Letters of 51 BC: To Cilicia

CLXXXII. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (in Cilicia), Rome (before May), B.C. 51

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

CLXXXIII. To Atticus (at Rome), Minturnae, May, B.C. 51

Yes, I saw well enough what your feelings were as I parted from you; what mine were I am my own witness. This makes it all the more incumbent on you to prevent an additional decree being passed, so that this mutual regret of ours may not last more than a year. As to Annius Saturninus, your measures are excellent. As to the guarantee, pray, during your stay at Rome, give it yourself. You will find several guarantees on purchase, such as those of the estates of Memmius, or rather of Attilius. As to Oppius, that is exactly what I wished, and especially your having engaged to pay him the 800 sestertia (about £6,400), which I am determined shall be paid in any case, even if I have to borrow to do so, rather than wait for the last day of getting in my own debts.

I now come to that last line of your letter written crossways, in which you give me a word of caution about your sister. The facts of the matter are these. On arriving at my place at Arpinum, my brother came to see me, and our first subject of conversation was yourself, and we discussed it at great length. After this I brought the conversation round to what you and I had discussed at Tusculum, on the subject of your sister. I never saw anything so gentle and placable as my brother was on that occasion in regard to your sister: so much so, indeed, that if there had been any cause of quarrel on the score of expense, it was not apparent. So much for that day. Next day we started from Arpinum. A country festival caused Quintus to stop at Arcanum; I stopped at Aquinum; but we lunched at Arcanum. You know his property there. When we got there Quintus said, in the kindest manner, "Pomponia, do you ask the ladies in; I will invite the men." Nothing, as I thought, could be more courteous, and that, too, not only in the actual words, but also in his intention and the expression of face. But she, in the hearing of us all, exclaimed, "I am only a stranger here!" The origin of that was, as I think, the fact that Statius had preceded us to look after the luncheon. Thereupon Quintus said to me, "There, that's what I have to put up with every day !" You will say, "Well, what does that amount to?" A great deal ; and, indeed, she had irritated even me : her answer had been given with such unnecessary acrimony, both of word and look. I concealed my annoyance. We all took our places at table except her. However, Quintus sent her dishes from the table, which she declined. In short, I thought I never saw anything better-tempered than my brother, or crosser than your sister : and there were many particulars which I omit that raised my bile more than they did that of Quintus himself. I then went on to Aquinum ; Quintus stopped at Arcanum, and joined me early the next day at Aquinum. He told me that she had refused to sleep with him, and when on the point of leaving, she behaved just as I had seen her. Need I say more? You may tell her herself that in my judgment she shewed a marked want of kindness on that day. I have told you this story at greater length, perhaps, than was necessary, to convince you that you, too, have something to do in the way of giving her instruction and advice.

There only remains for me to beg you to complete all my commissions before leaving town ; to give Pomptinus a push, and make him start ; to let me know as soon as you have left town, and to believe that, by heaven, there is nothing I love and find more pleasure in than yourself. I said a most affectionate good-bye to that best of men, A. Torquatus, at Minturnae, to whom I wish you would remark, in the course of conversation, that I have mentioned him in my letter.

CLXXXIV. To Atticus (at Rome), Pompeii, 10 May, B.C. 51

On the 10th of May, the date of this letter, I am about to start from my Pompeian villa, intending to stay to-night with Pontius in his villa near Trebula. After that I mean to make regular days' journeys without any farther delay. While in my Cuman villa I was much gratified by a visit from our friend Hortensius. When he asked me whether he could do anything for me, I answered in general terms about everything else ; but I begged him in particular to prevent, as far as in him lay, any extension of my provincial government. In this please confirm him, and tell him that I was much gratified by his visit, and by his promise to do this for me, and anything else I wanted besides. I have strongly urged the same on our friend Furnius, who, I see, will be a tribune for next year. I had a kind of miniature Rome in my Cuman villa : there was such a crowd of people in the neighbourhood. In the midst of all this our friend "Rufio," seeing that he was being watched by Vestorius, tricked that gentleman by a ruse de guerre. For he never came near me. "What!" you will say, "when Hortensius came, in spite of being in weak health and living at such a distance and being the great Hortensius, and such a crowd of people besides—do you mean to say that he didn't come? So you didn't see the fellow at all?" How could I help seeing him, when my road lay through the mart of Puteoli? There as he was, I presume, doing some business, I said "How d'ye do?" to him ; and on a later occasion I bade him good-bye when he came out of his own villa and asked me whether he could do anything for me. A man like that is one to reckon ungrateful? Doesn't he rather deserve commendation for not exerting himself to get a hearing ?

But to return to my subject. Do not imagine that anything can console me for this gigantic bore, except the hope that it will not last longer than a year. Many will not believe me in this, because they judge from the habit of others. You, who know the truth, pray use every exertion ; I mean, when the time comes for the question to be mooted. As soon as you return from Epirus, I beg you to write about public affairs and tell me anything you may detect. For satisfactory intelligence has not reached as far as this as to how Caesar took the senatorial resolution being written out ; and there was also a rumour about the Transpadani, that they had been bidden to elect quattuorviri. If that is the case I fear some great disturbances. But I shall learn something from Pompey.

CLXXXV. To Atticus (at Rome), The Trebulanum of Pontius, 11 May, B.C. 51

On the 10th of May I arrived at his Trebulanum to stay with Pontius. There two letters from you were delivered to me, dated two days before. On that same day, as I was leaving my Pompeian villa, I had delivered a letter for you to Philotimus ; nor have I at present anything to write about. Write me word what reports there are about politics, I beseech you. For in the towns I observe that there is much alarm, yet for the most part it is mere idle gossip. What you think about all this, and when the crisis will come, please let me know. What letter it is you want answered I don't know : for I have as yet received none except the two delivered to me at Trebulanum, of which the one contained the edict of P. Licinius, dated 7th May, the other an answer to mine from Minturnae. How uneasy I feel, lest there should have been something more important than usual in the one which I haven't received, and to which you want an answer! With Lentulus I will bring you into favour. I like Dionysius much. Your Nicanor serves me excellently. Well, I have nothing more to say, and day is breaking. I think of going to Beneventum today. By disinterested conduct and attention to business I shall take care to satisfy all concerned.

At the house of Pontius, Trebulanum, 11 May.

CLXXXVI. To Atticus (at Rome), Beneventum, 12 May, B.C. 51

I arrived at Beneventum on the 11th of May. There I received the letter which in your previous letter (answered by me the same day from Pontius's Trebulanum) you had mentioned having sent. And, indeed, I have received two letters from you at Beneventum, one delivered to me by Funisulanus early in the morning, and a second handed to me by my secretary Tullius. I am much obliged by the pains you have taken about my first and most important commission : but your leaving town rather damps my hopes.

As to the man you mention, I am coming round in that direction, not that —, but we are forced to be content with him for want of a better. About the other one, of whom you say that he appeared to you to be not unsuitable—I am afraid my daughter could not be persuaded, and you admit that there is not a pin to choose between them. For my part, I am not unreasonable ; but you will be away, and will not, therefore, have a hand in the business in my absence. For if either of. us were on the spot, some fairly satisfactory arrangement might be made with Servius, with Servilia to back him. As at present situated, even though it should be a thing I like, I don't see how I can do anything.

Now I come to the letter delivered to me by Tullius. You have been very energetic about Marcellus. Accordingly, if the decree has passed the senate, please write me word : but if not, do your best to get the business through ; for a grant must be made to me, as also to Bibulus. I have no doubt of the decree of the senate being passed without difficulty, especially considering that it is a gain to the people. As to Torquatus, excellent! As to Mason and Ligur, that will do when they have come. As to the request of Chaerippus : since in this case also you have given me no "tip," . . . "Bother your province! Must I look after him too?" Yes ; but only so far as to prevent there being any obstructive "debate!" or "count!" in the senate. For as to the rest—, however, thank you for speaking to Scrofa. As to what you say about Pomptinus, I quite agree. For the upshot is that, if he is going to be at Brundisium before the 1st of June, M. Annius and L. Tullius need not have been so much hurried. As to what you have heard from Sicinius, I quite assent, provided only that this restriction does not apply to anyone who has done me a service. But I will turn the matter over, for I quite approve of it in principle. I will let you know what I have settled as to the plan of my journey, and also what Pompey means to do about the five prefects, when I have learnt it from himself. As to Oppius, you have acted quite rightly in having assured him of the 800 sestertia ; and since you have Philotimus with you, pray see the business through ; examine the account, and, as you love me, settle it before leaving town. You will have relieved me of a great anxiety.

Now I have answered all your letter : but stay! I almost omitted your being short of paper. The loss is mine, if for lack of it your letter to me is curtailed. Why, you cost me a couple of hundred sesterces : though how stingy I am in this particular the cramped nature of this page shews you : while in return I expect from you a gazette of events, rumours, or even anything you know for certain about Caesar. Be sure you give a letter to Pomptinus, as well as to others, on every imaginable topic.

CLXXXVII. To Atticus (at Rome), Venusia, 15 May, B.C. 51

I have absolutely nothing to say. I have neither any commission for you, for everything has been arranged, nor anything to relate, for nothing has happened, nor is there any room for jesting, considering my numerous anxieties. Let me only tell you that I despatch this letter on the 15th of May as I am starting from Venusia. Now on this day I feel sure something has been done in the senate. Therefore let a letter from you follow us, to inform us not only of all actual facts, but of common reports also. I shall get it at Brundisium. For it is there that my plan is to await Pomptinus up to the day you mentioned in your letter. I will write out for your perusal the conversations I have with Pompey at Tarentum on the state of the Republic ; although I wish to know precisely up to what time I can write to you safely, that is, how long you are going to be in Rome, so that I may know either where to direct my letters henceforth, or how to avoid sending them to no purpose. But before you leave town, in any case let the payment of the 20 sestertia and the 800 sestertia be put straight. I beg you to look upon this as of all concerns the most important and most urgent, viz., that I should complete with your assistance what I began on your advice.

CLXXXVIII. To Atticus (at Rome), Tarentum, 18 May, B.C. 51

I arrived at Tarentum on the 18th of May. As I had determined to wait for Pomptinus, I thought the most convenient thing was to spend those days in Pompey's society, and all the more because I saw that it gave him pleasure, for he has actually begged me to give him my company, and be at his house every day; and this I have gladly agreed to do. For I shall get many notable talks with him on the Republic, and I shall also be furnished with useful hints for this business of mine. But I begin now to be briefer in writing to you, because I am doubtful as to whether you have yet started from Rome. However, during my uncertainty as to that, I shall write something rather than allow of no letter from me reaching you as long as it is possible for it to do so. And yet I have no commission to give you, or anything to tell you. I have given you all my commissions, and I pray you carry them fully out in accordance with your promise : I will tell you any news I hear. There is one thing I shall not cease to urge as long as I think you are in town, namely, as to the debt to Caesar, that you will leave it settled and done with. I am eagerly looking for a letter from you, and especially that I may know when you go out of town.

CLXXXIX. To Atticus (at Rome), Tarentum, 21 May, B.C. 51

Day after day, or rather more and more as the days go on, I send you shorter letters. For day after day I become more suspicious of your having started for Epirus. However, to prove to you that I have not neglected what you wrote to me about, I am informed by Pompey that he intends to appoint five new prefects for each of the Spains, in order to exempt them from serving on juries. For myself, after having spent three days with Pompey, and in his house, I am starting for Brundisium on the 21st of May. In him I am quitting a noble citizen, and one most thoroughly well-prepared to ward off the dangers which are at present causing us such alarm. I shall look forward to a letter from you to tell me both what you are doing and where you are.

CXC. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (in Cilicia), Brundisium, 24 May, B.C. 51

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

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

CXCI. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (on his journey to Cilicia), Rome, 24 May–1 June, B.C. 51

As I promised you on the eve of your departure to write a full and careful account of all that went on in the city, I have taken pains to secure a man to describe everything so fully, that I fear his industry in this respect may appear to you somewhat overdone. Although you know your own curiosity, and how men abroad delight in being informed of even the most insignificant things that are going on at home, still in this point I must ask you for a favourable construction—that you should not hold me guilty of giving myself airs in thus performing the duty, because I have delegated this task to another. Not at all because it was not the most delightful thing possible to me—busy as I am and, as you know, the laziest man in the world at writing letters—to keep my memory of you fresh : but the size of the packet itself, which I am sending you, will, in my opinion, easily plead my excuse. It would have required considerable leisure not only to copy out all these details, but even to take notice of them : for the packet contains all the decrees of the senate, edicts, gossip, and reports. If this specimen does not meet your wishes, let me know, that I may not spend money only to bore you. If anything of unusual importance occurs in public business, which these clerks cannot easily get at, I will myself carefully write you an account of how it was done, what was thought of it, and what is expected to be its result. For the present there is nothing which causes much anticipation. For those rumours as to the admission of the Transpadani to the comitia died out after reaching Cumae : when I got to Rome I didn't find that there was the slightest whisper about it. Besides, Marcellus has not as yet brought before the senate the subject of a successor to the Gallic provinces, and has (as he told me himself) postponed that motion to the 1st of June. He has gone far to bring up again the talk about him which was prevalent when we were in Rome. But pray if, as you wished to do, you have found Pompey at home, write me a full account of what you thought of him, what he said to you, and what wishes he professed to entertain—for he is accustomed to think one thing and say another, and yet is not clever enough to conceal his real aims. As to Caesar, there are frequent and rather ugly reports—at any rate, people keep arriving with mysterious whispers : one says that he has lost his cavalry, which, in my opinion, is without doubt an invention : another says that the seventh legion has had a drubbing, that he himself is besieged among the Bellovaci, and cut off from his main army. But neither is there anything known for certain as yet, nor are even these uncertain rumours publicly bruited abroad after all—they are mentioned as open secrets among the small clique with which you are acquainted; but Domitius, with his finger on his lips, hints at them. On the 24th of May, the quidnuncs of the rostra, confound them! spread a loud report that you had been assassinated on your journey by Q. Pompeius. Since I happened to know that Q. Pompeius was dieting himself at Bauli, and was fasting to such an extent that I was sorry for him, I was not agitated, and I only wished that we might compound by this lie for all dangers that might be threatening you. Your friend Plancus, for his part, is at Ravenna, and though he has been presented with a large douceur by Caesar, he is neither wealthy nor well set up. Your books on the Republic are in universal vogue.

