Letters of 50 BC: The Proconsulate and the Return

CCXXXVII. To M. Porcius Cato (at Rome), Cilicia (January), B.C. 50

Your own immense prestige and my unvarying belief in your consummate virtue have convinced me of the great importance it is to me that you should be acquainted with what I have accomplished, and that you should not be ignorant of the equity and disinterestedness with which I protected our allies and governed my province. For if you knew these facts, I thought I should with greater ease secure your approval of my wishes.

Having entered my province on the last day of July, and seeing that the time of year made it necessary for me to make all haste to the army, I spent but two days at Laodicea, four at Apamea, three at Synnada, and the same at Philomelium. Having held largely attended assizes in these towns, I freed a great number of cities from very vexatious tributes, excessive interest, and fraudulent debt. Again, the army having before my arrival been broken up by something like a mutiny, and five cohorts—without a legate or a—military tribune, and, in fact, actually without a single centurion—having taken up its quarters at Philomelium, while the rest of the army was in Lycaonia, I ordered my legate M. Anneius to bring those five cohorts to join the main army; and, having thus got the whole army together into one place, to pitch a camp at Iconium in Lycaonia. This order having been energetically executed by him, I arrived at the camp myself on the 24th of August, having meanwhile, in accordance with the decree of the senate, collected in the intervening days a strong body of reserve men, a very adequate force of cavalry, and a contingent of volunteers from the free peoples and allied sovereigns. While this was going on, and when, after reviewing the army, I had on the 28th of August begun my march to Cilicia, some legates sent to me by the sovereign of Commagene announced, with every sign of panic, yet not without some foundation, that the Parthians had entered Syria. On hearing this I was rendered very anxious both for Syria and my own province, and, in fact, for all the rest of Asia. Accordingly, I made up my mind that I must lead the army through the district of Cappadocia, which adjoins Cilicia. For if I had gone straight down into Cilicia, I could easily indeed have held Cilicia itself, owing to the natural strength of Mount Amanus—for there are only two defiles opening into Cilicia from Syria, both of which are capable of being closed by insignificant garrisons owing to their narrowness, nor can anything be imagined better fortified than is Cilicia on the Syrian side—but I was disturbed for Cappadocia, which is quite open on the Syrian side, and is surrounded by kings, who, even if they are our friends in secret, nevertheless do not venture to be openly hostile to the Parthians. Accordingly, I pitched my camp in the extreme south of Cappadocia at the town of Cybistra, not far from Mount Taurus, with the object at once of covering Cilicia, and of thwarting the designs of the neighbouring tribes by holding Cappadocia. Meanwhile, in the midst of this serious commotion and anxious expectation of a very formidable war, king Deiotarus, who has with good reason been always highly honoured in your judgment and my own, as well as that of the senate—a man distinguished for his goodwill and loyalty to the Roman people, as well as for his eminent courage and wisdom—sent legates to tell me that he was on his way to my camp in full force. Much affected by his zeal and kindness, I sent him a letter of thanks, and urged him to hasten. However, being detained at Cybistra five days while maturing my plan of campaign, I rescued king Ariobarzanes, whose safety had been intrusted to me by the senate on your motion, from a plot that, to his surprise, had been formed against him: and I not only saved his life, but I took pains also to secure that his royal authority should be respected. Metras and Athenaeus (the latter strongly commended to me by yourself), who had been exiled owing to the persistent enmity of queen Athenais, I restored to a position of the highest influence and favour with the king. Then, as there was danger of serious hostilities arising in Cappadocia in case the priest, as it was thought likely that he would do, defended himself with arms—for he was a young man, well furnished with horse and foot and money, and relying on those all who desired political change of any sort —I contrived that he should leave the kingdom: and that the king, without civil war or an appeal to arms, with the full authority of the court thoroughly secured, should hold the kingdom with proper dignity. Meanwhile, I was informed by despatches and messengers from many sides, that the Parthians and Arabs had approached the town of Antioch in great force, and that a large body of their horsemen, which had crossed into Cilicia, had been cut to pieces by some squadrons of my cavalry and the praetorian cohort then on garrison duty at Epiphanea. Wherefore, seeing that the forces of the Parthians had turned their backs upon Cappadocia, and were not far from the frontiers of Cilicia, I led my army to Amanus with the longest forced marches I could. Arrived there, I learnt that the enemy had retired from Antioch, and that Bibulus was at Antioch. I thereupon informed Deiotarus, who was hurrying to join me with a large and strong body of horse and foot, and with all the forces he could muster, that I saw no reason for his leaving his own dominions, and that in case of any new event, I would immediately write and send to him. And as my intention in coming had been to relieve both provinces, should occasion arise, so now I proceeded to do what I had all along made up my mind was greatly to the interest of both provinces, namely, to reduce Amanus, and to remove from that mountain an eternal enemy. So I made a feint of retiring from the mountain and making for other parts of Cilicia: and having gone a day's march from Amanus and pitched a camp, on the 12th of October, towards evening, at Epiphanea, with my army in light marching order I effected such a night march, that by dawn on the 13th I was already ascending Amanus. Having formed the cohorts and auxiliaries into several columns of attack—I and my legate Quintus (my brother) commanding one, my legate C. Pomptinus another, and my legates M. Anneius and L. Tullius the rest—we surprised most of the inhabitants, who, being cut off from all retreat, were killed or taken prisoners. But Erana, which was more like a town than a village, and was the capital of Amanus, as also Sepyra and Commoris, which offered a determined and protracted resistance from before daybreak till four in the afternoon Pomptinus being in command in that part of Amanus—we took, after killing a great number of the enemy, and stormed and set fire to several fortresses. After these operations we lay encamped for four days on the spurs of Amanus, near the Arae Alexandri, and all that time we devoted to the destruction of the remaining inhabitants of Amanus, and devastating their lands on that side of the mountain which belongs to my province. Having accomplished this, I led the army away to Pindenissus, a town of the Eleutherocilices. And since this town was situated on a very lofty and strongly fortified spot, and was inhabited by men who have never submitted even to the kings, and since they were offering harbourage to deserters, and were eagerly expecting the arrival of the Parthians, I thought it of importance to the prestige of the empire to suppress their audacity, in order that there might be less difficulty in breaking the spirits of all such as were anywhere disaffected to our rule. I encircled them with a stockade and trench: I beleaguered them with six forts and huge camps: I assaulted them by the aid of earthworks, pent-houses, and towers : and having employed numerous catapults and bowmen, with great personal labour, and without troubling the allies or costing them anything, I reduced them to such extremities that, after every region of their town had been battered down or fired, they surrendered to me on the fifty-seventh day. Their next neighbours were the people of Tebara, no less predatory and audacious: from them after the capture of Pindenissus I received hostages. I then dismissed the army to winter quarters; and I put my brother in command, with orders to station the men in villages that had either been captured or were disaffected.

