illness. As to. what 
 will be the result I am entirely at a loss ; our one hope 
 however is that at some time or other the people of Rome 
 will show themselves like their ancestors. Assuredly I shall 
 not fail the Republic; and then whatever has befallen me 
 without any fault of mine I shall bear with fortitude. Of this 
 you may be sure, so far as my powers will go : I will be ever 
 watchful of your good name and honours. 
 
 On the 20th of December a fairly full House voted with 3 
 me, among other important and even vital questions, about 
 the Governors now in possession retaining their provinces, and 
 not resigning them to anybody unless he had been appointed 
 
366 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt v. 
 
 to succeed by an act of the Senate. This course I proposed 
 partly in the interests of the Republic, but principally, I give 
 you my word of honour, with a view to asserting the rights of 
 your position. In the name of our affection therefore I entreat 
 you, in the name of the Commonwealth I exhort you, not to 
 suffer any one to usurp any authority whatever in your province ; 
 and to make all things subservient to the claims of your position, 
 than which there can be nothing more illustrious. 
 4 I will be frank with you, as our intimacy gives a right to 
 expect : you would have gained the highest commendations 
 from everybody about Sempronius, if you had only followed 
 the instructions of my letter. 1 But that is over now, and is 
 moreover a comparative trifle, while this is a matter of im- 
 portance : be sure you keep your province in the power of the 
 Republic. I would write more but that your men are in a 
 hurry, so please make my excuses to our friend Chaerippus. 
 
 CXXV. (AD FAM. XI. 8.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO DECIMUS BRUTUS IN 
 CISALPINE GAUL. 
 
 January, 711 A.V.C. (43 B.C.) 
 See Introduction to Letter cxxiii. 
 
 1 Your wife Polla has sent me word that I can, if I like, 
 let you have something by way of a letter just at the very 
 time when I have nothing to write about ; everything being 
 still in suspense on account of our waiting for the envoys, no 
 news of whose success as yet has reached us. These things 
 however I thought should be mentioned : first and foremost, 
 that at Rome the Senate and people are most anxious about 
 you, not only for the sake of their own safety, but also of your 
 honourable position ; for somehow there is a marvellous attrac-" 
 tion in your name, and an exceptional affection for yourself 
 among all your fellow-countrymen ; for they all hope and trust 
 that as you before set free the Republic from the monarch, so 
 
 1 Nothing is known of the incident referred to. 
 
M>. cxxvi. TO CASSIUS. (AD FAM. XII. 4.) 361 
 
 you will now from the monarchy. A conscription is going on 5 
 at Rome and all over Italy, if indeed this is to be called a 
 conscription, when all are voluntarily offering themselves ; so 
 strong the fire which has taken hold of every breast, through 
 our craving for liberty, and abhorrence of our long term of 
 slavery. 
 
 As to all other matters it is we who ought now to expect a 
 letter from you, about what you yourself, what our friend Hirtius, 
 and what my dear Caesar is doing, both of whose names I 
 hope in a short time to hear coupled with yours in a common 
 victory. It only remains for me to add what, since it is about 
 myself, I expect and prefer that you should learn from others, 
 that upon no occasion whatever do I fail, or will I ever fail, 
 to support the claims of your position. 
 
 CXXVI. (AD FAM. XII. 4.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS IN SYRIA 
 
 January or February 711 A.V.C. (43 B.C.) 
 
 Cassius, who was determined to hold Syria against Dolabella, succeeded in 
 collecting a considerable force, principally by the assistance of Deiotarus, King 
 of Galatia After the murder of Trebonius (see the following letter) he marched 
 into Syria against Dolabella, who committed suicide on the surrender of Lao- 
 dicea to Cassius. 
 
 It will be noticed that both this and the letter to Trebonius which follows 
 commence with the same revolting metaphor (they were probably therefore 
 written at the same time) ; and it must be remembered that the fate which 
 Cicero afterwards met with, he himself desired to inflict on Antonius. The 
 author of these two letters, and of many passages in the Philippics, neither had 
 a claim to nor expected any quarter. 
 
 Diet. Biog. iii. 1171 ; Merivale, iii. 161; Abeken, 466. 
 
 I could wish that you had asked me to your dinner on the 1 
 Ides of March : there would then have been nothing left over. 
 Now it is your leavings which are giving me all the trouble, 
 and indeed to me beyond everybody else. It is true we have 
 admirable consuls, but most contemptible ex-consuls ; a bold 
 Senate, but bold in proportion to their inferiority of office. 
 Nothing however could be bolder, nothing better, than the 
 spirit of the people, and than Italy as a nation ; nothing on 
 
362 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 the other hand more disgraceful, more utterly infamous, than 
 the embassy of Philippus and Piso •} who having been sent 
 to convey certain peremptory instructions of the Senate to 
 Antonius, have gone out of their way to report to us, though 
 he failed to pay obedience to a single one of these conditions, 
 the intolerable terms he seeks to impose ; and the consequence 
 is that everybody flocks to me, and in a really sound measure 
 I find myself at last a popular hero. 
 
 But as to you, what you are doing, what you intend to do, 
 in fact where you are now, I do not know. Report says that 
 you have gone to Syria ; nobody in particular is the authority. 
 The reports which reach us about Brutus seem, as he is nearer, 
 to be better established. Dolabella was severely criticised by 
 some of those people who make caustic remarks, for being 
 in such a hurry to become your successor when you had hardly 
 had even your month's grace in Syria ; 2 it being therefore 
 clear that he had no right to be admitted into Syria. There 
 are great encomiums on you and Brutus, because you are 
 believed to have succeeded in raising an army before we could 
 have hoped for it. I would write more if I knew the whole 
 case and its merits ; as it is, my remarks in this letter are 
 written on the general impression and the reports in society. 
 I greedily look for a letter from you. Adieu. 
 
 CXXVII. (AD FAM. X. 28.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO GAIUS TREBONIUS AT SMYRNA. 
 January or February, 711 A.V.C. (43 B.C.) 
 
 Trebonius soon after the murder of Caesar assumed the government of Asia 
 Minor. He probably never received this letter, because in this month Dolabella 
 surprised and murdered him at Smyrna, for having sent assistance to Cassius. 
 (See the preceding letter.) He was the first victim among the conspirators, 
 nearly all of whom, it was noticed, died a violent death. His character does 
 not entitle him to any commiseration, but the incident at once changed Cicero's 
 
 1 See Introd. to Letter cxxviii. 
 
 2 By a law of Sulla a Governor was allowed a month's grace for leaving his 
 province after the arrival of his successor. But Dolabella, remarked these 
 caustic critics, wanted Cassius to begin his month's grace immediately on his 
 arrival. 
 
EP. oxxvii. TO TREBONIUS. (A£> FAM. X. 28.) 363 
 
 late absurd panegyrics of Dolabella (see Letter cxi.) into the equally extra- 
 vagant abuse of the later Philippics. 
 
 Diet. Biog. iii. 1171 ; i. 1059 ; Merivale, iii. 163, 164 ; Abeken, 450 ; 
 Forsyth, 496. Mr. Forsyth here repeats Cicero's wildest exaggerations as if 
 they were history. 
 
 How I wish you had invited me to that splendid banquet 1 
 on the Ides of March ! we should not have had anything left 
 over. Whereas it is the leavings with which I now have so 
 much trouble that even your immortal gift to your country 
 has something in it for complaint. In fact there are times 
 when — in me however this is almost sinful — I am disposed 
 to be angry when I think that it was you, one of our good 
 men and true, who took him aside, 1 and that thanks entirely 
 to your kindness this pest is still alive ; since to me alone you 
 have left more trouble than to all other people besides myself 
 put together. From the first moment indeed that, after 
 Antonius's disgraceful departure, the Senate could come together 
 freely I brought myself back to the spirit of old days, which 
 you, like your father, the most enthusiastic of patriots, had 
 ever on your lips and in your love. 2 For when the tribunes 2 
 had convened the Senate for the 20th of December, and were 
 introducing a proposal on another matter, I dealt with the 
 whole question of the position of the Republic in my speech, 
 and urged this point with the utmost vehemence ; and more 
 by the force of my enthusiasm than my abilities called back 
 our now drooping and exhausted Senate to its ancient energy 
 and character. This day, together with my own efforts and 
 proposals, has first brought the people of Rome a vision of the 
 recovery of their liberties ; nor indeed have I myself since then 
 allowed any interval to elapse without not merely thinking 
 but taking action for the Republic. And but for the fact that 3 
 the news from town and all that goes on is, I suppose, reported 
 to you, I would myself describe it in full, although I am 
 hampered by engagements of the utmost importance. But 
 such things as these you shall learn from other people ; from 
 
 1 This incident is mentioned also in Phil. ii. 14, 34, and by Plutarch. It 
 was assuredly not done out of kindness, though the principle of shedding no 
 blood but the monarch's may have been stipulated by some ; probably however 
 it was chiefly from his known courage and devotion to Caesar. 
 
 2 The similarity of sound, ore, amore, is probably intentional. 
 
364 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 me only one or two, and those very briefly. We have a Senate 
 that is resolute : ex-consuls in some cases timid, in others ill- 
 affected : in Sulpicius we have had a great loss. 3 Lucius 
 Caesar is on the right side in feeling, but because his nephew 
 is concerned he does not favour very rigorous proposals. The 
 consuls are most admirable ; Decimus Brutus a noble example ; 
 Caesar a youth of singular ability, who will, I myself expect, 
 go on as he has begun. However this at least you may take 
 as certain, that if he had not rapidly enrolled the veterans, 
 and if two legions from the Antonian forces had not transferred 
 themselves to his standard, and thus been a menace in the 
 path of Antonius, there is no kind of wickedness, no kind of 
 cruelty that Antonius was likely to have left alone. This, 
 although I suppose you have already heard it, I wanted to be 
 confirmed to you. I will write more at length if I find that 
 I have more leisure. 
 
 CXXVIII. (AD FAM. XII. 5.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS IN SYRIA. 
 February, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 On the 1st of January a critical debate of four days was opened on the 
 motion of Quintus Fufius Calenus, who was called upon to speak first by the 
 new consuls, that the Senate should despatch an embassy to negotiate with 
 Antonius. Against this proposal Cicero delivered his Fifth Philippic, urging 
 that Antonius should be declared a public enemy. The proposal of Calenus 
 however was adopted, and Servius Sulpicius (the author of the celebrated 
 Letter, No. xcviii. ), Lucius Piso, and Lucius Philippus were chosen am- 
 bassadors, to demand an unconditional submission. Sulpicius, who was in 
 bad health, died before reaching the camp, and the Ninth Philippic is chiefly 
 a tribute to his memory. To Piso and Philippus Antonius replied by exor- 
 bitant counter-demands, including the government of Transalpine Gaul for five 
 years, with six legions taken from Decimus Brutus, the ratification of previous 
 grants of land to the soldiers, and a further confirmation of Caesar's memor- 
 anda. The envoys returned with this report about the end of January, which 
 excited Cicero's indignation against them (see Letter cxxvi. §1), and the 
 Eighth Philippic, delivered in February, insists on the necessity of an 
 immediate declaration of war. Early in January Hirtius marched with a few 
 troops northwards, leaving Pansa to collect fresh levies, and Octavianus at 
 once placed his forces at the disposal of the consul. It was evident that if 
 
 a See Introd. to the next Letter. 
 
ep. oxrrai. TO CASSIUS. (AD FAM. XII. 5.) 365 
 
 Octavianus could, as Cicero vehemently contended, be trusted, Antonius must 
 soon be crushed. 
 
 Meanwhile Marcus Brutus, having been acknowledged by Quintus Hor- 
 tensius, the out-going Governor of Macedonia, as his legitimate successor, had 
 secured the province, and kept Gaius Antonius, to whom it had been handed 
 over with the consent of the people by his brother Marcus, shut up in 
 Apollonia. The Tenth Philippic, which was delivered early in March, was 
 spoken in opposition to Fufius Calenus, who proposed to deprive Brutus of 
 his command. Cassius had also been successful in Syria, and was now at 
 the head of a powerful force ; and as the murder of Trebonius by Dolabella 
 (see the preceding Letter) had not yet occurred, the hopes of Cicero and the 
 Senatorial party were never brighter than at the date of this letter. Everything 
 however depended on the sincerity of Octavianus. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 153-162 ; Abeken, 439-430 ; Forsyth, ch. 23 ; compare Mr. 
 King's Introds. to the Fifth, Eighth, and Tenth Philippics. 
 
 I suppose the wintry season has made it impossible for us 1 
 as yet to have certain information about what you are doing, 
 and, above all, where you are ; everybody however is saying — 
 the wish, I suppose, being father to the thought — that you are 
 in Syria, with adequate forces, a statement the intrinsic prob- 
 ability of which makes it all the more easily accepted. Our 
 dear friend Brutus at any rate has been winning extraordinary 
 distinction ; the exploits he has performed being so important 
 and also so unexpected that, welcome as they are in themselves, 
 their rapid execution makes them -even more brilliant. But if 
 you also have a firm hold of all that we credit you with, the 
 cause of the Republic is now set on a powerful basis, seeing 
 that from the nearest coast of Greece as far as Egypt itself we 
 shall be found to be strongly fortified by governments and 
 armies which are in the hands of our best citizens. Yet, if I 
 am not mistaken, the present condition of affairs is such that 
 the ultimate issue of the war must apparently depend entirely 
 upon Decimus Brutus. If once, as we hope, he has succeeded 
 in breaking out from Mutina, it seems that there will be no 
 more war remaining. The blockade is now being carried on 
 by exceedingly few troops because Antonius is holding Bononia 1 
 with a strong garrison. Then our trusty Hirtius is at Claterna, 2 
 
 1 Now Bologna ; Claterna is (see Diet. Geogr. i. 631) almost the only 
 town on the Aemilian Way which has not preserved its existence in modern 
 times ; but about ten miles from Bologna towards Brindisi there is a small 
 village called Quaderna ; Forum Cornelium, twelve miles farther, is the 
 modern Imola ; Regium Lepidi is now Reggib, half-way between Modena 
 and Parma 
 
366 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet v. 
 
 Caesar near Forum Cornelium, both with considerable armies ; 
 while Pansa is collecting large forces at Rome by an Italian 
 conscription. Winter has as yet prevented any active opera- 
 tions. Hirtius seems not to intend acting at all without careful 
 consideration, as he frequently intimates in his letters to me. 
 With the exception of Bononia, Regium Lepidi, and Parma, we 
 are assured of the whole of Gaul as most zealous in the cause 
 of the Republic; and even your clients, the Transpadanes, 
 we find surprisingly in sympathy with the cause. The Senate 
 is most resolute, but I have to except the ex-consuls, of whom 
 Lucius Caesar alone is resolute and sincere. We have lost a 
 3 tower of strength by the death of Servius Sulpicius. The rest 
 are partly spiritless, partly untrustworthy; not a few are jealous 
 of the reputation of such people as they see the Republic 
 delights to honour : the unanimity however of the people of 
 Rome and of the whole of Italy is most remarkable. This is 
 pretty much what I felt it would be well that you should hear 
 of: I merely add a prayer that from that East which holds 
 you now the light of your manliness may shine out in its 
 strength. Farewell. 
 
 CXXIX. (AP FAM. X. 31.) 
 
 FROM GAIUS ASINIUS POLLIO, GOVERNOR OF WEST SPAIN, 
 AT CORDOVA TO CICERO AT ROME. 
 
 March 16, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.c.) 
 
 Asinius Pollio, after his narrow escape in the African War (see Letter lxxxv.), 
 was appointed by Caesar to the government of Further or Western Spain, the 
 capital of which was Cprduba (Cordova). Here after the battle of Munda he 
 maintained a doubtful struggle with Sextus Pompeius, who was carrying on 
 a guerilla warfare ; but Lepidus, who was then Governor of Eastern Spain 
 and Southern or Narbonensian Gaul, came to his assistance, and terms were 
 made with Pompeius. In the present struggle between the Senate and 
 Antonius the attitude of Pollio was one of suspense, and probably conciliatory 
 to both sides until the formation of the triumvirate, to which he at once 
 declared his adhesion. 
 
 Three of Pollio's letters to Cicero (Ad Fam. *. 31-33) have been preserved, 
 of which this one is in style and matter a fair specimen. Though not a good 
 general, he was after Varro one of the most learned and cultivated statesmen 
 
kjp. cxxix. FROM ASINIUS POLLIO {AD FAM. X. 31.) 367 
 
 of his time, in which respect he even deserved the enthusiastic praises of 
 Horace. — Odes ii. 1. Tacitus, Quintilian, and Seneca however condemn his 
 style as ' dry,' ' rough,' and 'jerky,' and two or three Un-Ciceronian phrases 
 may be noticed even in this letter ; but it must be remembered that, like 
 Caelius and Curio, he belongs to the younger school which revolted from the 
 smooth style of Hortensius and Cicero. 
 
 Mommsen, iv. 610 ; Merivale, iii. 162 ; Abeken, 449 ; Forsyth, 492. 
 
 There is no reason at all for you to be surprised if since 1 
 an appeal was made to the sword I have not written a word to 
 you on the political crisis ; for though the range of Castulo, 1 
 which has always been a bar to our bearers of despatches, 
 is now made more dangerous than ever by the increase of 
 brigandage, still that is far from being so much responsible 
 for the delay as the people who are picketed in every direction 
 on behalf of one or other of the provinces, and who search 
 and detain all bearers of letters. Consequently if a vessel had 
 not brought me letters I should have been entirely ignorant 
 of all that is taking place amongst you. I will now however 
 gladly take the opportunity I have found since navigation has 
 begun, and write to you as frequently as I possibly can. 
 
 There is no danger of my being influenced by any con- 2 
 versation with a man who, though nobody ever likes to see 
 him, is yet not hated half so richly as he deserves, because I 
 dislike him so extremely that there is nothing I should not 
 consider it disagreeable to be associated in with him; 2 and 
 then my nature and habits incline me rather to a longing for 
 peace and freedom. I have therefore often deeply lamented 
 that first beginning of the Civil War ; when however it was 
 not left open to me to belong to neither party, because I had 
 •great enemies on both sides, I turned my back on the camp 
 in which I knew well enough I should not be safe from the 
 
 1 This range or forest is now the eastern part, the Sierra di Cazorla, of the 
 great Sierra Morena. The name is supposed to survive in this as well as in 
 the modern Cazlona, close to the mining town of Linares, about seventy miles 
 from Cordova. Diet. Geogr. i. 565. The range was on the borders of the 
 two provinces, and directly in the way of an overland route to Italy. 
 
 a The reference is obscure. It may be to Pollio's quaestor, Lucius Cor- 
 nelius Balbus the younger, whom Pollio evidently disliked ; see Ad Fam. x. 
 32. Balbus was a warm friend of Caesar, and may therefore have been sup- 
 posed by Cicero to be influencing Pollio in favour of Antonius. It is scarcely 
 possible, I think, that Pollio would use these words, as Manutius believes, of 
 Antonius himself. 
 
368 LETTERS OE CICERO. paet v. 
 
 intrigues of an opponent : 8 but driven in a direction in which 
 I was anything but anxious to go, in order that I might not 
 be left amongst the hindmost I may frankly say I met perils 
 
 3 without shrinking. As to Caesar it is true that I loved him 
 with the utmost reverence and loyalty, because he admitted 
 me, who had only become known to him in the height of his 
 fortune, to the place of one of his oldest friends. In all that 
 was left to me to manage according to my own sentiments I 
 acted so that the best citizens would most decisively applaud 
 my conduct ; what I was ordered I did in such way as to let 
 time and manner show that the command was laid on me 
 against my will. Now the utterly unjust odium of this pro- 
 cedure has succeeded in teaching me the lesson how sweet is 
 liberty, how wretched is life under the rule of a master. If 
 this therefore is the question involved, that everything should 
 again be in the hands of one man, to that man, whoever he is, 
 I throw down my gage ; nor is there any kind of danger 
 whatever to escape which I would use either flight or entreaty 
 
 4 in a struggle for liberty. But the consuls have given me no 
 information, either by a decree of the Senate or by a letter 
 from themselves, as to what I ought to do ; indeed, only now 
 when it is past the middle of March have I at length received 
 one letter from Pansa, in which he urges me to write to the 
 Senate that I and my army will be at their disposal ; which, 
 seeing that Lepidus was delivering harangues and writing to 
 everybody that he is in full harmony with Antonius, was most 
 untoward ; for what supplies had I to take my legions against 
 his will through his province ? Or even if I had once sur- 
 mounted the other difficulties, could I fly across the Alps too 
 when they are guarded by his troops ? Add to this that 
 despatches could not under any circumstances be safely trans- 
 mitted, because they are thoroughly scrutinised in hundreds 
 of places ; and then even the messengers are detained by 
 
 5 Lepidus. This at any rate nobody will call in question, that 
 I stated before a public meeting at Gkirdova that I would not 
 give up the province to any person whatever, unless he was 
 one who came by the authority of the Senate, for as to giving 
 
 3 Possibly Gaius Cato, who had been prosecuted by Pollio (Letter xxviii. 
 4) ; Mr. Watson suggests Labienus. 
 
EP. oxxx. TO MUNATIUS PLANCUS. {AD FAM. X. 6.) 369 
 
 up the Thirtieth legion, why should I trouble you with the 
 arguments I have had about it? Is there any one who does 
 not see how much weaker I must have been to defend the 
 Republic if I did give it up ? I assure you you may believe 
 that nothing braver or more ready for fighting than this legion 
 can be found anywhere. Think of me therefore as a man 
 who is first of all things eager for peace, for I fully admit that 
 what I desire is that all our fellow-countrymen should be left 
 safe ; but granting this, one who is quite prepared to insist on 
 his own and his country's claim to liberty. 
 
 It gives me more pleasure than you imagine that you 6 
 include my dear friend i in the number of your own ; I begrudge 
 him however his walking and joking with you. How much, 
 do you say, would I give for this privilege ? Well, if it shall 
 ever again have been granted us to live in peace you shall put 
 it to the test, for I never mean to stir a step from your side. 
 At one thing I am extremely surprised — that you have not 
 written to me whether by staying in my province or marching 
 with an army into Italy I should be better able to do my duty 
 to the Republic. Though it is safer and less laborious for 
 me to remain where I am, I have nevertheless determined for 
 my own part, as things are at present, to march with an army, 
 because I see that at such a crisis there is far more need of 
 troops than of provinces — particularly such as can be recovered 
 without the slightest trouble. .For the rest, you will learn 
 everything from the letter I have written to Pansa, of which I 
 herewith send you a copy. 
 
 Cordova, March 16. 
 
 CXXX. (AD FAM. X. 6.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO LUCIUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS, 
 GOVERNOR OF TRANSALPINE GAUL. 
 
 March 20, 711 A.V.C. (43 B.C.) 
 
 •Munatius Plancus was made by Caesar Governor of all Transalpine Gaul, 
 except the old province (Narbonne), which was held by Lepidus in conjunction 
 
 4 Probably Gaius Cornelius Gallus ; see Ad Fam. x. 32, 5.— Watson. 
 2 R 
 
370 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 with Eastern Spain. In this very year he founded the great city of Lugdunum 
 (Lyon), which soon became the capital. Plancus, like Pollio- and Lepidus, 
 was waiting to see how fortune would turn out, but in a manifesto (Letter 
 cxxxii. ) he assured the Senate of his loyalty. For his subsequent proceedings, 
 see Letter cxxxix. 
 
 Plancus now becomes one of Cicero's most frequent correspondents ; Letters 
 cxxx. cxxxiii. and cxlii. being addressed to him, cxxxii. cxl. cxlvi. and 
 cxlviii. written by him. His character is generally painted in very black 
 colours by historians, but he must have possessed some ability to secure as he 
 did the confidence of both Caesar and Octavianus, and he has the distinction 
 of being addressed in an ode of Horace (i. 7). This letter is written in a 
 stilted, almost bombastic tone, which rather recalls some of the letters of an 
 earlier period. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 162 ; Abeken, 449, 457 ; Forsyth, 500, 501. 
 
 1 So far as our good friend Furnius informed us about your 
 disposition towards the Republic it was an account most 
 welcome to the Senate, and considered most satisfactory by 
 the people of Rome, whereas your letter which was read in the 
 House seemed to be by no means in agreement with the 
 language of Furnius ; for you constituted yourself an adviser 
 of a pacific settlement, your illustrious colleague being at that 
 very time held in siege by the foulest of brigands, whose duty 
 it is to lay down their arms before they sue for peace, or else, 
 if they demand it with arms in their hands, that peace must 
 be the fruit of a victory, not of a compromise. But what 
 interpretation was put on the letters proposing a peace, yours 
 as much as that of Lepidus, you will have the opportunity of 
 learning from your excellent brother, and from Gaius Furnius. 
 
 2 Though however you are not one to need advice for yourself, 
 and though the devotion and faithful care of your brother and 
 Furnius would soon be at your service, I have yet been stimu- 
 lated by affection for you to wish that some advice of mine 
 could reach you, coming with the authority that our many ties 
 of intimacy can give it. Take my word for it therefore, my 
 dear Plancus, that all men will consider the honourable grades 
 of dignity you have attained to — and you indeed have secured 
 the highest prizes — but as so many nominal titles of office, not 
 the distinguishing marts of merit, unless you are found to 
 have enrolled yourself on the side of the liberty of the Roman 
 people and the authority of the Senate. Separate yourself, I 
 entreat you, even at this hour from those with whom you have 
 been united, not by your own judgment, but by the accidental 
 
ep. cxxxi. TO LEPIDUS. (AD FAM. X. 27.) 371 
 
 ties of the times. Many there are in these disturbed days of 3 
 the Republic who have enjoyed the title of Consul, not one 
 of whom is admitted to have been a Consul indeed, but he 
 who has shown that he truly felt himself Consul of the 
 Republic. Of such a character therefore does it behove you 
 to be as, first of all, to sever all connection with those disloyal 
 citizens so utterly unlike you ; secondly, to constitute yourself 
 a counsellor, a guide, a leader, to the Senate and all good 
 citizens ; lastly, to recognise the truth that peace consists not 
 in disarmament but in casting away all dread of arms and of 
 slavery. Let such be your acts and your convictions, and 
 then you will be not merely a Consul, or one who has held 
 that title, but a great Consul, and one to whom that title is 
 great ; but do otherwise, and in the very names of the proudest 
 honours you enjoy there will not only be no dignity, but the 
 most hideous disgrace. 
 
 Impelled by my regard for you I have written these words 
 with somewhat more than ordinary seriousness, which, if you 
 put them to the test in the only way that is worthy of your- 
 self, you will find to be the words of truth. 
 
 March 20. 
 
 CXXXI. (AD FAM. X. 27.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO MARCUS AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, 
 GOVERNOR OF EASTERN SPAIN, AND OF THE OLD PROVINCE 
 OF GAUL. 
 
 March 20 (?), 711 A.V.C. (43 B.C.) 
 