CXCII. To Atticus (at Rome), Brundisium, 1 June, B.C. 51

Indifferent health, from which I have now recovered (for though ill, I had no fever), as well as waiting for Pomptinus, of whom as yet no rumour even has reached me, have kept me for these twelve days at Brundisium; but I am looking out for an opportunity to set sail. Now if you are still at Rome—for I scarcely think you can be—but if you are, I am very anxious that you should give your attention to the following. In a letter received from Rome I am informed that my friend Milo writes to complain of my having ill-treated him in allowing Philotimus to have a share in the purchase of his property. I decided on that measure in accordance with the opinion of C. Duronius, whom I had had reason to believe exceedingly friendly to Milo, and whom I knew to be the sort of man you judge him to be. Now his object and mine too was this : first, that the property should remain under our control—lest some outsider, making the purchase at a high price, should deprive him of the slaves, a great number of which he had with him; secondly, that the settlement he had made upon Fausta should be respected. There was the farther motive, that we should ourselves have less difficulty than anyone else in saving anything that could be saved. Now I would have you look thoroughly into the whole affair : for I am frequently having letters on it written in exaggerated terms. If he complains, if he writes about it to his friends, and if Fausta takes the same line, as I told Philotimus by word of mouth, and as he undertook to do, I would not have him take part in the purchase against the will of Milo. It would not be in the least worth our while. But if there is nothing in all this, you will decide the matter. Speak with Duronius. I have written also to Camillus and Lamia, and the more so because I did not feel confident of your being in Rome. The long and short of the whole thing is this : decide as shall seem to you to be in accordance with my honour, good name, and interests.

CXCIII. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (in Cilicia), Brundisium, 5 June, B.C. 51

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

CXCIV. To Atticus (at Rome), On the Road to Athens, 15 June, B.C. 51

I arrived at Actium on the 14th of June, after having feasted like priests of Mars both at Corcyra and the Sybota Islands, owing to your presents, which Areus as well as my friend Eutychides had prepared for us with lavish profusion and the utmost kindness. From Actium I preferred to journey by land, considering the unpleasant voyage we had had, and I did not like the idea of rounding Leucatas. To arrive, again, at Patrae in small boats, without all this paraphernalia, seemed to me somewhat undignified. Yes, your frequent exhortations have fallen on willing ears ! I daily turn them over in my own mind and impress them on my staff : in fine, I will make certain of passing through this extraordinary function without the least illegality or extortion. I only hope the Parthian will keep quiet and fortune favour us ! I will do my part. Pray take care to let me know what you are doing, where you mean to be from time to time, in what state you left things at Rome, and, above all, about the 820 sestertia. Put all that into one letter, carefully directed so as to be sure of reaching me in any case. But that my year of office should remain unchanged and without any addition being decreed, for this remember to take proper measures yourself and through all my friends, especially through Hortensius : for, though absent at present, when the question is not before the house, you will, as you said in one of your answers, be in town at the proper time. While pressing this upon you, I feel half-inclined to beg you also to fight against there being an intercalation. But I don't venture to put all the burdens on your back. As for the year, stick to that at any rate. My son Cicero, the best-behaved and dearest of boys, sends you his regards. I always liked Dionysius, for my part, as you know; but I get to value him more every day, and, by Hercules, principally because he loves you, and never lets an opportunity slip of talking about you.

CXCV. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (on his journey), Rome, June, B.C. 51

Itis certainly true, I tell you, that he has been acquitted—I was in court when the verdict was announced—and that, too, by all three orders, and by a unanimous vote in each order. "Well, that is entirely their concern," say you. No, by Hercules ! For nothing ever happened so unexpected, or so scandalous in the eyes of everybody. Nay, even I, though I countenanced him with all my might for friendship's sake, and had prepared myself to condole with him, was thunderstruck when it occurred, and thought I must be under some hallucination. What do you suppose, then, was the feeling of others? Why, they attacked the jurors with a storm of disapproving shouts, and made it quite plain that this was more than they could stand. Accordingly, now that he is left to the mercies of the Licinian law, he seems to be in greater danger than ever. Besides this, on the day after the acquittal, Hortensius came into Curio's theatre —I suppose that we might share in his rejoicing ! Whereupon you had Tumult sore, Wild uproar, Thunder bellowing in the clouds, Tempest hissing through the shrouds. This was the more noticed from the fact that Hortensius had reached old age without ever having been hissed, but on this occasion 'got it heartily enough to serve anyone for the whole of his life, and to make him sorry he had won his case. Of politics I have nothing to tell you. The active proceedings of Marcellus have died away, not from lack of energy, as it seems to me, but from policy. As to the consular elections, public opinion is quite at a loss. For myself, I have chanced upon one competitor who is noble and one who acts the noble : for M. Octavius, son of Gnaeus, and C. Hirrus are standing with me. I tell you this because I know that it was on account of Hirrus that you were anxiously waiting for news of my election. However, as soon as you learn of my having been returned, I beg you to be taking measures as to the panthers. I recommend Sittius's bond to your attention. I gave the first batch of notes on the events in the city to L. Castrinius Paetus, the second to the bearer of this letter.

CXCVI. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (on his way to Cilicia), Rome, June, B.C. 51

Is it so? Have I won? And do I send you frequent letters, which, as you were leaving, you said I should never take the trouble to do for you? It is even so, that is to say, if the letters I send reach you. And, indeed, I am all the more energetic about this because, being at leisure, I have nowhere to spend my little holiday with any pleasure. When you were at Rome I had an unfailing and most delightful resource for an idle day—to spend the holiday with you. I miss this exceedingly, so that not only do I feel myself to be all alone, but now you are gone a desert seems to have been created at Rome; and I who in my carelessness omitted paying you a visit on many days, when you were here, am now daily tortured to think that I have not got you to run to. But, above all, my rival Hirrus takes care that I should look for you day and night. You can imagine how vexed that rival of yours for the augurship is, and how he tries to conceal the fact that I am a surer candidate than himself. That you should receive the news about him which you wish at the earliest possible moment, I desire, on my honour, more for your sake than my own. For as to myself, if I am elected, I shall perhaps be so with a colleague richer than myself: but even this is so delightful, that, if it really does happen to me, I can never all my life long lack something to smile at. Is it really worth while? Yes! by Hercules. M. Octavius is unable to do much to soften the hostile feelings—and they are many—which spoil Hirrus's chances. As to the services of your freedman Philotimus and the property of Milo, I have taken care that Philotimus should satisfy Milo in his absence, as well as his family, by the most absolutely straightforward conduct, and that your character should not suffer as far as his good faith and activity are concerned. What I now have to ask of you is that, if (as I hope) you get any leisure, you would compose some treatise dedicated to me, to shew me that you care for me. "How did that come into your head," say you, "a modest man like you?" I desire that out of your numerous writings there should be something extant handing down to posterity also the record of our friendship. "What sort of thing do you want?" I suppose you will ask. You, who are acquainted with every school of thought, will hit upon the suitable thing sooner than I. Only let it be of a kind that has some appropriateness to me, and let it contain practical instruction, that it may be widely used.

CXCVII. To Atticus (at Rome), Athens, 27 June, B.C. 51

I arrived at Athens on the 24th of June, and have now waited there three days for Pomptinus and have heard nothing as yet of his arrival. I am, believe me, wholly with you: and though I should have done so without them, yet I am thinking of you all the more vividly from being reminded by the traces of you in this place. In short, I assure you we talk of nothing else but you. But you, perhaps, would prefer to be told something about myself. Here you are then: up to now neither I nor any of my staff have been any expense to any town or individual. We receive nothing under the Julian law, nothing from any public host: my whole staff are impressed with the belief that they must have a regard for reputation. So far, well. This has been noticed with praise on the part of the Greeks and is being much talked of. For the rest, I am taking great pains, as I have perceived that you wished. But on this subject let us reserve our applause till the last act has been reached. Other circumstances are such that I frequently blame my folly for not having found some means of getting out of this business. How entirely unsuited to my character and habits! How true the proverb is, "Let the shoemaker stick to his last !" You will say, "What, already? Why, you are not actually in the business !" I know that very well, and I expect greater trouble remains: even as far as it has gone, though I bear it with cheerful brow, I think, and expression, in my inmost heart I am enduring agonies: so many instances are occurring every day of ill-temper or insolence, of foolish and senseless behaviour of every kind, both by speech and by refusal to speak. I don't give you details of these things, not because I wish to conceal them from you, but because they are difficult to explain. So you shall admire my self-restraint when I return safe and sound: I am bestowing such pains on the practice of this virtue. Well, enough of this. Though I had nothing in my mind that I intended to write about, because I haven't even the smallest idea as to what you are doing, and in what part of the world you are: nor, by Hercules, have I ever been so completely in the dark about my own affairs, as to what has been done about the debt to Caesar or Milo's liabilities; and no one has come, I don't say from my house, but even from Rome, to enlighten me as to what is going on in politics. Wherefore, if there is anything that you know on the subjects which you may suppose that I should wish to know, I shall be very much obliged if you take the trouble to have it transmitted to me. What else is there to say? Why, nothing except this: Athens has pleased me immensely, at any rate as far as the city itself and all that adorns it are concerned, and the affection of the inhabitants towards you, and what I may call a prepossession in favour of myself: but as to its philosophy—that is very topsy-turvey, if Aristus is supposed to represent it, in whose house I am staying. For your and my friend Xeno I preferred giving up to Quintus, and yet, owing to his proximity, we spend whole days together. Pray, as soon as you possibly can, write me word of your plans, and let me know what you are doing, where you are from time to time, especially when you intend being in Rome.

CXCVIII. To Gaius Memmius (in Exile at Mitylene), Athens, July, B.C. 51

Though I had not quite made up my mind whether the prospect of seeing you at Athens was painful or pleasant—because your undeserved calamity would have caused me sorrow, yet the philosophic spirit with which you bear it delight—nevertheless, I should have preferred to have seen you. For I do not feel the pain much less when you are out of sight, while such pleasure as is possible would at any rate have been greater had I seen you. Therefore I shall not hesitate to endeavour to see you whenever I shall be conveniently able to do so. Meanwhile, such business as can be put before you by letter, and, as I think, can be brought to a conclusion, I will put before you now at once. I will preface my request by asking you not to do anything for my sake against your own inclination; but if the matter is one which is important to me, and in no way of much importance to yourself, still only grant it in case of having first made up your mind to do so cheerfully. I am in thorough sympathy with Patron the Epicurean, except that I differ from him widely in philosophy. But not only at the very beginning in Rome, when he was paying attention to you as well as all your friends, did he also cultivate my acquaintance with special care, but recently also, after having gained all that he wanted in the way of personal profit and reward, he has continued to regard me as almost the first of his supporters and friends. Besides this, he was introduced and recommended to me by Phaedrus, who, when I was a boy and before I knew Philo, was highly valued by me as a philosopher, and afterwards as, at any rate, a good, agreeable, and kindly man. This Patron, therefore, having written to me at Rome, begging me to reconcile you to him, and to ask you to grant him some ruined house or other once belonging to Epicurus, I did not write to you on the subject, because I did not want any plan of building which you might have to be hampered by a recommendation of mine. On my arrival at Athens, however, having been asked by the same person to write to you on the subject, I have granted his request, because all your friends agreed in saying that you had given up that building idea. If this is so, and if it is now of no importance to you, I would ask you, if some little offence has been caused you by the wrong-headedness of certain persons—and I know the class of men—to take a lenient view of the matter, either from your own great natural kindness or, if you like, out of compliment to me. For my part, if you ask me what I think about it myself, I neither see why he is so anxious for it, nor why you make difficulties; I only feel that it is much less natural for you to trouble yourself without reason, than for him to do so. However, I am sure that Patron's line of argument and the merits of his case are known to you. He says that he has to maintain his own honour and duty, the sanctity of a will, the prestige of Epicurus, the solemn injunction of Phaedrus, the home, the dwelling-place, the footprints of famous men. We may ridicule the man's entire life and the system which he follows in philosophy, if we take upon ourselves to find fault with what he is now contending for. But, by Hercules, since I am not very unfriendly to him or to others who find pleasure in such things, I think we must be indulgent to him for being so very keen about it. For even if he is wrong in this, it is a fault of the head, not the heart. But to come to the point—for I must mention this sooner or later—I love Pomponius Atticus as a second brother. Nothing can be dearer or more delightful than he is to me. Atticus, then—not that he is of their sect (for he is cultivated to the highest degree in all liberal learning ), but he is very fond of Patron, and was much attached to Phaedrus—presses this upon me as he has never done anything else, though he is the very reverse of self-seeking, the last person in the world to be troublesome in making requests; and he feels no doubt of my being able to obtain this favour from you on the slightest hint, even if you still had the intention of building. In the present circumstances, however, if he hears that you have laid aside your plan of building and that yet I have not obtained this favour from you, he will think, not, indeed, that you have been ungenerous towards me, but that I have been careless in what concerned himself. Wherefore I beg you to write word to your agents that the decree of the Areopagites, which they call a "minute," may be cancelled with your free consent. But I return to what I said at first. Before making up your mind to do this, I would have you be sure that you do it for my sake with a willing heart. At any rate have no doubt of this: if you do what I ask, I shall take it as a very great favour. Farewell.