Well now, I would have you feel convinced that, should a motion be brought before the senate on these matters, I shall consider that the highest possible compliment has been paid me, if you give your vote in favour of a mark of honour being bestowed upon me. And as to this, though I am aware that in such matters men of the most respectable character are accustomed to ask and to be asked, yet I think in your case that it is rather a reminder than a request which is called for from me. For it is you who have on very many occasions complimented me in votes which you delivered, who have praised me to the skies in conversation, in panegyric, in the most laudatory speeches in senate and public meeting: you are the man to whose words I ever attached such weight as to hold myself in possession of my utmost ambition, if your lips joined the chorus of my praise. It was you finally, as I recollect, who said, when voting against a supplicatio in honour of a certain illustrious and noble person, that you would have voted for it, if the motion had related to what he had done in the city as consul. It was you, too, who voted for granting me a supplicatio, though only a civilian, not as had been done in many instances, "for good services to the state," but, as I remember, "for having saved the state." I pass over your having shared the hatred I excited, the dangers I ran, all the storms that I have encountered, and your having been entirely ready to have shared them much more fully if I had allowed it; and finally your having regarded my enemy as your own; of whose death even—thus shewing me clearly how much you valued me—you manifested your approval by supporting the cause of Milo in the senate. On the other hand, I have borne a testimony to you, which I do not regard as constituting any claim on your gratitude, but as a frank expression of genuine opinion: for I did not confine myself to a silent admiration of your eminent virtues—who does not admire them? But in all forms of speech, whether in the senate or at the bar; in all kinds of writing, Greek or Latin; in fine, in all the various branches of my literary activity, I proclaimed your superiority not only to contemporaries, but also to those of whom we have heard in history.