 Lepidus, afterwards the triumvir, was now becoming one of the most im- 
 portant persons in the intricate political game. Holding Eastern Spain and 
 Narbonensian Gaul, he was able to keep both Plancus in Transalpine Gaul and 
 Asinius Pollio in Western Spain in check if they attempted to move in favour 
 of the Senate, while his force this year was no less than seven legions, includ- 
 ing the famous Tenth. He was also Pontifex Maximus, and his son had 
 married the daughter of Antonius, whom therefore he was inclined to support. 
 (See Letter cxxix. § 4. ) The Senate, being anxious to conciliate him, had in 
 the previous November voted a public thanksgiving to him for effecting a 
 settlement between Sextus Pompeius and Asinius Pollio (see Introd. to Letter 
 cxxix. ), followed by another vote for an equestrian statue and a triumph on 
 January 4. But Lepidus, instead of expressing gratitude for this, wrote to the 
 
372 LETTERS QF CICERO. PAET v. 
 
 Senate recommending them to make terms with Antonius, which provoked the 
 following letter. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 165 ; Abeken, 452 ; Forsyth, 502. Compare the Thirteenth 
 Philippic, ch. 4-7. 
 
 1 Seeing that through my warm regard for yourself it is to 
 me a matter of great concern that you should receive the very 
 amplest meed of honour, I was much pained that you omitted 
 to express your obligations to the Senate, after being compli- 
 mented by that body with the highest distinctions it can 
 bestow. I am glad that you are eager to draw our fellow- 
 countrymen peacefully together : provided you keep this from 
 being confounded with servile submission, you will be con- 
 sulting the interests of the Republic and of your own high 
 position ; but if this ' peace ' is only to restore an utterly 
 reckless person to the possession of uncontrollable lordship, 
 let me assure you that all sound-minded men are of that 
 
 2 temper which prefers death to slavery. And therefore, in my 
 opinion at any rate, you will be acting more wisely if you 
 decline to mix yourself up with the negotiations you allude to, 
 which have the approval neither of the Senate nor the people, 
 nor indeed of any good citizen at all. But this you will hear 
 from others, or be informed of by letter : with that acute 
 judgment of yours you will see for yourself what is the best 
 thing to be done. 
 
 CXXXII. (AD FAM. X. 8.) 
 
 LETTER ADDRESSED BY LUCIUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO 
 THE SENATE AND PEOPLE OF ROME. 
 
 March, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 See Letter cxxx. The form of address of this letter is peculiar. Plancus 
 styles himself ' Imperator, ' for some unknown success, and Consul-Designate 
 as having been nominated by Caesar with Decimus Brutus for 42 B. c. 
 
 To the Consuls, Praetors and Tribunes ; the Senate, 
 People, and Commons of Rome. 
 
 1 Since it is possible that there may be some one who thinks 
 that I have kept the expectations of the people and the hopes 
 
ep. cxxxn. FROM PLANCUS. (AD FAM. X. 8.) 373 
 
 of the Republic too long in suspense about my personal 
 feelings, I think I ought perhaps to justify myself to this person 
 before I proceed to make any promises about my duty in the 
 future ; because I do not wish it to be thought that I have 
 been making an atonement for remissness in the past, instead 
 of choosing at length the fittest moment to enunciate the 
 conclusions I have arrived at after full consideration, and 
 from most loyal feeling. 
 
 With me it was far from passing unobserved that amid 2 
 such great and general anxiety, and in so perturbed a con- 
 dition of the country, a profession of loyal inclinations was 
 found to reap very substantial fruits, by which method I saw 
 several people secure important distinctions for themselves ; 
 but since chance had thrown me into the difficult position of 
 either making hasty professions, and so placing impediments 
 in my own road to success, or else of securing opportunities 
 for doing good service all the greater for having refrained 
 myself in this respect, I have held it better that the path of 
 our common safety should be made smooth than that of my 
 own individual ambition. For who in such a rank as I now 
 hold, and after such a life as everybody, I may assume, is 
 familiar with in me, and with such hopes as are now all but 
 in my grasp, can possibly either submit to any degradation, 
 or indulge any pernicious desires whatever ? 
 
 But I found considerable time, and great exertion, and 3 
 large expenditure too, to be necessary in order to perform 
 those promises I made to the Republic and to all good 
 citizens, and to come to the help of my country, not naked of 
 means, however loyal in heart, but with resources. I had 
 to encourage my army, which was frequently tempted with 
 magnificent offers, rather to look for moderate rewards from 
 the nation, than the most boundless ones from an individual 
 citizen. I had to encourage numerous states which in the 
 preceding year had been attached by bounties or concessions 
 of advantages, first to regard all these as idle, and then to 
 entertain the idea of suing for the same from donors possessing 
 a better title. I had moreover to draw out the sympathies of 
 the other people in command of the neighbouring provinces 
 and armies, so that we might rather enter into an alliance 
 
374 LETTERS OF CICERO. pabt v. 
 
 of larger numbers to defend our liberty than a coalition of 
 comparatively few to divide a victory deadly to the whole 
 world. 
 
 4 It was necessary however to make ourselves secure. by 
 increasing the army, and adding greatly to the number of 
 auxiliaries, so that whenever we were to give open indications 
 of our feelings it might not then be a perilous revelation, 
 however much against the wishes of certain people, what 
 principles we intended to support Therefore I shall never 
 pretend but that in order to accomplish the due executions 
 of these schemes I counterfeited with reluctance and dissembled 
 with pain; because I saw from what had befallen my colleague 1 
 how dangerous was a premature declaration from a loyal citizen 
 
 5 who was not fully prepared. To this moreover is to be assigned 
 the fact that I entrusted my brave and faithful officer, Gaius 
 Furnius, with fuller instructions also by word of mouth than I 
 put in writing, so that not only might they be conveyed to 
 you with more secrecy, but we ourselves might run less risk ; 
 and I have informed him of the measures which would be 
 expedient in order to strengthen the safety of the Republic, 
 and to put us in a state of defence. From which it can be 
 seen that anxiety to defend the Republic to the utmost has 
 not only recently been on the watch in me. 
 
 6 Now that, with the blessing of Providence, we are in every 
 respect better prepared, we wish that the world should not 
 only hope well of us, but should form its opinion upon in- 
 disputable evidence. I have five legions, all in marching 
 order, and not only bound most closely to the cause of the 
 Republic by their own loyalty and bravery, but, owing to our 
 generosity, devoted to their leader ; a province which, thanks 
 to the unanimity of all its districts, is in the highest state of 
 preparation, and showing all the eagerness of the keenest 
 rivalry in the pursuit of duty ; of cavalry and auxiliary forces 
 as large a number as these nations can ever muster for the 
 defence of their own lives and liberties. As to myself, my 
 resolution is so firmly made that I should not refuse either to 
 protect the interests of the province, or to go where the 
 
 1 Decimus Brutus, now besieged in Mutina ; Introd. to Letter cxxiii. 
 
ep. cxxxm. TO PLANCUS. (AD FAM. X. 10.) 375 
 
 Republic called me, or to hand over to another my army, my 
 auxiliaries, and my province, or to turn the whole shock of 
 the war upon myself, if only by anything that befell me I 
 could either assure the salvation of my country, or even stave 
 off for awhile its peril. 
 
 If I am now making this pledge at a moment when all 7 
 difficulties have been smoothed away, and the state of the 
 country is tranquil, even in thus, losing credit for myself I 
 shall rejoice at the gain to the Republic ; but if I am really 
 stepping forward to share in dangers that are utterly unabated, 
 and of vast magnitude, I commend the policy I have pursued 
 to candid judges to be defended against the detractions of 
 jealousy. Personally indeed I have sufficient reward of my 
 merit laid up in the well-being of the Commonwealth itself; 
 I am bound however, it seems to me, to ask that those who 
 have been led on by my influence and, in a far greater degree, 
 by the pledges you gave, and could neither be beguiled by 
 any hopes nor terrified by any fears, should be considered by 
 you as commended to your good offices. 
 
 CXXXIII. (AD FAM. X. 10.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO LUCIUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS IN 
 TRANSALPINE GAUL. 
 
 March 30, 711 A.V.C. (43 B.C.) 
 
 Although I had received a satisfactory account from our 1 
 friend Furnius as to what your sympathies were, and what your 
 intentions as regards the Republic, yet after the reading of 
 your letter I formed a clearer opinion about your feelings as a 
 whole. And therefore, though the whole fate of the Common- 
 wealth is now staking on a single battle — which indeed by the 
 time you read these lines will, I think, have been decided — 
 yet even on the rumour which got abroad about your intentions 
 you earned yourself a great reputation ; and so if we had had 
 a Consul at Rome, the Senate would, by bestowing high marks 
 of distinction on yourself, have expressed the gratitude we feel 
 for your proposed schemes and your measures of precaution. 
 
376 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet t. 
 
 And indeed the time for this, so far from having gone by, is, 
 in my opinion at any rate, even yet not fully ripe ; for that and 
 that alone always seems to me to be a public distinction which 
 is offered to [and bestowed upon] illustrious men, not in the 
 hope of services to come, but in recognition of some great 
 ! merit. Therefore, if only the Commonwealth survive in some 
 form under which it will be possible for distinction to shine 
 forth, our most distinguished honours, believe me, shall be 
 showered upon you ; and surely that which can truly be called 
 honour is no bait to allure for the moment, but the prize of a 
 noble and consistent career. 
 
 Do you therefore, my dear Plancus, throw yourself heart 
 and soul into the struggle for glory ; come to the assistance 
 of your country, give help to your colleague, join in strength- 
 ening that which is the common sentiment, the miraculous 
 unanimity indeed, of all nations. You shall find in me one 
 to assist your plans, to promote your honours, to be in every 
 respect your most faithful and devoted friend ; for to the 
 reasons which have linked us together, of affection, of kind- 
 nesses, and of habit, our love for our fatherland is added, 
 and this has caused me to regard your life as more precious 
 than my own. March 30. 
 
 CXXXIV. (AD FAM. XII. 6.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS IN SYRIA. 
 April, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 Apparently written just before the battle of Forum Gallorum, for which see 
 the next Letter. Cassius was now raising a strong force in Syria to oppose 
 Dolabella. Compare Letters cxxvii. and cxxxviii. 
 
 1 What the state of our prospects was at the time when I 
 wrote this letter you will have an opportunity of learning from 
 Gaius Titius Strabo, a worthy gentleman, and one who is 
 most well disposed towards the Republic ; what need is there 
 for me to say also of him that he is most eager to see you, 
 when he has left his home and all that he has, making it his 
 first object to come to you ? And therefore in his case I write 
 
ep. cxxxv. FROM SERVIUS GALBA. (AD FAM. X. 30.) 377 
 
 no letter of recommendation to you : his aurival will in itself 
 to you be a satisfactory recommendation. 
 
 What I wish you to think and let yourself be thoroughly 2 
 assured of is, that if — which I hope may not be the case — 
 anything untoward has once befallen us, then the only refuge 
 that good men have to fly to is to be found in yourself and 
 Brutus. At the time of my writing matters have been brought 
 to the final crisis ; for Brutus is now barely able to hold his 
 position at Mutina. When he has been saved, then we have 
 triumphed ; but if — which God forbid ! — that fails, all of us 
 have but one road to run, and that is to you two. In view of 
 which do you arm yourself with all the spirit and all the 
 resources of power which are now required to win back the 
 Republic in its integrity. Farewell. 
 
 CXXXV. (AD FAM. X. 30.) 
 
 FROM SERVIUS SULPICIUS GALBA AT MUTINA TO CICERO 
 AT ROME. 
 
 April 16, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 This letter gives an account of the battle of Forum Gallorum (a hamlet on 
 the Aemilian road between Bologna and Modena, perhaps the place now 
 called Castelfranco), or, as it is sometimes called, the first battle of Mutina. 
 Victory bn the whole declared for the consuls, but the rather indecisive success 
 was more than counterbalanced by the mortal wound received by Pansa, of 
 which he died within a fortnight. The date of the battle is fixed beyond 
 question by this letter to the 15th, though Ovid (Fasti, iv. 625) assigns it to 
 the 14th. On the receipt of the news it was proposed by Servilius to declare 
 the state of siege ended, and to celebrate a public thanksgiving for the victory. 
 On this occasion Cicero delivered his fourteenth and last Philippic, declaring 
 the former part of the proposal premature, but warmly seconding the latter. 
 
 The letter is clear and soldier-like, reminding us, says Mr. Forsyth, of the 
 Duke of Wellington's famous despatch after Waterloo. The author, Servius 
 Sulpicius Galba, was one of the less prominent of Caesar's murderers, and was 
 now in command of the Martian legion. He was great-grandfather of the 
 Emperor Galba. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 171, 172 ; Abeken, 457-459 ; Forsyth, 505-508 ; compare 
 Mr. King's Introd. to the Fourteenth Philippic. 
 
 On the 15th of April, the day on which Pansa was expected 1 
 in the camp of Hirtius (I also was with him, having marched 
 a hundred miles to meet him and thereby hasten his arrival), 
 
378 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 Antonius drew out two of his legions, the Second and the 
 Thirty-fifth, and two cohorts of Guards, one of which was his 
 owrl, while the other belonged to- Silanus, and some of the 
 reserve ; and with this force advanced against tfs^ because he 
 imagined that we had only four legions of raw recruits. But 
 Hirtius, in order that we might reach his quarters more safely, 
 had sent us in the night the Martian legion, of which I myself 
 used generally to take the command, and two cohorts of 
 
 2 Guards. After Antonius's cavalry had once shown themselves 
 it was impossible to keep either the Martian legion or the 
 Guards in check, and we, since we could not keep them in 
 control, began perforce to follow their lead. Antonius was 
 keeping his main body still at Forum Gallorum, and did not 
 want it to be known that he had any legions ; he only showed 
 his cavalry and light squadron. Pansa, seeing that the legion 
 was advancing however he might resist it, then "ordered the 
 two legions of recruits to follow him.| ^.fter we had crossed 
 a .narrow strip between the woods and the marsh we formed in 
 line, twelve cohorts in all — the two legions had not yet come. 
 ^/3 Suddenly Antonius deplcWed his forces from the village, and 
 charged without waiting. At first the fighting was such that 
 it could not possibly on either side have been more desperately 
 contested, although the right wing, where I was with eight 
 cohorts' of the Martian legion, had in the very first onset routed 
 Antonius's Thirty-fifth, so that it was some [five hundred] yards 
 in advance of the line [and the spot where it had originally 
 been drawn up]. Consequently, on the cavalry making an 
 attempt to surround our wing, I began to draw back and 
 throw the light-armed troops forward as a shield against the 
 Moorish cavalry, lest they should attack our men in the rear. 
 Meanwhile I find that I am entirely surrounded by troops of 
 Antonius, and that Antonius himself is some little distance 
 behind me. Throwing my shield over my shoulder, I suddenly 
 spurred my horse towards one of the legions of recruits, which 
 was advancing from the camp. On come the Antonians in 
 pursuit ; our men are just about to hurl their javelins ; so it 
 must have been fate that somehow preserved me, because I 
 was quickly recognised by our friends. 
 
 * On the Aemilian road itself, where was the cohort of 
 
ep. cxxxvi. FROM DECIMUS BRUTUS. {AD FAM. XI. 9.) 379 
 
 Caesar's Guards, the struggle was long. The wing to the left, 
 which was comparatively weak, — there were two cohorts of the 
 Martian legion and a cohort of Guards in it — began to give 
 ground, because they were being surrounded by the cavalry, 
 in which perhaps the chief strength of Antonius lies. After 
 all our lines had effected a retreat I myself began retiring last 
 of all towards the camp. Antonius, who regarded himself as 
 the victor, thought that he could take our camp; when he 
 arrived there he lost many of his men at the place, and yet 
 had no success. Hirtius on hearing of what had occurred took 
 twenty cohorts of veterans, and met Antonius as he was return- 
 ing to his own quarters ; and cutting all his forces to pieces 
 routed them on the same spot where the battle had been 
 fought, at Forum Gallorum. Antonius about ten that night 5 
 fell back upon his camp near Mutina ; Hirtius returned to the 
 camp which had been Pansa*s~quarters, where he had left the 
 two legions which had been beleaguered by Antonius. Thus 
 Antonius has lost the greatest portion of his veteran troops ; 
 that however could not be without some sacrifice of our own 
 cohorts of the Guards and of the Martian legion. We have 
 carried off from Antonius two legionary eagles and sixty 
 standards. The result is in our favour. 
 
 The Camp, April 16. 
 
 CXXXVI. (AD FAM. XI. 9.) 
 
 FROM DECIMUS BRUTUS AT REGIUM LEPIDI TO CICERO 
 AT ROME. 
 
 April 29, 711 A.V.C. (43 B.C.) 
 
 On the 27th Hirtius at last succeeded in forcing a second engagement with 
 Antonius, just outside the walls of Mutina. The battle closely resembled the 
 previous one : victory on the whole declared, but not decidedly, against 
 Antonius, while on the other hand Hirtius this time was killed on the field. 
 The next day Pansa also died of his wounds, and the Republic was left 
 nominally as well as really without a head. Antonius now raised the siege of 
 Mutina, and proceeded to cross the Alps in order to join Lepidus. At Vada 
 (Vado, near Savona) he was joined by his most trusted officer, Publius Ven- 
 tidius Bassus, with three legions ; and he drafted in fresh recruits from the 
 slave-gangs at places on his route. Decimus Brutus claimed the supreme 
 authority in the province as its Proconsul, but to this neither Octavianus nor 
 
380 LETTERS OF CICERO. paet v. 
 
 his soldiers would submit. Octavianus therefore was left at , Mutina, while 
 Decimus Brutus marched towards the Alps in order, if possible, to intercept 
 Antonius. The first of these two letters is dated from Regiinri Lepidi, now 
 Reggio, between Parma and Modena ; the second from Dertona, now.Tortona, 
 about a hundred miles more to the west.. , 
 
 Merivale, iii. 173-181 ; Abeken, 457-462 ; Forsyth, 514-520. 
 
 1 It does not escape you what a blow the Republic has 
 suffered in the loss of Pansa : it is now to be expected of your 
 great influence and foresight that you will take precautions 
 against letting our opponents hope that the consuls being 
 gone they may recover their strength. I myself will use every 
 exertion to prevent Antonius from the possibility of making a 
 stand in Italy ; I shall pursue him forthwith : both these points 
 I hope I shall be able to make certain of — that neither shall 
 Ventidius give us the slip, nor Antonius stop long in Italy. 
 
 Above all I beg that you will send a despatch to Lepidus 
 in order to prevent such a weathercock 1 as he is from having 
 a chance of effecting a junction with Antonius and renewing 
 the war; for as to Asinius Pollio I have no doubt you see 
 plainly what he is proposing to do. The legions of Lepidus 
 and Asinius are both numerous and good, and may be relied 
 
 2 on. And my reason for writing this to you now is not at all 
 as if I knew that you had no perception of the same facts as 
 myself, but because I am thoroughly persuaded about Lepidus 
 — if you by any chance have any doubt on the point — that 
 he will never act in a straightforward way. I entreat you to 
 confirm Plancus also in his resolution, who will not, I hope, 
 after Antonius has been defeated, fail the Republic. Should 
 Antonius succeed in getting himself across the Alps, I propose 
 to station a garrison here, and send you notice of all my 
 movements. 
 
 The Camp, Regium, April 29. 
 
 1 Compare Introd. to Letter cxliv. 
 
ep. cxxxvn. FROM DECIMUS BRUTUS. (AD FAM. XI. 10.) 381 
 
 CXXXVII. (AD FAM. XL 10.) 
 
 FROM DECIMUS BRUTUS AT DERTONA TO CICERO AT ROME. 
 Mays, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 It is my opinion that the Republic does not owe me a 1 
 heavier debt than I do to you. You already have convincing 
 evidence that I can be more grateful towards you than those 
 cross-grained people, as you say, are to me ; or even if it 
 should appear that these remarks of theirs are only made to 
 suit the times, that I should still prefer your judgment to that 
 of the whole pack of them put into the other scale. For you 
 always frame your judgment about me from an honest and 
 straightforward feeling which such people as those are hindered 
 from doing by their extraordinary spitefulness and jaundiced 
 minds. Let them interpose to prevent the recognition of my 
 merits, provided they do not interpose to prevent the fitting 
 performance of the charge I, have from the Republic ; the very 
 dangerous situation of which I will now proceed to explain as 
 briefly as I can. 
 
 First of all, you are not unaware what a general confusion % 
 of everything in the city is following on the death of the two 
 Consuls, and what a lust of office such a vacancy is forcing 
 upon the minds of some people. (I have, I think, here written 
 as much as can well be entrusted to a letter ; because I know 
 to whom I am writing.) 
 
 I return now to Antonius, who, though immediately after 3 
 his rout he had only a mere handful of unarmed foot-soldiers, 
 has now, it seems, got together a tolerably numerous multitude 
 by setting loose the slave-gangs and eagerly snapping up every 
 species of human being. To this has been added the force 
 of Ventidius, which after making an extremely difficult passage 
 over the Apennines has reached Vada, and effected a junction 
 with Antonius. With Ventidius there is a rather considerable 
 number of veterans and armed soldiers. 
 
 Antonius's plans must necessarily be as follows : he must 4 
 either betake himself to Lepidus (if he is welcome there) ; 
 or keep himself in the Alpine and Apennine district, and by 
 
382 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt v. 
 
 making descents with his cavalry — of which he has a large 
 force — ravage the parts exposed to his descents ; or draw off 
 again into Etruria, because that part of Italy is without an 
 army. But if Caesar had been willing to listen to me and 
 to cross the Alps, I would have driven Antonius into such 
 a corner as to make an end of him, more by starvation than 
 by the sword. But Caesar is no more able to submit to 
 orders from others than his army is from Caesar himself : both 
 of which are very bad things. 
 
 Things then being as they are, I make no objection, as I 
 said before, to the interference of people so far as it concerns 
 myself personally; but how my present difficulties can be 
 solved, or whether, when you are about to solve them, there 
 will be hindrances put in the way — this I regard with alarm, 
 e I am now unable to keep my soldiers. When I came forward 
 to free the Republic I had upwards of .^SOjOoo. 1 So far is 
 any portion whatever of my estate from being left unencum- 
 bered, that I have, had now to borrow on the credit of all my 
 friends. At the present time I am providing for the keep. 
 of no less than seven legions, with what difficulty you may 
 imagine. It would be impossible, even if I had all Varro's 
 wealth, 2 to bear up against the burden of my expenses. 
 
 As soon as ever I have ascertained on good evidence about 
 Antonius I will see that you are informed. I will not ask you 
 to give me your affection except on the condition that you 
 have felt it to be reciprocated. 
 
 The Camp, Dertona, May 5. 
 
 1 The reading cccc would ordinarily mean quadringentos or 400,000 
 sesterces = about ^3500, the qualification for equestrian rank ; but as this 
 would be far below the probable wealth of Brutus, and as he is evidently speak- 
 ing of a large sum, Mr. Watson now admits that it must here stand for 
 quadringentiens, which is a hundred times that sum, or about £%$o, 000; 
 
 2 Varro, the great scholar, though in easy circumstances, was not remark- 
 able for his wealth, and it is difficult to account for the selection of his name. 
 One of his essays is said to have been ' On Riches,' and, as Corradus suggests, 
 it may refer to his instances of famous treasures. 
 
bp. cxxxviii. FROM CASSIUS. (AD FAM. XII. 12.) 383 
 
 CXXXVIII. (AD FAM. XII. 12.) 
 
 FROM GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS IN SYRIA TO CICERO AT ROME. 
 May 7, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 Upon the murder of Trebonius (Letter cxxvii. ) Cassius proceeded to raise 
 forces against Dolabella, and was soon at the head of a powerful army. The 
 conduct of the war was nevertheless not at first entrusted to him, but to the 
 Consuls ; but after the battle of Mutina the Senate was almost forced to give 
 him the authority he had already assumed ; and Cassius then besieged 
 Laodicea, where Dolabella was. See Letter cxlvii. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 165 ; Abeken, 451. Compare Mr. King's Introd. to the 
 Eleventh Philippic, which was delivered in support of the claims of Cassius. 
 
 I trust this letter will find you, as I am myself, in good 1 
 health. 1 I have been reading your letter in which I find new 
 proof of your amazing kindness towards me; for it seemed 
 that you were not only my well-wisher, — that you have ever 
 been for the sake of the Republic as much as of myself, — but 
 even to have undertaken a serious burden on my behalf, and 
 to have been intensely anxious about me. And therefore 
 because I imagined that in the first place you would think I 
 could not possibly rest in peace so long as the Republic was 
 trodden under foot, and because in the second place you could 
 not but suspect that I was really making a move — for I could 
 imagine your anxiety both about my safety and about the 
 success of my attempt — so soon as the legions which Aulus 
 Allienus had brought up from Egypt were handed over to me 
 I wrote to you, and sent numerous couriers to Rome. I also 
 wrote a letter to the Senate which I gave instructions not to 
 deliver until it had first been read to you — if indeed my people 
 were willing to regard my requests. If however the letter 
 never reached its destination, I make no doubt but that 
 Dolabella, who since his murder of Trebonius has seized Asia 
 in this villainous way, has caught my messengers and intercepted 
 their despatches. 
 
 I hold all the troops that were in Syria. I had to submit 2 
 to a little delay, while effecting the fulfilment of the promises 
 I made to the soldiers. Now at last my hands are untied. 
 
 1 See Letter iii. note 1. 
 
384 LETTERS OF CICERO.. part v. 
 
 I beg of you that you will consider the assertion of my 
 claims to honour as entrusted to your charge, if you perceive 
 that I have never refused my country any sacrifice of personal 
 ease or security; if at your exhortation and on your authority 
 I have taken up arms against these most outrageous brigands ; 
 if I have not only raised whole armies to defend the Republic 
 and our liberties, but have even snatched' them from ' the 
 cruellest of tyrants : men who if Dolabella had been the first 
 to secure them would not only after their actual arrival, but 
 even when this was only rumoured or expected, have greatly 
 s strengthened the hands of Antonius. For these reasons give 
 your patronage to my soldiers if you see that they have 
 deserved unusually well of the Republic, and let it be seen 
 that no one need regret his obedience to the call of his country 
 rather than , to any temptation of plunder and rapine. Give 
 your countenance also, as far as ' lies in your power, to ' the 
 recognition of the merits of my generals, Murcus and Crispus ; 
 for as to that wretch Bassus 1 he was — characteristically — 
 unwilling to transfer his legion to my authority; so that had 
 not his own soldiers against his wishes sent to treat with me 
 he would have kept the gates of Apamea shut till I had stormed 
 it. These petitions I ask of you not only in the name of the 
 Republic, which to you has always been most dear, but also 
 of the friendship between us, , which , is, I trust, with you a 
 
 4 powerful appeal. This army which I possess belongs, believe 
 me, to the Senate, to every truly good citizen, and most 
 of all to you, of whose sympathies they are so continually 
 hearing, that they have a marvellous esteem for you, and hold 
 your name dear; let them but perceive that their interests 
 are your care, and they will believe that they too now owe 
 everything to you. 
 