CXCIX. To Atticus (at Rome), Athens, 6 July, B.C. 51

Hallo write so often to Rome, and not send a single line to you? Well then, hereafter, rather than consent not to send you a letter, if that can be done safely, I will send one that may never reach you. Whatever step can be taken to provide against the prolongation of my government, in the name of fortune, take, so long as you are in town. I can't describe to you the warmth of my longing for the city, or the difficulty I feel in putting up with the boredom of this business.

Marcellus's action in the case of the man of Comum was disgraceful. Even if he were not a magistrate, he was yet an inhabitant of Gallia Transpadana. So he seems to me to have given no less cause of anger to our friend Pompey than to Caesar. But this is his own look-out. I think, from what you tell me that Varro says, that Pompey certainly means to go to Spain. I entirely disapprove of it, and indeed I easily convinced Theophanes that the best course was for him not to quit Rome to go anywhere. So the Greek will put pressure on him ; and his influence is very powerful with him.

I send this letter on the 6th of July, when on the point of quitting Athens, where I have been exactly ten days. Pomptinus has arrived along with Cn. Volusius ; my quaestor is here ; the only one missing is your friend Tullius. I have some open vessels of Rhodes, some biremes of Mitylene, and a certain amount of despatch boats. I don't hear a word about the Parthians. For the rest, heaven preserve us! As yet our journey through Greece has roused great admiration, nor, by heaven, have I as yet a fault to find with any of my staff. They appear to me to understand my point of view and the conditions on which they accompany me. They entirely devote themselves to my reputation. For the future, if the proverb "like mistress like dog " holds good, they will certainly stick to this line of conduct. For they will not see me doing anything to give them an excuse for malpractices. But if that does not prove sufficient, I shall have to take some stronger measure. For at present I am all smiles and indulgence, and, as I hope, am making considerable progress. But I have only studied the part of "tolerator"—as our friends the Sicilians call it —for a single year. Therefore fight your best, lest, if any addition is made to my time, I should turn out a scoundrel.

Now to return to your commands: praefecti are excused jury service: offer the position to whom you choose. I will not be so high and mighty as I was in the case of Appuleius. I am as fond of Xeno as you are, of which I feel sure that he is fully aware. With Patron and the rest of the (Epicurean) dunces I have established your reputation well, and, by Hercules, it is no more than you deserve. For that person told me three times over that you had written to him to say that I had taken measures about his affair in accordance with a letter from Memmius, and this pleased him very much. But Patron having urged me to request your Areopagus to cancel their minute, made in the archonship of Polycharmus, it seemed best to Xeno, and afterwards to Patron himself, that I should write to Memmius, who had started for Mitylene the day before my arrival at Athens, to induce him to write to his agents that it might be done with his free consent. For Xeno felt sure that it would be impossible to get this concession from the Areopagites if Memmius were unwilling. Now Memmius had laid aside his design of building, but he was angry with Patron. So I wrote him a carefully expressed letter, of which I inclose you a copy.

Please comfort Pilia with a message from me. For I will tell you, though don't tell her. I received a packet which contained Pilia's letter. I abstracted, opened, and read it. It was in very sympathetic terms. The letters you got from Brundisium without one from me you must regard as having been sent when I was unwell ; for don't take seriously the excuse I mentioned of expense. Take care to let me know everything, but, above all, take care of your health.

CC. To M. Caelius Rufus (at Rome), Athens, 6 July, B.C. 51

What! Do you suppose that I meant you to send me an account of gladiatorial matches, of postponements of trials, of robberies by Chrestus, and such things as, when I am at Rome, nobody ventures to retail to me? See what a high opinion I have of you—and not, indeed, undeservedly, for I have never yet known anyone with keener political instincts—I don't care for your writing to me even the daily occurrences in the most important affairs of the state, unless there is something specially affecting myself. Other people will write about them ; many will convey news of them: common report itself will bring many of them to my ears. Therefore it is not things past or present that I expect from you, but things to come—for you are a man who sees far in front of you—so that, having got a view of the ground plan of the Republic from your pen, I may satisfy myself as to what the future building is to be. As yet, however, I have no fault to find with you ; for it is impossible for you to see farther than any one of us, and especially myself, who have spent several days with Pompey in conversation exclusively political, which neither can nor ought to be committed to writing. Only take this as certain, that Pompey is an admirable citizen, and prepared in courage and wisdom alike to meet every contingency that needs to be provided against in the political situation. Wherefore devote yourself to him: he will receive you, believe me, with open arms. For he takes the same view, as we ever do, as to who are good and bad citizens. After spending exactly ten days in Athens, and having seen a great deal of our friend Caninius Gallus, I am starting on my journey today, the 6th of July, the day on which I send you this letter. All interests of mine I desire to have the benefit of your greatest attention, but nothing more so than that the time of my provincial government should not be extended. That is all in all to me. When, how, and by whose means this is to be worked, you will settle best for yourself.

CCI. To Atticus (at Rome), At Sea (about 1 July), B.C. 51

A sea voyage is a serious business, and in the month of July too. We got to Delos on the sixth day from Athens. On the 6th of July we got from the Piraeus to Zoster, with a troublesome wind, which kept us there on the 7th. On the 8th we got to Ceos with a pleasant voyage. Thence to Gyaros with a violent wind, though it wasn't against us. Hence to Syros, and from that to Delos ; we in both cases accomplished the passage quicker than we could have wished. You have had experience of Rhodian open vessels: they are the worst things in the world for rough water. Accordingly, my intention is not to be at all in a hurry, nor to stir from Delos unless I see "Gyrae's headlands" all clear.

I wrote to Messalla at once from Gyaros, directly I heard, and also (which was my own idea) to Hortensius, for whom, indeed, I felt much sympathy. But I am very anxious to get your letter about what is said as to that verdict, and, indeed, about the political situation generally—a letter written somewhat more from the politician's point of view, for you are now, with the aid of Thallumetus, studying my books —a letter from which I may learn not what is actually happening (for that very "superior person," your client Helonius, can do that for me), but what is going to happen. By the time you read this our consuls will have been elected. You will be able to make out all about Caesar, Pompey, and the trials themselves. My own affairs, since you are staying on in Rome, pray put straight. As to the point I forgot to mention in my answer to you—as to the brickwork, and as to the water, if anything can be done, pray shew your accustomed kindness. I think the latter of very great importance from my own ideas as well as from what you say about it. So please have it done. Again, if Philippus makes any application, do exactly what you would have done in your own case. I will write at greater length to you when I have come to land ; at present I am well out at sea.

CCII. To Atticus (at Rome), Ephesus (after 22 July), B.C. 51

We arrived at Ephesus on the 22nd of July, on the 620th day after the battle of Bovillae. I accomplished the voyage without alarm and without sea-sickness, but somewhat slowly, owing to the crankiness of the Rhodian open ships. About the throng of legations and private suitors, and about the extraordinary crowd of people that met me even at Samos, but to a surprising extent at Ephesus, I presume that you have heard, or—" well, what is all that to me? " The fact is, however, that the tithe-collectors, as though I had come with imperium, the Greeks, as though I were governor in Ephesus, presented themselves to me with eagerness. This will, I am sure, convince you that the professions I have been making these many years past are now being put to the test. But I shall, I hope, stick to the principles which I learnt from you, and give full satisfaction to everyone, and with the less difficulty that the contracts in my province have been settled.

I did not neglect your little affairs at Ephesus, and although Thermus before my arrival had been most courteous in his promises to all your agents, yet I introduced Philogenes and Seius to him, and recommended Xeno of Apollonis. In a word, he undertook to do everything. I besides submitted to Philogenes an account of the note of exchange, which I had negotiated with you. So enough of that. I return to affairs in the city. In the name of fortune, since you are remaining at Rome, I beg of you, use every means of supporting and fortifying the position that I am not to be left in office more than a year, without even an intercalation. Next fulfil all my commissions, and especially in regard to that domestic matter get rid of the difficulty with which you are acquainted. Next to that do so in the matter of Caesar: it was on your advice that I set my heart on him, and I do not repent. And, as you well understand how it is my nature to know and care for what is going on in public affairs—going on, do I say? nay, rather what is going to happen—write me everything at full length, and that with the utmost precision, and especially whether there is any breakdown in the trials that have either taken place or are about to do so. As to the water, if you are looking after it, and if Philippus is taking any steps, please attend to what is done.

CCIII. To Atticus (at Rome), Tralles, 28 July, B.C. 51

Until I have settled down somewhere you must not expect a long letter from me, nor always written by my own hand. As soon, however, as I have a moment to spare, you shall have both. I am now journeying along a road which is both hot and dusty. I wrote yesterday from Ephesus: this I am despatching from Tralles. I expect to be in my province on the 1st of August. From that date, if you love me, agitate for my era to begin. Meanwhile, however, the following items of news of a welcome nature have reached me: first, that the Parthians are quiet ; secondly, that the contracts of the publicani have been concluded ; lastly, that a mutiny among the soldiers has been suppressed by Appius, and their pay discharged up to the 13th of July. Asia has given me an extraordinarily good reception. My visit there cost no one a farthing. I trust that my staff are respecting my reputation. I am very nervous about it, however, yet hope for the best. All my staff have now joined except your friend Tullius. My idea is to go straight to the army, to devote the rest of the summer months to military affairs, the winter ones to judicial business. Pray, as you know that I have no less curiosity in politics than yourself, write me word of everything occurring or about to occur. You can do me no greater favour, except, indeed, that it will be the greatest favour of all if you fulfil my commissions, especially that "at my own hearth," than which you must know I have nothing more at heart. This letter reeks of hurry and dust. Future ones shall go into greater details.

CCIV. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (in Cilicia), Tralles, 28 July, B.C. 51

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

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

CCV. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome, 1 August, B.C. 51

I envy you: such a budget of startling news is conveyed every day to you over there! First, the acquittal of Messalla, then his condemnation: the election of C. Marcellus to the consulship: M. Calidius, after losing his election, impeached by the two Gallii: P. Dolabella made one of the quindecimviri. There is only one thing I don't envy you for—that you have lost a most interesting spectacle, and did not see the expression on the face of Lentulus Crus when he lost. But what a come down for him! He had been so confident, had made so sure of it! Dolabella himself had been so doubtful! And, by Hercules, if our friends the equites had not been too sharp-eyed, he would have won almost by the retirement of his opponent. The next item I don't think will surprise you, that Servaeus, after becoming tribune-designate, has been condemned. C. Curio is candidate for the vacancy thus made by him. It is remarkable how much alarm he inspires in many people, who don't know him and his easy-going character ; but, as I hope and desire, and to judge from his present attitude, he will prefer to side with the loyalist party and the senate. In his present frame of mind he is bubbling over with this intention. The root and origin of this feeling is that Caesar, who generally spares no expense in attaching to himself the friendship of the lowest characters, has treated him with very marked neglect. And in this there does seem to me to be a touch of humour—which has been noticed also to a great extent by the rest—that Curio, who never acts on any fixed plan, should be thought to be following a deliberate policy and a deep design in evading the counsels of those who had exerted themselves to oppose his election to the tribuneship —I mean the Laelii and Antonii and powerful men of that stamp.

There has been a somewhat longer interval than usual between this and my last letter, because the successive postponements of the elections kept me more than usually busy, and forced me to wait day after day for their result, that I might give you the information when all was over. I have waited to the 1st of August. There have been some hitches in the praetorian elections. Moreover, what will be the result of my own election I do not know: that of the plebeian aediles' election indeed has, as far as Hirrus is concerned, amounted to a strong expression of opinion in my favour. For that foolish proposition of his (which we laughed at of old), and the promulgation of a law for the appointment of a dictator, brought M. Caelius Vinicianus suddenly to the ground, and caused him to be loudly hooted when down. This was followed by a general demand that, after that, Hirrus should not be elected curule aedile. I hope that you will speedily hear about me the news you have hoped for, and about him what you have scarcely ventured to hope.