You will ask, perhaps, why I place such value on this or that modicum of congratulation or compliment from the senate. I will be frank with you, as our common tastes and mutual good services, our close friendship, nay, the intimacy of our fathers demand. If there ever was anyone by natural inclination, and still more, I think, by reason and reflexion, averse from the empty praise and comments of the vulgar, I am certainly the man. Witness my consulship, in which, as in the rest of my life, I confess that I eagerly pursued the objects capable of producing true glory: mere glory for its own sake I never thought a subject for ambition. Accordingly, I not only passed over a province after the votes for its outfit had been taken, but also with it an almost certain hope of a triumph and finally the priesthood, though, as I think you will agree with me, I could have obtained it without much difficulty, I did not try to get. Yet after my unjust disgrace—always stigmatized by you as a disaster to the Republic, and rather an honour than a disaster to myself—I was anxious that some very signal marks of the approbation of the senate and Roman people should be put on record. Accordingly, in the first place, I did subsequently wish for the augurship, about which I had not troubled myself before; and the compliment usually paid by the senate in the case of success in war, though passed over by me in old times, I now think an object to be desired. That you should approve and support this wish of mine, in which you may trace a strong desire to heal the wounds inflicted upon me by my disgrace, though I a little while ago declared that I would not ask it, I now do earnestly ask of you: but only on condition that you shall not think my humble services paltry and insignificant, but of such a nature and importance, that many for far less signal successes have obtained the highest honours from the senate. I have, too, I think, noticed this—for you know how attentively I ever listen to you—that in granting or withholding honours you are accustomed to look not so much to the particular achievements as to the character, the principles and conduct of commanders. Well, if you apply this test to my case, you will find that, with a weak army, my strongest support against the threat of a very formidable war has been my equity and purity of conduct. With these as my aids I accomplished what I never could have accomplished by any amount of legions: among the allies I have created the warmest devotion in place of the most extreme alienation; the most complete loyalty in place of the most dangerous disaffection; and their spirits fluttered by the prospect of change I have brought back to feelings of affection for the old rule.

But I have said too much of myself, especially to you, in whom singly the grievances of all our allies alike find a listener. You will learn the truth from those who think themselves restored to life by my administration. And while all with nearly one consent will praise me in your hearing as I most desire to be praised, so will your two chief client states—the island of Cyprus and the kingdom of Cappadocia —have something to say to you about me also. So, too, I think, will Deiotarus, who is attached to you with special warmth. Now, if these things are above the common run, and if in all ages it has been rarer to find men capable of conquering their own desires than capable of conquering an enemy's army, it is quite in harmony with your principles, when you find these rarer and more difficult virtues combined with success in war, to regard that success itself as more complete and glorious.

I have only one last resource—philosophy: and to make her plead for me, as though I doubted the efficacy of a mere request: philosophy, the best friend I have ever had in ail my life, the greatest gift which has been bestowed by the gods upon mankind. Yes! this common sympathy in tastes and studies —our inseparable devotion and attachment to which from boyhood have caused us to become almost unique examples of men bringing that true and ancient philosophy (which some regard as only the employment of leisure and idleness) down to the forum, the council chamber, and the very camp itself —pleads the cause of my glory with you: and I do not think a Cato can, with a good conscience, say her nay. Wherefore I would have you convince yourself that, if my despatch is made the ground of paying me this compliment with your concurrence, I shall consider that the dearest wish of my heart has been fulfilled owing at once to your influence and to your friendship.

CCXXXVIII. To L. Claudius Marcellus (Consul), Cilicia (January), B.C. 50

Since the dearest wish of my heart has come to pass, that of all the Marcelli and even the Marcellini—for the good feeling of your whole family and name towards me has ever been extraordinary—since, I say, it has come to pass that your possession of the consulship enables you to satisfy the views of all your family, that consulship in which it also happens that my public services and the glory and distinction accompanying them have fallen, I ask you a favour which it is very easy for you to grant, since the senate, I believe, is not averse, namely, to see to a senatorial decree being passed in as complimentary terms as possible when my despatch is read. Had the ties between you and me been less than those between me and all the members of your family, I would have made those my spokesmen to you, by whom you know well that I am regarded with special affection. The kindnesses done me by your father are very eminent, nor could anyone have been a warmer friend to my personal safety or my political position. As for your brother, I don't think that there is anyone who does not know how much he values and has ever valued me. In fact, your whole house has always honoured me with the most important services of every kind. Nor, indeed, have you yielded to any of your family in affection for me. Wherefore I ask you, with more than common earnestness, to determine that, as far as you are concerned, I shall receive the highest possible compliment, and to consider that in voting a supplicatio and in all other matters you have sufficient motive for defending my reputation.