 5 P.S. — Since writing this letter I have heard that: Dolabella 
 
 1 Compare Letter ciii. 1. Quintus Caecilius Bassus intrigued' against Sexttis 
 Iulius Caesar, Governor of Syria, whose troops, having murdered him, revolted 
 to Bassus. Quintus Marcius Crispus, Governor of Bithyhia, ( and Lucius 
 Statius Murcus .were then ordered against Bassus, and besieged him in Apamea, 
 one of the strongest towns of Syria. ' On the arrival of Cassius, Murcus and 
 Crispus submitted to his authority, and the troops of Bassus Compelled him 
 reluctantly to do the same. Cassius, in contempt it would seem, from the ex- 
 pressions he uses here, dismissed him unhurt. Merivale, iii. 219. 
 
bp. cxxxix. FROM PLANCUS. (AD FAM. X. n.) 385 
 
 is arrived with his forces in Cilicia : for Cilicia I shall start. 
 I will take all pains to let you know speedily any success I 
 have had ; and may the good fortune of each of us be accord- 
 ing as we deserve of the Republic ! Forget neither your own 
 health nor your affection for me. 
 
 The Camp, May 5. 
 
 CXXXIX. (AD FAM. X. 11.) 
 
 FROM LUCIUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS AT CULARO TO 
 CICERO AT ROME. 
 
 Early in May, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 Plancus, having been summoned by the Senate to Italy, moved southwards 
 in April, crossed the Rhone, probably about Vienne, and was on the march to 
 Italy when he heard of the death of the two consuls at Mutina and the libera- 
 tion of Decimus Brutus from siege. Hereupon he halted at Cularo on the 
 Isara, over which he threw a bridge, and waited to watch the turn of events. 
 See Letters cxlvi. and cxlviii. The camp of Cularo, and perhaps the original 
 town, seems to have been on the right bank of the Isere, near the modern 
 suburb of St. Laurent, opposite to Grenoble, and at the foot of its huge Bastille. 
 The later town of Cularo was, like Grenoble (Gratianopolis), on the left bank. 
 
 Merivale, Hi. 181 ; Abeken, 462 ; Forsyth, 522. 
 
 My undying thanks to you I give and shall give so long as 1 
 life remains ; as to repayment I cannot affirm : because to 
 such services as yours it seems impossible for me to make any 
 equal return, unless perchance you, as you have promised in 
 such strong and eloquent words, will feel that I shall be truly 
 showing my gratitude whenever hereafter I am keeping you in 
 memory. Had the question been about an honour to your 
 own son, you certainly could not have acted more affectionately 
 in anything. Your original proposal, with its lavish rewards — 
 your later one adapted to the circumstances of the time and 
 the preference of my friends — your persistent and unfailing 
 eloquence on my behalf — your passages of arms with my 
 detractors in defence of me — all these are fully known to me. 
 It is no common care I shall have to bestow in order to show 
 myself worthy as a Roman citizen of your praises, and neither 
 forgetful nor ungrateful to you as a friend. For what is yet 
 to come I ask you but to play the part you have made your 
 
 2 c 
 
LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 own, and if but time and my actions shall show you that I am 
 such as you desired to see me, to be my protector and patron. 
 
 2 After I had crossed the Rhone with my army, and sent 
 my brother on in advance with 3000 horse, I was myself 
 marching on Mutina when I heard on the road of the battle 
 which had taken place, and of Brutus and Mutina being now 
 free from blockade. I perceived that Antonius and such 
 remnants of his force as are still with him have now no place 
 to betake themselves to except in these parts ; and that there 
 are only two hopes before him, one in Lepidus's personal 
 disposition, the other in his army's. Seeing that a certain 
 section of that army is not a whit less lawless than the men 
 who were with Antonius I have recalled my cavalry : I myself 
 have made a halt amongst the Allobroges, so as to be ready 
 for everything just as circumstances might seem to dictate. If 
 Antonius in his exposed condition betakes himself hither I 
 can easily, it seems to me, hold up against him as I am, and 
 represent the Republic entirely to your satisfaction, however 
 he may be received by the army of Lepidus : if however he is 
 going to bring something of a force with him, and if it shall 
 appear that the tenth legion of veterans (which thanks to my 
 exertions has been called back again to us with the rest) has 
 returned once more to its old rebelliousness, I shall none the 
 less 'use every exertion to see that we come to no harm;' 1 
 and this I hope I shall be able to put to the proof, if troops 
 can be sent across here from you, effect a junction with us, and 
 
 3 so crush those abandoned wretches more easily. To this 
 much, my dear Cicero, I pledge myself, that on my part 
 neither spirit nor vigilance shall be wanting. My desire, I 
 give you my word, is to see not a single anxiety still remaining ; 
 but if it is there, I will not in your cause yield in zeal, or 
 affection, or endurance to any man. I am indeed using every 
 exertion to spur Lepidus too into participation in this enter- 
 prise, and promise unlimited deference to his wishes, if only 
 he will be willing to have some regard for the interests of the 
 Commonwealth. In this matter I am availing myself of the 
 
 1 I put this phrase in inverted commas because it is clearly an intentional 
 allusion to the celebrated formula by which the Senate in times of danger 
 conferred extraordinary powers upon magistrates. — See Letter lxxi., note 13. 
 
bp. cxl. FROM PLANCUS. {AD FAM. X. 15.) 387 
 
 assistance of my brother, together with Laterensis and our 
 friend Furnius, to negotiate between us. No sense of injury 
 done to myself shall hinder me from working in harmony even 
 with my bitterest enemy for the preservation of the Republic ; 
 but if I find that I have made no advance, yet even so my 
 spirit is none the less ardent, and perhaps with even more 
 credit to myself I shall yet fulfil your expectations of me. 
 
 Take care of your health, and preserve a regard for me 
 which is fully reciprocated. 
 
 CXL. (AD FAM. X. 15.) 
 
 FROM LUCIUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS AT CULARO TO CICERO 
 AT ROME. 
 
 About May 12, 711 A.v.C. (43 B.C.) 
 
 (Apparently a postscript sent with, the preceding letter.') 
 
 Since my letter some circumstances have occurred which it 1 
 concerned the Republic, as it seemed to me, that you should 
 be made aware of. My assiduity, I have reason to hope, has 
 produced good fruits both for myself and for the Common- 
 wealth. The fact is that I have without intermission teen 
 negotiating through various people with Lepidus, to induce 
 him to lay aside all feeling of jealousy, and renewing the good- 
 will that there used to be between us to concert harmonious 
 measures for the succour of the Republic ; to value himself, 
 his children, and our city more than a single lost and out- 
 cast brigand ; and, on condition of so doing, command my 
 deference to his wishes for any object he pleased. I have 2 
 gained my point ; and accordingly he has pledged himself to 
 me through Laterensis, who was acting on my behalf, that 
 supposing him to have failed in keeping Antonius out of his 
 province he will wage incessant war with him. He has asked 
 me to come and join my forces with his ; with all the more 
 reason because not only was Antonius said to be strong in 
 the cavalry arm, but such horse as Lepidus had did not even 
 attain to mediocrity ; for actually out of his scanty force ten — 
 
388 LETTERS OF CICERO. PART T. 
 
 and they were of his best — not many days before came over 
 to me. When I had ascertained all this I made no delay : I 
 thought Lepidus was a man to be helped on in the way of 
 
 s good counsels. I saw what my arrival was sure to bring 
 about : that either I might pursue Antonius and crush his 
 cavalry with my own, or the presence of my army might 
 correct and hold in check such part of the army of Lepidus 
 as had been tainted and made disloyal to the Republic. And 
 therefore after throwing a bridge in one day over the Isara, a 
 very large river which is on the border of the territory of the 
 Allobroges, I have now — the 12 th of May — taken my army 
 across. Having however been advised that Lucius Antonius 
 had been sent on in advance with some cavalry and cohorts, 
 and had arrived at Forum Iuli, 1 I sent on the nth 2 my 
 brother with 4000 horse to meet him : I myself intend to 
 follow by forced marches with four light-armed legions and 
 
 4 the remainder of the cavalry. If only we find that the star 
 of the Republic has been even moderately favourable to us 
 we shall here at last discover the limits both of the audacity 
 of these abandoned villains and of our own anxieties, If that 
 brigand however, knowing of our arrival beforehand, begins to 
 draw back again towards Italy, it will then be the duty of 
 Brutus, who will not, I well know, be wanting either in 
 courage or in skill, to meet him ; nevertheless, if that has 
 turned out to be the case, I shall myself send my brother with 
 the cavalry to follow him, as a protection to Italy against his 
 ravages. 
 
 Take care of your health, and preserve a regard for me 
 which is fully reciprocated. 
 
 1 Now Frejus, on the Riviera, about twenty miles west of Cannes. Mr. 
 Forsyth (p. 522), with even more than his usual ill-fortune in names, says that 
 Forum Iuli is now called Friaul. The most probable explanation of this 
 blunder is that he has confused it with the other Forum Iuli in Venetia, which 
 gives its name to the district of Friuli. The form should be Ittli, not Iulii; 
 the genitive in ii only came in with the elegiac poets of the Augustan period. 
 
 2 Wesenberg asserts that this contradicts the preceding sentence, and 
 would alter v (the nth) to iii (the 13th). But Plancus does not say the bridge 
 was made the day before the 12th ; he says it was made in one day, and that 
 he crossed on the 12th, his brother having preceded on the nth. 
 
ep. cxr.i. FROM LEPIDUS. {AD ATT. X. 34.) 389 
 
 CXLI. (AD ATT. X. 34. §§ 1, 2.) 
 
 FROM MARCUS AEMILIUS LEPIDUS AT THE BRIDGE OF THE 
 ARGENTEUS TO CICERO AT ROME. 
 
 About May 20, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 Upon the advance of Antonius into Gaul, Lepidus moved southwards, and 
 took up his position near Forum Voconi, perhaps at a place now called Vidauban, 
 where was a bridge over the river Argenteus (Argens), about twenty miles from 
 its mouth at Forum Iuli (Frejus). On the other side of the river was the camp 
 of Antonius, and secret negotiations at the date of this letter were being ex- 
 changed between the generals. See Letter cxliv. , which is an apology for his 
 treachery to the Senate. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 181 ; Abeken, 463 ; Forsyth, 520-522. 
 
 I trust this letter will find you, as it leaves me, in good 1 
 health. Hearing that Antonius had sent his brother Lucius 
 on before him with a portion of his cavalry, and was marching 
 with his troops upon my province, I moved my camp from 
 the place where the river 1 falls into the Rhone, and advanced 
 forthwith with my army to meet them. And so by forced 
 marches I have arrived at Forum Voconi, and am now encamped 
 beyond the town on the bank of the river Argenteus, opposite 
 to the army of Antonius. He has now been joined by Publius 
 Ventidius with three legions, whose camp lies on the other 
 side of mine ; previously to this he had the Fifth legion, and 
 a very considerable number of men remaining out of the 
 others, but insufficiently equipped. His cavalry force is large, 
 because they all came out of the action unhurt, so that they 
 number over 5000 horse. A good many both of foot and 
 horse have been deserting from him to me, and day by day 
 his forces are dwindling. Silanus and Culleo have both 
 abandoned him. Serious however as the provocation was 2 
 which I had received from them, because they had joined 
 Antonius against my express wishes, still for the sake of my 
 character for clemency and our former relations I have allowed 
 
 1 Several commentators explain this of the confluence of the Rhone and the 
 Arar (Sadne) at Lyon. But Lugdunum was in the province of Plancus, not 
 of Lepidus. The river is no doubt the Druentia (Durance), which joins the 
 Rhone at Avignon. 
 
390 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt v. 
 
 them their lives ; but nevertheless I do not make use of their 
 services or allow them to be in my army, nor have I appointed 
 them to any responsible post. And in all that concerns the 
 present war I shall not fail the Senate and the Commonwealth. 
 What further measures I may have taken you shall hereafter 
 be informed of. 
 
 CXLII. (AD FAM. X. 13.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO LUCIUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS 
 AT CULAR0. 
 
 May, 711 A.V.C. (43 B.C.) 
 See Introd. to Letters cxxxix. and cxlvi. 
 
 1 So soon as ever the opportunity was given me of still 
 further promoting your distinctions I omitted nothing in glori- 
 fication of you, so far as that consisted in either a substantial 
 reward of your merits, or an honorary recognition of them. 
 This you will be able to perceive from the very form in which 
 the Senate passed the decree, it having been finally drawn up 
 from my dictation in the way I suggested when I expressed 
 my opinion, to which a crowded house assented with intense 
 
 2 enthusiasm and great unanimity. Although from the letter 
 you wrote it had been made sufficiently clear to me that you 
 found more pleasure in the deliberate approval of good men 
 than in the externals of glory, I myself nevertheless held that 
 we were bound to take into account, even were you to make 
 no claim at all, how much the Republic owed to you. You 
 will not fail to let your later work be all of a piece with its 
 beginning : for whoever shall have succeeded in getting rid of 
 Marcus Antonius, he it is that will have ended the war ; and 
 thus we find that it is not Achilles nor Ajax but Ulysses that 
 Homer has called ' him that taketh a city.' 1 
 
 1 The epithet Trro\Lirop8os is applied in Homer to all the great chieftains, 
 but it is curious that irTo\tir6p6tos (the better reading here) is used only of 
 Odysseus (Od. ix. 504, 534). It may be a hint to Plancus to strike at 
 Antonius rather with the craft of Ulysses than the open warfare of Achilles. 
 Mr. Watson, however, thinks it is only because Odysseus survived the war, 
 while Aias and Achilles fell. 
 
up. cxliii. FROM DEC1MUS BRUTUS. {AD FAM. XI. 23.) 391 
 CXLIII. (AD FAM. XI. 23.) 
 
 FROM DECIMUS BRUTUS AT EPOREDIA TO CICERO AT ROME. 
 
 May 25, 711 a.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 On the preceding day Decimus Brutus wrote a letter to Cicero (Ad Fam. xi. 
 20) saying that he had reason, from a conversation with one Segulius Labeo, 
 to fear that both Octavianus and the veterans were seriously incensed against 
 Cicero. This letter is apparently written principally to deprecate any undue 
 alarm at what he had said. The fact nevertheless was probably true. 
 
 Decimus Brutus was still marching about in North Italy, and hesitating to 
 cross the Alps. The letter is dated from Eporedia, now Ivrea, 1 at the entrance 
 of the Val d'Aosta, a town which commands the passes of the Great and Little 
 St. Bernard. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 182 ; Abeken, 462 ; Forsyth, 527. 
 
 All is going on well with us here and shall go still better, 1 
 if my exertions can secure it. Lepidus seems to be disposed 
 to a friendly agreement with us. We are bound to put away 
 suspicion entirely, and frankly consult for the good of the 
 Commonwealth. Even if everything were far less in our 
 favour, still with three armies of such size and strength 
 entirely at the service of the Republic, there was good reason 
 for you still to exhibit the fortitude you always have possessed, 
 and can even make greater now that Fortune is declaring 
 herself on our side. 
 
 That which I mentioned in my own handwriting in my 2 
 last letter is a report of people to intimidate you. Do you 
 only begin to champ the bit, and then may I die if I think 
 that the whole lot of them, however many they are, will be 
 able to look at you if you but open your mouth to speak. I 
 myself propose, as I mentioned to you before, to stay in Italy 
 until I get a letter from you. 
 
 Eporedia, May 25. 
 
 1 Mr. Forsyth of course is wrong with ' Jurea ' ; but perhaps like Abeken's 
 ' Torea,' this is for once only a misprint. 
 
392 LETTERS OF CICERO: 
 
 CXLIV., (AD FAM. X. 35.) 
 
 LETTER ADDRESSED BY MARCUS AEMILIUS LEPIDUS TO THE 
 SENATE AND PEOPLE OF ROME. 
 
 May 30, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 On the 29th of May, only a week after the letter to Cicero (No. cxli.) con- 
 veying assurances of his unalterable devotion to the Senate, Lepidus joined his 
 army to that of Antonius, thus giving a fatal blow to the hopes of Cicero and 
 the Senatorial party. According to his own representation in this manifesto, 
 and the account given in Plutarch's life of Antonius, he was unwillingly coerced 
 by his soldiers ; but though Lepidus may well have wished to present an 
 appearance of acting under compulsion, his defection had probably been pre- 
 concerted, and was rewarded by a place in the Second Triumvirate. Marcus 
 Iuventius Laterensis, 1 his second in command, attempted suicide on the dis- 
 covery of the treason, and died soon after df his wound (Letter cxlvi. ) On the 
 30th of June the Senate voted Lepidus a public enemy, and ordered his statue 
 to be thrown down, but these decrees they were afterwards compelled to cancel. 
 
 The character of Lepidus is generally painted in very black colours. In 
 Julius Caesar, act iv. scene 1, Antony describes him as 'a slight unmeritable 
 man, meet to be sent on errands . . . either led or driven as we point the way ; ' 
 and his rise to be one of the three lords of the world was certainly due mainly 
 to the power given him by his enormous wealth ; but it is justly remarked in 
 the Dictionary of Biography that the respect with which he was treated by 
 Caesar is probable evidence that he possessed greater talents than he ever 
 exerted. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 181 ; Abeken, 462 ; Forsyth, 523. Compare Diet. Biogr. 
 ii. 76S. 
 
 MARCUS LEPIDUS, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF AND PONTIFEX 
 
 MAXIMUS, TO THE SENATE, THE PEOPLE, AND 
 
 THE COMMONS OF ROME. 
 
 I trust that all is well with you and, yours', as it is with me. 
 
 I call heaven and earth to witness, Conscript Fathers, on 
 which side my sympathies and convictions with reference 
 to the Republic have ever been ; and how I have held to the 
 opinion that no consideration whatever comes before the safety 
 and freedom of the Commonwealth. And of this I should 
 shortly have given you proof, had not chance snatched out of 
 my hands my freedom of acting as I had intended; for 
 my army having unanimously rebelled against my authority 
 
 1 Mr. Forsyth (p. 523) here surpasses himself, not being able to get nearer 
 the right name than Laterculus. 
 
ep. cxlv. FROM DECIMUS BRUTUS. (AD FAM. XI. 13.) 
 
 393 
 
 and preserved its tradition of sparing fellow-citizens, and living 
 in peace with them all, has forced me — to confess the truth — 
 to constitute myself the protector of the lives and fortunes of 
 so vast a multitude of Roman citizens. 
 
 Now in these circumstances, Conscript Fathers, I implore 2 
 and entreat you to think no more of private resentment, but 
 consult only for the highest welfare of the State, not imputing 
 it to traitorous purposes if I and my army have shown humanity 
 in the midst of civil dissensions; whereas when you have 
 allowed regard for the safety and the honourable position of us 
 all to enter into your calculations, the counsels you take will then 
 be wiser both for yourselves and for the Commonwealth. 
 
 Pons Argenteus, May 3c. 
 
 CXLV. (AD FAM. XI. 13.) 
 
 FROM DECIMUS BRUTUS ON THE MARCH TO GAUL TO CICERO 
 AT ROME. 
 
 May or June, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 The first portion of this letter is apparently an answer to some expressions 
 of discontent at Rome that Decimus Brutus had not pursued Antonius sooner ; 
 the latter part is written to encourage the Senate owing to the good under- 
 standing he had established with Plancus. Decimus Brutus left Italy only 
 when it was too late to prevent the defection of Lepidus, and crossing by the 
 Graian Alps (Little St. Bernard) about the 9th of June united his army, con- 
 sisting of ten legions, mostly however raw recruits, with thjt of Plancus at 
 Cularo (Grenoble). * 
 
 The descriptions which Brutus gives of the state of his army in f S 2 and 4 
 of this letter seem hardly consistent with one another. Mr. WatsonSuspects 
 that two fragments of letters written at different times have been combined, 
 probably at the place which is marked by asterisks, § 4. In his opinion the 
 former part of the letter was written between May 11-25, at some place onMhe 
 march from Pollentia to Eporedia, the latter part about June 7 or 8 from some 
 camp on the Upper Isara, perhaps near Darentasia (Moutiers). This view 
 seems to reconcile the difficulties. 
 
 See Mr. Watson's Paper in Journal of Philology, No. 16 ; Menvale, 111. 
 182 ; Abeken, 462. 
 
 No more formal acknowledgments of gratitude to you 1 
 now: one to whom acts can scarcely make an adequate 
 return cannot from the very nature of the case be satisfactorily 
 
394 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt v. 
 
 repaid with words. I want you to give your close attention 
 to this which is now come upon my hands, because your 
 judgment is too keen for any point to be likely to escape you, 
 when once you have carefully read my letter. ' 
 
 The reasons, my dear Cicero, why I could not immediately 
 pursue Antonius were these : I was without cavalry, without 
 baggage-waggons ; I was not aware that Hirtius had fallen ; I 
 was not inclined to trust to Caesar, before I had met and con- 
 
 2 suited with him. So it was that this day passed. On the 
 next day early I was summoned by Pansa to Bononia : while 
 marching thither I received the news that he was dead. I 
 hurried back to my little corps, for so I may truly call it, it is 
 so terribly thinned down and fallen on evil days from want of 
 all the necessary supplies. Antonius had two days' start of 
 me, making far longer marches in his flight than I in pursuit 
 of him, because he moved straggling everywhere, I in 
 regular order. In whatever direction he went he loosed the 
 slave-gangs, snapped up men, and stopped nowhere till he 
 got to Vada, 1 a place I wish you knew the character of: it 
 lies between the Alps and the Apennines, and is full of 
 
 3 obstacles to the movements of an army. When I was within 
 thirty miles of him and after he had been joined by Ventidius 
 a speech of his to the soldiers was reported to me, in which 
 he began to ask them to follow him across the Alps : he had 
 he said a private understanding with Lepidus. There were 
 cries in answer pretty generally among the soldiers of Ventidius 
 — for as to his own they are but the merest handful — that 
 they would, irther conquer or die on the soil of Italy, and 
 they begjtfii to petition for a march on Pollentia. 2 Not being , 
 able ta hold out against them, he put off his march till the 
 
 4 following day. On receiving this intelligence I immediately 
 sent on five cohorts in advance to Pollentia, and directed my 
 orin march thither. My advanced guard reached Pollentia 
 ah hour before Trebellius and his cavalry. * * * I was 
 immensely delighted of course, for on this, in my opinion, 
 
 1 Vado, near Savona. 
 
 2 Now Pollenzo, near Bra, between Turin and Savona. A great battle 
 occurred here in 403 A.D. between Alaric and Stilicho ; Gibbon, ch. 3a The 
 name is wrongly given in Diet Geogr. as Polenza. 
 
ep. cxlvi. FROM PLANCUS. (AD FAM. X. 23.) 395 
 
 victory depends. * * * They had now come to a hopeful 
 state, because they neither thought the four legions of Plancus 
 any match for their forces when all united, nor believed it 
 possible for troops to be brought over from Italy so rapidly. 
 These are the men whose attacks even my Gallic troops and 
 all the cavalry force I had sent on in advance were repelling 
 with tolerable coolness, and now that I am come we are 
 confident they can be repelled even more easily. Neverthe- 
 less if by any chance they should really have succeeded in 
 getting themselves across the Isara my utmost efforts shall be 
 devoted to seeing that they saddle no ill burden upon the 
 Republic. You and others we would fain have courageous in 5 
 heart and high in hope in this great crisis, since you see that 
 both of us generals and both of our armies too are joined in 
 exceptional harmony to meet every risk for your sake. But 
 nevertheless you are equally bound not to relax your vigilance 
 at all, and to exert yourselves so that we may be perfectly 
 prepared, not only in respect of troops but in all other re- 
 quisites, to do battle for your safety against this infamous 
 conspiracy of our foes ; who have actually been suddenly 
 turning the very forces which for a long time they were 
 .; fraudulently collecting in the name of the Republic to imperil 
 the country that gave them birth. 
 
 CXLVI. (AD FAM. X. 23.) 
 
 FROM LUCIUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS AT CULARO TO 
 CICERO AT ROME. 
 
 June 6, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 Plancus crossed the Isara on the 24th of May, and marghed southwards in 
 the belief that his forces were to be united with Lepidus against Antonius, but 
 on hearing of the defection of Lepidus he recrossed the Isara on June 4, and 
 awaited the arrival of Decimus Brutus, who was expected to join him shortly. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 182 ; Abeken, 462 ; Forsyth, 523, 524, 
 
 Never, my dear Cicero, I pledge you my word, shall iti 
 repent me of enduring the most terrible risks on behalf of my 
 country if only, should anything hereafter have befallen me, I 
 am acquitted of the grave imputation of heedlessness. If I 
 
396 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 had ever heartily trusted Lepidus I should be willing to 
 acknowledge that I had made a slip through want of caution, 
 for trustfulness is rather an error than a vice; indeed it in- 
 sinuates itself into a character of a man with ease in proportion 
 to his excellence ; but in my case it was not this defect by 
 which I narrowly escaped being deceived : no, I knew Lepidus 
 perfectly. 
 
 What then is the reason? It was the sensitiveness of 
 honour — one of the most dangerous of all qualities in war — 
 which forced me to run this risk of failure ; for unless I united 
 my position with Lepidus I was afraid it might appear to some 
 one of my detractors that I persisted unduly in my resentment 
 against him, and was by my inactivity even supplying fuel to 
 
 2 the war. I therefore advanced with my force till we were 
 almost within sight of Lepidus and Antonius, and encamped 
 at the distance of about forty miles from them, with the object 
 of enabling myself either to advance rapidly or retreat in 
 perfect safety. In the choice of a situation too I combined 
 the advantages of having in front a river, so as to secure a 
 delay in their crossing, and close at hand the Vocontians, 1 
 through whose district the road would be faithfully kept open 
 for me. Lepidus despairing of my arrival, which he. was 
 longing for to no slight degree, coalesced with Antonius on 
 the 29th of May, and on that very day they commenced 
 marching towards me. When they were still twenty miles 
 
 3 away I received intelligence of the fact. I exerted myself, 
 with the help of Providence, at once to retire with all speed, 
 and to see that this retrograde movement had no resemblance 
 at all to a flight ; that not a single soldier, horse or foot, not 
 a particle of baggage, should be lost or cut off by that hot 
 crew of brigands. So on the 4th of June I crossed the Isara 
 with all my a»my, and broke down the bridges I had con- 
 structed, that the men might have time for recovering them- 
 selves, and I meanwhile might coalesce with my colleague, 
 whom I expect in three days from the date of this letter. 
 