As to politics, I had by this time ceased to hope for any new development ; but at a meeting of the senate in the temple of Apollo on the 22nd of July, upon a motion being brought before it in reference to the pay of Pompey's soldiers, mention was made of the legion with which Pompey had furnished C. Caesar—in what division was it reckoned, for what purpose was it required? Pompey having answered that "it was in Gaul," he was compelled to say that "he would withdraw the legion." He didn't say this at once, but only on the subject being brought forward and under a fire of invective from his detractors. He was then asked about the appointment of a successor to C. Caesar; and on this point a resolution was passed that "Cn. Pompeius should return to the city as soon as possible, in order that the question of the succession to the provinces might be debated while he was in the house." For Pompey was on the point of starting for Ariminum to join the army ; and in fact did go at once. I think that business will come on on the 13th of August. Some conclusion will be come to for certain, or a scandalous exercise of the veto will hinder it. For in the course of the debate Pompey let fall the expression, "Everybody ought to be obedient to the senate." For my part, however, there is nothing I look forward to so much as to hearing Paullus delivering his vote first as consul-elect.

I remind you often about Sittius's bond, for I am anxious that you should understand that it is of great importance to me: so also about the panthers, that you should send for some natives of Cibyra, and see that they are shipped to me. Besides this, we have been told, and it is now regarded as certain, that the king of Egypt is dead. Take care to write to me what policy you recommend to me, what the condition of that kingdom is, and who has charge of it.

1 August.

CCVI. To Atticus (at Rome), Laodicea, 3 August, B.C. 51

I arrived at Laodicea on the 31st of July. From this day, therefore, count the beginning of my year. Nothing could be more warmly, more affectionately welcomed, than my arrival. But you can scarcely believe how bored I am with the business. Has not that intellectual range, which you know so well, wide enough field? and is my splendid industry likely to rust unemployed? Why, just look at this! That I should be sitting in court at Laodicea, while A. Plotius is doing so at Rome! And that, while our friend has that great army, I should have nominal command of two wretched legions! But the fact is, that it is not such things as these that I miss: it is the broad daylight of life, the forum, the city, my town house, you that I miss. But I will endure it as best I may, provided that it does not last more than a year. If there is any extension, I am lost! But this may easily be resisted, if only you are in Rome.

You ask me what I am doing. Why, upon my life, I am living at a vast expense. I am wonderfully pleased with this course. My disinterested conduct, founded on your injunctions, is so admirable, that I am afraid that the money I took up from you will have to be paid by a fresh loan. I avoid reopening any wounds inflicted by Appius, but they are patent and cannot be concealed. I am starting today, the 3rd of August, on which I despatch this letter, from Laodicea to the camp in Lycaonia: thence I think of going to the Taurus, that by means of a pitched battle with Moeragenes I may, if possible, settle the question of your slave. The saddle's on the ox: no load for us: But I shall put up with it, only, as you love me, let me be only kept a year. Mind you are in town at the right moment, to keep every senator up to the mark. I am feeling wonderfully anxious, because I have had no news of what is going on among you for a long time. Wherefore, as I have said before in my letters, see that I am kept acquainted with politics as well as everything else. I know this letter will be somewhat long in reaching you, but I am intrusting it to a familiar and intimate friend, C. Andronicus of Puteoli. You, however, will have frequent opportunities of giving letters to the letter-carriers of the publicani by the favour of the head contractors for the pasture-tax and harbour dues of our districts.

CCVII. To Atticus (at Rome), Cilicia, August, B.C. 51

Though the letter-carriers of the publicani are starting while I am actually travelling and on the road, and though I am still engaged on my progress, yet I thought I must snatch a moment to prevent your thinking me forgetful of your charge. So I have sat down actually on the road to write you in brief what follows, which really calls for a somewhat lengthy essay. Let me tell you, then, that with the highest possible reputation I entered, on the 31st of July, into a province in a state of desolation and lasting ruin ; that I stayed three days at Laodicea, three at Apamea, the same at Synnada. It was the same tale everywhere: they could not pay the poll-tax: everybody's securities were sold: groans, lamentations, from the towns: acts of savagery worthy of some wild beast, rather than of a man. In short, they are absolutely weary of their life. However, the wretched towns are somewhat relieved by my costing them nothing, nor my legates, nor quaestor, nor anyone. Let me tell you that I not only refuse to accept hay, which is customarily furnished under the Julian law, but that no one of us accepts even firewood, or anything else, except four beds and a roof to cover us ; in many districts we do not accept even a roof, but remain, as a rule, under canvas. Accordingly, we are greeted by extraordinary throngs from farms, villages, houses, every sort of place. By Hercules, on my mere arrival, the justice, purity, and merciful heart of your Cicero seems to give them new life: so far has he surpassed everyone's hopes. Appius, as soon as he heard of my arrival, hurried to the most distant part of the province, right up to Tarsus: there he is holding sessions. About the Parthian not a word: but, nevertheless, some who come from those parts announce that some cavalry of ours have been cut to pieces. Bibulus even now is not so much as thinking of approaching his province. People say that he is acting thus because he wishes to leave it somewhat later. We are making all haste to the camp, which is two days' journey away.

CCVIII. To Atticus (at Rome), Lycaonia, August, B.C. 51

I have received a packet of letters from Rome without one from you, for which, granting you to be well and in Rome, I imagine the fault to be Philotimus's, not yours. I dictate this letter sitting in my carriage, on my way to the camp, from which I am two days' journey distant. In a few days' time I am going to have men on whom I can rely to take letters. Accordingly, I reserve myself for that. However, I will just say, though I should prefer your hearing this from others—I am so conducting myself in the province that no farthing is spent on anyone. This is owing also to the careful conduct of legates, tribunes, and prefects. For one and all entertain a surprising desire to vie with each other in maintaining my reputation. My friend Lepta is wonderful in that respect. But at present I am in a hurry: I will write everything' in full to you in a few days. The younger Deiotarus, who has received the title of king from the senate, has taken my son and nephew with him to his own dominions. So long as I am in the summer camp, I thought that the safest place for the boys. Sestius has written me an account of his conversation with you about my domestic anxiety, which is a very serious one, and of what your opinion is. Pray throw yourself into that matter, and write me word what can be done and what you think. He also told me that Hortensius had said something or other about the extension of my provincial government. He promised me at Cumae that he would most energetically plead for my being kept here only a year. If you have any affection for me, strengthen this position. I cannot tell you how against the grain my absence from you is. At the same time, too, I hope that my present reputation for justice and purity will be all the more conspicuous if I quit the province early. This is what happened to Scaevola, who governed Asia only nine months. Our friend Appius, as soon as he saw that I was on the point of arriving, left Laodicea and went as far as Tarsus. There he is holding an assize, though I am actually in the province. However, I do not make any fuss about this slight upon myself ; for I have enough to do in healing the wounds which have been inflicted upon the province. This I am taking care to do with as little reflexion upon him as possible: but I should like you to tell our friend Brutus that it was not very polite of him to remove to the farthest possible distance on my arrival.

CCIX. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome (August), B.C. 51

How far you are anxious about the peaceful state of your province and the neighbouring regions I don't know: for myself, I am in great suspense. For if we could only arrange matters in such a fashion, that the war should just be of a magnitude to correspond with your forces, and that we should gain just enough success for a triumph, without encountering the serious contest awaiting you, then nothing could be so much to be wished. As it is, if the Parthian stirs at all, I know that the struggle will not be a slight one. Moreover, your army is scarcely large enough to hold a single pass. No one, however, takes that into account; but everything is expected from a man at the head of a public department, as though he had been refused nothing which was required to put him in the most absolute state of preparation. Added to this, I don't see any chance of a successor being named for you, owing to the controversy about the Gauls. Although on this point I think you have settled in your own mind what to do, nevertheless, to enable you to settle it the earlier, I thought, as I now foresee that contingency, that I ought to keep you informed. For you know the way things commonly go: a settlement of the Gauls will be passed ; some one' will be found to veto it ; then up will get some one else to veto the other provinces, unless the senate is allowed to pass a vote about them all without interference. This is the sort of game that will be kept up briskly and long, and so long that more than two years will be wasted in these intrigues. If I had any news in politics to tell you, I would have followed my usual habit of carefully retailing in my letter not only what had happened, but also what I expected to be the result of it. In point of fact, everything seems to have stuck, so to speak, in the ditch. Marcellus is trying to push that same motion about the provinces, but has not as yet succeeded in getting a quorum. If, after this year is over, Curio as tribune, and the same motion about the provinces come upon the stage, you cannot fail to see how easy it will be to stop all business, and how much Caesar, and those who care nothing for the Republic when their own interests are involved, hope that it may be so.

CCX. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome, 2 September, B.C. 51

"Is that the way you have treated Hirrus?" quoth you. Nay, if you only knew how easy it was, what an absence of even the shadow of a struggle, you would be ashamed that he ever ventured to come forward as a rival candidate with you. However, after his defeat, he keeps a smiling face, plays the honest citizen, and delivers his votes against Caesar ; blames the delay; attacks Curio, too, with considerable violence has quite changed his habits since his defeat. Besides, he who has hitherto never shewn his face in the forum, and has had little to do with the law courts, now pleads cases of slaves claiming freedom, though seldom after midday. I told you in one of my letters that the business of the provinces was to be settled on the 13th of August: well, the trial of Marcellus, consul-designate, interfered with that. The matter was postponed till the 1st of September. They haven't even been able to make a house. I send this letter on the 2nd of September, up to which date nothing has been decided any more than before. As far as I can see this question will be transferred to next year unsettled, and, as well as I can guess, you will have to leave some one behind you to take charge of the province. For the appointment of a successor is not freed from difficulties, now that it is sought to put the Gauls, the assignment of which is vetoed, under the same category as the rest of the provinces. I have no doubt of this being the case: and it has made me the more determined to write to you, that you might prepare yourself for this eventuality.

In nearly every letter I have mentioned the subject of the panthers to you. It will be a disgrace to you that Patiscus has sent ten panthers to Curio, and that you should not send many times more. And these very beasts, as well as ten more from Africa, Curio has presented to me, lest you should think that he does not know how to make any presents except landed estates. If you will only not forget, and send for some men of Cibyra, and also transmit a letter to Pamphylia—for it is there that they are said to be mostly captured—you will effect what you choose. I am all the more earnest about this now, because I think I shall have to furnish the exhibition entirely apart from my colleague. Pray lay this injunction upon yourself. It is your way to take much trouble willingly, as it is mine for the most part to take none. In this business you have nothing to do but speak—that is, to give an order and a commission. For as soon as the beasts have been captured, you have men to feed and transport them in those whom I have sent over on the affair of Sittius's bond. I think also that, if you give me any hope in your letters, I shall send some more men across.

I recommend to you M. Feridius, a Roman knight, a son of a friend of mine, a good and active young man, who is about to arrive in your province on business of his own, and I beg you to count him among the number of your friends. He wishes that certain lands, from which their townships draw revenue, should by your favour (which you can easily and honourably grant) be relieved from this burden: you will have obliged men who are both grateful and honest.

I would not have you think that Favonius owed his defeat to the men of the pavement ; all the most respectable men abstained from voting for him. Your friend Pompey plainly objects to Caesar keeping a province with an army, and being at the same time consul. However, the motion he himself made in the senate was that no decree ought to be passed at this time. Scipio's was, that the question of Gallic provinces should be brought before the house on 1st March, and no other question combined with it. This motion made Cornelius Balbus pull a long face, and I know that he remonstrated with Scipio. Calidius, in conducting his defence, was very eloquent ; in bringing his accusation, rather ineffective.

CCXI. To M. Porcius Cato (at Rome), Iconium, 28 August, B.C. 51

Ambassadors sent to me by Antiochus of Commagene having arrived at the camp at Iconium on the 28th of August, and having announced to me that the son of the king of the Parthians, whose wife was the sister of the king of the Armenians, had arrived on the Euphrates with a very large force of Parthians, and a great host of other nations besides, and had actually begun the passage of the Euphrates, and that it was reported that the Armenian king was about to make a raid upon Cappadocia—I thought that, considering our close friendship, I ought to write and tell you this news. I have sent no public despatch for two reasons: first, because the ambassadors said that the Commagenian himself had at once sent messengers and a despatch to the senate; and, secondly, because I believed that M. Bibulus, proconsul of Syria, who started thither by sea from Ephesus about the 13th of August, seeing that he had had the wind in his favour, had by this time arrived in his own province, and I thought that the senate was sure to get more definite information on all points in a despatch from him. For myself, considering the circumstances and the gravity of the war, my chief anxiety is to retain by my own leniency and purity, and the loyalty of our allies, what I can scarcely hope to retain by the amount of my forces and material resources. I would beg you, on your part, to continue your habitual affection for me and the defence of me in my absence.

CCXII. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (at Tarsus), With the Army in Cappadocia (29 August), B.C. 51

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

CCXIII. To Gaius Claudius Marcellus (Consul-Designate), Lycaonia, September, B.C. 51

I was exceedingly rejoiced to hear of your election as consul , and pray that the gods may bless your office to you, and that it may be administered by you in a manner worthy of your own and your father's position. For I have always loved and regarded you, as well as having had reason to know your exceeding affection for myself in all the course of my chequered fortunes. Moreover, having by numerous acts of kindness from your father been both defended in times of adversity and honoured in times of prosperity, I not only am, but am bound to be, devoted to your family, especially as from your most revered and excellent mother I have been fully aware of having received greater services in support of my safety and position than were to be expected from a lady. Wherefore I beg you with more than common earnestness to continue to regard and support me in my absence.