CCXXXIX. To L. Aemilius Paullus (Consul), Cilicia, January, B.C. 50

It has been one of the strongest wishes of my heart to be in Rome with you on many accounts, but especially that you might have clearly before your eyes, both during your canvass and your actual administration, how eager I was to fulfil my obligation to you. And, indeed, as far as your canvass was concerned, it always seemed to me to be plain sailing, yet I nevertheless wished to give some actual aid. In your consulship truly I am anxious that you should have still less difficulty, yet I am vexed to think that I, as consul, had a full view of your zealous kindness when you were a young man, whilst you cannot have one of mine now that I am so far advanced in life. But there has been, I think, a kind of fatality ordaining that you should always have the opportunity of advancing my honour, while I never had anything—except the wish—enabling me to repay you. My consulship and my restoration alike you honoured by your support. It has happened that the occasion for my performing active public service has fallen in your consulship. Accordingly, though your brilliant position and high rank, as well as my own great office and high reputation, would seem to demand that I should urge you, and beg you at some length, to see to a decree of the senate being passed on the subject of my services in as complimentary terms as possible, yet I do not venture to put it strongly to you, lest I should appear to have forgotten your habitual kindness to me, or should admit the thought of your having forgotten. Accordingly, I will do as I think you would wish, and confine my petition to a few words, when it is made to a man that all the world knows has done me eminent service. If others had been consuls, you are the man of all others, Paullus, to whom I should have sent asking you to secure for me their warmest support. As it is, the chief power and greatest influence being in your hands, and our close connexion being known to everybody, I do beg you warmly, that you should see to a decree being passed in regard to my services in as complimentary terms and as speedily as possible. That these services deserve honour and congratulation you will learn from the despatch which I have addressed officially to you, your colleague, and the senate. I would further beg you to undertake the support of my other interests of every kind, and above all of my reputation. And let it be among your first concerns, as I asked you in a previous letter also, to prevent any extension of time in my tenure of office. I am eager to see you while you are still consul, and to gain all I hope for in your consulship, whether here or at home. Farewell.

CCXL. To C. Cassius Longinus (Proquaestor in Syria), Cilicia, January, B.C. 50

M. CICERO, imperator, greets C. Cassius, proquaestor. You introduce M. Fadius to me as a friend, but I make no fresh acquisition in him; for it is now many years since he has been among my cherished possessions, and valued by me for his exceeding kindness and attentions. Nevertheless, the discovery of his attachment to you has made him still dearer to me. So, though your letter did some good, yet a still more powerful recommendation was my clear perception and recognition of his own warm feeling for you. However, I will take every pains to do for Fadius what you ask. It is yourself that I could wish for many reasons had been able to visit me: in the first place, that I might see you after so long a separation—a man whom I have long valued so highly; in the second place, that I might offer my personal congratulations, as I have already done by letter; thirdly, that we might consult together on whatever matters we wished, you on yours, I on mine; and lastly, that our friendship, which has been kept up by the interchange of signal services on both sides, but has had its continuity interrupted by periods of separation, might be greatly strengthened. Since this was not to be, we will avail ourselves of what letters can do for us, and shall, though separated, attain almost the same objects as we should have done if we had met face to face. One satisfaction, of course, that which arises from the actual sight of you, cannot be obtained by the help of letters: the other, the pleasure, I mean, of congratulating you, though more meagre than it would have been, if I could have seen your face while offering my congratulations, I have nevertheless already experienced and now give myself again: and I do indeed congratulate you both on the splendour of your services, and also for their opportuneness, in that at the moment of your departure from it you have been followed by the loudest praises and the liveliest gratitude of your province. My third point—that we might have consulted each other about our affairs—that let us do equally by letter. On every other account I am strongly of opinion that you ought to hasten your return to Rome. For things there, as I left them, shewed no signs of a storm as far as you are concerned, and owing to your recent very splendid victory I imagine that your arrival will be attended by great éclat. But if the difficulties under which your relations are labouring are no more than you can combat, hasten home: nothing could be nobler or more popular: but if they are more serious, take care that your return does not fall at a most inopportune moment. You are the sole judge on this point, for you alone know your powers. If you are strong enough to do it, you are sure of praise and popularity: if you are clearly not strong enough, it will be easier for you to support popular remark by staying away. For myself, however, the request I make to you in this letter is the same as that in my previous one—that you should exert yourself to the uttermost to prevent any extension of time being made to my provincial government, which both by decree of the senate and by the law was to be of one year's duration. I press this upon you with warmth, because I consider my entire fortunes to depend upon it. You have Paullus to support you—my friend, and a very warm one: you have Curio and Furnius. I beg you to exert yourself, with the assurance that it is everything in the world to me. My last point was the strengthening of our friendship. On that there is no need of more words. You sought my society in your boyhood: I for my part ever thought that you would be a credit to me. You were, moreover, a protection to me in the darkest hour of my fortunes. To these facts I may now add the very close intimacy which has sprung up since you left town between me and your relative Brutus. Therefore, in the talents and high character which distinguish you both, I believe that I have a very great reserve of pleasure and honour in store. t beg you earnestly to ratify this expectation, and also to write to me at once, and as often as possible after your arrival at Rome.