 4 The remarkable zeal and fidelity which our friend Laterensis 
 
 1 The Vocontians bordered on the Allobroges to the south. Their country 
 may be taken as about equivalent to the district from Avignon to Grenoble, of 
 which Gap is the centre. 
 
ep. cxlvi. FROM PLANCUS. {AD FAM. X. 23.) 397 
 
 has displayed towards the Republic I shall ever acknowledge, 
 but unquestionably his excessive partiality for Lepidus made 
 him less acute for perceiving these dangers. He indeed on 
 discovering the snare into which he had been led attempted to 
 lay hands upon himself, hands which might with better reason 
 have wielded a sword to slay Lepidus ; but it was stayed before 6 
 it fell, and he still survives, and is, they tell me, likely to live. 
 But of that, it is true, I am not so sure. 2 
 
 I then have escaped from these traitors to their fatherland, . 
 to their unbounded mortification, for they were swooping upon 
 me under the same frenzy which lashes them to fury against 
 their country. As for their recent explosions against me, they 
 arise from the following circumstances : that I had never ceased 
 from applying the goad to Lepidus to make him stamp out the 
 war ; that I used to disapprove of the negotiations going on ; 
 that I had forbidden the envoys sent by Antonius under a 
 safe-conduct from Lepidus to appear in my presence ; and 
 that I had intercepted Gaius Catius Vestinus, a general officer 
 whom Antonius sent to him with secret despatches. And I 
 , find this much of pleasure in the fact that undoubtedly in 6 
 proportion as they were eager to get at me, so much the 
 greater vexation has their disappointment given them. 
 
 Do you then, my dear Cicero, continue, as you have 
 hitherto done, to give us proofs of your unfailing vigilance and 
 energy in seeing that we who stand on the field of battle are 
 furnished with proper supplies. Let Caesar join us with what- 
 ever troops are the most to be depended on in his army, or if 
 anything prevents his coming himself — indeed even his personal 
 safety is now greatly imperilled — let his army be sent. Of 
 desperadoes all that ever was sure to be found in the camp 
 opposed to their country's cause is now streaming hither : then 
 why truly should we not use for the salvation of our city all 
 the means we possess ? And as for whatever lies in me, if only 7 
 I find that you at home have not failed me, assuredly I will in 
 every respect richly answer to the expectations of the Republic. 
 
 You indeed, my dear Cicero, I hold, upon my honour, 
 dearer, day by day, nor does a day pass but the benefits you 
 
 2 See Introd. to Letter cxliv. 
 
398 LETTERS OF CICERO. part v. 
 
 have conferred sharpen still more the edge of my anxiety lest 
 I should lose the smallest particle of either your affection or 
 your esteem. I trust that when we meet again it may be my 
 privilege by the affection I shall show in your service to 
 increase the pleasure you have hitherto felt in doing me acts 
 of kindness. 
 
 8ular«, Bistrict of the Allobroges, June 6. 
 
 CXLVII. (AD FAM. XII. 10.) 
 
 FROM CICERO AT ROME TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS AT 
 LAODICEA. 
 
 Early in July, 711 A.v.c. (43 B.C.) 
 
 This, the latest letter written by Cicero which we possess, is a congratulation 
 to Cassius on his sucGess against Dolabella, and an entreaty to him to come to 
 Italy as the last hope of the Senate after the defection of Lepidus. To the 
 appeal however Cassius did not respond. After the coalition in October of the 
 three great powers, Antonius, Octavianus, and Lepidus, he met Brutus at 
 Smyrna to concert measures, and in the following year marched into Mace- 
 donia, where, being defeated by Antonius and Octavianus-in the great battle 
 of Philippi, they both committed suicide. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 219 ; Abeken, 464. 
 
 1 Your brother-in-law, 1 my once familiar friend, Lepidus, was 
 on the 30th day of June declared a public enemy by an 
 unanimous vote of the Senate, as were all those who shared 
 his treachery to the Republic, though to them it has been left 
 open to return to their right mind before the 1st of September. 
 The Senate, it is true, is resolute, but that is mainly in the 
 hope of the support you can give. The war indeed at the 
 time of my writing this is truly serious through the villainy 
 and worthlessness of Lepidus. 
 
 We daily hear satisfactory news about Dolabella, but as 
 yet without any known source — given without authority, and 
 
 2 upon mere rumour. But though this is the case, yet such a 
 conviction was established in the public mind by the letter 
 you wrote from your camp on the 7th of May that everybody 
 believed him to be finally crushed, and you to be marching to 
 Italy at the head of an army, that we might either rely upon 
 
 1 See Letter cxviii. note 1. 
 
bp. cxlvxi. TO CASSIUS. {AD FAM. XII. 10.) 399 
 
 your counsel and authority, should our present work have been 
 satisfactorily done, or on the strength of your army if, as does 
 happen in war, a false step had by any chance been taken. 
 For this army you may be sure that I will do all that is in my 
 power for providing supplies in every way ; the proper oppor- 
 tunity to attain which object will be after it has begun to be 
 known how much strength your army will contribute, or what 
 it has already contributed to the cause of the Republic ; for 
 as yet we hear of nothing but endeavours, most meritorious 
 and gallant ones, it is true, but still people look for something 
 really achieved, and this indeed I feel confident has already 
 been done in some degree or else is just impending. Than 3' 
 your own bravery and magnanimity can be nothing more 
 splendid, and we therefore hope to see you in Italy as soon 
 as may be ; when we have both of you we shall seem to 
 ourselves to have the Republic. We had won a glorious 
 victory had Lepidus only not given shelter to Antonius when 
 he was stripped, unarmed, exiled ; and consequently never was 
 Antonius held in such detestation by the public as Lepidus is 
 now ; for the former only out of a country already embroiled, 
 the latter out of peace and triumph, has succeeded in exciting 
 the flames of war. To confront him we look to the consuls- 
 elect, in whom we have confidence indeed, and that in no slight 
 degree, but still not without anxious suspense owing to the 
 uncertainty of the issues of battles. Allow yourself therefore 4 
 to be thoroughly persuaded that on you and your friend Brutus 
 everything depends ; that both of you are being looked for at 
 home, Brutus indeed now at any moment. And though as I 
 trust when you arrive it will be to find all our foes prostrate, 
 still under your direction the Republic shall rise from her 
 ashes, and be established on some satisfactory basis ; for there 
 are very many things yet we shall have to repair, even if it shall 
 be shown that the Republic has really been delivered from 
 the iniquity of her enemies. Farewell. 
 
400 LETTERS OF CICERO. 
 
 CXLVIII. (AD FAM. X. 24.) 
 
 FROM LUCIUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS AT CULARO TO CICERO 
 AT ROME. 
 
 July 28, 711 A.V.C. (43 B.C.) 
 
 This letter is of very great interest, not only as being the latest of Cicero's 
 correspondence, but also as having apparently escaped by accident when 
 those which might compromise other people, particularly Octavianus, were 
 destroyed. With the exception of this letter the name of Octavianus does not 
 occur in the correspondence after May, and no letters at all have been pre- 
 served of the last four months of Cicero's life. See Abeken, 463, 470 ; Boissier, 
 Recherches sur les Lettres de Ciceron, p. 20. 
 
 After the battle of Mutina the Senate unwisely showed their distrust of 
 Octavianus in various ways, such as the refusal of a triumph, and the omission 
 of his name from the Commissioners appointed to distribute lands to the 
 veterans opposed to Antonius. Octavianus was determined to insist on his 
 position at once, and sent a deputation of four hundred soldiers to demand the 
 consulship (see § 6), which was refused. His eight legions then called upon 
 him to march against Rome : the African legions summoned to oppose him 
 deserted to his standard ; and nothing was left for it but submission. On the 
 22d of September, the day before he was twenty years old, he was elected 
 consul, with his cousin Quintus Pedius as his colleague. The outlawry of 
 Dolabella and Antonius was then revoked, all Caesar's murderers were con- 
 demned in their turn, and Octavianus marched to join Antonius. 
 
 This sudden change produced immediate results. Pollio at once declared 
 for the allies, and was soon followed by Plancus. Decimus Brutus then find- 
 ing his position untenable fled to Marcus Brutus in Macedonia, where'he was 
 murdered by a Gaulish chief. The three allies, Antonius, Octavianus, and 
 Lepidus, about the end of October held their celebrated meeting on an island 
 in the river Rhenus, near Bononia (Bologna), at which they constituted them- 
 selves a commission of three with absolute power for five years, generally 
 called the Second Triumvirate. This was followed by a proscription of their 
 principal opponents, in which many victims fell, of whom the most illustrious 
 was Cicero himself. 
 
 Merivale, iii. 184-217 ; Abeken, 465-474; Forsyth, 524-537. 
 
 1 I cannot refrain from expressing my sense of your kind- 
 ness as each manifestation of it and your services to me occurs, 
 but I may solemnly assure you that I do so with a sense 
 of shame ; for not only does such a tie of intimacy as you 
 were willing to give me the privilege of enjoying with you 
 seem to be superior to the need of a formal acknowledgment 
 of thanks, but I too am unwilling to avail myself of the cheap 
 return of words for the very great services you have done me, 
 and prefer to prove to you when we meet, by my respect, my 
 
ep. cxlviii. FROM PLANCUS. (AD FAM. X. 24.) 401 
 
 tenderness, my constant devotion, that I am not ungrateful. 
 Yes, if only my life has been spared, in respect, in tenderness, 
 and in devotion to you, I mean to outdo all the gratitude of 
 friendship, nay, even all the tender ties of relationship ; for it 
 would not be easy for me to say whether your affection and 
 esteem for me is likely to bring me more daily pleasure or 
 more everlasting honour. 
 
 You have made it your care to look to the interests of my 2 
 soldiers ; whom I wished to see decorated by the Senate, not 
 for the sake of advancing my own power with them, for I 
 know that in my thoughts there is no taint of disloyalty, but 
 because in the first place I was satisfied this was what they 
 had deserved ; secondly, in view of whatever might befall us 
 I wanted them to be attached more closely to the cause of the 
 Commonwealth ; lastly, it was in order to keep them away 
 from every kind of temptation any one might hold out, and 
 be able to answer to you for their still remaining the men 
 they have as yet been. I have hitherto succeeded in keeping 3 
 everything here as it was. Which policy of mine, though I 
 am well aware how little the public — not unreasonably — is 
 anxious for a triumph which is limited to this, 1 I still trust will 
 be approved of by you and your friends ; for should any false 
 step have been made with our armies here, the Republic has 
 no large reserves in readiness in order to meet any sudden 
 raid made by these outlaws if they attack their own fatherland. 
 As to the strength of our own force however, that, I imagine, 
 is well known to you. In my own camp there are three 
 legions of veterans, and one of soldiers newly joined (but this 
 is absolutely the finest of them all) ; in Brutus's camp is 
 one legion of veterans, one of the second year, and eight of 
 recruits : the army therefore as a whole is in respect of 
 numbers very strong, of quality but poor ; while we have had 
 proof only too often already how far one ought to trust a 
 recruit under fire. 2 Had either the African army, which is 4 
 
 1 If the reading talis is correct, quantus-wx&i mean how little, as in Hor. 
 Sat. ii. 4, 81, in scoie quantus consistit sumptus (cf. Letter xv. § 8). Mr. 
 Watson mentions a plausible suggestion of H. A. Koch, fatalis = decisive ; 
 Wesenberg inserts belli. 
 
 2 Mr. Watson gives as examples Pharsalus (Mommsen, iv. 415 ; Letter 
 
 2 D 
 
402 LETTERS OF CICERO. pakt v. 
 
 composed of veterans, or that of Octavianus Caesar been added 
 to ours, we could with perfect confidence have brought the fate 
 of the Republic to the test of a battle. Since however we 
 both saw that Caesar was considerably the nearer of the two, 
 I have never ceased to urge him by letter, nor has he ever 
 failed to protest that he was coming without delay, while ' I 
 notice that meanwhile he has turned his back on the thought 
 of this, and betaken himself to other views. I have however 
 sent our trusty Furnius with instructions and despatches to him, 
 in case he should be able by any chance to do some good. 
 
 5 Now you know, my dear Cicero, that as far as a liking for 
 Octavianus goes, you and I agree ; whether we say that con- 
 sidering my intimate relations to Caesar in his lifetime it was 
 my duty even then to give him my support and regard, or 
 that he himself, as far as I could ever discover, was of a most 
 courteous and' well-balanced disposition, or because after such 
 an exceptional friendship as existed between Caesar and myself 
 it would ill become me not to recognise a youth as his son 
 whom he has adopted into that position upon a deliberate 
 
 6 choice, which all of you have duly ratified. But still — I give 
 you my solemn word that whatever I here state to you I do 
 more in a spirit of pain than of resentment — if Antonius is 
 alive at this hour, if Lepidus has joined him, if they both have 
 armies which cannot be despised, if they are full of hope or 
 daring — all this they may put down to the credit of Octavianus 
 Caesar. Nor will I now re-open what is of earlier date ; but 
 going no further back than the time when he was voluntarily 
 professing to me to be coming, if he had but been really 
 willing to come the war •would by now have been either 
 stamped out, or driven to their immense disadvantage into 
 Spain, the most unfavourable place ( for their side. What 
 leanings or what ultimate views can have drawn him away 
 from this which was true glory — nay was positively essential 
 and profitable for himself — and set his thoughts instead upon 
 a consulship of a couple of months, implying as it does extreme 
 anxiety to everybody, and a most offensive appearance of 
 
 7 demanding, I cannot succeed in penetrating. It seems to me 
 
 lxxxviii. 2), Thapsus' (Mommsen, iv. 434 ; Merivale, ii. 358), and Forum 
 Gallorum (Letter cxxxv. ; Merivale, iii. 172). 
 
ep. cxLvin. FROM PLANCUS. (AD FAM. X. 24.) 403 
 
 that in this matter his nearest relations may now do a great 
 deal, as much in his interest as in that of the Commonwealth ; 
 but most of all, in my opinion, may you yourself, whose claims 
 to gratitude on him are such as on no one else with the excep- 
 tion of myself, for never shall I forget that my debts to you 
 are as great as they are numerous. Upon this point I have 
 entrusted to Furnius the duty of negotiating with him. And 
 if it shall prove that with him I have the influence I ought 
 to have, he will find that I have been of the most valuable 
 assistance to himself. 
 
 Meanwhile our part in the war is made harder, because 8 
 while we do not think .that to hazard a decisive engagement 
 would be very free from risk, we nevertheless shall not allow 
 the possibility by a refusal of a still heavier blow being struck 
 at the Republic. But if we once find that either Caesar has 
 taken a juster view of that in which he is concerned, or the 
 legions from Africa have speedily joined us, we will soon 
 relieve you of all fear in this quarter. 
 
 Let me entreat you to continue that regard you have 
 hitherto entertained for me, and believe me ever devoted to 
 your interests. 
 
 The Camp, July 28. 
 
 Here ends Cicero's correspondence ; but the remainder of his life may be 
 briefly told by way of conclusion. Cicero and his brother, with whom he was 
 now again on cordial terms, were- staying together at his villa at Tusculum 
 when the news of the proscription arrived. Quintus returned to Rome to 
 obtain money for an escape to Macedonia, and was there slain together with 
 his son. Marcus reached the coast at Astura, where he embarked and might 
 have escaped ; but with the irresolution of purpose which had characterised 
 him through life he insisted on returning, to appeal, it is supposed, to Octa- 
 vianus. A fragment of Livy preserved by Seneca asserts that he even put to 
 sea more than once. At last— it was on the 7 th of December— he was over- 
 taken by the assassins sent by Antonius, and murdered, in the neighbourhood 
 of his villa at Formiae, displaying at the last in the face of death that calmness 
 and resolution in which throughout life he had been wanting. 
 
 Though Cicero was, as Dean Merivale says, 'of all the characters of 
 antiquity that with which we are most intimately acquainted,' the estimates of 
 him vary to an extraordinary degree ; nor is this surprising in the case of a 
 character so complex, and living in times where it is often so difficult to grasp 
 the truth of history. 
 
 Of Cicero's life alone among the ancients we have not only the broad out- 
 lines but the light and shade of an immense mass of detail, largely given by 
 himself so that it is really the completer information which causes the diversity 
 
404 LETTERS QF CICERO. part v. 
 
 of views. After the celebrated work of Middleton Caesar was regarded as a 
 tyrant whom it was somehow meritorious to murder, and Cicero as a peerless 
 statesman and model of every virtue. The great work of Mommsen has 
 established the place of Caesar beyond any possible controversy as one of the 
 world's greatest benefactors. But he has certainly been less than fair to Cicero, 
 never acknowledging any of his merits, and even finding his writings a 'dreary 
 waste. ' Drumann, following suit, hunts Cicero down with personal malignity. 
 But of late Cicero's star has been rising again from the depressing influence of 
 Mommsen. The works of Mr. Froude and of Anthony Trollope show the 
 hold he possesses on men of letters ; and the judicious Introductions of Mr. 
 Watson and Professor Tyrrell, with an able article in the Quarterly for October 
 1880, and Professor Nettleship's review of the first edition of this book in the 
 Academy, October 9, 1880, fairly represent the balanced judgment of English 
 scholars. 
 
 The following references will afford to a student abundant material for 
 comparison : — Smith's Diet. Biogr. iii. 718 (by Professor Ramsay) ; Merivale, 
 Hist. Empire, iii. 206-213 ; Encycl. Britann., Cicero (also by Dean Merivale) ; 
 Forsyth, 538 ad fin, ; Froude, Caesar, ch. 27 (a clever work, but very reckless 
 in translation) ; Trollope, Life of Cicero, Introd. (interesting from its author 
 and its evident sincerity, but resting on too small a basis of schblarship for such 
 a task) ; Pretor, Essay in his edition of Ad Att. Book I. (a bitter attack) ; and 
 various sarcastic criticisms to be gathered from the fourth vol. of Mommsen, 
 and Professor Beesly's Catiline and Clodius, and apologetic ones from the 
 translation of Abeken's 'Cicero in his Letters,' edited by Dean Merivale. 
 M T Boissier's ' CiceYon et ses Amis,' is a very interesting sketch. 
 
INDEX OF MATTERS REFERRED TO IN 
 THE NOTES. 
 
 (See also Index of Proper Names.) 
 
 a = ' of the school of, ' 343 
 
 ab infimo, 79 
 
 absentia, nom. or abl. ? 323 
 
 ad = about, 88 
 
 Acts of the Apostles, quoted, 39 
 
 aSeKtpos (frater), 6, 39, 275, 289 
 
 adlegati, 89 
 
 ad nos sic tenuis fainae perlabitur 
 
 aura, 178 
 adoption, changes form of family 
 
 name, 165 
 adoption into a plebeian family to be 
 
 elected tribune, 33, 168, 259 
 adpestem ante oculos positam, 279 
 ad propositum [revertar], 201, 317 
 aetatem a sepulcro abesse negant, 
 
 344 
 affirmative clause understood from a 
 
 following negative, 225 
 agitur satis, 104 
 oXSeadev [ikv avqvaaBai Seitrav 5* i/wo- 
 
 annul, aicidfo/MU, 48 
 alteration of works by critics, 285 
 ampulla, 21 
 an with credo, 296 
 anatocismus anniversarius, 153 
 ancora soluta, x6 
 #7ra£ daveiv, 59 
 aperte tecte, 21 
 aristocratic, 20 
 
 Armada, the, parallel from, 255 
 armies, the, of Caesar and Pompeius, 
 161 
 
 Arsaces, a title, 159 
 
 assassinations, comparative rarity of, 
 
 3°3 
 astaea,^ 353. 
 cfccr^aXois [d0e\ws], 54 
 Aulijilius, 4 
 auspices, taking of, making a vacation 
 
 of Senate, 357 
 aut, ve, 170 
 
 bene igitur tu qui ebdavcurtav, bene re- 
 
 linque patriam, 342 
 bene qui coniciet vatem hunc perhibebo 
 
 optumum, 181 
 bird, the ; simile of Plato, 210 
 ' black is white, ' 4 
 Bona Dea, double worship of, 15 
 Byron, Childe Harold, quoted, 297 
 
 Caecilian drama, a, 32 
 
 'Caesar's wife must be above sus- 
 picion,' 18 
 
 Calendar, revision of the, 290 
 
 calm, the, before the Civil War, 140 
 
 calvus, 27 
 
 capistrum ((poppeia) , 41 
 
 ' capital ' punishment, 223 
 
 ' Cato's Sancho, ' 23 
 
 cccc. = quadringentiens, 382 
 
 centuriae cquitum, 43 
 
 Xpe&v aTOKOirhs, tpvyASiw Kadddovs, 
 177 
 
 cicer, thennus, 5 
 
 cistopkorus, value of the, 43 
 
40 6 
 
 INDEX TO THE NOTES. 
 
 Clodius or Claudius, 13 
 
 cocon, 177 
 
 collegia compitalicia, 64 
 
 comedies ; see plays 
 
 comedy-witness, 149 
 
 comic drama, parallels of Cicero's 
 letters with, 297 
 
 ' commendation from Sir Hubert 
 Stanley is praise indeed,' 158 
 
 Commission of Twenty, the, 47 
 
 comperisse omnia, 22 
 
 concept ivae feriae , 91, 140 
 
 ' conciliabule, ' 20 
 
 condito sermone bono, 311 
 
 confluence, the, of Rhone and Dur- 
 ance, 389 
 
 consilium, abstract or concrete? 223 
 
 ' consular ' provinces, 135 
 
 consul-elect, called consul, 8 
 
 consuls- elect, spoke first in Senate, 
 
 *7 
 consuls, their privilege of holding 
 
 elections, 206 
 contionarius, 88 
 corrections ; see readings 
 credo, in interrogative sentence, 296 
 cretio simplex, 260 
 ' crown of sorrow,' 63 
 
 Dante, quoted, 63 
 
 dates, of letters, etc., discussed, 85, 
 91, 105, 159, 184, 186, 192, 247, 
 263, 269, 316, 388 
 
 December 5, execution of the con- 
 spirators, in 
 
 declamation, exercises in, 266, 322 
 
 deification, 292 
 
 denarius, value of the, 43, 351 
 
 de pkaselo, 16 
 
 deterior \DoteHo\ kistrio, 30 
 
 deus ex machina, 149 
 
 de via recta in hortos, 93 
 
 digamma, 208 
 
 diminutives, use of, 34, 234, 267 
 
 Dionysius in Corintho, 205, 267 
 
 discessio, 39 
 
 displacement of letters, 91 
 
 'distribution debleY 163 
 
 dolis instructus et arte Pelasga, 52 
 
 dominus, 46 
 
 dowry, payment of Tullia's, 93, 248 
 
 dowry, repayment of, on divorce, 248, 
 
 287 
 dvor'ovpla, 241 
 
 ea seditiosa, ea cum viro bellum gerit, 
 
 36 
 
 effulgens Gorgone saeva, 202 
 
 ego, repetition of, 55 
 
 eius &vddr)fia [eliu anadma), 7 
 
 eius Lucerias, 200 
 
 £\ikt&, Koffikv vyiks dXXi irav Trtpii- 
 
 tf>povovvTes, 52 
 emendations ; see readings 
 emetics, use of, 311 
 Emir = Pompeius, 41 
 ' Empire, queenliest of the Gods in 
 
 Heaven,' 177 
 emptiones (d>vds), 128 
 entry into city, forfeits imperium, 162, 
 
 166, 167, 175 
 equitum centuriae, 43 
 estates, adjectival form of name, 166 
 et tu, Brute, 316 
 e&$ava<rLa, 342 
 ex ~ ' after ' or ' from ' ? 26 
 ii-drrivcuos, 27. 
 excusatio, 127 
 
 exercitum conferendum non esse, 161 
 ' expression more than expressions/ 18 
 
 F, = digamma ? 208 
 fabam (fabulam) -mimum, 32 
 facie magzs quamfacetiis, 18 
 familiam ducere in iure civili, 101 
 
 family name changed by adoption, 
 
 165 
 
 feriae conceptivae, 91, 140 
 
 Fifth, of December, the, execution of 
 
 conspirators, 222 
 filius, = nephew ? 224 
 firmus, 307 
 
 five per cent tax, the, 41 
 
 force, unlawful, 115 
 
 forces, the, in the Civil War, 161, 251 
 forte, = ' very likely,' 188 
 forti pectore et armis, 53 
 
 franchise, extension of, 5, 125 
 frater, = ' brother or ' cousin ' ? 6, 39, 
 275, 289 
 
 freedmen, dislike of, 43, 353 
 fructum offici, 123 
 fructum puto, 265 
 
INDEX TO THE NOTES. 
 