CCXIV. To Gaius Claudius Marcellus (Augur), Lycaonia, September, B.C. 51

That your son Marcellus has been elected consul, and that you have experienced the joy which you above all things desired, give me extraordinary pleasure, and that both for his own sake, and because in my opinion you richly deserve every success of the best sort: for I have had reason to know your unexampled goodness to me both in weal and woe ; in fact, I have experienced the greatest kindness and the most eager support from your whole family, whether it were a question of my civil existence or official advancement. Wherefore I shall be much obliged if you will congratulate for me that most revered and excellent lady, your wife Iunia. From yourself I ask your habitual regard and support in my absence.

CCXV. To M. Claudius Marcellus (Consul), Lycaonia, September, B.C. 51

I am exceedingly glad that by the election of Gaius Marcellus to the consulate you have reaped the reward of your loyalty to your friends, your patriotic spirit, and your own most brilliant and excellent consulship. I have no doubt about the feelings of those at home: for myself, indeed, distant as I am and sent by your own action to the other end of the earth, I am praising you, by Hercules, up to the skies with the most sincere and well-deserved compliments. For as I have had from boyhood a singular affection for you, while you have ever wished and judged me to be a man of the widest influence, so by this achievement, whether due to yourself or the favourable judgment of the Roman people concerning you, my affection for you has become warmer and stronger, and I feel the greatest delight when I am told by people of the greatest wisdom and men of the highest character, that in word and deed, in tastes and principles, I am like you or you are like me. If you will add one thing to the eminent achievements of your consulship—the securing of some one to succeed me at the earliest possible opportunity, or the prevention of any addition being made to the time which you defined in virtue both of a senatorial decree and of the law —I shall consider that I shall owe you everything. Take care of your health and let me have your regard and support in my absence. The news that has reached me about the Parthians, as I do not think it necessary at present to send an official despatch about them, I have resolved not to communicate to you as my intimate friend, for, as I was addressing a consul, it might be considered that I was writing officially.

CCXVI. To L. Aemilius Paullus (Consul-Designate), Lycaonia, September, B.C. 51

Though I never doubted that the Roman people, considering your eminent services to the Republic and the splendid position of your family, would enthusiastically elect you consul by a unanimous vote, yet I had a feeling of intense exultation when the news reached me ; and I pray the gods to render your official career fortunate, and that your office may be administered by you in a manner worthy of your own and your ancestors' position. And would that it had been in my power to have been at home to see that most wished—for day, and to have rendered you the service and support which your magnificent services and kindness to me deserved! But since the unexpected and unlooked—for accident of my having to take a province has deprived me of that opportunity, yet, that I may be enabled to see you as consul actually administering the state in a manner worthy of your position, I earnestly beg you to take care to prevent my being treated unfairly, or any additional time being added to my year's term of office. If you do that, you will abundantly crown your former kindnesses to me.

CCXVII. To Atticus (in Epirus), Cybistra, September, B.C. 51

How I wish you were in Rome, if by chance you are not there! For I have nothing to go upon except having received a letter from you dated 19th July, in which you said that you intend going to Epirus about the 1st of August. But whether you are in Rome or Epirus, the Parthians have crossed the Euphrates under Pacorus, son of the Parthian king Orodes, with nearly all his forces. I have not yet heard of the arrival of Bibulus in Syria. Cassius is in the town of Antioch with the whole army: I am in Cappadocia, close to the Taurus, with my army near Cybistra: the enemy is in Cyrrhestica, which is the part of Syria next to my province. On these subjects I have sent a despatch to the senate. This despatch please look at, if you are in Rome, and consider whether you think it ought to be delivered ; and so with many other things, or rather with all, chief of which is that there be no "slip betwixt the cup and the lip" —as the saying is—to add additional burden upon me, or an extension of my time. For, considering the weakness of my army, and the short supply of allies, especially faithful ones, my most trustworthy support is winter. If that has once come, and they have not first crossed into my province, the only thing I fear is that the senate will not allow Pompey to leave Rome, owing to the alarming state of affairs in the city. But if it sends some one else next spring, I do not trouble myself, always providing that my term of office is not prolonged. So much for you if you are at Rome. But if you are out of town, or even if you are not, the state of affairs here is this: we are in good spirits ; and since, as it seems, our plans are well laid, we cherish the hope that we are strong enough also to carry them out. We have pitched our camp in a safe spot, well supplied in the matter of corn, almost commanding a view of Cilicia, convenient for shifting quarters, and with an army which, although small, is yet, I hope, entirely loyal to me ; and we are about to double its numbers by the arrival of Deiotarus in full force. I have found the allies much more loyal than anyone has ever done: and they can scarcely believe their eyes when they see the mildness of my administration and the purity of my conduct. A levy of Roman citizens is being held ; corn is being carted from the country to places of safety. If, then, occasion arises, we shall defend ourselves by force ; if not, by the strength of our position. Wherefore do not be alarmed. For I have you before my eyes, and I perceive, as though you were present, your affectionate solicitude for me.

Now I beg you, if it is in any way possible, supposing my affair to remain undecided up to the 1st of January, to be in Rome in January. I am quite certain of receiving no unfair treatment if you are on the spot. The consuls are my friends, the tribune Furnius is wholly devoted to me. Still there is need of your persistence, good sense, and popularity. It is a momentous crisis. But it is not decent for me to press you at greater length.

Our two Ciceros are staying with Deiotarus, but, if it shall be necessary, they will be transferred to Rhodes. Do you, if in Rome, with your accustomed punctuality, and anyhow, even if you are in Epirus, send one of your servants with letters, that both you may know what I am doing, and I what you are doing or about to do. I am doing your friend Brutus's business for him better than he would have done it himself. But I now produce my ward, and do not attempt to defend him. For they are a dilatory lot, and there is nothing to be got out of them. However, I will satisfy you, which is more difficult than satisfying Brutus himself. But in truth, I will satisfy you both.

CCXVIII. To the Magistrates and Senate, Cybistra (September), B.C. 51

M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets the consuls, praetors, tribunes, and senate. If you are well, I am glad. I and the army are well.

Having entered the province on the last day of July, not having been able to arrive earlier owing to the difficulty of the journey both by land and sea, I thought the thing most suitable to my office, and most conducive to the public welfare, was to provide everything affecting the army and its active service. These arrangements having been made by me with more care and energy than means or sufficient supplies, and messages and letters reaching me nearly every day concerning an invasion of the province of Syria by the Parthians, I thought that I ought to direct my march through Lycaonia, the Isaurians, and Cappadocia. For there was very strong reason to conjecture that, should the Parthians endeavour to quit Syria and invade my province, they would march through Cappadocia, as being most completely open to them. Accordingly, I marched with the army through that part of Cappadocia which borders on Cilicia, and pitched my camp at Cybistra, which is a town at the foot of Mount Taurus, in order that Artavasdes, the Armenian king, whatever his disposition, might know that an army of the Roman people was not far from his frontier ; and that I might have in as close contact as possible king Deiotarus, a sovereign who is most loyal and devoted to our Republic, since his advice and material support might be of assistance to the public interests. Having my camp in this place, and having sent the cavalry into Cilicia—in order that my arrival, having been notified to the communities in that region, might confirm the loyal dispositions of all, and at the same time that I might get early information of what was going on in Syria— I thought I ought to give the three days of my stay in that camp to a high and necessary duty. For, seeing that a formal resolution of yours had imposed upon me the duty of protecting king Ariobarzanes (surnamed Eusebes and Philorhomaeus), of defending the personal safety of that sovereign and the integrity of his dominions, and of being the guardian of king and kingdom alike: and seeing that you had appended a declaration that the safety of that sovereign was a matter of great concern to the people and senate—a decree such as had never been passed by our house concerning any king before—I thought myself bound to report the expression of your opinion to the king, and to promise him my protection and a faithful and energetic support, in order that, as his personal safety and the integrity of his dominions had been commended to my care, he might communicate to me anything he wished to be done. Having, in the presence of my council, communicated these things to the king, he began his reply by the proper expression of his warmest thanks to you: and then went on to thank me also, saying that he looked upon it as a very great and honourable distinction that his personal safety should be a matter of concern to the senate and people of Rome, and that I should exhibit such energy as to put beyond doubt my own good faith and the weight of your recommendation. And, indeed, at this first interview, he also assured me of what I was very delighted to hear, that he neither knew nor had a suspicion of any plots either against his own life or against his kingdom. After I had congratulated him and said that I rejoiced to hear it, and yet had advised him as a young man to remember the disaster of his father's death, to protect himself with vigilance, and, in accordance with the injunction of the senate, to take measures for his safety, he then left me and returned to the town of Cybistra. However, next day he came to visit me in the camp, accompanied by his brother Ariarathes and some elder men, who had been his father's friends. In a state of agitation and with tears in his eyes—his brother and friends shewing the same signs of distress—he began appealing to my good faith and the charge imposed on me by you. On my asking with surprise what had occurred, he said that "information of an undoubted conspiracy had been communicated to him, which had been withheld from him before my arrival, because those who might have denounced it to him had kept silence through fear, but that now, relying upon my protection several persons had boldly informed him of what they knew: that among these his most devoted brother had told him" (a story which the latter repeated in my hearing) "that he had been solicited to aim at becoming king: that so long as his brother was alive he could not accept that suggestion ; but that from fear of the danger he had never revealed the circumstance." After this speech I advised the king that he should take every precaution to preserve his life ; and I exhorted the friends, who had enjoyed the confidence of his father and grandfather, to guard the life of their sovereign with all care and vigilance, warned by his father's most lamentable murder. Upon the king asking me for some cavalry and cohorts from my army, though I was fully aware that in view of your senatorial decree I was not only authorized, but even bound to comply, yet, since the public interests demanded, owing to the news daily arriving from Syria, that I should lead the army as soon as possible to the frontiers of Cilicia—and since the king, now that the plot had been denounced, seemed not to be in need of an army of the Roman people, but to be capable of defending himself by his own resources, I urged him to learn his first lesson in the art of ruling by taking measures to preserve his life: that upon those by whom he had discovered that a plot was being laid against him he should exercise his sovereign rights: punish those who must be punished, relieve the rest from fear: use the protection of my army rather to inspire fear in the guilty than to keep up a state of civil war: the result would be no doubt that all, having been made acquainted with the decree of the senate, would understand that in accordance with your resolution I should protect the king if necessary.

Having thus encouraged him, I broke up my camp there, and began my march into Cilicia, leaving behind me on my departure from Cappadocia an impression that by your policy my arrival, owing to a strange and almost providential accident, had relieved from an actual plot a sovereign to whom you had given unsolicited that title in most complimentary terms, whom you had intrusted to my honour, and whose safety you had declared in a decree to be a matter of great concern to you. I thought it was not improper that my despatch should inform you of this circumstance, in order that you might learn from what almost happened that you had long before taken the precautions necessary to prevent it: and I have been all the more ready to give you the information, because in king Ariobarzanes I think I have detected such signs of virtue and ability, as well as of good faith and loyalty to you, that you appear to have had good reason for all the care and energy you have devoted to his protection.

CCXIX. To Atticus (in Epirus), Cilicia, 20 September, B.C. 51

I had already sealed the letter which I presume you to have just read, one in my own handwriting and containing an account of all occurrences, when suddenly, on the 20th of September, a letter-carrier of Appius, arriving express on the forty-seventh day from Rome—oh dear! to think of the distance I am away !—delivered me your letter. From it I feel no doubt that you waited for Pompey's return from Ariminum, and have by this time started for Epirus ; and I am still more afraid that in Epirus you may be having no less cause for anxiety than I am having here. As to the debt to Attilius I have written to Philotimus not to apply to Messalla for it. I am rejoiced that the fame of my progress has reached you, and I shall rejoice still more if you learn the sequel. I am very glad you find so much pleasure in your little daughter, and though I have never seen her, I yet love her dearly, and feel sure that she is charming. Good-bye! Good-bye!

I am glad you approved of what I did about the ruins in Melita in connexion with Patron and your fellow Epicureans. In saying that you were glad that the man lost his election who "opposed the uncle of your sister's son," it is a great mark of affection on your part! In the same spirit you admonished me to rejoice too. It hadn't occurred to me! "I don't believe it," quoth you. As you please: well, then, I am glad ; since righteous indignation is not the same as spite.

CCXX. To the Magistrates and Senate, Cilicia, 22 September, B.C. 51

M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, proconsul, greets the consuls, praetors, tribunes, and senate. If you are well, I am glad. I and the army are well.

Although I had undoubted assurance that the Parthians had crossed the Euphrates with nearly all their forces, yet, believing that more definite information could be sent you on these points by the proconsul M. Bibulus, I concluded that it was not incumbent on me to mention in a public despatch reports reaching me concerning the province of another. Having since then, however, received information on the most unquestionable authority—from legates, messengers, and despatches—whether I considered the importance of the matter itself, or the fact of not having yet heard of Bibulus's arrival in Syria, or that the conduct of this war was almost as much my business as that of Bibulus, I came to the conclusion that it was my duty to write you word of what had reached my ears. The legates of king Antiochus of Commagene were the first to inform me that large bodies of Parthians had begun to cross the Euphrates. On the receipt of this report, as there were certain persons who thought that full credit could not be given to that sovereign, I made up my mind that I must wait for more trustworthy information. On the 18th of September, whilst marching into Cilicia at the head of my army, on the frontier between Lycaonia and Cappadocia, a despatch was handed to me from Tarcondimotus, who is considered to be the most faithful ally and the most devoted friend of the Roman people beyond Mount Taurus, announcing that Pacorus, son of Orodes, the king of the Parthians, had crossed the Euphrates with a very large body of Parthian cavalry, and had pitched his camp at Tyba, and that consequently a very serious commotion had been caused in the province of Syria. On the same day a despatch on the same subject reached me from Iamblichus, phylarch of the Arabians, who is generally considered to be well-disposed and friendly to our Republic. Though I was fully aware that, on receipt of this information, our allies were unsettled in their feelings and wavering from the expectation of political change, I yet hoped that those whom I had already visited, and who had seen the mildness and purity of my administration, had been made more devoted to the Roman people, and that Cilicia, too, would become more certainly loyal when it had once felt the advantage of my equitable rule. Acting at once from this motive, and also with a view to put down those of the Cilicians who are in arms, and to shew the enemy in Syria that the army of the Roman people, so far from retiring on receipt of that news, was actually approaching nearer, I determined to lead it right up to Mount Taurus. But if my authority has any weight with you—especially in matters which you only know by report, but which are all but passing under my eyes—I strongly urge and advise you to take measures for the defence of these provinces: it is over-late already, but better late than never. For myself, you are well aware how slenderly supplied and how imperfectly furnished with troops, in view of the expected gravity of this war, you have despatched me. And it was not from the blindness of vanity, but from a modest scruple as to refusing, that I did not decline this business. For I have never considered any danger so formidable, as to make me wish to avoid it in preference to obeying your will. But at this moment the matter is of such a nature, that unless you promptly despatch into these provinces an army on the same scale as you are wont to employ for the most important war, there is the most imminent danger of our having to give up all those provinces, on which the revenues of the Roman people depend. Again, there is this reason for your not resting any hopes on a levy in the province—that men are not numerous, and that such as there are fly in every direction at the first alarm. Again, what this class of soldier is worth in his opinion has been shewn by that gallant officer, M. Bibulus: for, though you had granted him leave to hold a levy in Asia, he has declined to do so. For auxiliaries raised from the allies, owing to the harshness and injustice of our rule, are either so weak that they can do us little service, or so disaffected to us that it seems improper to expect anything from them or trust anything to them. Both the loyalty and the forces, whatever their amount, of king Deiotarus I reckon as being at our service. Cappadocia has nothing to give. Other kings and despots are not to be relied upon either in regard to their resources or their loyalty. For myself, in spite of this short supply of soldiers, I shall certainly shew no lack of courage, nor, I hope, of prudence either. What will happen is uncertain. I pray that I may be able to secure my safety! I will certainly secure my honour.

CCXXI. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (at Rome), Cilicia, 8 October, B.C. 51

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

CCXXII. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome (October), B.C. 51

Though I have some political news for you, yet I don't think I have anything to tell you that you will be more glad to hear than this: I have to inform you that C. Sempronius Rufus—Rufus, your pet darling —has been convicted of vexatious prosecution with universal applause. You ask, in what case? Well, he indicted M. Tuccius (who had formerly prosecuted him) after the Roman games for illegal violence under the lex Plotia. His object was this: he saw that, unless some defendant were put on the list for trial whose case could take priority, he would have to stand his own trial this year. Moreover, he had no doubt what would happen to him. This prosecution was a small favour he preferred to do to his accuser more than anyone else! Accordingly, without anyone backing his indictment, he came down into the forum and indicted Tuccius. As soon as I heard of it, I hurried without waiting for a summons to the defendant's bench. I rose, and without saying a word on the merits of the case, I shewed up his whole character and career, even bringing in the matter of Vestorius, and telling the story of his having surrendered to you as a favour "whatever Vestorius held contrary to his own legal rights."

The following hotly contested case is also at present taking up the attention of the forum. M. Servilius had, as was to be expected from his previous conduct, become utterly bankrupt, and had nothing left which he was not prepared to sell to anybody, and when he became my client had already exposed himself to the most violent scandal. But when Pausanias initiated proceedings against him for "fraudulent possession of the money" (I acting as counsel for the defence), the praetor Laterensis declined to allow the action. Then Q. Pilius, the connexion of our friend Atticus, initiated proceedings against him for extortion. Much talk at once arose about the case, and strong remarks began to be made about a conviction. Moved by this storm of popular feeling, Appius the younger laid an information as to a sum of money having been transferred from his father's estate to Servilius, and stated that 81 sestertia (about £648) had been deposited to enable him to secure the collusive failure of the prosecution. You are surprised at this folly; nay, what would you have said if you had heard him conducting the case, and the admissions which he made, foolish in the extreme as far as he was himself concerned, and positively shameful as regards his father? The jury called upon to consider their verdict was the same as that which had assessed the damages in the former case. The votes having turned out to be equal, Laterensis, from imperfect acquaintance with the laws, announced the verdict of each of the decuriae separately, and finally, according to the custom of the praetors, gave the decision "for the defendant." After leaving the court, Servilius being thenceforth regarded as acquitted, Laterensis read the 101st clause of the law, which contains the words "The verdict of the majority of the jurors shall be good and decisive." He thereupon did not enter him on the records as acquitted, but only entered a statement of the verdict of the several decuriae. Upon Appius, however, applying for a new trial, he said that he had consulted L. Lollius and would record the facts. So that now, being neither acquitted nor condemned, Servilius will be at the disposal of Pilius for an action for extortion, with a reputation already damaged. For Appius, though he had already sworn that there was no collusion, did not venture to dispute the right to prosecute with Pilius, and has himself had proceedings begun against him for extortion by the Servilii, besides having been indicted for violence by a creature of his own, Sextius Tettius. They are a worthy pair!

As for political business, for many days past nothing at all has been done, owing to the suspense as to the arrangements to be made about the Gauls. At last, however, after frequent postponements and serious debates, and when Pompey's wishes had been clearly seen to incline in the direction of passing a decree for Caesar quitting his province after the 1st of March next, a decree of the senate was passed, which I hereby send you, and some resolutions which were reduced to writing. Resolutions of the Senate. Twenty-ninth of September; in the temple of Apollo; the following assisted in drawing up the decree: L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Gnaeus, of the Fabian tribe; Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, son of Quintus, of the Fabian tribe; L. Villius Annalis, son of Lucius, of the Pomptinian tribe; C. Septimius, son of Titus, of the tribe Quirina; C. Lucilius Hirrus, son of Gaius, of the tribe Pupinia; C. Scribonius Curio, son of Gaius, of the tribe Popilia; L. Atteius Capito, son of Lucius, of the tribe Aniensis; M. Eppius, son of Marcus, of the tribe Terentina.

Seeing that M. Marcellus, the consul, has made mention of the consular provinces, on that subject the senators have voted as follows: L. Paullus, C. Marcellus, the consuls, shall, when they have entered on their office, on the first of the month of March that is about to fall within their year of office, bring the matter of the consular provinces before the senate, and shall not from the first of March bring any motion before the senate in preference thereto; nor shall anything be brought before the senate in conjunction therewith by the consuls. And for the sake of that business they shall hold meetings of the senate, comitial days notwithstanding; and shall draw up decrees of the senate. And when that business is being brought before the senate by the consuls, they may bring into the house those of the senators who are among the three hundred and sixty jurors without incurring penalties thereby. If on that matter it is necessary to bring any resolution before the people or plebs, Ser. Sulpicius and M. Marcellus, the consuls, the praetors, and the tribunes of the plebs, to whichever of them it seems good, shall bring it before the people or plebs. But if they shall fail to bring it, whosoever are next in office shall bring it before people or plebs.

No one vetoed.

Twenty-ninth of September; in the temple of Apollo; the following assisted at drawing up the decree; L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Gnaeus, of the Fabian tribe; Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, son of Quintus of the Fabian tribe; L. Villius Annalis, son of Lucius, of the Pomptinian tribe; C. Septimius, son of Titus, of the tribe Quirina; C. Lucilius Hirrus, son of Gaius, of the tribe Pupinia; C. Scribonius Curio, son of Gaius, of the tribe Popilia; L. Atteius Capito, son of Lucius, of the tribe Aniensis; M Eppius, son of Marcus, of the tribe Terentina.

Seeing that M. Marcellus, the consul, has made mention of the consular provinces, on that subject the senators voted as follows: The senate is of opinion that none of those who have the power of vetoing or staying proceedings ought to offer any hindrance to a motion being brought before the house concerning the Republic of the Roman people, the Quirites, or a decree of the senate being made: whoso shall have so hindered or prohibited, the senate is of opinion that he has acted against the Republic. If anyone shall veto this decree, the senate orders that its resolution shall be committed to writing, and that the matter shall thereupon be brought before the senate (and people).

C. Caelius, L. Vinicius, P. Cornelius, C. Vibius Pansa, tribunes, vetoed this decree.

Ordered also by the senate concerning the soldiers now in the army of Gaius Caesar. as to those of them who have served their full time or have pleas to allege whereby they ought to be discharged, a motion shall be brought before the house to take cognizance of them and to look into their cases. If anyone vetoes this decree, ordered that the resolution be reduced to writing, and a motion brought before this house thereon.

C. Caelius, C. Pansa, tribunes, vetoed this decree of the senate.

Ordered also by the senate that into the province of Cilicia, into the eight remaining provinces administered by ex-praetors with authority of praetor, those who have been praetors and have not been to a province with imperium, such of them as in accordance with the decree of the senate are due to be sent into province as propraetors, shall be sent into provinces as by lot shall be assigned. If from the category of these, thus due to be sent into provinces, there be not sufficient in number to go into the said provinces, then from whichever in each case is the senior college of praetors who have not been to provinces, they shall in like manner go to provinces by lot: if they are not sufficient to make up the number, then the members of the college next in order shall have their names put into the lottery, until such time as the number is made up to such number as is due to be sent into provinces. If anyone vetoes this decree of the senate, let the resolution be reduced to writing.

C. Caelius, C. Pansa, tribunes, vetoed this decree of the senate.

The following observation also of Cn. Pompeius attracted attention, and gave people a very great feeling of security, when he said that he could not, without unfairness, settle anything about Caesar's provinces before the 1st of March, but that after the 1st of March he would not hesitate. When asked, what if anyone on that date vetoed it, he said that it made no difference whether Caesar refused to obey the senate, or secured some one to prevent the senate passing a decree. "What if," said some one else, "he shall determine both to be consul and to keep his army?" To which he answered—with what mildness !—"What if my son should choose to strike me with his stick?" By such words as these he has made people think that some negotiation was going on between Pompey and Caesar. And so I think Caesar is minded to adopt one of two alternatives—either to remain in his province, and not be a candidate this next year, or, if he succeeds in getting elected, to leave his province. Curio is preparing to oppose him at every point. What he can do I don't know. I clearly see this, that if Curio keeps his wits about him, even though he effects nothing, he cannot possibly come utterly to grief. Curio treats me in a very gentlemanly way, and has forced a troublesome business on me by his present. For if he had not given me those African beasts, which had been imported for him to use at his games, the thing might have been omitted. Now, however, since give games I must, I would beg you, as I have often asked you before, to see that I have some beasts from your parts. I also commend to your attention the bond held by Sittius. I am sending my freedman Philo and the Greek Diogenes to Cilicia, to whom I have intrusted a message and a letter to you. Pray be so good as to give them, and the business on which I have sent them, your special attention. For in the letter, which I have given them for you, I have stated in detail how extremely important it is to me.

CCXXIII. To M. Caelius Rufus (at Rome), Cilicia (November), B.C. 51

M. CICERO, proconsul, greets M. Caelius, curule aedile elect. First of all, as in duty bound, I congratulate you and express my delight at the rank which you have already attained, and your hopes of advancement in the future. It is somewhat late in the day: that, however, does not arise from my negligence, but from my ignorance of everything that is going on. For I am in a district where, partly from its distance, and partly from brigandage, all news is as late as possible in arriving. Besides congratulating you, I can scarcely find words to thank you for having had an election calculated, as you said in your letter, to give us an endless fund of laughter. And so, as soon as I heard the news, I imagined myself in that man's skin—you know whom I mean—and personified to myself all that "rising generation" about which he is always talking so big. "'Tis hard to say "—looking at you in my mind's eye the while, though far away, and as though I were talking to you face to face— By heaven, how great, How grand the feat! But since it had surpassed my expectation, I began the quotation: A glad surprise Before my eyes. In fact, I all on a sudden stepped out "gay as gay can be," and when I was rebuked for being all but silly from excess of joy, I quoted in my defence, "Beyond all measure to express delight," etc.' In short, while laughing at him, I almost became another like him. But I will write more about this, and much else besides about you and to you, as soon as I have got a minute to spare. Meanwhile, however, my dear Rufus, I am deeply attached to you—you whom fortune gave me to be the promoter of my dignity, and such a scourge, not of my enemies only, but of my jealous rivals also, that they had reason to be sorry in some cases for their evil deeds, and in others even for their stupidities.

CCXXIV. To M. Caelius Rufus (at Rome), Pindenissus, 26 November, B.C. 51

M. CICERO, imperator, greets M. Caelius, curule aedile elect. Just see how letters fail to reach me! For I cannot be induced to believe that you have not sent me any letter since your election to the aedileship, considering the importance of the fact and the congratulation for which it called: on your account, because it was what I was hoping for, on that of Hillus (you see I lisp) because it was what I had not expected. However, be assured that I have received no letter from you since that glorious election, which transported me with delight. This makes me fear that the same may happen to my letter. For my part, I have never sent a single packet home without an inclosure for you, and nothing can be more delightful and beloved than you are to me. But let us return (not "weturn," for I have lost my lisp) to business.