 407 
 
 future tense, peculiar use' of, 61 
 
 yevucws, 20 
 
 genitive case of -ius, -ium, is 2, not 
 
 ii, 388 
 'gland, le siecle du, est passe",' 45 
 'Gnaeus Cicero,' nickname of Pom- 
 
 peius, 30 
 ' gorgonise, ' to, 202 
 Gotham, parallel to Abdera, 167 
 Governors, powers of Roman, 38, 155, 
 
 162, 286, 306 
 gratificari, force of tense, 83 
 gravedo, 241 
 Greek words, use of (see Preface, p. 
 
 xiv.), 149, 231, 242, 345 
 Greek, = Hellenised, 141 
 ' Grows a fleet far o'er the main,' 195 
 
 hac urget canis hac lupus, aiunt, 
 
 356 
 Hegel, parallel from, 265 
 Hermathenae, 6 
 hie, 49, 98, 266 
 Homeric order, = inverted, 24 
 homines visi sumus, 311 
 homini nobilissimo, innocentissimo, 
 
 eloquentissimo, 17 
 hours of the day, 87, 304 ; cf. 379 
 hunc mortalemesse, 211 
 
 iamque mari magno, 195 
 
 idem, 233 
 
 ille, 40, 190, 194, 3S3 
 
 illnc, neuter of ille f 321 
 
 imperator, title, 99, 349 
 
 imperium, lost on entering the city, 
 
 88, 162, 262 
 incidere in aliam opinionem, 242 
 includam orationi, 19 
 in earn in qua, 242 
 insimul eum {insimulatum), 31 
 infieio (infector), 230 
 inimicus amicorum suorum, 106 
 in medias res, 24 
 interdictio aqua et igni, 62 
 interemisset, force of mood, 88 
 interest, rate of, 104 
 interest, ceases on money paid into 
 
 temples, 147 
 invoearunt, 35 
 is = Pompeius, 248 
 ista ei, 89 
 
 isle, 21, 353 
 
 Italian voters, why inclined to the 
 
 Senate, yy 
 itfuium, 100 
 iugerum, 40 
 
 iure, compared with recte, 210 
 ius Verrinum, 268 
 
 judicial system, the, reformed, 267 
 
 koX ato, t£kvov, 316 
 Kakbv, r\ 177 
 
 KU/J.LKOS /UdjOTlis, 149 
 
 XaKayevaav, 221 
 
 laurels on lictors' staves, for a victory, 
 
 176, 252 
 lectica, lie tores, 241 
 lectulus, force of diminutive, 234, 267 
 legatio libera, 5 
 
 \rfKv60S, \7JK6dtOV, 18 
 
 ' Let me not weakling,' etc, , 222 
 letters, lax morality about, 67, 128, 
 
 164, 257 
 lex, Aelia Fufia, 31 
 
 Julia de provinciis, 109 
 
 Roseia, 34, 43 
 
 Seantinia, 161 
 
 Liberalia, date of, 208 
 libertas, 106 
 licet, 31 
 
 ' like master, like man,' 126 
 lis vindiciae, 22 
 litterae, 21, 102 
 Lucerias eius, 200 
 lucrativo sole, 177 
 Lycurgus, 18 
 
 Marines, parallel to Abdera, 167 
 
 manners at dinner, 322 
 
 /idxra 8' dpurros ocrm elic&fa koKSs, 
 
 181 
 manumission, tax on, 41 
 marinae [Marianae], aquae, 29 
 medical terms, expressed in Greek, 
 
 242, 34.S 
 meis verbis, 128 
 meo nomine, 67, 252 
 fj,}j fib.v do-irovSL ye Kal AkSsLois airo- 
 
 \olfi7jv, 222 
 H^ fioi yopyelrfv KefpaKty Seivoio 
 
 7re\t6pou, 202 
 
INDEX TO THE NOTES. 
 
 mimes, Laberhis acting in, 309 
 
 Minervam sus, proverb, 268 
 
 mola, Molon, play on, 38 
 
 molliorem civitate, 56 
 
 momentumque fuit mutatus Curio 
 rejourn, 139 
 
 month, grace of, for leaving a pro- 
 vince, 362 
 
 monuinentis meis, 106 
 
 more Homerico, 24 
 
 mors ultima linea, 59 
 
 mortalem hunc esse, 211 
 
 Morton, Thomas, 'A Cure for the 
 Heart-ache,' quoted, 158 
 
 mulier recte olet ubi nil olet, 33 
 
 mullet, kinds of, 37 
 
 musa, mihi caussas memora, 27 
 
 name .changed by adoption, 165 
 
 nam, force of, 163 
 
 Nanneiani, 27 
 
 ne, depending on a verb understood, 
 
 190 
 nedum, with indicative mood, 241 
 negavit se facturum, 275 
 negotiator, 127 
 veKvia, 213 
 
 ne mihi Pulydamas et Troiades, 200 
 neque enim levia aut ludicra petuntur, 
 
 7 
 ' nessun maggior dolore,' etc., 63 
 nisi % = ' but, ' 297 
 uofj.ay5pla, 128 
 nomenclator, 58 
 ?ion mutavit, 311 
 noster, ' my ' or ' our ' ? 304 
 nulla ad me missa est, 260 
 nummarius.iste, 222 
 numquam navem nisi rectam, 59 
 
 oath, form of, after office, 13 
 
 obnantiatio, 31 
 
 oculos, voculas, play on, 228 
 
 /acinus altum, [fine quam caret 
 
 tamen, 321 
 ojficium {pffici fruchtm) and pietas, 123 
 otairep i] 86criroipa roia KaX kij(i)v 3 126 
 (Jbv&s, 128 
 opem, opes, 218 
 w Trpd&ws kcl\t}s fiev . dreXovs 54, 
 
 321 
 oratiunculae, force of diminutive, 34 
 
 order of speaking in Senate, 17 
 ore, amore, 363 
 
 oiirb) ttov tw irpdadeif kirevdbfJxOa, 
 k\£o. dvBpQv, 178 
 
 emptum, 222 
 paillettes, 21 
 TravrjyvpLs, 20 
 
 parricides, punishment of, 52 
 pasha, = Pompeius, 41 
 patres conscripti, 22 
 pedem tollere, 36 
 irevriXonros, 330 
 
 perennis inimicus amicorum suorum, 
 106 
 
 personal defects inauspicious, 31 
 
 (paX&Kptofia, 318 
 
 tf>opf3ei&, 41 
 pietas, qfficiwm, 123 
 
 plays on words, 18, 29, 38, 68, 218, 
 228, 230, 241, 268, 363 
 
 plays, quotations from unknown, 36, 
 46, 49, 81, 270, 279, 321, 322, 329 
 plebs, 136 
 
 plunder, Cicero's losses by, 78 
 pontifex maximus, house of, 51 
 popultem plebemve, 136 
 portoHum, 42 
 
 praetors, capacity to hold election, 206 
 prima leo, postrema — , 42 
 princeps senatus, spoke after consuls- 
 elect, 17 
 privilegia, void, 65 
 provida Pompeio dederat Campania 
 febres, 199 
 
 provinces, assigned before election, 99 
 
 consular, 135 
 
 month's grace for leaving, 362 
 
 oppression of, 38, 121, 125, 141 
 
 to be taken five years after office, 
 
 125 
 provocatio, right of, 14 . 
 
 Pseudo-Cato, 23 
 
 iTToKtiropdos (-tos), 390 
 
 Publius, not Publilius, 309 
 
 pulcher, pulchellus, 44 , 
 
 pupils, in rhetoric, 266, 322 
 
 purpureus pannus, 21 
 
 quales principes, tales reliquos, in 
 quam, quamquam, 101 
 quantus, =how little ? 401 " 
 
INDEX TO THE NOTES. 
 
 409 
 
 Querellae, a poem ? 280, 282 
 quidquid delirant reges, 52 
 qui res indicant, 160 
 quod f ami Ham ducit in iure civili, 101 
 quodfuit Mis Hi viris, 353 
 quod iam non dubiis poteris cognoscere 
 signis, 104 
 
 reactionists in the theatre, 43, 47 
 
 readings, corrected or discussed, 4, 5, 
 7, 16, 19, 2i, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 
 3 1 . 32, 35. 3 8 - S4» 56. 60, 64, 70, 
 79, 82, 85, 88, 89, 100, 101, 102, 
 127, 128, 146, 166, 177, 188, 189, 
 190, 192, 194, 196, 200, 208, 220, 
 221, 224, 232, 234, 241, 254, 265, 
 269, 292, 296, 311, 318, 342, 352, 
 353- 388 
 
 recipere se, 192 
 
 recruits, not to be trusted against 
 
 veterans, 402 
 .recte, iure, 210 
 
 refero, 321 
 
 religious toleration, 305 
 
 renovatis quotannis, 153 
 
 rex, 29 
 
 rhetorical terms, 22 
 
 retexam me ipse, 336 
 
 Romam \malo\ 352 
 
 satagitur, 104 
 
 satis est equitem mihi plaudere, 103 
 
 scandal at Rome, 36, 50, 315 
 
 seal, corresponds to signature, 67, 164, 
 252, 257 
 
 sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ima 
 dehiscat, 207 
 
 ffijfia. 5£ rot 4p4oj, 104 
 
 Senate, order of speaking in, 17 
 
 right of, to give power of life and 
 
 death, 34 
 
 senseram inductus, 92 
 
 sensit delapsus, 92 
 
 sepulchral monuments, limited in ex- 
 penditure, 292 
 
 sepulcro dbesse, 344 
 
 se recipere, 192 
 
 Shakespeare, quoted, 36, 49, 149 
 
 Sheridan, quoted, 22 
 
 si a Phaedro esset, 343 
 
 si eo loco esset, 275 
 
 ' siecle, le, du gland est passe',* 45 
 
 simplex cretio, 260 
 
 sine vallo JLuciniano, 353 
 
 slaves, severity to, 305 
 
 sole lucralivo, ijj 
 
 * sorrow's crown of sorrow,' 63 
 
 Spectator, the, quoted, 298 
 
 splendorem pulcritudinemque virtutis, 
 
 177 
 stat sua ctiique dies, etc., 222 
 statues, triumphal, 144 
 s. [t e. q.]v. b. [e. q. v.], 9, 119, 339, 
 
 383 
 St. Paul, quoted, 39 
 stupid school, the, = Epicureans, 127 
 style of Aristotle, 119 
 
 • of Caelius, 130 
 
 subjunctive mood, force of, 79, 88 
 
 suis u?neris i 153 
 
 sus minervam, proverb, 268 
 
 ' table rase de dettes — rentrie des 
 
 emigre's,' 177 
 tabula, 68 
 
 tampering with the ballot-box, 22 
 tantum , contendere quantum probare 
 
 possis, 115 
 
 TCLS T&V KpaTofivTCM , 52 
 
 ' tel maiire, tel valet ' (otarrep 4) 54ff- 
 
 irowa), 126 
 temples, money deposited in, 147 
 Tennyson, quoted, 63, 202 
 r4pas, 194 
 tertia post Idus lux est celeberrima 
 
 Baccko, 204 
 Tidpiwira, 144 * 
 rty dewv fj.eyL(TTi}V (bar Hx €tv Tvpav- 
 
 vtda, 177 
 the'rmus, cicer, 5 
 64<tls, tiirddeo-LS, 204 
 tibicini, = Auletes, 82 
 time, reckoning of, 87, 304 
 rb KaKbv, 177 
 toleration, Roman, 305 
 tuv fikv irapbvTWVj etc. , 234 
 t6t€ fioi x&vqi eiipeia, xB&v, 207 
 rod yd,p ical yivos i<rfifr t 39 
 trabea, Augur's robe, 230 
 traders, refused military command, 127 
 tres sorores, of Clodius, 113 
 tres viri (triumvirs), 353 
 tribuni aerari {aerati), 25 
 tuus ille amicus — scin quern dicam f 18 
 
4io 
 
 INDEX TO THE NOTES. 
 
 ubi nee Pelopidarum nomen nee facta 
 
 audiam, 322 
 ubi nominabit Pkaedriam, etc., 116 
 ubi non sis qui fueris, etc. , 270 
 ■ ve, aut, 170 
 veni, vidi, vici, 260 
 venena -magnum fas nefasque, etc. , 225 
 veteres hosies, novos amicos, 9 
 vicensima, 41 
 
 videant consules ne quid detriments 
 . res publica capiat, 235, 386 
 viginti viri, 47 
 
 unus homo nobis cunctando resiituit 
 
 rem, 46 
 fjicbdeffis, diets, 204 
 urbanis compeiitoribus, 5 
 ut in secundis fluxaC) ut in adversis 
 
 bonae, 81 
 
 ' when we are not what we were, ' etc. , 
 
 270 
 Wisdom, Book of, quoted, 292 
 women, .severity to, rare in revolu- 
 tions, 257 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 AEDERA, a town of Thrace, 167 
 Academy, the, at Athens, 163, 305 
 Acastus, a slave of Cicero, 165 
 Accius, or Attius, a tragic poet, 
 
 120 B.C., 279, 322 
 Achaia (Greece), the Roman province 
 
 of, 261, 273 
 Achilles, in Homer, 390 
 Acidinus, Gaius Manlius, a Roman 
 
 student at Athens, 304 
 Adriatic Sea, the, 199, 204, 351 
 Adrumetum, a town near Carthage, 
 
 264 
 Aegina [Eghina), an island near 
 
 Attica, 297, 298 
 Aegypta, a freedman of Cicero, 187 
 Aelius, a tribune ; his Act, 31 
 Aemilian Way, towns on the, 377, 
 
 378 
 Aeschylus, quoted, 59 
 Aesculapius, the God of Medicine, 
 
 242 
 Aesopus, a tragic actor, 60 
 Afranius, Lucius, consul 60 B.C., 80, 
 
 83 ; commands a Pompeian army 
 
 in Spain, 185, 191, 209, 243 ; his 
 
 death, 267 ; called ' Aulus junior, ' 
 
 4. 3° 
 Africa, the province of, 109, 138, 
 238, 259-264, 266, 308, 347, 354, 
 
 359. 366, 4°3 
 Agamemnon, in Homer, 326 
 Agesilaus II., King of Sparta, 398 
 
 B.C., 57 
 Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius, the great 
 
 general of Augustus, marries Attica, 
 
 35 2 
 Agrippina, Vipsania, daughter of At- 
 
 tica, marries the emperor Tiberius, 
 
 352 
 Ahala, Gaius Servilius, the murderer 
 
 of Spurius Maelius, 439 B.C., 51 
 Ahenobarbus, see Domitius 
 Ajax, in Homer, 390 
 Alaudae (the Larks), a Gallic legion 
 
 raised by Caesar, 351 
 Albanum [Albano), a town of Latium 
 
 on the site of Alba Longa, 166 
 Albinius, Gaius, a friend of Cicero, 
 
 306 
 Alexandria, a town of Egypt, 206, 
 
 2 55> 2 56 I tne affair of King Ptole- 
 
 maeus, 41, 81-86, 94-98, 132 ; 
 
 •Caesar besieged, 256, 260 
 Alexis, a page of Atticus, 169 
 Aliphera, a town in Arcadia, 152 
 Allienus, Aulus, an officer of Cassius, 
 
 383 
 Allobroges, a Gaulish tribe in Savoy, 
 
 17, 386, 388, 396, 398 ; disclosure 
 
 of the conspiracy of Catilina, 35, 52 
 Alps, the, 222, 349, 368, 379, 380, 
 
 381, 391, 393, 394 
 Amalthea, or Amaltheum, a villa or 
 
 library of Atticus in Epirus, 16, 32 ; 
 
 a library in Cicero's villa at Ar- 
 
 pinum, 39 
 Amanus, a mountain-range in Cilicia, 
 
 140, 156 
 Amatius, alias Herophilus, a rioter 
 
 suppressed by Dolabella, 326 
 Amphiaraus, the prophet of the Seven 
 
 against Thebes, 279 
 Ampius, see Balbus 
 Anagnia [Anagni], a town of Latium, 
 ' s6 3. 35°. 355 
 
4 I2 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Anaxarchus, a philosopher of Abdera, 
 
 340 B.C., 167 
 Ancona [Ancond), a town on the 
 
 Adriatic, 176, 184 
 Annius, see Milo 
 Antandros [Antandro), a town near 
 
 Troy, 55 
 Anti-Lebanon, a. mountain -range of 
 
 Syria, 41 
 Antioch, the capital of Syria, 142, 156 
 Antiphon, probably a freedman of 
 
 Milo, 103 
 Antrum [Porto d'Anzo), a seaport of 
 
 Latium, 33, 40, 208, 291, 337, 
 
 339 
 
 Antonii, family of the, 131 
 
 Antonius, Gams Hybrida, Cicero's 
 colleague as consul for 63 b.c, 4, 
 8 ; Governor of Macedonia, 16, 59 ; 
 called 'Teucris,' 19, 23 
 
 Antonius, Gaius, younger brother of 
 Marcus, 243, 348, 353, 365 
 
 Antonius, Lucius, youngest brother 
 of Marcus, 353, 388 
 
 Antonius, Marcus, the triumvir ; 
 elected Augur, 159, 160, 241, 308 ; 
 quaestor of Caesar, 164 ; tribune 
 49 B.C., 175, 207 ; represents 
 Caesar in Italy during the war, 230, 
 236, 237, 241, 255, 259 ; his de- 
 bauchery, 240, 346 ; reinforces 
 Caesar in Greece, 245, 336 ;, consul 
 44 B.C., 316 ; his action upon 
 Caesar's murder, 316, 319-322, 
 336* 348, 349 ; Cicero's sus- 
 picions of him, 319, 321, 348, 349 ; 
 he gains over Dolabella, 326 ; con- 
 ciliates the soldiers, 329 ; assigned 
 Macedonia, 337, 339, 365 ; mani- 
 festo of Brutus and Cassius, 339- 
 341, 344 ; attacked by Piso, 341, 
 344, 346 ; the Philippics, 345, 
 346, 352-355, 361, 364, 377; 
 Cicero's ferocity against him, 345, 
 359. 3 6l » 3 6 3. 39° ; supposed at- 
 tempts on his life, 347, 348, 356 ; 
 Octavianus attracts his legions, 
 348. 35°. 364. 365 1 he besieges 
 Decimus Brutus in Mutina, 359, 
 364-366 ; embassy from the Senate, 
 362 ; battle of Mutina, 379-382 ; 
 he flees to Lepidus, £79, 381, 392 ; 
 
 intrigues with Lepidus, 368, 371, 
 381, 387-399 ; formation of the 
 Triumvirate and murder of Cicero, 
 398, 400, 403. Letters to Cicero, 
 lxxii. , cix. ; from Cicero, ex. ; from 
 Brutus and Cassius, cxvi. 
 
 Antonius, Marcus, the orator, 100 
 b. c. , grandfather of the triumvir, 303 
 
 Apamea, a town of Phrygia, 55, 128, 
 
 I4S 
 Apamea, a town of Syria, 384 
 Apelles, a famous Greek painter, 330 
 
 b.c. , 113 
 Apennines, the, 381, 394 
 Apollo, the God of Healing, 242 
 Apollonia (Pollona), a town of Illyria, 
 
 245, 247, 365 
 Apollonis, a town of Mysia, 58, 59 
 Apollonius, a. freedman of Crassus, 
 
 293-295 
 Appian, 1 20 A. D. , 49 
 Appian Way, the, 122, 200 
 Appius, Claudius Pulcher, elder bro- 
 ther of Clodius, consul 54 B.C., 
 afterwards Governor of Cilicia, 102, 
 104, 106, 107, 115, 120, 125, 134, 
 139-141, 145, 149, 155, 161, 162, 
 244 
 Appius, Claudius Pulcher, nephew 
 and adopted son of the preceding, 
 
 134 # 
 Appuleius, a friend of Atticus, 127 
 Apsus, the, a river of Illyria, 245 
 Apulia, the S.E. part of Italy, 176, 
 
 188, 196 
 Aquilius, Gaius Gallus, a lawyer, 4 
 Aradus, a town of Phoenicia, 206 
 Arar [Sadne), the, a river of Gaul, 
 
 389 
 Aratus, a Greek scientific poet, 270 
 
 b. c. , translated by Cicero, 39 
 Arbuscula, a ballet-dancer, 103 
 Archias, Aulus Licinius, a poet de- 
 fended by Cicero, 32 
 Archilochus, a. lyric and satiric poet, 
 
 700 B.C., 354 
 Areopagus, the High Court of Athens, 
 
 22, 26, 127 
 Argenteus [Argents), a. river in the 
 
 S. of Gaul, 389, 393 
 Argolis, a district of the Peloponnesus, 
 
 3°4 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 413 
 
 Ariminum (Rimini), a seaport on the 
 
 Adriatic, 132, 175, 176, 184, 244 
 Ariobarzanes, King of Cappadocia, 
 
 157 
 
 Aristarchus, a famous critic of Alex- 
 andria, 150 B.c. , 21 
 
 Aristodemus, an actor employed by 
 Philip of Macedon, 31 
 
 Aristogeiton, kills Hipparchus of 
 Athens, 514 B.C., 359 
 
 Aristophanes, the great comic poet of 
 Athens, 420 B.c. , 21 
 
 Aristophanes, a grammarian of By- 
 zantium, 250 B.C., 354 
 
 Aristotle, the great philosopher, 350 
 B.C., 33, 119, 3SS 
 
 Armenians, 211 
 
 Arpinum (Arpino), a Volscian town, 
 the birthplace of Cicero and Marius, 
 3, 29, 32, 43, 193, 200, 206, 219, 
 220, 239, 242, 268, 286, 287, 352 
 
 Arretium (Arezzo), a town in Etruria, 
 184, 35° 
 
 Arsaces, the title of the kings of 
 Parthia, 159 
 
 Arsinoe, a younger sister of Cleopatra, 
 260 
 
 Artavasdes, King of Armenia, 142 
 
 Artaxerxes, King of Persia, 480 B.C., 
 
 23S 
 Asia, the Roman province ( = Asia 
 Minor), 32, 42, 53, 60, 102, 122, 
 125, 144, 255, 260, 261, 278, 284, 
 
 2 97. 357. 362. 383 
 Asinius, see Pollio 
 Astura (Asiura), an island off the 
 
 coast of Latium, 291, 310, 318, 403 
 Astyanax, the son of Hector, 103 
 Ateius, Gaius, a senator, 232 
 Ateius, Lucius Capito, a senator, 135, 
 
 136 
 Atella (Aversa), a town of Campania, 
 
 306 
 Athenodorus Calvus, a philosopher 
 
 of Tarsus, 355 
 Athens, 26, 34, 60, 115, 126, 127, 
 
 156, 162, 163, 165, 190, 247, 302, 
 
 3°4. 305. 34i 
 
 Attalus, a Lydian, 60 
 
 Attica, Caecilia, daughter of Atticus, 
 born 51 B.C. ; 156, 263, 318, 330, 
 345. 3S7 I her marriage, 352 
 
 Atticus, Titus Pomponius, the most 
 intimate friend of Cicero : sixty-six 
 of the letters in this selection are 
 addressed to him ; his character, 
 3, 102, 104, 221 ; adopted by his 
 uncle Quintus Caecilius, 102 ; mar- 
 ries Pilia, 90 ; spoken of as half an 
 Athenian, 4, 19, 26, 163, 223, 345 ; 
 his old age and death, 352 
 
 Attius, see Accius 
 
 Attus Navius, a famous Augur of 
 Tarquinius Priscus, 233 
 
 Augurs, college of, 218, 233, 304 
 
 Augustus, see Octavianus 
 
 Aulus junior, see Afranius 
 
 Autronius Publius Paetus, one of the 
 conspirators with Catilina, 19 
 
 Axius, Quintus, a friend of Cicero, 
 64, 103, 142, 263 
 
 Bacchus, the feast of, 204 
 
 Baiae (Baja), a watering-place in 
 Campania, 29, 255, 312 
 
 Balbus, Lucius Cornelius, the elder, 
 Caesar's treasurer, a native of Gades 
 (Cadiz), 92, ioo, 168, 194, 197, 
 198, 224, 254, 256, 264, 272, 310, 
 329. Letter to Cicero, lviii. ; joint 
 letter with Oppius alluded to, 202, 
 241 
 
 Balbus, Lucius Cornelius, the younger, 
 nephew of the preceding, 193, 196, 
 198, 258, 367 
 
 Balbus, Titus Ampius, a Pompeian 
 general, 182, 228 
 
 Balearic Islands, the, 264 
 
 Basilus, Lucius Minucius, one of the 
 conspirators against Caesar, 252 
 
 Basilus, tomb of, on the Appian Way, 
 169 
 
 Bassus, Quintus Caecilius, raises a 
 revolt in Syria, 308, 309, 320, 384 
 
 Bestia, Lucius Calpurnius, defended 
 by Cicero, 89 
 
 Bibulus, Marcus Calpurnius, colleague 
 of Caesar as consul, 59 B.C., 40, 
 41, 43, 46, 48-50, 108, in, 
 206 ; his proposal about King 
 Ptolemaeus, 83-85, 88 ; losses 
 in Parthia, 140, 142, 156 ; com- 
 mands the Pompeian fleet, 245 
 
 Bithynia, a province of Asia, 384 
 
414 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Blandus, a town of Phrygia, 56 
 Blaudus, a town of Phrygia, 55, 56 
 Boeotia, a part of Greece, 151 
 Bononia {Bologna), a town of Cisal- 
 pine Gaul, 365, 366, 394, 400 
 Britain, Caesar's expedition to, 105 
 Brundisium [Brindisi), the principal 
 port of the Adriatic, 16, 77, 79, 
 128, 162, 176, 191, 194, 196, 197, 
 218, 224, 243, 251, 252, 254, 262, 
 33i. 348» 35° I the siege, 200, 203, 
 209, 213, 216, 217, 245 
 Brutus, Decimus Iunius, oneof Caesar's 
 generals, 243, 248, 315, 349 ; joins 
 the conspiracy against Caesar, 315 ; 
 assumes the government of Cisal- 
 pine Gaul, 319, 337, 339, 349 ; 
 accused of attempting the life of 
 Antonius, 356 ; is besieged in 
 Mutina, 357, 364, 365, 370, 376, 
 377 ; battle of Mutina, 377-380 ; 
 crosses the Alps to join Plancus, 
 380, 385, 388, 391, 393, 395, 399 ; 
 his subsequent fate, 400. Letters 
 from Cicero, cxxiii. , cxxv. ; to Cicero, 
 cxx. , cxxxvi. , cxxxvii. , cxliii. , cxlv. ; 
 to Marcus Brutus and Cassius, cvii. 
 Brutus, Lucius, expels Tarquinius 
 
 Superbus, 509 B.C., 51 
 Brutus, Marcus Iunius, son of Servilia ; 
 supposed to be the son of Caesar, 
 50. 3^5 ; his connection with Cas- 
 sius and Lepidus, 346 ; adopted 
 by his uncle Quintus Servilius 
 Caepio, 49 ; denounced by Vettius, 
 49 ; his usurious dealings with the 
 Salaminians, 38, i45-*49> i53-*55. 
 286, 327 ; reconciles Cicero and 
 Appius, 149, 155 ; adopts the 
 Pompeian side, 248 ; pardoned- and 
 made Governor of Cisalpine Gaul 
 by Caesar, 260, 273, 281, 286 ; 
 his panegyric of Cato, 291 ; Cicero 
 writes about Brutus, 284, 291 ; 
 letter of condolence to Cicero, 295 ; 
 murder of Caesar, 315, 319, 327, 
 329 ; Caesar's saying about him, 
 317, 318 ; he leaves Rome, 319, 
 322, 337, 339 ; meets Cicero at 
 Velia, 341, 343; Praetor 44 B.C., 
 339i 346 ; has the government of 
 Macedonia, 339, 345, 351, 357, 
 
 362, 365, 399 ; falls at Philippi, 
 398. Letter from Cicero, xciii. ; 
 from Decimus Brutus, cvii. ; mani- 
 festo to Antonius, cxvi. , 344 
 
 Buthrotum, a town in Epirus where 
 Atticus had an estate, 4, 62, 140, 321 
 
 Byzantium [Constantinople), 206 
 
 Cadiz, see Gades 
 
 Caecilia, see Attica 
 
 Caecilius, Lucius, a Roman merchant, 
 56 
 
 Caecilius, Quintus, uncle of Atticus, 
 6, 48, 102 
 
 Caecilius, Statius, a celebrated comic 
 poet, 180 B.C., 32 
 
 Caecilius, see Metellus, Quintus Cae- 
 cilius Numidicus 
 
 Caecina, Aulus, of Volaterrae, de- 
 fended by Cicero, 277, 278 
 
 Caecina, Aulus, of Volaterrae, son of 
 the preceding, a friend of Cicero, 
 277, 302, 351 ; his 'Querellae,' 
 280, 282, 283." Letter from Cicero, 
 xci. ; letter to Cicero, xcii. 
 
 Caecina, Aulus, son of the preceding, 
 283-285, 351 
 
 Caelius, Gaius, a tribune, 137 
 
 Caelius, Gaius Caldus, consul 94 b. c. , 
 a supporter of Marius, 240 
 
 Caelius, Gaius Caldus, grandson of 
 the preceding, Cicero's quaestor in 
 Cilicia, 155, 162-164, 240 
 
 Caelius, Marcus Rufus, an intimate 
 friend of Cicero, 129, 130, 140, 
 148, 225, 367; becomes a sup- 
 porter of Caesar, 225, 240 ; reverts 
 to Pompeius, 240, 244, 259 ; his 
 fate, 244. Letters from Cicero, 
 xxxvii.,lxx. ; to Cicero, xxxiii.,xxxiv., 
 xxxv., xli., lxix. , Ixxvi. 
 