It is as you desired. For you could have wished me, you say, to have no more trouble than just enough for the laurel. You are afraid of the Parthians, because you have no confidence in the forces at my disposal. Well, the course of affairs has been as follows. On the announcement of a Parthian invasion, relying on certain difficulties in the country and on the natural features of the mountains, I led my army to Amanus, supported by a fairly good contingent of auxiliary forces, and by a certain prestige attaching to my reputation among populations who had no personal knowledge of me. For one often hears in these parts, "Is that the man by whom the city—,whom the senate—?" You can imagine the rest. By the time I had arrived at Amanus, which is a mountain common to me and Bibulus, the dividing line being the watershed, our friend Cassius, to my great joy, had repulsed the enemy from Antioch: Bibulus had taken over his province. Meanwhile, with my full forces I harassed the population of Amanus, our immemorial foes. Many were killed and taken prisoners, the rest were scattered: the fortified strongholds were taken by surprise and burnt. Accordingly, after a complete victory, having been acclaimed imperator at Issus—in which place, as I have often been told by you, Clitarchus related to you that Darius was conquered by Alexander—I drew off my army to the most disturbed part of Cilicia. There for the past twenty-five days I have been assailing a very strongly fortified town called Pindenissus with earthworks, pent-houses, towers, and with such great resources and energy, that the only thing now wanting to the attainment of the most glorious renown is the credit of taking the town; and if, as I hope, I do take it, I will then at once send an official despatch. For the present I content myself with writing this to you, to give you hope of attaining your wish. But to return to the Parthians, the present summer has had the fairly fortunate result I have mentioned: for the next, there is much cause for alarm. Wherefore, my dear Rufus, be vigilant: in the first place, that I may have a successor: but if that shall turn out to be, as you write, too much of a business, then, what is easy enough, that no additional period be imposed. About politics I expect in your letters, as I have said before, current events and, even more, conjectures of the future. Wherefore I beg you earnestly to write me an account of everything in the greatest detail.

CCXXV. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome, 15 November, B.C. 51

I have been much disturbed by the despatches of C. Cassius and Deiotarus. For Cassius has written to say that the forces of the Parthians are across the Euphrates: Deiotarus that they started for our province by way of Commagene. For my part, my chief alarm has been on your account, knowing as I do what your state of preparation in the way of an army is, lest this inroad should in any way endanger your prestige. For I should have had some fear for your life, even if you had had a more adequate army: as it is, the slenderness of your forces made me forbode a retreat, not a battle, on your part. What view people would take of that, and how far what you were compelled to do would be likely to be considered satisfactory—about this I am still feeling anxious, and shall not cease to be alarmed till I hear of your having reached Italy. But the news of the passage of the Parthians has given rise to various suggestions. One man is for sending Pompey, another against Pompey's removal from the city, another for sending Caesar with his own army, another the consuls; no one, however, is for sending any who are in Rome without office by a senatorial decree. The consuls, moreover, for fear of this decree being passed for their leaving Rome in military uniform, or of the business being transferred to some one else, which would involve a slight upon themselves as having been passed over, are so unwilling to have any meeting of the senate at all, that they are getting a reputation for a want of energy in public business. But whether it is carelessness, or slackness, or the fear which I have suggested, behind this pretence of moderation there is concealed a disinclination to a province. No despatch has arrived from you, and had not that of Deiotarus followed his, it was beginning to be believed that Cassius, in order to represent devastation caused by himself as the work of the Parthians, invented 'the war, sent some Arabs into the province, and told the senate that they were Parthians. Wherefore I advise you to describe minutely and cautiously the state of things in your part of the world, whatever it is, that you may not be said either to have been filling some particular person's sails, or to have kept back what it was important to know. We have now come to the last period of the year: for I write this letter on the 15th of November. I see plainly that nothing can be done before the 1st of January. You know how slow and ineffective Marcellus is, and how dilatory Servius. What sort of men do you suppose they are, or how can they possibly do what is against their inclination, when things which they so wish they yet carry on so languidly as to give the impression of not wishing them? Again, when the new magistrates come into office, if there is a Parthian war, this question will take up their first months. But if, on the other hand, there turns out to be no war, or only one such as you or your successors can manage with a small reinforcement, I perceive that Curio will bestir himself with two objects: first, to take something away from Caesar; and, secondly, to bestow something on Pompey, however insignificant and valueless the contribution may be. Moreover, Paullus talks about the province with irrational violence. His intemperance will be resisted by our friend Furnius: about several others I cannot form an opinion. This is all I know: other possible events I cannot yet decipher. I know that time brings many developments and upsets many arrangements: but whatever is going to happen will be confined within these limits. I have this addition to make to the proceedings of Curio—his proposal as to the Campanian land: as to which they say that Caesar is indifferent, but that Pompey is much opposed, lest it should be unoccupied and at Caesar's disposal when he returns. As to your leaving your province, I cannot promise to take measures to get a successor appointed: but I will at least pledge myself that your time is not prolonged. It is for you to consider whether, if the state of affairs, if the senate urge you to stay, if a refusal on our part cannot decently be made, you choose to persevere in your determination. My only business is to remember with what solemnity at your departure you laid the injunction on me not to allow of its happening.

CCXXVI. To C. Scribonius Curio (in Rome), Cilicia, 10 December, B.C. 51

It is not usual to find fault with a tardy congratulation, especially if it has been omitted by no negligence: for I am far off, and news reaches me slowly. However, I both congratulate you and heartily wish that your tribunate may redound to your lasting reputation; and I exhort you to direct and control everything by your own good sense, and not allow yourself to be carried away by suggestions of others. There is no one who can give you wiser advice than you can give yourself: you will never make a slip, if you listen to your own heart. I don't write this inconsiderately: I am fully conscious to whom I am writing: I know your courage, I know your good sense. I am not afraid of your acting timidly or foolishly, if you maintain what you feel in your own heart to be right. To what a political situation you have, I don't say fallen, but come—for it is by your own deliberate choice and not by chance that you have brought your tribuneship into the very midst of a crisis—you, of course, perceive. I do not doubt that you are considering how decisive in politics is the choice of seasons, how rapidly events shift, how uncertain are results, how pliable are men's wills, what treachery, what falseness, there is in life. But I beseech you, Curio, give your whole heart and mind, not to any new principle, but to that which I mentioned at the beginning of my letter: commune with your own thoughts, take your own self into council, listen to yourself, obey yourself. It is not easy to find anyone capable of giving better advice to another than you are: to yourself, at any rate, no one will give better. Good heavens! why am I not there to be, if you will, the spectator of your glory, or the sharer, or partner, or assistant in your counsels? Although of this you do not in the least stand in need, yet, after all, the greatness and intensity of my affection would have secured my being of some use to you by my advice. I will write at greater length to you at another time: for within the next few days I intend to send some letter-carriers from my own establishment, that, since I have performed a public service with good results and to my own satisfaction, I may in one despatch give an account to the senate of the events of the whole summer. As to your election to the priesthood, you will learn from the letter which I delivered to your freedman Thraso how much trouble I have taken, and how difficult a matter it has been to deal with and maintain. For yourself, Curio, in the name of your uncommon affection for me, and my own unparalleled one for you, I beg you not to allow any extension of time to be made in my case to this burden of a province. I urged this on you when I was with you, and when I had no idea that you were going to be tribune this year, and I have often made the same request by letter; but then it was made to you as a member of the senate, who was yet a young man of the highest rank and the greatest popularity, now it is to I tribune, and that tribune a Curio: not to get any novel decree—which is usually somewhat more difficult—but to prevent any novelty: to support both a decree of the senate and laws, and to allow the terms under which I left Rome to remain as they are. This I earnestly beg of you again and again.

CCXXVII. To Atticus (in Epirus), In Camp at Pindenissus, 19 December, B.C. 51

On the morning of the Saturnalia (17th December) the Pindenissetae surrendered to me, on the fifty-seventh day from the beginning of our investment of them. "Who the mischief are your Pindenissetae? who are they?" you will say: "I never heard their name." Well, what am I to do? Could I turn Cilicia into an Aetolia or a Macedonia? Let me tell you this, that with an army such as mine, and in a place like this, such a big business was impossible. You shall have it all en abrégé; as you agreed in your last letter to take it. You know about my arrival at Ephesus, for you have congratulated me on my enthusiastic reception on that day, which gave me as much pleasure as anything ever did in my life. Thence, after a surprising reception in such towns as lay on my road, I arrived at Laodicea on the 31st of July. I remained there two days in the midst of great enthusiasm, and by my conciliatory language removed the rankling injuries of the last four years. I did the same afterwards during my five days stay at Apamea and three days at Synnada, five at Philomelium, ten at Iconium. Nothing could be more impartial, mild, or dignified, than my administration of justice there. Thence I came to the camp on the 24th of August; on the 28th I inspected the army at Iconium. From this camp, on receipt of serious news as to the Parthians, I started for Cilicia by way of that part of Cappadocia which borders on Cilicia, with the design of impressing upon the Armenian Artavasdes and the Parthians themselves that they were precluded from entering Cappadocia. After having been encamped for five days at Cybistra in Cappadocia, I got intelligence that the Parthians were at a long distance from that entrance into Cappadocia, and were rather threatening Cilicia. I therefore marched rapidly into Cilicia by the "Gates" of Taurus. I arrived at Tarsus on the 5th of October. Thence I pressed on to Mount Amanus, which divides Syria from Cilicia by the line of its watershed—a mountain full of immemorial enemies. Here, on the 13th of October, we cut a large number of the enemy to pieces. We took some very strongly fortified posts by a night attack of Pomptinus's, and by one led by myself in the morning, and burnt them. I was greeted as imperator by the soldiers. For a few days we were encamped on the very spot which Alexander had occupied against Darius at Issus, a commander not a little superior to either you or me! Having stayed there five days, and having ravaged and devastated Amanus, we evacuated that place. For you know that there are things called "panics," called also "war's idle rumours." From the report of our arrival encouragement was at once given to Cassius, then confined to Antioch, and alarm inspired in the Parthians. Accordingly, as they were retiring from that town, Cassius pursued them and gained a handsome victory. In the course of this retreat the Parthian leader, Osaces, a man in high authority, received a wound of which a few days afterwards he died. My name became very popular in Syria. Meanwhile Bibulus arrived. I suppose he wanted to be on an equality with me in the matter of this vain acclamation of imperator. In this same Mount Amanus he begins "looking for a bay-leaf in a wedding cake." But he lost the whole of his first cohort and the centurion of the first line, a man of high rank in his own class, Asinius Dento, and the other centurions of the same cohort, as well as a military tribune, Sext. Lucilius, son of T. Gavius Caepio, a man of wealth, and high position. It was really a very galling blow both in itself and in the time of its reception. I was at Pindenissus, the most strongly fortified town of Eleutherocilicia, never peaceful within living memory. The people were fierce and brave, and furnished with everything necessary for standing a siege. We surrounded it with stockade and ditch, with a huge earthwork, pent-houses, an exceedingly lofty tower, a great supply of artillery, a large body of archers. After great labour and preparation I finished the business without loss to my army, though with a large number of wounded. I am spending a merry Saturnalia, and so are my soldiers, to whom I have given up all spoil except captives: the captives were sold on the third day of the Saturnalia (19th December), the day on which I write this. The sum realized at the tribunal is 12,000 sestertia (about £96,000). I intend to hand over the army to my brother Quintus to lead hence into winter quarters in the disturbed districts. I am myself going back to Laodicea.

So much for this. But to return to points omitted. As to what you urge upon me most warmly, and which in fact is more important than anything else, namely, your anxiety that I should satisfy my carping Ligurian critic, may I die if anything could be more fastidious than my conduct. And I do not now speak of it as "self-restraint," which is a virtue considered capable of resisting pleasure: while the fact is that I never in all my life felt such pleasure as I do at my own integrity. And it is not so much the reputation I get by it—though that is of the highest—as the thing itself that delights me. In short, it was worth the trouble: I never appreciated myself or knew fully of what I was capable in this direction. I have good reason for being puffed up. Nothing could be more splendid. Meanwhile, here is a score for me! Ariobarzanes is alive and a king all owing to me. By my prudence and prestige, and by refusing to receive even the visits, to say nothing of the bribes, of the conspirators against his life, I have, merely en passant, saved a king and a kingdom. In the meantime from Cappadocia not the value of a hair! I have recovered Brutus from his dejection, whom I love no less than you do, I had almost said, than I do you. And I almost hope that throughout my year of office not a farthing's expense will be caused to my province. There is the whole story for you.