 Caelius, Marcus Vinicianus, proposes 
 to make Pompeius Dictator, 131 
 
 Caepio, Quintus Servilius, uncle of 
 Marcus Brutus, 49 
 
 Caepio, see Brutus, Marcus 
 
 Caesar, Gaius Iulius, the great Dic- 
 tator, born 102 or 100 B.C., 315 ; 
 his rise into prominence, 3, 33, 37 ; 
 his action in the affair of Clodius, 
 15, 18, 36; in the conspiracy of 
 Catilina, 291 ; praetor 62 B.C., 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 415 
 
 291 ; return to Rome from the 
 government of Further Spain, 38 ; 
 the first Triumvirate, 40, 43, 46, 
 47 ; his first consulship, 59 B. c. , 
 40, in ; his Land Reform Bill, 
 40-42, 108, 307 ; Act to reduce the 
 expenses of Provincial Governors, 
 129, 143 ; the plot of Vettius, 48- 
 51 ; supposed intrigue with Ser- 
 vilia, 50, 315 ; partially shields 
 Cicero against Clodius, 44, 48, 61, 
 62, 64, 77 ; consents to his exile, 
 62, 233 ; to his recall, 77, 112, 
 115; the conquest of Gaul, 77, 
 105, 331 ; of Britain, 105 ; attacks 
 on the triumvirs, 91 ; their con- 
 ference at Luca, 92, 109 ; Cicero 
 renews his support, 92, 99, 105- 
 115, 278 ; Cicero recommends Tre- 
 batius, 99-101 ; Caesar supports 
 Memmius for the consulship, 104 ; 
 requests Cicero to defend Crassus, 
 116 ; makes Antonius his quaestor, 
 164 ; adopts Octavianus, 165, 316 ; 
 breach between Pompeius and 
 Caesar, 122, 125, 132, 133, 138, 
 139, 160, 161 ; attacks on Caesar 
 by the Pompeian party, 125, 126, 
 130-139; Caesar bribes Curio, 131, 
 139, 141, 150 ; crosses the Rubicon 
 and occupies Picenum, 175, 176, 
 183, 184 ; takes Corfinium, 183, 
 191, 198 ; besieges Brundisium, 
 197, 200, 203, 209, 213-217 ; ne- 
 gotiations with the consul Lentalus, 
 196, 198 ; returns to Rome, 200, 
 
 218, 221 ; interviews with Cicero, 
 
 219, 220, 262 ; attempts to persuade 
 Cicero to be neutral, 194, 197, 198, 
 200, 202, 207, 215, 225-230, 236- 
 238, 244-247 ; he seizes the Trea- 
 sury, 221, 234 ; war in Spain, 222, 
 238, 243 ; conquest of Massilia, 
 243 ; mutiny at Placentia, 243 ; 
 Caesar's narrative of the Civil War, 
 243; consul 48 B.C., 243, 253; 
 returns to Rome and is elected Dic- 
 tator, 207, 243 ; sails for Dyrra- 
 chium, 244, 245 ; failure at Dyrra- 
 chium, 247, 270 ; battle of Pharsalus 
 and death of Pompeius, 247, 252, 
 267, 401 ; Caesar besieged in Alex- 
 
 andria, 260 ; battle of Zela, 260 ; 
 returns to Rome, 260, 262 ; mutiny 
 in Campania, 262 ; consul 46 
 B.C., 262; interview with Cicero, 
 262 ; he leaves for Africa, 262 ; 
 battle of Thapsus, 264, 402 ; re- 
 turn from Africa, 264, 266 ; his 
 legislation as Dictator, 268, 333, 
 33S ; land reform, 272 ; reform of 
 the Calendar, 299; leaves for Spain, 
 293 ; battle of Munda, 268, 293, 
 295, 303, 309, 310 ; visit to Cicero 
 at Puteoli, 310-312 ; his murder, 
 
 3*5. 3 21 ' 345. 3 6l > 3 6 3 1 th e 
 Senate confirms his acts, 319, 320, 
 329, 338, 346, 364; his magna- 
 nimity to opponents, 169, 183, 197- 
 199, 216," 218, 247, 250, 254, 257, 
 259, 260-262, 265, 268, 273, 275- 
 280 ; Cicero's feeling about him in 
 his lifetime, 193, 194, .278, 280, 
 
 295, 3°i. 3!7. 331 I after his 
 death, 316, 333, 338, 345, 361, 
 363. Letters from Cicero, xxvii. , 
 lxiv. , xcvii. ; to Cicero, Ix. , part of 
 lxvi., Ixxiii. 
 
 Caesar, Lucius Iulius, consul 64 B.C., 
 7, 291, 327, 347, 364, 366 
 
 Caesar, Octavianus, see Octavianus 
 
 Caesar, Sextus Iulius, Governor of 
 Syria, 384 
 
 Caesius, Lucius, agent of Quintus 
 Cicero, 55 
 
 Caesius, Marcus, aedile of Arpinum, 
 287 
 
 Caesonius, Marcus, a possible candi- 
 date for the consulship of 64 
 B.C., 4 
 
 Caieta (Gaeta), a seaport of Latium, 
 191, 241 
 
 Calatia (Le Galazze), a town near 
 Capua, 350 
 
 Calenus, see Fufius 
 
 Cales (Calvi), a town in Campania, 
 
 179. '9 1 - 356 
 Calidius, Marcus, an orator, 130 
 Calpurnia, third wife of Caesar, 179, 
 
 316 
 Calpurnius, Lucius (?) Piso, a friend 
 
 of Antonius, perhaps the consul of 
 
 58 B.C., 237 
 Calvena, see Matius 
 
4i6 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Calvus (Baldhead), a nickname of 
 
 Crassus, 27 
 Camillus, Gaius Furius, a lawyer, 
 
 Campania, a district of Southern Italy, 
 209, 262, 323, 348, 350 ; distribu- 
 tion of state-lands in, 40-42, 44, 
 91, 108, 168, 350 ; in charge of 
 Cicero, 176, 178, 181, 182 
 
 Caninius, Aulus Satyrus, prosecuted 
 by Caecilius, 6 
 
 Caninius, Lucius Gallus, a tribune, 
 84. 85, 95 
 
 Cannutius, Titus; a tribune opposed 
 to Antonius, 349 
 
 Canuleius, a centurion, 143 
 
 Canusium {Canosd)\ a town of Apulia, 
 16 
 
 Capena, a town of Etruria, 272 
 
 Capua {Capua), the chief town of 
 Campania, 4^, 179, 180, 182, 186, 
 189, 191, 218, 350, 351, 356 ' 
 
 Carbo, Gaius Papirius, said , to have 
 murdered Scipio Africanus Minor, 
 
 88,>35)" 
 
 Carrhae, a town in Mesopotamia, de- 
 feat of Crassus at, 125 
 
 Cascellius, Marcus, a merchant of 
 Asia, 55 
 
 Casilinum, a town close to Capua, 
 
 Casinum {San Germand) a town of 
 
 Latium, 354 
 Cassandra, the prophecy of, in Ennius, 
 
 195 
 
 Cassii, the, 59 
 
 Cassius Barba, a friend of Caesar, 
 310 
 
 Cassius, Gaius Longinus, 142, 292, 
 329, 346, 384 ; success against the 
 Parthians, 156 ; submits to Caesar, 
 260, 281 ; heads the -conspiracy 
 against Caesar, 315 ; leaves Rome 
 and occupies Syria, 319, 320, 337, 
 339- 345. 357. 3^5- 37° I defeats 
 Dolabella, 361, 383, 398 ; falls at 
 Philippi, 398. Letters from Cicero, 
 lxxxiii. , cxv. , cxviii. , cxxvi. , cxxviii. , 
 cxxxiv. , cxlvii. ; to Cicero, cxxxviii. ; 
 from Decimus Brutus, cvii. ; mani- 
 festo of Cassius and Marcus Brutus, 
 cxvi., 344 
 
 Cassius, Lucius Longinus, brother of 
 the preceding, 317, 346 
 
 Cassius, Quintus Longinus, brother of 
 the two preceding, tribune 49 b, c. , 
 142, 164, 175, 207 
 
 Castulo, forest of {Sierra di Cazorla) 
 in the Sierra Morena, 367 
 
 Catienus, Titus, an enemy of Quintus 
 Cicero, 56 
 
 Catilina, Lucius Sergius, leader of the 
 revolutionary party, a candidate for 
 the consulship, 4, 8 ; defended by 
 Cicero, 7 ; is twice acquitted, 29, 
 68 ; his conspiracy crushed in Ci- 
 cero's consulship, 8, 13, 22, 35, 37, 
 62, 107, in, 114, 187, 189, 211 
 
 Catina {Catania), a town in Sicily, 
 357 
 
 Catius, Gaius Vestinius, an officer of 
 Antonius, 397 
 
 Cato, Gaius Porcius, tribune 56 b. c. , 
 61, 85, 86, 88, 89, 101, 103, 106 
 
 Cato, Marcus Porcius, 'the Censor,' 
 consul 195 B.C., 301 
 
 Cato, Marcus Porcius, the younger, 
 'of Utica,' great-grandson of the 
 preceding, 23, 63, 116, 240, 343 ; 
 his motion on the conspiracy of 
 Catilina, 291 ; opposes Clodius, 18, 
 22 ; his attacks on bribery, 31, 38, 
 104 ; on extortion in the provinces, 
 39,. 147, 154 ; annexes Cyprus, 62 ; 
 opposes a thanksgiving for Cicero's 
 success in Cilicia, 156-159 ; surren- 
 ders Sicily to Curio, 238, 239 ; in 
 command after Pharsalus, 251 ; 
 suicide at Utica, 264, 267 ; the 
 Cato of Marcus Brutus and Anti- 
 Cato of Caesar, 291 ; Mommsen's 
 harsh judgment of him, 291. 
 Letter to Cicero, xxxix, ; from 
 Cicero, xl. 
 
 Catullus, quoted, 310 
 
 Catulus, Quintus Lutatius, consul 78 
 B.C., 17, 27, 50, 51, 93, 107, 291 
 
 Celer, a freedman of Atticus, 224, 
 248 
 
 Censorinus, Lucius Marcius, praetor 
 43 B. a, 59 
 
 Cephalio, a slave of Atticus, 2-23, 258 
 
 Chaerippus, a dependent of Quintus 
 Cicero, 360 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 417 
 
 Chaeron, a character in a dialogue of 
 Dicaearchus, 151 
 
 Chaldeans, their art of divination, 277 
 
 Chios (Scio), an island in the Aegean 
 Sea, 206 
 
 Cibyra, a town and district of Asia, 
 132, 143, 145 
 
 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, passim; see 
 Tabular Life, p. xxiii. 
 
 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, only son, of 
 the orator, born 65 B.C., 7 ; his 
 education, 105, 217 ; his father's 
 anxiety during his exile, 69-71, 
 74 ; during the Civil War, 189 ; 
 with his father in Cilicia, 156, 
 164 ; in Greece, 241, 243 ; left at 
 Formiae, 186 ; elected aedile of 
 Arpinum, 287 ; the ' De Officiis ' 
 addressed to him, 356 
 
 Cicero, Quintus Tullius, younger bro- 
 ther of the orator, praetor 62 B.C., 
 53; his estates, 24, 90, 91, 120-123; 
 marries Pomponia, sister of Atticus, 
 S3 ; domestic quarrels, 71, 81, 128, 
 151 ; Governor of Asia, 42, 43, 53- 
 61 ; influence of his freedman 
 Statius, 43, 45, 46, S3, S4 ; assists 
 his brother in exile, 74, 79, 81, 90 ; 
 acts for Pompeius in Sardinia, 86, 
 90, 109 ; goes with Caesar to Gaul 
 and Britain, 105, 115, 118; goes 
 with his brother to Cilicia, 144, 145, 
 148, 156, 163 ; sails with his bro- 
 ther for Greece, 189, 241 ; quarrels 
 with him, 253-258 ; pardoned by 
 Caesar, 252, 255 ; the brothers 
 reconciled, 263, 403 ; murder of 
 Quintus and his son in the proscrip- 
 tion, 403 ; his character, S3 ; letter on 
 'canvassing for a consulship,' 160, 
 Letters from Cicero, xv., xxiii,, 
 xxiv. 
 
 Cicero, Quintus Tullius, son of the 
 preceding ; educated at his uncle's 
 house, 91, 217 ; his character, 151, 
 357 I g° es with bis father after the 
 war, 241, 253, 255 ; elected aedile 
 of Arpinum, 287 ; murdered with 
 his father, 403 
 
 Cilicia, a province of Asia with Cyprus 
 annexed, 57, 137, 145, 251, 385 ; 
 Lentulus, Governor of, 81, 96, 120 ; 
 
 Cicero, Governor of, 125, 130, 141- 
 148, 150-156, 252, 263, 294 
 
 Cilo, see Magius 
 
 Cincinnatus, Dictator 439 B.C. , 51 
 
 Cincius, Lucius, an agent of Atticus, 
 4. 32. iS° 
 
 Cingulum {Cingoli), a town in Pice- 
 num, 176 
 
 Cinna, Lucius Cornelius, leader of the 
 popular party against Sulla, 169, 
 190, 210, 279 
 
 Claterna [Quadernat), a. town near 
 Bologna, 365 
 
 Claudia (Clodia), sister of Clodius and 
 wife of Quintus Metellus Celer, 13, 
 36. 87 
 
 Claudius, Appius, elder brother of 
 Clodius, see Appius 
 
 Claudius, Servius, brother or cousin of 
 Lucius Paetus, 39 
 
 Cleopatra, the famous queen, daughter 
 of Ptolemaeus Auletes, 81, 260 
 
 Clodia, mother-in-law of Lucius Me- 
 tellus, 205 
 
 Clodius, Publius Pulcher, called ' Pul- 
 chellus' or 'The Beauty,' 29, 35, 
 44 ; spelling of his name, 13 ; in- 
 trudes on the rites of the Bona 
 Dea, 15, 112; his trial and ac- 
 quittal, 18-29, H3; quarrels with 
 Cicero, 28-30 ; is adopted by a 
 plebeian, 33, 168, 188, 259 ; elected 
 tribune, 33, 77, 259 ; attacks Cicero, 
 
 33. 35. 3 6 . 45. 6z . 6 4. 66, 72-74. 80, 
 97, 322, 325 ; destroys Cicero's 
 house, 62, 107, 113 ; attacks Pom- 
 peius, 77 ; prosecutes the tribunes, 
 103 ; attacks Milo, 86-89 ; is mur- 
 dered by Milo, 122 
 
 Clodius, Publius, son of the preceding, 
 322-324 
 
 Clodius, Sextus, a freedman of Pub- 
 lius, 232, 322-324 
 
 Clodius, Sextus, a rhetorician, 102, 232 
 
 Cluvius, Marcus, a banker of Puteoli, 
 152, 306, 323 
 
 Colchis, a province of Asia, 206, 211 
 
 Colophon, a city of Asia, 55 
 
 Comum, Novum (Como), a town of 
 Transpadane Gaul, 125, 126 
 
 Considius, Quintus Gallus, opposes 
 Caesar in the Senate, 51 
 
 2 E 
 
4i8 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Considius, Marcus Nonianus, an officer 
 
 of Pompeius, 182, 184 
 Corcyra {Corfu), the island of, 33, 156, 
 
 245, 251, 253, 287, 288 
 Corduba (Cordova^, the capital of 
 
 Western Spain, 366-368 
 Corfinium (near Pofoli), a town of 
 
 Samnium, the ancient capital of the 
 
 Paeligni, 181, 183; siege of, 183, 
 
 191, 198, 207, 218 
 Corinth, 39, 205, 267, 297, 298 
 Coriolanus, Gaius, or Gnaeus, Mar- 
 
 Cius, 49O B.C., 2IO 
 
 Cornelius, Gaius, a tribune, 89 
 
 Cornelius, Marcus, an acquaintance 
 of Atticus, 16 
 
 Cornelius, Publius, a tribune, 137 
 
 Cornificius, Quintus, a competitor for 
 the consulship of 63 B.C., 4, 18, 
 308 
 
 Cornificius, Quintus, son of the pre- 
 ceding, successively Governor of 
 Illyria, Syria, and Africa, 308, 347, 
 359. Letters to, cxix. , cxxiv. 
 
 Cornutus, Gaius, tribune 61 B.C., 
 called Pseudo-Cato, 23 
 
 Corsica, 243 
 
 Cos (Stanchio), an island in the Aegean 
 Sea, 206 
 
 Cosa [Ansedonia), a seaport of Etruria, 
 206 
 
 Cosconius, Gaius, a commissioner of 
 lands, 47 
 
 Cossinius, Lucius, a friend of Cicero, 
 
 33 
 
 Cotta, Lucius Aurelius, consul 65 B.C. , 
 7, 291, 347 
 
 Cotta, Marcus Aurelius, holds Sar- 
 dinia for Pompeius, 238, 240 
 
 Crassipes, Marcus Furius, quaestor of 
 Bithynia, betrothed to Tullia, 56 
 B, c, 86, 91, 93, 99, 117 
 
 Crassus, Marcus Licinius, consul 70 
 and 55 B.C., called ' Baldhead,' 27 ; 
 eulogises Cicero's consulship, 21, 27 ; 
 his proposal about KingPtolemaeus, 
 . 83 ; rivalry with Pompeius; 21, 86, 
 87, 88 ; quarrels with and is recon- 
 ciled to Cicero, 68, 74, 1 16-173 ! 
 the First Triumvirate, 40, 92, 109 ; 
 killed while invading Syria, 125, 156 
 
 Crassus, Publius Licinius, son of the 
 
 preceding, killed together with his 
 father, 293 ; his freedman Apol- 
 lonius recommended to Caesar, 
 
 293- 2 9S 
 
 Crassus, Publius (?) Licinius Dives, 
 praetor 59 b.c , 51 
 
 Crispus, Quintus Marcius, Governor 
 of Bithynia, general of Cassius, 384 
 
 Cularo (Grenoble), a town of the Allo- 
 broges, 385, 393, 396, 398 
 
 Culleo, Quintus Terentius, tribune 
 58 B.c, 65, 389 
 
 Cumae (Cuma), a town of Campania, 
 228, 230, 239, 240, 266 
 
 Curio, Gaius Scribonius, consul 76 
 B.C., 23, 29, 32, 64, 291 
 
 Curio, Gaius Scribonius, son of the 
 preceding, riots in defence of Clo- 
 dius, 22, 24, 29 ; connection with 
 the plot of Vettius, 48-51; opposes 
 the triumvirs, 44, 47, 88, 135, 136, 
 138 ; Caesar bribes him, 139, 141, 
 150, 153, 161 ; elected tribune, 
 130, 131, 140 ; his insidious pro- 
 posal, 167 ; brings Caesar's ulti- 
 matum, 175 ; represents Caesar in 
 Italy, 236, 239, 244 ; takes Sicily, 
 223, 238, 243 ; killed in Africa, 
 239, 243, 264 ; his character, 22, 
 120, 231 ; his style, 367. Letter 
 from Cicero, xxx. 
 
 Curius, Manius Dentatus, drains Lake 
 
 . Velinus, 101, 103 
 
 Curius, Quintus (?), a possible com- 
 petitor for the consulship of 64 
 B.C., S 
 
 Curtius, Gaius, a friend of Cicero, 
 306 
 
 Curtius, Marcus Postumus, a friend 
 of Caesar, 230 
 
 Cyprus, the island of, attached to the 
 Government of Cilicia, 62, 96, 125,. 
 144, 145, 155, 206 
 
 Cyrrhestica, a district of Syria, 142 
 
 Cyrus, King of Persia, 559 B.C., his 
 character in Xenophon, 57 
 
 Cytheris, a famous actress, 241 
 
 Cyzicus, a town on the Sea of Mar- 
 mora, 66 
 
 Damasippus, Lucius Iunius Brutus, 
 murders Scaevola, 190 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 419 
 
 Deiotarus, King of Galatia, 142, 148, 
 
 317, 321, 361 
 Delos, an island in the Aegean Sea, 
 
 208 
 Demetrius, a rhetorician of Magnesia, 
 
 author of a work on ' Concord, ' 196, 
 
 205 
 Democritus, a philosopher of Abdera, 
 
 400 B.C., 167 
 Demosthenes, the great Athenian 
 
 orator, 330 B.C. , 31, 34 
 Dertona ( Tortona), a town of Cisalpine 
 
 Gaul, 380, 382 
 Dicaearchia, the old name of Puteoli, 
 
 152 
 Dicaearchus, a philosopher of Mes- 
 
 sana, 300B.C. , 42, 152 
 Diochares, a freedman of Caesar, 255 
 Diodotus, a Stoic philosopher living 
 
 with Cicero, 294 
 Diodotus, a freedman of Lucullus, 
 
 59 
 Diogenes, a friend of Caelius Rufus, 
 
 138 
 
 Dion Cassius, the historian, 220 A.D., 
 49, 287, 315 
 
 Dionysius, the elder, tyrant of Syra- 
 cuse 400 B.C., 210 
 
 Dionysius, the younger, tyrant of Syra- 
 cuse 367 B.C., son of the preced- 
 ing, keeps a school at Corinth, 205, 
 267 
 
 Dionysius, a freedman of Cicero, and 
 tutor in his house, 105, i£2, 166, 
 217, 239 
 
 Dionysius, a. freedman of Atticus, 
 102 
 
 Dionysopolis, a town of Phrygia, 55 
 
 Diphilus, a tragic actor, 46 
 
 Dolabella, Publius Cornelius, son-in- 
 law of Cicero, elected into the Col- 
 lege of Fifteen, 130 ; impeaches 
 Appius, 139, 141, 150, 162 ; marries 
 Tullia, 140, 148, 162 ; joins Caesar, 
 180, 185, 219, 229, 230, 236, 245, 
 312 ; intercedes for Cicero, 246 ; 
 divorced from Tullia, 230, 245, 248, 
 266, 291, 326, 330; continues on 
 friendly terms with Cicero, 245, 
 266, 326; tribune 47 B.C., 259; 
 consul 44 B.C., 326, 34s ; sup- 
 presses a riot, 326-328, 337 ; bribed 
 
 by Antonius, 326 ; Syria assigned to 
 him, 337, 345 ; allusions to him in 
 the Philippics, 354, 363 ; murders 
 Trebonius, 361, 362, 383 ; is at- 
 tacked by Cassius and commits 
 suicide, 376, 383, 384, 398. Letter 
 to Cicero, lxxvii. ; from Cicero, cxi. 
 
 Domitius, Lucius Ahenobarbus, a 
 friend of Cicero, 6 ; praetor 59 B.c. , 
 61, 66 ; supports Cato, 31 ; con- 
 nection with the plot of Vettius, 
 50 ; attacks Caesar, 91, 135, 136 ; 
 fraudulent bargain about the consul- 
 ship, 102, 104 ; not elected Augur, 
 159 ; besieged by Caesar in Corfi- 
 nium, 183, 191 ; appointed Caesar's 
 successor in Gaul, 183, 184 ; occu- 
 pies Massilia, 206, 219, 243 ; his 
 ferocity, 251, 275. Letter from 
 Pompeius, li. 
 
 Domitius, Gnaeus Ahenobarbus, son 
 of the preceding, 159 
 
 Domitius, Gnaeus Calvinus, praetor 
 56 B.C., 89; consul 53 B.C., 102, 
 104 ; one of Caesar's generals, 250, 
 260 
 
 Druentia (Durance), a river of Trans- 
 alpine Gaul, 389 
 
 Drusus, Livius, father of the Empress 
 Livia, 104, 161, 292 
 
 Dyrrachium (Durasao), in Greek, Epi- 
 damnus, a seaport of Illyria, 62, 
 69. 71. 77. 79. 244. 2 45. 2 47. 251. 
 270 
 
 Egypt, 81, 96, 251, 260, 365, 383 
 Elea, see Velia 
 Eleusis, a town in Attica, 163 
 Emesa, a town in Syria, 41 
 Enipeus, a river in Thessaly, 251 
 Ennius, Quintus, the Epic poet, 200 
 
 B.c, 46, 154, 195 
 Ephesus, the capital of Roman Asia, 
 
 S3, 155, 162 
 Epicurus, the philosopher of Athens, 
 
 300 B.C., 127 
 Epidaurus, a town in Argolis, 304 
 Epirus (part of Albania), 4, 16, 70, 
 
 74, 102, 141, 204, 206, 207, 217, 
 
 242, 244, 245 
 Eporedia (Ivrea), a town in Cisalpine 
 I Gaul, 391, 393 
 
420 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Eppius, Marcus, a senator of the 
 
 Pompeian party, 135, 136, 182 
 Eriphyle,' wife of Amphiaraus, 279 
 Eros, an agent of Cicero, 292, 329, 
 
 356 
 Eros, perhaps a freedman of Metellus 
 
 Celer, 220 
 Eteocles, King of Thebes, in the 
 
 Phoenissae, 177 
 Etruria, Etruscan, 277, 278, 280, 306, 
 
 382 
 Euphrates, the river, 142 
 Euripides, quoted by Cicero, 52, 177, 
 
 181 
 Eutychides, a freedman of Atticus, 
 
 102 
 
 Faberius, a debtor of Cicero, 292 
 Fabia, sister of Terentia, a vestal 
 
 virgin, 68 
 Fabius, a lover of Clodia, 36 
 Fabius, Gaius, a general of Caesar, 
 
 191, 243 
 Fabius, Gaius, an enemy of Quintus 
 
 Cicero, 56 
 Fabius, Quintus Maximus Cunctator, 
 
 the celebrated opponent of Hanni- 
 bal, 217 B.C., 46, 300 
 Fabius, Quintus Vergilianus, a general 
 
 of Pompeius, 181 
 Fadia, daughter of the following, wife 
 
 of Antonius, 353 
 Fadius, Quintus Gallus, a freedman, 
 
 353 
 Fadius, Titus Gallus, a tribune in 
 
 favour of Cicero, 74 
 Fannius, Gaius, an officer of Lucullus 
 
 and Pompeius, 50, 255 
 Faucius, Marcus, a commissioner, 
 
 286 
 Faustus, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, son 
 
 of the Dictator, 191 
 Favonius, Marcus, a vehement oppo- 
 nent of both Caesar and Pompeius, 
 
 22, 23, 38, 80, 87 
 Fifteen, the [Quindecimviri), a sacred 
 
 college in charge of the Sibylline 
 
 Books, 130 
 Figulus, Gaius Marcius, consul 65 
 
 B.C., 7, 291 
 Flaccus, Lucius Valerius, probably 
 
 the consul of 100 B.C., 190 
 
 Flaccus, Lucius Valerius, praetor in 
 Cicero's consulship, 63 B.C., 53 
 
 Flamininus, Titus Quinctius, .conqueror 
 of Macedonia, 197 B.C. , 355 
 
 Flavius, Lucius, tribune 60 B.C., 38, 
 223, 306 ; praetor 58 B.C., 58, 59 
 
 Fonteius, Marcus, defended by Cicero, 
 103 
 
 Fonteius, Publius, adopts Clodius {33), 
 168 
 
 Formiae (now Formia, once Mola di 
 Gaeta), a seaport of Latium, 40, 
 162, 181, 185, 186, 191, 202, 204, 
 213, 219, 239, 310, 331, 403 
 
 Forum Cornelium [Imola), a town on 
 the Aemilian Way, 365 
 
 Forum Gallorum (Castel Franco), be- 
 tween Mutina and Bononia, battle 
 at, 377-379- 4° 2 
 
 Forum Iuli [Frdjus), a town on the 
 coast of Narbonese Gaul, 388, 389 
 
 Forum Voconi (Le Canetf), a town 
 N. of Forum Iuli, 389 
 
 Frusino [Frossinone), a town in La- 
 tium, 248 
 
 Fufidius, Quintus, a commissioner, 
 286 
 
 Fufius,, Quintus Calenus, tribune 61 
 B.C., 20, 23, 25, 44; supports 
 Antonius, 353, 364 
 
 Fulvia, wife of Clodius, and afterwards 
 of Antonius, 320-322 
 
 Fundanius, Gaius, a friend of Cicero, 
 
 ss • 
 
 Furius, a name given by Cicero to 
 Atticus, 48 
 
 Furnius, Gaius, a. friend of Cicero, 
 200, 201, 215 ; serves under Plan- 
 cus, 370, 374, 37s, 387, 402, 403 
 
 Gabinius, Aulus, tribune 66 B.C. ; 
 Act for extending the powers of 
 Pompeius, 8 ; consul 58 B.C., 50, 
 61, 81 ; an enemy of Cicero, 101, 
 116, 232 ; his Act about usury, 
 146, 154 
 
 Gades (Cadiz), a town of Spain, 168, 
 
 197. 243 
 Galatia, a district of Asia, 317, 361 
 Galba, Publius Sulpicius, candidate 
 
 for the consulship in Cicero's year, 
 - 4. 207 . 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 421 
 
 Galba, Servius Sulpicius, grandfather 
 
 of the Emperor Galba, 377. Letter 
 
 to Cicero, cxxxv. 
 Galeo, leaves a legacy to Cicero, 260 
 Gallius, Marcus and Quintus, 130 
 Gallus, Gaius Sulpicius, consul 166 
 
 B.C., 301 
 Gaul, Cisalpine, 5, 10, 134, 175, 183, 
 
 184, 185, 188, 273, 286, 319, 349, 
 
 358, 3S9, 366 
 Gaul, Narbonensian [Languedoc and 
 
 Provence), 17, 366, 369, 371 
 Gaul, Transalpine, 39, 79, 99, 100, 
 
 131, 134, 183, 184, 185, 33L 3S 1 . 
 
 364, 366, 369, 371, 389 
 Gaul, Transpadane, the northern part 
 
 of Cisalpine Gaul, 125, 126, 185, 
 
 243. 36S 
 
 Gaul = the ager Gallicus (the sea- 
 coast of Umbria), 89 
 
 Gauls, the, 178 
 
 Gellius, Lucius, consul 72 B. c. , 291 
 
 Glabrio, Manius Acilius, consul 67 
 B.C., 291 
 
 Gracchus, Gaius Sempronius, his Act 
 about the provinces, 122 B.C., 99 
 
 Greece, 34, 126, 180, 206, 209, 220, 
 241, 295, 365 
 
 Greek, 42, SS. 5°. 126, 141, J 44> 
 147, 151 
 
 Hadeumetum, a town near Carthage, 
 
 264 
 Hales (A lento), a river in the south of 
 
 Italy, 343 
 Hammonius, ambassador of King 
 
 Ptolemaeus, 82 
 Hannibal, the great Carthaginian 
 
 general, 46, 177 
 Harmodius kills Hipparchus of Athens, 
 
 514 B.C., 359 
 Haterius, a lawyer, 268 
 Hector, son of Priam, King of Troy, 
 
 1S8 
 Hemesa, see Emesa 
 Hephaestus, a citizen of Apamea, 55 
 Heracleides, a Platonic philosopher 
 
 ofPontus, 350 B.C., 354 
 Hermia, a slave of Cicero, 59, 186, 187 
 Hermippus, a citizen of Dionysopolis, 
 
 55 
 Hermon, a slave of Canuleius, 143 
 
 Herophilus, see Amatius 
 
 Hippias, son of Peisistratus, tyrant of 
 Athens, 527 B.C., 210 
 
 Hirrus, Gaius Lucilius, a supporter of 
 Pompeius, 131, 135, 136, 181 
 
 Hirtius, Aulus, consul 43 B.C., 264, 
 266, 268, 319, 320, 322, 330, 347, 
 357. 3S9. 361, 364. 366 ; battle of 
 Mutina and his death, 377-379, 
 381, 385, 394 
 
 Hispo, probably an officer, 70 
 
 Homer, quoted by Cicero, 7, 27, 42, 
 53, 104, 152, 178, 200, 202, 213, 
 223, 356, 390 ; his method, 24 
 
 Horace, quoted, 21, 52, 59, 99, 225, 
 342, 356, 367, 370, 401 
 
 Hortensius, Quintus Hortalus, consul 
 69 B.C., a great orator, 17, 22, 23, 
 24, 25, 26, 52, 83, 95, 101, 103, 
 163, 229, 367 
 
 Hortensius, Quintus, son of the pre- 
 ceding, 240, 255, 365 
 
 Hypaepi, a town in Lydia, 60 
 
 Hypsaeus, Publius Plautius, quaestor 
 of Pompeius, 82 
 
 Iconium, the capital of Lycaonia, 
 
 143 
 
 Ilerda (Lerida), a town in Eastern 
 Spain, 243 
 
 Illyria (Croatia and Dalmatia), 175, 
 243, 308 
 
 Interamna ( Terni), a town of Umbria, 
 36, 101, 103 
 
 Isara (Isfoe), a branch of the Rhone, 
 385, 388, 395, 396 
 
 Isauria, a district of Asia, 145 
 
 Isidorus, a freedman of Atticus, 248 
 
 Isocrates, a celebrated orator of 
 Athens, 380 B.C., 33, 119 
 
 Italy, 11, 61, 66, 70, 71, in, 122, 
 175, 176, 187, 188, 189, 193, 195, 
 196, 200, 202, 203, 206, 209, 211, 
 212, 213, 228, 230, 232, 236, 239, 
 240, 241, 242, 243, 246, 251, 255, 
 256, 258, 262, 264, 269, 277, 286, 
 304, 306, 319, 323, 361, 366, 369, 
 380, 382, 385, 388, 394, 395, 399- 
 
 Iuba, King of Numidia, assists the 
 Pompeian party, 239, 264, 270 
 
 lulia, daughter of Caesar, second wife 
 of Pompeius, 125 
 
422 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Iulius, Gains, perhaps not the Dicta- 
 tor Caesar, 148 
 
 Jerome, St., 400 a.d., 287 
 Juvenal, quoted, 55, 61, 161, 167 
 
 Labeo, Segulius, a. friend of Octavi- 
 anus, 391 
 
 Laberius, Decimus, a celebrated 
 writer of mimes, 309 
 
 Labienus, Titus [Atius?], Caesar's 
 chief officer, 168, 238, 368 ; deserts 
 to Pompeius, 176, 179, 185 ; his 
 wealth, 168, 176 
 
 Laco, of Anagnia, a boon-companion 
 of Antonius, 355 
 
 Laconia, the southern part of Pelo- 
 ponnesus, 304 
 
 Laelii, the family of, 131 
 
 Laelius, Decimus, an officer of Pom- 
 peius, 256 
 
 Laelius, Gaius, the friend of Scipio 
 Africanus Minor, 9 
 
 Laelius, a nom deplume of Cicero, 48 
 
 Laenius, a friend of Cicero, 143, 145 
 
 Lamia, Lucius Aelius, a senator, 90, 
 292 
 
 Lanuvium (Civita Lavinia), a town 
 of Latiurn, 208, 318, 329, 337 
 
 Laodicea, the capital of Phrygia, 128, 
 143, 145, 150, 152, 361, 383 
 
 Larissa, the chief town of Thessaly, 
 
 251 
 
 Laterensis, Marcus Iuventius, a friend 
 of Cicero, 44, 51 ; praetor 51 B.C., 
 133, 134 ; chief officer of Lepidus, 
 387, 392, 396 
 
 Laterium, an estate of Quintus Cicero, 
 near Arpinum, 222 
 
 Lebadeia, a town in Boeotia, 151 
 
 Lentulus, Gnaeus Vatia, accused by 
 Nerius, 89 
 
 Lentulus, Lucius Cornelius Crus, con- 
 sul 49 B.C., 61, 130, 175, 193, 196, 
 198, 203, 255, 267 
 
 Lentulus, Lucius Cornelius Niger, 
 priest of Mars, 49 
 
 Lentulus, Lucius Cornelius Niger, son 
 of the preceding, 49 
 
 Lentulus, Publius Cornelius Spinther, 
 consul 57 B.C., 70, 72, 77, 143, 
 146, 216 ; Governor of Cilicia, 
 
 Cicero's advice about King Ptole- 
 maeus, 81-86, 94-99 ; his recall 
 proposed by Gaius Cato, 86, 89, 
 106 ; his death, 267. Letters from 
 Cicero, xxi., xxii., xxvi., xxix. 
 
 Lentulus, Publius Cornelius Spinther, 
 son of the preceding (86), 119, 120 
 
 Lentulus, Publius Cornelius Sura, 
 executed in the conspiracy of Cati- 
 lina, 29 
 
 Lepidus, Marcus Aemilius, praetor 49 
 B.c, 206, 222, 243 ; consul 46 B.C., 
 262 ; his position after Caesar's 
 murder, 316 ; Pontifex Maximus, 
 357, 371 ; Governor of Narbonen- 
 sian Gaul and Eastern Spain, 366, 
 368, 371 ; intrigues with Antonius, 
 346, 368, 370, 371, 379, 380, 381, 
 386, 387-389, 392-399 ; the Trium- 
 virate, 392, 398, 400 ; his character, 
 380, 392, 396. Letter from Cicero, 
 cxxxi. ; to Cicero, cxli. ; Manifesto, 
 cxliv. 
 
 Lepidus, Marcus Aemilius, son of the 
 preceding, 346 
 
 Lepidus, Manius Aemilius Livianus, 
 consul 66 B.C. , 193, 213, 291 
 
 Lepreon, a town of Elis, 152 
 
 Lepta, Quintus, an officer of Cicero, 
 in Cilicia, 100, 191, 216 
 
 Lesbos, an island in the Aegean Sea, 
 206 
 
 Leucopetra, the S.W. promontory of 
 Italy, 341 
 
 Libo, Lucius Scribonius, consul 34 
 B.C., a supporter of Pompeius, 83, 
 182, 245 
 
 Licinius, a kidnapper in Asia, 56 
 
 Licinius, a slave of Aesopus, 62 
 
 Ligurius, Aulus, a. friend of Caesar, 
 
 257 
 Lilybaeum [Marsala], the capital of a 
 
 department of Sicily, 3 
 Livy, quoted, 403 
 
 Lollius, Gaius, husband of Ovia, 292 
 Lollius, Lucius, a lawyer, 134 
 Lollius, Marcus, see Palicanus 
 Luca (Lucca), a town of Etruria, 92, 
 
 109 
 Lucania, a province of Italy, 341 
 Lucceius, Lucius, a friend of Cicero, 
 
 24, 38, 295 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 .423 
 
 Lucceius, Lucius, a senator, 147 
 Lucceius, Marcus, father of the pre- 
 ceding, 147 
 ■Luceria (Lucera), a town of Apulia, 
 
 headquarters of Pompeius, 176, 181, 
 
 189, 191, 196, 200, 262 
 Lucilius, Gaius, the great satirist, no 
 
 B.C., quoted by Cicero, 311, 353 
 Lucinius, 90 
 
 Lucretius, quoted, 42, 296 
 Lucullus, Lucius Licinius, consul 74 
 
 B.C., the conqueror of Mithradates, 
 
 °. 23. 32, S°. 59. 291 
 Lucullus, Marcus Licinius, consul 73 
 
 B.C., brother of the preceding, 32, 
 
 83, 95, 291 
 
 Lugdunum (Lyon), a city of Gaul, 
 
 founded by Plancus, 370, 389 
 Lupus, Publius Rutilius, tribune 56 
 
 B.c, 83, 84, 3S7 
 Lurco, Marcus Aufidius, tribune 6r 
 
 B.C., 31 
 Lycaonia, a province of Asia, 14s 
 Lycia, a province of Asia, 206 
 Lycurgus, the legislator of Sparta, 900 
 
 B.C., 18 
 
 Macedonia, the province of, 50, 58, 
 273. 287, 337, 339, 348, 3S7. 3°5. 
 398, 400, 403 
 
 Macer, Gaius Licinius, 91 
 
 Madarus, a name of Matius 
 
 Maelius, Spurius, the popular leader, 
 murdered by Ahala, 439 B.C., 5T 
 
 Magius, Publius Cilo, the murderer 
 of Marcus Marcellus, 303, 304 
 
 Magnesia, a town of Lydia, 196 
 
 Maleae or Malea (Cape Malia), the 
 S. promontory of Laconia, 304 
 
 Malta, island of, 236 
 
 Mamercus, Quintus, commissioner, 
 286 
 
 Mamilius, Octavius, Prince of the 
 Latins, befriends Tarquinius Super- 
 bus in his exile, 210 
 
 Mamurra, Aulus, Caesar's chief en- 
 gineer in Gaul, 168, 310, 311 
 
 Marathon, battle of, 490 B.C., 210 
 
 Marcellinus, Gnaeus Cornelius Len- 
 tulus, consul 56 B.C., 57, 81, 82, 
 
 84, 108, 208 
 
 Marcellus, Gaius Claudius, consul 49 
 
 B.c, 86 (?), 17s, 269, 275 (?), 
 
 289 
 Marcellus, Gaius Claudius, consul 50 
 
 B.C., cousin of the preceding, 86 (?), 
 
 130, 136, 275 (?), 289 
 Marcellus, Marcus Claudius, consul 
 
 51 B.C., cousin of the preceding and 
 
 brother of the consul of 49 B.c. , 
 
 86 (?), 145 ; scourges a citizen of 
 
 Comum, 125, 126 ; proposes the 
 
 recall of Caesar, 135, 136, 188 ; 
 
 pardoned by Caesar, 260, 273-276, 
 
 281, 289 ; his murder, 274, 303- 
 
 305. Letter to Cicero, xcv. 
 Marius, Gaius, the great antagonist of 
 
 Sulla, a native of Arpinum, 3, 29, 
 
 268 ; his triumph, 87 B.C., 190, 
 
 210 ; his defeat, 235, 306 
 Marius, Gaius, son of the preceding, 
 
 190 
 Marius, Marcus, a friend of Cicero, 
 
 268. Letter to, lxxxviii. 
 Mars' Hill, see Areopagus 
 Martial, quoted, 36, 167 
 Massilia (Marseille), a city of Gallia 
 
 Narbonensis, 207, 219, 243 
 Matinius, Publius, a friend of Marcus 
 
 Brutus, 145 
 Matius, Gaius, called also Calvena 
 
 and Madarus, 217, 316, 318, 330- 
 
 337. 35+ Letter from Cicero, 
 
 cxiii. ; to Cicero, cxiv. 
 Mauretania (Morocco and Algeria), a 
 
 kingdom of Africa, 267 
 Megara, a city of Greece, 297, 298 
 Megaristus, a citizen of Antandros, 55 
 Memmius, Gaius [Gemellus?], praetor 
 
 59 B.C., patron of Lucretius, 61, 
 
 102, 104, 127 
 Menocritus, a slave or freedman of 
 
 Lentulus Spinther, 119 
 Mescinius, Lucius Rufus, a friend of 
 
 Cicero, 126 
 Messalla, see Valerius 
 Messius, Gaius, tribune 51 B.C., a 
 
 supporter of Pompeius, 80, 104 
 Metellus, Lucius Caecilius, tribune 49 
 
 B.C., 221, 234 
 Metellus, Marcus Caecilius, praetor 
 
 69 B.C., 33 
 Metellus, Quintus Caecilius Celer, 
 
 Governor of Cisalpine Gaul 62 B.C., 
 
424 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 consul 60 B.C., io, 35, 36, 38, 220, 
 223. Letter to Cicero, iv. ; from 
 Cicero, v. 
 
 Metellus, Quintus Caecilius Nepos, 
 brother of the preceding, tribune 63 
 B.C., consul 57 b.c. , 10, 12-15, 
 72, 77 
 
 Metellus, Quintus Caecilius Numi- 
 dicus, consul 109 B.c, the opponent 
 of Iugurtha, 26, 32, 113 
 
 Miletus, a city of Caria, 206 
 
 Milo, Titus Annius, an intimate friend 
 of Cicero, 77, 97, ioo, 202 ; quar- 
 rels with Clodius, 85-89, 113 ; 
 stands for the consulship, 122-124 ; 
 murder of Clodius, 124 ; his subse- 
 quent fate, 243, 244 
 
 Minturnae, a town of Latium, on the 
 Liris, 182, 217 
 
 Misenum {Capo di Miseno), the N. 
 point of the bay of Naples, 19, 
 236 
 
 Mithradates Eupator, King of Per- 
 gamus, 120 b.c, 260 
 
 Mithradates, a natural son of the pre- 
 ceding, 260 
 
 Molorij Apollonius, of Rhodes, teacher 
 of Cicero, 3, 38 
 
 Moorish troops, 378 
 
 Mucia, half-sister of Metellus Celer, 
 first wife of Pompeius, 13 
 
 Mucius, Quintus Scaevola, consul 95 
 B.C., murdered by Damasippus, 
 121, 190, 217 
 
 Mucius, Quintus Scaevola, tribune 54 
 B.C., 59, 207 
 
 Munda, a town in Spain where Caesar 
 defeated Sextus Pompeius 45 B.C., 
 268, 293, 309, (354), 366 
 
 Murcus, Lucius Statius, an officer of 
 Caesar, 264, 384 
 
 Murena, Lucius Licinius, consul 62 
 B.C., 17, 291 
 
 Mustela, Tamisius, a centurion of 
 Anagnia, 355 
 
 Mutina {Modena) t a town of Cisalpine 
 Gaul, Decimus Brutus besieged in, 
 357, 365. 377- 3 8 S> 386 ; battle 
 between Antonius and tho consuls, 
 43 B.C., 377-380, 383, 385 
 
 Myrtilus, a freedman, 356 
 
 Mysia, a province of Asia, 55 
 
 Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos, 126, 
 127, 168, 271 
 
 Naevius, Gnaeus, a dramatic poet, 
 220 B.C., quoted by Cicero, 158 
 
 Nanneius, a victim of Sulla's proscrip- 
 tion, 27 
 
 Naples, 329, 339, 341 
 
 Nar {Nerd), a river of Umbria, 103 
 
 Narbonne (Narbonensian Gaul), see 
 Gaul 
 
 Nasica, see Scipio 
 
 Navius, Attus, a celebrated Augur of 
 the reign of Tarquin, 233 
 
 Neapolis, see Naples 
 
 Neoptolemus, an actor employed by 
 Philip of Macedon, 31 
 
 Nerius, Gnaeus, an informer, 89 
 
 Nervii, a tribe in the N.E. of Gaul 
 (Belgium), 105 
 
 Nestor, King of Pylos, the aged coun- 
 sellor of Agamemnon, 327 
 
 Nicaea, either the capital of Bithynia, 
 ora town of Liguria {Nice), 317 
 
 Nicias, a citizen of Smyrna, 55 
 
 Nicias, Curtius, a grammarian, 312 
 
 Nigidius, Publius Figulus, a vehement 
 opponent of Caesar, 61, 277 
 
 Nile, battle of, where Caesar defeated 
 the Alexandrians, 47 B. C. , 260 
 
 Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, 235 
 
 Ninnius, Lucius Quadratus, a tribune, 
 and friend of Cicero, 73, 240 
 
 Numestius, Numerius, a friend of At- 
 ticus, 49, 51 
 
 Numidia, a kingdom in Africa, 239, 
 264 
 
 Nymphaeum, a seaport of Illyria, 
 
 245 
 Nymphontes, a citizen of Colophon, 55 
 
 Octavia, sister of Octavianus, 125 
 Octavianus, afterwards the Emperor 
 Augustus ; by birth his name was 
 Gaius Octavius, but being adopted 
 by his great-uncle, Caesar, he be- 
 comes Gaius Iulius Caesar Octa- 
 vianus, 165 ; returns to Italy as 
 Caesar's heir, 316, 321, 330, (336) ; 
 accused of attempting the life of 
 Antonius, 347 ; conciliates Cicero, 
 256, 361 ; draws over the veterans 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 42S 
 
 from Antonius, 348, 350, 351, 364 ; 
 gives his support to Hirtius and 
 Pansa, 364, 366 ; at battle of Mutina, 
 379, 380 ; refuses to follow Antonius, 
 382 ; distrust of the Senate, 400 ; 
 incensed against Cicero, 391 ; dis- 
 trust of Decimus Brutus, 394 ; of 
 Plancus, 397, 402, 403 ; formation 
 of the Triumvirate, 396, 398, 400 ; 
 probably destroys some of Cicero's 
 letters, 400 
 
 Octavius, Gaius, father of Octavianus, 
 Governor of Macedonia, 39, 57 
 
 Octavius, Lucius Naso, perhaps a mer- 
 chant in Asia, 58 
 
 Octavius, Marcus, curule aedile, 143 
 
 Olbia ( Terranova), a town in Sar- 
 dinia, 90 
 
 Olympic Games, the, 344 
 
 Oppius, Gaius, a friend of Caesar, 230, 
 2 54> 3 X 6 ; letter to Cicero from 
 Balbus and Oppius, 202, 241 
 
 Opus, a town of Locris in Greece, 152 
 
 Orca, Quintus Valerius, Commissioner 
 of Lands, 306. Letter from Cicero, 
 cii. 
 
 Oricum, a town of Illyria, 245 
 
 Orodes, King of Parthia, father of 
 Pacorus, 142 
 
 Otho, see Roscius 
 
 Ovia, wife of Gaius Lollius, 292 
 
 Ovid, quoted, 15, 204, 377 
 
 Paciaecus, Lucius Iunius, an officer 
 
 of Caesar, 264 
 Pacilius, his house bought by Quintus 
 
 Cicero, 24 
 Pacorus, son of Orodes, (142) 
 Padus (Po), the river, 168 
 Paeligni, a tribe in Central Italy, 183 
 Paetus, Lucius Papirius, a friend of 
 
 Cicero, 39, 266. Letters from 
 
 Cicero, lxxxvii., lxxxix. 
 Palicanus, Marcus Lollius, tribune 71 
 
 B.C., 4 
 Pammenes, a Greek rhetorician, 156 
 Pamphylia, a province of Asia, 145, 206 
 Panaetius, a Stoic philosopher, 1 40 B.C. , 
 
 translated by Cicero, 217, 352, 355 
 Panormus (Palermo), a town of Sicily, 
 
 Pansa, Gaius Vibius, tribune 51 B.C., 
 
 r 37. 254, 322, 347 ; consul 43 B.C., 
 
 357. 3S 8 . 3 66 , 377-379 ; his death, 
 
 377. 379. 380, (385), 394 
 Parma (Parma), a town of Cisalpine 
 
 Gaul, 365, 366 
 Parthia (Parthians), a kingdom in 
 
 Asia, 126, 129, 139, 140, 153, 156, 
 
 1S9, 161, 163, 180, 196 
 Patrae (Patras), a. town in Greece, 
 
 184, 253 
 Patron, an Epicurean philosopher of 
 
 Athens, 60, 127 
 Paulus, Lucius Aemilius, conqueror of 
 
 Perseus, 168 B.C., 360 
 Paulus, Lucius Aemilius, consul 50 
 
 B.C., 49, 50, 91, 132, 135, 139 
 Pausanias, a lawyer (?), 133 
 Pedius, Quintus, cousin of Octavianus, 
 
 consul 43 B. c. , 400 
 Peducaeus, Sextus, propraetor of 
 
 Sicily, 3, 222 
 Peducaeus, Sextus, son of the pre- 
 ceding, an intimate friend of 
 
 Cicero, 160, 180, 202, 214, 222, 
 
 224. 3S3 
 Pedum (Gallicano), a town of Latium, 
 
 219, 220 
 Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens, 560 
 
 B.C., Caesar compared to, 199 
 Peloponnesus, the, 152 
 Pelbps, grandfather of Agamemnon, 
 
 321 
 Penelope, wife of Odysseus, 336 
 Pergamus, or Pergamum, a city and 
 
 district in Mysia, 260 
 Pericles, the great statesman of 
 
 Athens, 450 B.C., 178 
 Persius, quoted, 200 
 Petra, Caesar's camp near Dyrra- 
 
 chium, 245, 247 
 Petreius, Marcus, a general of Pom- 
 
 peius, 185, 209 
 Phaedrus, an Epicurean philosopher, 
 
 343 
 
 Phalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum, 570 
 B.C., 199 
 
 Phamea, a freedman, 208 
 
 Phania, a freedman of Appius Clau- 
 dius, 149 
 
 Pharnaces, son of Mithradates, de- 
 feated by Caesar at Zela, 260, 261 
 
 Pharos, an island off Alexandria, 260 
 
426 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Pharsalus {Fersald), a town in Thessaly 
 where Caesar defeated Pompeius 48 
 B.C., 247, 251, 265, 308, 330, 354, 
 401 
 
 Phemius, perhaps a freedman of At- 
 ticus, 145 
 
 Philip, King of Macedon, 350 B.C., 
 
 3°, 31 
 Philippi, a town in Macedonia, where 
 
 Octavianus and Antonius defeated 
 
 Brutus and Cassius 42 B. c. , 398 
 Philippus, Lucius Marcius, consul 91 
 
 B.C., 190 
 Philippus, Lucius Marcius, son of the 
 
 preceding, consul 56 B.C., 57, 8i, 
 
 108, 310, 321, 362, 364 
 Philo, a freedman of Caelius Rufus, 
 
 138 
 Philogenes, a freedman of Atfeicus, 
 
 150, 156, 166 , 
 Philotimus, a freedman of Terentia, 
 
 199. 2°3» 2°5. 237 
 Phlius, a district of Peloponnesus, 152 
 Phrygia, a province of Asia, 55, 128 
 Picenum {The Marches), a district on 
 
 the Adriatic coast, 89, 176, 179, 
 
 181, 188 
 Pilia, wife of Atticus, 90, 127, 128, 
 
 156, 263, 318, 34s 
 Pilius, Quintus, a relation of Atticus, 
 
 134 
 Piraeus, the port of Athens, 297, 298, 
 
 304. 30S 
 Pisaurum [Pesaro), a town on the 
 
 Adriatic, 184 
 Piso, Gaius Carpurnius, consul 67 
 
 B.C., Governor of Narbonese Gaul, 
 
 S, 17, 23, 291 
 Piso, Gaius Calpurnius Frugi, first 
 
 husband of Tullia, 51, 68, 71, 86, 
 
 90, (299) 
 Piso, Lucius Calpurnius Caesoninus, 
 
 Consul 58 B.C., 61, 179, 275, 341, 
 
 343. 344. 34°. 3° 2 . 3°4 
 
 Piso, Marcus Pupius, consul 61 B.C. , 
 16, 17, 18, 20, 22-24, 2 8> (3 1 ), 
 57 
 
 Pituanius, a Greek scholar, 102 
 
 Placentia [Piacenza), a town of Cisal- 
 pine Gaul, 243 
 
 Plaguleius, a dependent of Ateius, 
 232 
 
 Plancius, Gnaeus, quaestor of Mace- 
 donia, 62, 70, 287. Letter from 
 Cicero, xciv. 
 