I am now composing an official despatch to send to Rome. It will be somewhat fuller of matter than if I had sent it from Amanus. But to think that you won't be at Rome! And yet everything depends on the 1st of March. For I am afraid, if, on the question of the province coming up, Caesar shall refuse compliance, I may be kept here. If you were there when this was going on, I should not have been at all afraid. I return to the city news, which, after a long interval of ignorance, I have at length learnt from your most delightful letter received on the 16th of December. This was conveyed by your freedman Philogenes after a very long and far from safe journey. For the letter you say that you delivered to the slaves of Laenius I have not received. I am delighted about Caesar, and the decrees of the senate, and at what you expect to happen. If he gives way to these we are safe. That Seius got scorched in Plaetorius's fire does not grieve me much. I long to know why Lucceius has been so hot about Q. Cassius, and what has been done about it. For myself, as soon as I arrive at Laodicea I am bidden to invest Quintus, your sister's son, with the toga virilis, and I will keep a more than usually careful eye upon him. Deiotarus, who has been of great assistance to me, is, according to a letter received from him, about to come to Laodicea with our two boys. I am expecting another letter from you from Epirus, that I may get a notion not only of your business life, but of your holiday also. Nicanor serves me well and receives liberal treatment at my hands. I think I shall send him to Rome with my official despatch, to secure its being conveyed with more than common promptitude, and that he may also bring me trustworthy intelligence about you and from you. That your Alexis so often puts in a greeting to me is gratifying. But why does he not treat me to a letter of his own, as my Alexis does you. I am looking out for a horn for Phaemius. But enough of this. Take care of your health, and let me know when you think of going to Rome. Good-bye! good-bye!

I have recommended your interests and your agents in very warm terms to Thermus, both in a personal interview at Ephesus and now by letter, and I gathered that he was himself very anxious to serve you. Pray, as I have often mentioned before, see about the house of Pammenes, and take care that the boy is not deprived, by any means, of what he now possesses through our joint support. I not only think that this concerns the honour of us both, but it will also gratify me personally very much.

CCXXVIII. To P. Volumnius Eutrapelus (at Rome), Cilicia (December), B.C. 51

Owing to your having in familiar style, as you were quite entitled to do, dropped your praenomen in your letter to me, I was at first doubtful whether it did not come from Volumnius the senator, with whom I am very intimate, but presently the εὐτραπελία of the letter itself convinced me that it was yours. In that letter I was delighted with everything except this: you are not shewing yourself a very energetic agent in maintaining my rights in my mines of (Attic) salt. For you say that, ever since my departure, everybody's bons mots, and among those even Sestius's, are fathered on me. What! do you allow that? Don't you stand up for me? Don't you protest? Why, I did hope that I had left my bons mots with such a clear stamp on them, that their style might be recognized at a glance. But as there is so much scum in the city, that nothing can be so graceless as not to seem graceful to some one, do your best, an you love me, to maintain, on your solemn affidavit, that they are none of mine, unless sharp double meaning, subtle hyperbole, neat pun, laughable παρὰ προσδοκίαν—unless everything else, in fact, which I set forth in the person of Antonius in my second book de Oratore, shall appear en réglé and really witty. For as to your complaints about the law courts I care much less. Let all the defendants, for what I care, go hang! If Selius himself is eloquent enough to establish his freedom, I don't trouble myself. But my prerogative of wit, please let us defend by any amount of injunctions. In that department you are the only rival I fear: I don't think anything of the rest. Do you suppose I am laughing at you? I never knew before that you were so sharp! But, by Hercules, joking apart, I did think your letter very witty and neatly turned. But those particular stories, laughable as they in fact were, did not, all the same, make me laugh. For I am anxious that the friend to whom you refer should have as much weight as possible in his tribuneship, both for his own sake—for, as you know, he is a great favourite of mine—and also, by Hercules, for that of the Republic, which, however, ungrateful to myself it may be, I shall never cease to love. You, however, my dear Volumnius, since you have begun doing so, and now see also that it gives me pleasure, write to me as often as possible about affairs in the city, about politics. I like the gossiping style of your letter. Farther—more, speak seriously to Dolabella, whom I see and believe to be very anxious for my regard, and to be most affectionately disposed towards me: encourage him in that disposition, and make him wholly mine; not, by Hercules, that there is anything lacking in him, but as I am very much set upon it, I don't think I am shewing too much anxiety.

CCXXIX. To Q. Minucius Thermus (Propraetor in Asia), Cilicia, B.C. 51

I have long been very intimate with L. Genucilius Curvus, who is a very excellent man and of an exceedingly grateful disposition. I recommend him to you without reserve, and introduce him to you, in the first place, that you may give him facilities generally in all his affairs, so far as your honour and position will allow—and, indeed, that will be in everything, for he will never ask anything of you inconsistent with his own character, or, indeed, with yours. But in a special manner also I commend to your protection his business concerns in Hellespontus: first, to enable him to maintain the privilege in regard to land-holding, which the state of Parium gave him by decree, and which he has always maintained without dispute; and, in the second place, that you should, in case of his being involved in a suit with a Hellespontian, refer it to that diocese. However, I do not think that, having recommended him with the utmost earnestness to you in general, I need go into particular cases affecting him. The upshot is this : whatever attention, kindness, or mark of honour you bestow on Genucilius, I shall consider that you have bestowed on me and my interests.

CCXXX. To Q. Minucius Thermus (in Asia), Cilicia, B.C. 51

Cluvius of Puteoli is very attentive to and intimate with me. He believes that, having business in your province, unless, during your governorship, he has secured it by a letter of recommendation from me, he will have to put it down as lost and hopeless. Well, now, since so heavy a burden is laid on me by a very kind friend, I will also lay a burden on you, warranted by your eminent services to me; and yet in doing so I am unwilling to be troublesome to you. The people of Mylasa and Alabanda owe Cluvius money. Euthydemus told me, when I was at Ephesus, that he would see that ecdici were sent from Mylasa to Rome. That has not been done. I hear that legates have been sent; but I prefer ecdici, in order that some settlement may be made. Therefore I beg you to order them and the Alabandians to send ecdici to Rome. Besides this, Philocles of Alabanda has mortgaged some property to Cluvius. The time of the mortgage has expired. I would like you to see that he either gives up possession of the property mortgaged and surrenders it to Cluvius's agents, or pays the money; and farther, that the people of Heraclea and Bargylia, who are also in his debt, should either pay the money or give him a lien on their revenues. The people of Caunus also owe him money, but they allege that they have placed the money on deposit. I should like you to investigate that, and, if you ascertain that they have not deposited the money, either by edict or decree, to see that Cluvius's claim to interest is secured to him by your decision. I am the more anxious on these points, because the interests of our friend Cn. Pompeius is involved also, and because he appears to me to be even more anxious about it than Cluvius himself. I am very desirous that he should be satisfied with my exertions on his behalf. On these matters I earnestly and repeatedly ask your assistance.

CCXXXI. To Q. Minucius Thermus (in Asia), Cilicia, B.C. 51

Although, when I spoke to you at Ephesus of the business of my legate M. Anneius, I gathered that you were strongly inclined to do anything for his own sake, nevertheless, I value M. Anneius so highly, and think that you value me so highly, that I do not hesitate to allow my recommendation to be added as a finishing stroke to your existing willingness to serve him. For, though I have long been attached to M. Anneius—as I have practically shewn by offering him a legation unasked, after having refused many who asked for it—yet, since he has been associated with me in war and the conduct of military affairs, I have come to know that his courage, good sense, honour, and loyalty to myself are so eminent, that I now value him as highly as anyone in the world. You know that he has a suit with the people of Sardis: I explained the merits of the case to you at Ephesus: but you will, nevertheless, inquire into it more easily and satisfactorily on the spot. As to the rest, by Hercules, I long hesitated what exactly to write to you. For your manner of deciding questions at law is justly celebrated, and known to your high credit. We, again, have no need of anything in this case, but that you should decide the question according to your usual principles. But yet, since I am fully aware how great the influence of a praetor is—especially a praetor whose character for honesty, firmness, and equity is acknowledged on all hands—I do ask of you, in the name of our very close intimacy and of the many mutual good services, which have benefited us both equally, by a display of cordiality, by an exercise Of influence, and by an exertion of zeal to convince M. Anneius, not only that you are his friend (this he does not doubt, for he has often remarked it to me), but that you have been made much more his friend by this letter of mine. Finally, I don't think you feel any hesitation as to how well you will be investing your kindness with a man of the most grateful disposition and most excellent principles.

CCXXXII. To P. Silius Nerva (Propraetor of Bithynia and Pontus), Cilicia, B.C. 51

I think you know that I was very intimate with T. Pinnius. This fact he testified by his will, for he appointed me both a guardian and an heir in the second degree. To his son, who is attached to me and is a man of learning and good character, the people of Nicaea owe a large sum of money, amounting to eight million sesterces (about £64,000), and, as I am informed, they are especially anxious to pay him. I shall be much obliged therefore—for not only the other guardians, who know how highly you value me, but the boy himself also are convinced that you will do anything for me—if you will take the trouble to see, as far as your honour and position will allow, that as large a part of the money as possible is paid to Pinnius on account of the people of Nicaea.

CCXXXIII. To P. Silius Nerva (in Bithynia), Cilicia, B.C. 51

I was very much obliged to you in the business of Atilius—for though I was late in the field I managed by your kindness to save a respectable Roman knight—and, by Hercules, I always did believe that you were one on whom I could rely, owing to the attachment to and rare friendship with Lamia common to us both. Accordingly, first of all I offer you my thanks for having freed me from all annoyance; then I follow this up with a piece of impudence—but I will make up for it: for I will always pay you attention and stand up for you with the utmost energy. Pray, if you care for me, be sure you hold my brother Quintus in the same regard as you do me. By so doing you will crown your kindness and greatly enhance it.

CCXXXIV. To P. Silius Nerva (in Bithynia), Cilicia, B.C. 51

My friend Nero thanks me in terms of quite astonishing and incredible warmth, saying that no mark of honour which could have been given him was omitted by you. You will be richly rewarded by him, for he is the most grateful young fellow in the world. But, by heaven, I too am exceedingly obliged to you: for of all our men of rank I value none more than him. And so, if you do what he wished me to ask of you, I shall be supremely obliged: first, in the matter of Pausanias of Alabanda, if you would keep the business back till Nero arrives—I have gathered that he is very interested in him, and so I put this request strongly—and next if you would regard as specially commended to your care the people of Nysa, whom Nero regards as his special friends and is most energetic in protecting and defending, so that this city may feel that its best protection consists in Nero being its patron. I have often recommended Servilius Strabo to you: I now do so with the greater earnestness that Nero has taken up his case. I only ask you to push on the business, so as not to leave an innocent man a prey to the greed of some governor unlike yourself. This will be a favour to me; but I shall also consider it an instance of your natural kindness. The upshot of this letter is that you should advance Nero in all possible ways, as you have started doing and have done. Your province, unlike this of mine, offers a wide theatre for displaying the glorious reputation of a young man of high birth, genius, and disinterested conduct. Wherefore, if he enjoys your support, as I am sure he will do and has done, he will be enabled to secure and bind to his interests most respectable bodies of clients which are a heritage from his ancestors. In this respect, if you give him your assistance, with the man himself you will have made a splendid investment of your kindness, but you will also have exceedingly obliged me.

CCXXXV. To P. Silius Nerva (Propraetor of Bithynia and Pontus), Cilicia, B.C. 51

I am very intimate and in constant communication with P. Terentius Hispo, who is engaged in the collection of the pasture-dues as deputy-manager, and many important services, equally advantageous to us both, have been interchanged between us. It is of capital importance to his reputation to settle the contracts with the remaining states. I don't forget that we tried to do that at Ephesus, but were quite unable to get the assent of the Ephesians. But since, as is the general opinion, and, as I understand, you have secured as well by your singular uprightness, as by your kindness and gentleness, that the slightest expression of your wish meets with the readiest consent of the Greeks to any object you have in view, I beg you with more than common earnestness, for the sake of my credit, to determine that Hispo shall gain this distinction. I may add that I am closely connected with the partners in the pasture company, not only because that company as a body is my client, but also because I am very intimate with most of the individual partners. By acting thus you will not only have assisted my friend Hispo in consequence of a recommendation of mine, and given the company still greater confidence in me, but you will yourself also receive the most ample reward from the regard of this most gratefully disposed man, as well as the thanks of the partners, who are men of the highest position, and you will have done me personally a very great kindness. Pray be assured that in your whole province and the whole sphere of your government there is nothing that you can do that could gratify me more.

CCXXXVI. To P. Furius Crassipes (Quaestor of Bithynia), Cilicia, B.C. 51

Although in a personal interview I recommended as earnestly as I could to you the publicani of Bithynia, and though I gathered that by your own inclination, no less than from my recommendation, you were anxious to promote the advantage of that company in every way within your power, yet, since those interested thought it of great importance to them that I should inform you by letter what my feeling towards them was, I have not hesitated to write you this. For I wish you to believe that, while I have ever had the greatest pleasure in doing as much as possible for the order of publicani generally, yet this particular company of Bithynia has my special good wishes. The company, owing to the rank and birth of its members, constitutes a very important section of the state for it is made up of members of the other companies; and it so happens that a very large number of this company are on extremely intimate terms with me, and especially the man who is at the present time at the head of the business, P. Rupilius, son of Publius, of the tribe Menenia, the master of that company. Such being the case, I beg you with more than common earnestness to protect Cn. Pupius, who is an employé of this company, by every sort of kindness and liberality within your power; and to secure, as you easily may, that his services shall be as satisfactory as possible to the company, while at the same time determining that the property and interests of the partners—as to which I am well aware how much power a quaestor possesses—should be secured and promoted. While you will in this be doing me a very great favour, I can at the same time from personal experience give you my promise, and pledge my word for it, that you will find the partners of the Bithynia company mindful of and grateful for any service you have rendered them.