 Plancus, Gnaeus Munatius, a friend 
 of Cicero, (370), (386), (387) 
 
 Plancus, Lucius Munatius, brother of 
 the preceding, consul 42 B. c. , Gover- 
 nor of Transalpine Gaul, 349, 369, 
 370-372, 376, 385, 388, 390, 
 393, 395, 400. .Letters from 
 Cicero, cxxx. cxxxiii. cxlii. ; his 
 manifesto, cxxxii. 
 
 Plancus, Titus Munatius Bursa, brother 
 of the preceding, 309 
 
 Plato, the great Athenian philosopher, 
 390 B.C., quoted by Cicero, in, 
 115, 126, 210, 333 ; his Republic, 
 38 
 
 Plato, an Epicurean at Sardis, 60 
 
 Plautus, Titus Maccius, the comic 
 poet, 200 B.C., quoted, 190 
 
 Plautus, a juror on Clodius's trial, 28 
 
 Pliny, the elder, 60 A. D. , quoted, 37, 
 
 69. 355 
 Plotius, a tribune, his Act against riot, 
 
 *33 
 Plutarch, the biographer, 80 a.d., 
 
 quoted, 48, 51, 262, 316, 392 
 Po (Padus), the river, 168 
 Polla, wife of Decimus Brutus, 360 
 Pollentia (Pollenzo), a town of Cis- 
 alpine Gaul, 394 
 Pollex, a slave of Cicero, 248 
 Pollio, Gaius Asinius, praetor 45 B.C., 
 264 ; Governor of Western Spain, 
 366, 367, 371, 380, 400. Letter 
 to Cicero, cxxix. 
 Polycharmus, an Archon of Athens, 
 
 127 
 Pompeii, a town under Mount Vesu- 
 vius, 39, 239, 240, 268, 269, 341, 
 
 345. 35° 
 Pompeius, Gnaeus Strabo, called 'the 
 Great,' 3, 30, 46; the 'King of 
 kings,' 209, 246 ; Sampsiceramus 
 (the Emir), 41 ; consul 70 B. c, 
 3 ; his first wife Mucia, 13 ; he in- 
 trigues between the Senate and the 
 popular party, 9, 18, 19-22, 30, 
 61 ; bis power under the Acts of 
 Gabinius and Manilius, 3, 8 ; friend- 
 ship for Cicero, 5, 13, 30, 37, 47 ; 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 427 
 
 Metellus Nepos proposes his recall, 
 14 ; his ambiguous attitude about 
 Land Reform, 20, 40-42, 108 ; the 
 First Triumvirate, 40, 43, 46- 
 48 ; the affair of Vettius, 48-51 ; 
 growing unpopularity, 43, 44, 46- 
 47, 61 ; his conduct about Cicero's 
 exile, 47, 51, 61, 62, 65, 68, 70, 
 72, 74, (92) ; about his recall, 77, 
 no, 215, 233 ; Cicero proposes 
 to give him additional powers, 77, 
 80 ; intrigues about King Ptole- 
 maeus, 81-83, 95 I supports Milo, 
 86-88; supports Scaurus, 104; 
 meets Caesar at Luca, 92, 109 ; 
 Cicero's renewed support, 92, 93, 
 105 - 115 ; estrangement from 
 Crassus, 86-88 ; his election as 
 Sole Consul, 53 B.c. , 122, 125, 
 279 ; estrangement from Caesar, 
 125, 131, 132, 134, 138, 139 ; 
 marries Cornelia, 122, 125 ; sup- 
 ports Appius, 140, 149, 155 ; his 
 Act about the Governors of pro- 
 vinces, 125 ; he goes to Spain, 126, 
 171, 184, 279 ; outbreak of the 
 Civil War, 160, 161, 170, 175 ; 
 occupies Luceria, 176, 181, 188, 
 194, 196 ; gives Cicero the charge 
 of Campania, 176, 178, 181, 182 ; 
 abandons Domitius at Corfinium, 
 183, 191, (193) ; occupies Brun- 
 disium, 176, 191, 194, 197, 209 ; 
 escapes to Greece, 209-213 ; at 
 Dyrrachium, 244, 245, 251, 270 ; 
 battle of Pharsalus, 247, 251 ; his 
 flight and murder in Egypt, 251, 
 255, 260, 267, 270 ; Cicero's judg- 
 ment of his capacity, 180, 197, 199, 
 209, 210, 280 ; friendship for him, 
 215, 216, 278, 279 ; coldness about 
 his death, 251, 255 ; his character, 
 251 ; his ferocity, 176, 193, 196, 
 197, 199, 200, 202, 205, 206, 231, 
 243, 251. 256- Letters from 
 Cicero, iii., 1. ; to Cicero, xlix. ; to 
 Domitius, li. 
 
 Pompeius, Gnaeus, elder son of Pom- 
 peius the Great, 149, 251, 264, 293 
 
 Pompeius, Sextus, younger son of 
 Pompeius the Great, 293, 317, 320, 
 366. 37 1 
 
 Pomponia, sister of Atticus, wife of 
 Quintus Cicero, 39, 53, 128, 151, 
 257 
 
 Pomponius, see Atticus 
 
 Pomptinus, Gaius, praetor 63 B.C. , 
 officer of Cicero in Cilicia, 126, 143, 
 166 
 
 Pons Argenteus, on the Argents, in 
 Gaul, 389 
 
 Pontidia, a lady whose son was pro- 
 posed for Tullia, 148 
 
 Pontifices, the college of, 18, 80, 290 
 
 Pontius, Lucius Aquila, one of the 
 conspirators against Caesar, 6, 162, 
 
 329 
 Pontus, a district of Asia, 260 
 Porsena, Lars, King of Etruria 500 
 
 B.C., 210 
 Posidonius, a Stoic philosopher at 
 
 Rome, 33, 355 
 Postumia; wife of Servius Sulpicius, 
 
 i4S. 148 
 Postumius, a friend of Cicero, 145 
 Postumius, Publius, a friend of Marcus 
 
 Marcellus, 304 
 Postumus, Marcus Curtius, a friend 
 
 of Caesar, 333 
 Praeneste (Palestrind), a town of 
 
 Latium, 219, 264 
 Precius, or Precianus, a friend of 
 
 Cicero, 165 
 Procilius, a tribune, condemned for 
 
 riot, 101, 103 
 Protagoras, a celebrated rhetorician 
 
 of Abdera, 450 B.C., 167 
 Ptolemaeus the Eleventh (Auletes), 
 
 King of Egypt 80 B.C., 41, 81- 
 
 86, 94-98, (132) 
 Ptolemaeus the Twelfth, King of 
 
 Egypt 51 B.C. , son of the preced- 
 ing, 251, 260, 267 
 Ptolemais, a town of Egypt or Syria, 
 
 perhaps St. Jean d'Acre, 96 
 Publicius, Quintus, praetor 69 B.C., 
 
 perhaps Governor of Asia, 60 
 Publilia, Cicero's ward and second 
 
 wife, 287, (288) 
 Publius (Publilius) Syrus, a comic poet, 
 
 contemporary with Cicero, 309, 317, 
 
 318 
 Publius, see Clodius 
 Puteoli(.Paa;2«o/z),atown of Campania, 
 
428 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 19, 152, 156, 310, 312, 322, 323, 
 345. 348 
 Pyrenees, the, 191, 222, 243 
 
 Qdinctius, Lucius, an acquaintance 
 
 of Cicero, 169 
 Quindecim viri, see Fifteen 
 Quintilian, 80 A.D., quoted, 308, 367 
 
 Raeirius, Gaius, tried for the mur- 
 der of Saturninus, 34 
 Racilius, Lucius, a tribune, 95, 113 
 Ravenna [Ravenna], a town of Cisal- 
 pine Gaul, 92, 109, 175, 350 
 Reate [Rieti), a Sabine town, ioi, 
 
 103 
 Regium Lepidi (Reggio), a town of 
 
 Cisalpine Gaul, 366, 380 
 Regulus, Marcus Atilius, surrenders 
 
 himself to the Carthaginians, 250 
 
 B.C., 3SS 
 Rex, Quintus Marcius, brother-in-law 
 
 of Clodius, 29 
 Rhegium [Reggio), a town in the 
 
 south of Italy, 341 
 Rhenus [Reno), a- river near Bologna, 
 
 400 
 Rhodes, an island in the Aegean Sea, 
 
 33, 38, 126, 162, 206, 271, 319, 
 
 337 
 Rhone, the river, 385, 386, 389 
 Rome, places in : — 
 
 Argiletum, the, 24 
 
 Atrium Libertatis, 107 
 
 Campus Marthis, 4 
 
 Capitol, the, 37, 79, 316 
 
 Capuan Gate, 79 
 
 Carinae, ,90 
 
 Circus Flaminius, 20, 88 
 
 Curia Hostilia, 68 
 
 Esquiline Hill, the, 90 
 
 Forum, 41, 79, 90 
 
 House of Atticus, 79 
 
 House of Cicero, on the Palatine, 
 51, 62, 80, 107 
 
 House. of the Pontifex Maximus, 51 
 
 Portico of Catulus, 107 
 
 Quirinal Hill, the, 79 
 
 Senate-House, 315, 346 
 
 Tabula Valeria, 68 
 
 Temple of Apollo, 88, 131, 135, 
 136 
 
 Temple of Castor, 89 
 Temple of Ops, 316 
 Temple of Salus, 79 
 Temple of Saturn, 221 
 Temple of Tellus, 338 
 Temple of Venus Genitrix, 330 
 Temple of Vesta, 68 
 Roscius, Lucius Otho, tribune 67 B.C., 
 
 34. 47 
 Roscius, Sextus, of Ameria, Cicero's 
 
 defence of, 3 
 Rosia, the district about Reate, 103 
 Rubicon, a small stream dividing Italy 
 
 from Cisalpine Gaul, 175 
 Rubrius, Lucius, a citizen of Casinum, 
 
 354 
 
 Rufus, see Sempronius 
 
 Rullus, Publius Servilius, tribune 63 
 B.C., 141 
 
 Rutilius, Marcus, a Land -Commis- 
 sioner, 306 
 
 Rutilius, Publius Rufus, legate of 
 Q. Scaevola, 121 
 
 Salamis [Famagusta), a town of 
 
 Cyprus, 125, 141, 145-148, 154, 
 
 155. 286 
 Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus), the 
 
 historian, said to have married Ter- 
 
 entia, 287 
 Salvius, a secretary of Atticus, 201 
 Samnium, a district of Central Italy, 
 
 356 
 Sampsiceramus, the Emir of Emesa, 
 
 a nickname of Pompeius, 41 
 Sardanapalus, the last King of Assyria, 
 
 625 B.C., 234 
 Sardinia, 90, 92, 109, 238, 243 
 Saturninus, Gnaeus Appuleius, prose- 
 cuted by Gnaeus Domitius, 160 
 Saturninus, Lucius Appuleius, the 
 
 popular leader, said to be murdered 
 
 by Rabirius 100 B.C., 34 
 Satyrus (Satrius), see Caninius 
 Scaevola, see Mucius 
 Scantinius, a tribune, date unknown; 
 
 his Act about unnatural crimes, 161 
 Scaptius, Marcus, a money-lender, 
 
 acting for Marcus Brutus, 145-147, 
 
 154. 155 
 Scaurus, Marcus Aemilius, consul 115 
 
 B.C., 113 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 429 
 
 Scaurus, Marcus Aemilius, son of the 
 preceding, curule aedile 58 B.C., 
 104, 105 
 
 Scipio, Publius Cornelius Africanus 
 Maior, consul 205 and 194 B.c. , 
 patron of Laelius, 9, 192, 195 
 
 Scipio, Publius Cornelius Aemilianus 
 Africanus Minor, consul 147 and 
 134 B.C., murdered by Carbo, 88, 
 235 ; patron of Panaetius, 217 
 
 Scipio, Publius Cornelius Nasica, by 
 adoption Quintus Caecilius Metel- 
 lus Pius, father-in-law of Pompeius, 
 consul 53 B.C., 6, 38, 122, 125, 
 x 35. 136. I 9 I . 264, 267, 346. 
 354 
 
 Seleucia, a town on the Tigris, 159 
 
 Sempronius, Gaius Rufus, a friend of 
 Cicero, 133, 156, 360 
 
 Seneca, 65 a.d. , 59, 367, 403 
 
 Septimia, wife of Sicca, 353 
 
 Septimius, Gaius, a senator, 135, 
 136 
 
 Septimius, Gaius, secretary of Bibulus, 
 
 49 
 Servaeus, a tribune-elect for 51 B.C., 
 
 130 
 Servilia, mother of Marcus Brutus, 50, 
 
 3*5. 329 
 Servilius, Marcus, a tribune, 133, 134 
 Servilius, Publius Vatia Isauricus, 
 
 consul 79 B.C.,' 83, 291 
 Servilius, Publius Vatia Isauricus, son 
 
 of the preceding, praetor 54 B. c. , 
 
 consul 48 B.C., 38, 87, 104, 243, 
 
 =53. 34°. 377 
 Sestius, Publius, tribune 57 B.C., 74, 
 
 86, 89-91, 108, 317, 318 
 Seven Waters, a place near Reate, 
 
 103 
 Sextus, see Peducaeus or Pompeius 
 Sibylline Books, the, 130 
 Sicca, a friend of Cicero, 353 
 Sicily, Sicilians, 3, 36, 57, 127, 167, 
 
 191, 223, 238, 243, 321 
 Sicoris (Segre), a river in Spain, 243 
 Sicyon, a town near Corinth, 16, 38 
 Side, a port in Pamphylia, 162 
 Sidon, a port in Phoenicia, 206 
 Silanus, Decimus Iunius, consul 62 
 
 B.C. , 5, 17, 291 
 Silanus, Marcus Iunius, half-brother 
 
 of Marcus Brutus, an officer of 
 
 Antonius, 378, 389 
 Sinnaca, a town in Syria, death of 
 
 Crassus at, 125 
 Sinuessa [Mondragone), a town of 
 
 Latium, 218, 219 
 Sipus, Lett. Sipuntum, a town ot 
 
 Apulia, near Manfredonia, 152 
 Sittius, Publius, an adventurer fighting 
 
 for Caesar in Africa, 132, 138, 264, 
 
 267 
 Smyrna, one of the chief cities of Asia 
 
 Minor, 55, 206, 362 
 Solon, the great lawgiver of Athens, 
 
 594 B.c, 223 
 Spain, in, 126, 171, 184, 185, 209, 
 
 220, 222, 225, 226, 227, 229, 231, 
 
 232, 236, 238, 243, 244, 246, 279, 
 
 293, 294, 295, 310, 354. 366, 37°. 
 
 371, 402 
 Spartacus, the leader of the insurgents 
 
 in the Servile War, 154 
 Spartans, the, 52, 235 
 Spongia, a juror on Clodius's trial, 28 
 Statius, a freedman of Quintus Cicero, 
 
 43. 45. 53. 54. 57 
 
 Statius Murcus, see Murcus 
 
 Strabo, Gaius Titius, a friend of 
 Cicero, 376 
 
 Suetonius, Gaius Tranquillus, the his- 
 torian, 120 A.D., quoted, 48, 312, 
 
 315. 342 
 Sufenas, Marcus Nonius, tribune 57 
 
 B.C., 101, 103 
 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius Felix, the 
 
 Dictator, 81 B.C., 120, 169, 190, 
 
 195, 202, 210, 213, 235, 240, 279, 
 
 306, 362 
 Sulla, secretary of Quintus Cicero, 58 
 Sulpicius, Servius Rufus, consul 51 
 
 B.C., 125, 136, 145, 347; Governor 
 
 of Greece, 273, 281, 295, 303, 304; 
 
 dies on an embassy to Antonius, 
 
 364, 366. Letters to Cicero, xcviii., 
 
 ci. 
 Sulpicius, Servius Rufus, son of the 
 
 preceding, 148, 220, 276, 300 
 Synnas, or Synnada, a town in Phrygia, 
 
 128, 145 
 Syracuse, the capital of Sicily, 240, 
 
 267, 341, 357 
 Syria, 41, 57, 125, 129, 156, 308, 
 
43° 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 337. 345. 3S7. 3 fil . 36z, 3 6 5. 376. 
 383. 384 
 
 Tacitus, quoted, 190, 225, 305, 367 
 
 Tarentum (Taranto), a town in Cala- 
 bria, 262, 332 
 
 Tarquinius Priscus, fifth King of 
 Rome, 614 B.C., 233 
 
 Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of 
 Rome, 532 B.C., 51, 210 
 
 Tarracina ( Terracina), also called 
 Anxur, a seaport of Latium, 182 
 
 Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, 129, 
 
 144. I4S 
 Tauromenium ( Taormina), a town in 
 
 Sicily, 357 
 Taurus, a mountain range in Cilicia, 
 
 144, 148 
 Teanum Sidicinum (Teano),3. town in 
 
 Latium, 182, 356 
 Tempe, a famous valley in Thessaly, 
 
 103 
 Tenea, a town near Corinth, 152 
 Terence (Publius Terentius Afer, 160 
 
 B.C. ), 297; quoted by Cicero, 116 
 Terentia, first wife of Cicero, 8, 67- 
 
 71, 74, 81, 162, 180, 186, 240- 
 
 243, 245, 257, 271 ; divorced by 
 
 Cicero, 69, 287, 288, 292. Letters 
 
 from Cicero, xvii. , xviii. , xliii. , lxxv. 
 Tettius, Sextus, a spy of Appius, 134 
 Teucris, seeAntonius, Gaius 
 Th'alna, a juror on Clodius's trial, 28 
 Thapsus, a town in Africa, S. of 
 
 Carthage, where Caesar defeated 
 
 the Pompeians 46 B.c. , 264, 267, 
 
 268, 293, 354, 402 
 Themistocles, the statesman of Athens, 
 
 480 B.C., 178, 210, 232, 234, 235 
 Theophanes, of Mytilene, confidential 
 
 servant of Pompeius, 126, 168 
 Theophrastus, pupil and successor of 
 
 Aristotle, 320 B.C. , 42 
 Theopompus, a retainer of Quintus 
 
 Cicero, 57 
 Thermus, Quintus Minucius, Governor 
 
 of Asia 50 B. c , s, 148 
 Thessalonica (Saloniki), the capital of 
 
 Roman Macedonia, 62, 66, 69, 209, 
 
 244 
 Thessaly, 247, 231, 354 
 Thracians, 211 
 
 Thrasybulus, expels the Thirty Tyrants 
 
 from Athens 404 B.C., 190 
 Three Taverns ( Tres Tabemae), a 
 
 village on the Appian Way, 16 
 Thucydides, the historian, quoted by 
 
 Cicero, 234, 23s 
 Tiberius, Claudius Nero, father of the 
 
 Emperor, 162 
 Tiberius, the Emperor, 14 a.d., 162, 
 
 352 
 Tiberius, a friend of Atticus, 144 
 Tibur (Tivoli), a town of Latium, 
 
 219, 346, 3SS 
 Timoleon, the patriot of Syracuse, 340 
 
 B.c, 205 
 Tiro, Marcus Tullius, Cicero'sfavourite 
 
 slave, and perhaps the editor of his 
 
 letters, 184, 186. Letters from 
 
 Cicero, lii. , liii. 
 Titinius Quintus, a friend of Cicero, 
 
 100, 143, 205, 220 
 Torquatus, Aulus Manlius, praetor 52 
 
 B.C., 302, 357 (?). Letter from 
 
 Cicero, c. 
 Torquatus, Lucius Manlius, consul 65 
 
 B.C., 8, 291 
 Torquatus, Lucius Manlius, son of 
 
 the preceding, an officer of Pompeius, 
 
 14S, 182, 3S7 (?) 
 Tratorius, a friend of Cornificius, 348, 
 
 349 
 Trebatius, Gaius Testa, a lawyer and 
 friend of Cicero, 99-101, 217, 224, 
 
 33i. 334. 337. 3SS 
 Trebellius, Lucius Fides, an officer of 
 
 Antonius, 394 
 Trebonius, Gaius, consul 45 B.C., one 
 
 of Caesar's murderers, 191, 243, 
 
 2 54. 315. 357 I murdered by Dola- 
 
 bella, 361, 362, 365, 383 
 Trebula ( Treglia), a town near Capua, 
 
 162, 166, 332 
 Tritia, or Tritaea, a. town in Achaia, 
 
 152 
 
 Trojan Dame, the (Teucris), see An- 
 tonius, Gaius 
 
 Trophonius, a Greek hero, 151 
 
 Troy, the siege of, 194 
 
 Tuccius, Marcus, 133 
 
 Tullia (Tulliola), Cicero's only daugh- 
 ter, born August 5, 79 B.C. (?), 79 ; 
 married to Gaius Calpurnius Piso 
 
, INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 431 
 
 Frugi, 86 ; betrothed, and perhaps 
 married, to Marcus Furius Crassipes 
 56 B.c, 86, 91, 93, 99, 117 ; mar- 
 ried to Dolabella 50 B.C., 140, 148, 
 162, 180, 185, 224, 229, 231, 236 ; 
 divorced 46 B.C., 245, 248, 267, 
 271, 326 ; a child born, 241 ; dies 
 at Tusculum, Feb., 45 B.C., 274, 
 291, 295-302; Cicero's affection 
 for her, 67-71, 164, 229, 236, 242, 
 257, 263, 292, 301 
 
 Tullius, Lucius, an officer of Cicero 
 in Cilicia, 126, 143 
 
 Tullius, Marcus, a friend of Cicero, 
 182 
 
 Tullius, Marcus Albinovanus, prose- 
 cutes Sestius, 89 
 
 Tullus, Lucius Volcatius, consul 66 
 B.C., 83, 84, 192, 213, 275, 291 
 
 Tuscenius, an enemy of Quintus 
 Cicero, 56 
 
 Tusculum (Frascati) , a town of Latium, 
 24, 39, 168, 208, 262, 263,266,272, 
 291, 310, 312 
 
 Tyrannio, Theophrastus, tutor in 
 Cicero's house, 91, 265 
 
 Tyre, a port in Phoenicia, 206 
 
 Ulpianus, Domitius, a jurist, 220 
 
 A.D., 127 
 Ulysses, in Homer, 390 
 Utica, a town near Carthage, 238, 
 
 264 
 
 Vada (Vado), a town on the coast 
 
 of Etruria, 379, 381, 394 
 Valerius, Lucius Flaccus, consul 100 
 
 B.C., 190 
 Valerius, Marcus Messalla Corvinus, 
 
 consul 264 B.C., 68 
 Valerius, Marcus Messalla Corvinus, 
 
 consul 31 B.c, 287 
 Valerius, Marcus Messalla Niger, con- 
 sul 61 B.C., 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 80 
 Valerius, Marcus Messalla, consul S3 
 
 B.C., 104, 130 
 Valerius, Marcus or Publius, Maxi- 
 
 mus, the historian, 20 A.D., 69 
 Valerius, Publius, a. friend of Cicero, 
 
 68, 148, 341 
 Valerius, Quintus Orca, see Orca 
 
 Valerius, Quintus, an officer of Caesar, 
 
 238. 243 
 Valerius, an interpreter, 357 
 Varius, Publius, brother of Caninius 
 
 Satyrus, 6 
 Varro, Aulus Terentius Murena, an 
 ' officer of Pompeius, 185 
 Varro, Marcus Terentius, the great 
 
 scholar, commands a Pompeian 
 
 army in Spain, 52, 63, 64, 126, 
 
 209, 243, 265 ; his ' Hebdomades,' 
 
 354 
 Vatia, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus, 
 
 prosecuted by Nerius, 89 
 Vatinius, Publius, tribune 59 B.C., 
 
 consul 47 B.c, and Governor of 
 
 Brundisium, 48, 91, 101, 107, 108, 
 
 115, 116, 253, 257 
 Veii {/sola, Farnese), a town in 
 
 Etruria, 272 
 Velia, also called Elea, a town in 
 
 Lucania, 341, 343, 345, 355 
 Velinus (Velino), a river and lake 
 
 near Interamna, 101, 103 
 Velleius, Gaius Paterculus, the histo- 
 rian, 30 A.D., 311 
 Vennonius, Gaius, a friend of Cicero, 
 
 179 
 Ventidius, Publius Bassus, a general of 
 
 Antonius, 379-381, 389, 394 
 Vergil, quoted, 7, 27, 52, 53, 92, 
 
 104, 178, 202, 207, 222, 223, 241, 
 
 3°4 
 Vergilius, Gaius, Governor of Sicily, 
 
 57 
 Verres, Gaius, the infamous Governor 
 
 of Sicily 73 B. C. , 3 
 Vestal Virgins, the, 18 
 Vestorius, Gaius, a banker of Puteoli, 
 
 133. I5 2 i r 56. 322, 330 
 Vettius, Lucius, an informer, 48551, 
 
 93 
 Vibius Rufus, second husband of 
 
 Publilia, 287 
 Vibullius, Lucius Rufus, an officer of 
 
 Pompeius, 107, 181 
 Vienna ( Vienne), a town of Gaul, on 
 
 the Rhone, 385 
 Villius, Sextus, a friend of Milo, 
 
 122 
 Villius, Lucius Annalis, a senator, 135, 
 
 136 
 
432 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Visellius, Gaius Varro, cousin of 
 
 Cicero, a lawyer, 74 
 Vocontii, a Gallic people, south of the 
 
 Allobroges, 396 
 Volaterrae [Volterra), a town in 
 
 Etruria, 277, 306-308, 351 
 Volcatius, see Tullus 
 Volscians, the, a people of Central 
 
 Italy, 210 
 Volusius, Gnaeus, an officer of Cicero, 
 
 126. 
 Volusius, Marcus, 186 
 
 Volusius, Quintus, Cicero's deputy in 
 Cyprus, 126, 144 
 
 Xenocrates, a philosopher of Athens 
 ■ 350 B.C., 26 
 Xenon, an Epicurean, 127 
 Xenophon, the historian, quoted by 
 Cicero, 57 
 
 Zela, or Ziela, a town in Pontus, 
 
 victory of Caesar at, 47 B.C., 260 
 Zeuxis, a citizen of Blaudus, 55 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. 
 
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