CCXLI. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome, February, B.C. 50

I have no doubt the news has reached you of Appius being impeached by Dolabella. But there is by no means the feeling against him which I had expected. For the truth is, Appius acted with a good deal of sense. No sooner did Dolabella appear at the tribunal, than he entered the city and gave up his demand for a triumph. By thus acting he at once took the edge off popular talk, and shewed himself also to be better prepared than his accuser had expected. His chief hope is now in you. I know you don't dislike him. It is now in your power to attach him to you as strongly as you choose. If you had never had a quarrel with him, you would now have had a freer hand in the whole business: as it is, if you push legality to the proverbial extreme, you must be on your guard against being thought not to have been quite candid and sincere in renouncing your hostility. In this respect you will certainly be on safe ground in doing him a favour, if so minded; for no one will say that you have been debarred from doing a duty by the influence of intimacy and friendship. It occurs to my mind that, between the application to the praetor and the formal notice of impeachment, Dolabella's wife has divorced him. 'I remember the commission you gave me as you were leaving: I think you have not forgotten what I wrote to you. It is not as yet the time for entering into farther details. I can only give you this hint: if you like the suggestion, do not, nevertheless, at the present moment betray your sentiments, but wait to see how he comes out of this case. Take care that it does not bring discredit on you if it leaks out: assuredly, if any expression of your feeling were to crop up now, it would gain a greater notoriety than is either decent or expedient. Nor will he be able to hold his tongue on a circumstance which chimed in so pat with his hopes, and which will reflect so much additional lustre upon him in conducting the prosecution: especially as he is the sort of man to be scarcely able to refrain, even though he knew it was ruinous to himself to mention the fact. Pompey is said to be very anxious on Appius's behalf, so much so that it is even thought that he means to send one or other of his sons to you. Here we are all for his acquittal, and, by Hercules, every disclosure that could reflect disgrace or dishonour on him has been carefully barred. Our consuls are indeed energetic: they haven't been able to get a single decree through the senate, except the one for the Latin festival! Our friend Curio's tribuneship is deadly dull—as cold as ice. In short, I can hardly express to you the flatness of everything at Rome. If it had not been for a good fight I am having with the shopkeepers and water companies, a lethargy would have settled upon the state. If the Parthians don't make it warm for you, we here are stiff with cold. However, Bibulus has done his best: without the help of the Parthians he has managed to lose a poor cohort or two in Amanus. So it is reported here.

I said just now that Curio was much in the cold: well, he is now getting warm I for he is being pulled to pieces with a hot fire of criticism. For, just because he did not get his way about intercalation, he has with the most outrageous levity ratted to the popular party, and begun speaking up for Caesar, and has made a great parade of a road law, not much unlike Rullus's agrarian law, and another about the sale of provisions, which enacts that the aediles should measure goods. He had not done this when I wrote the first part of my letter. Pray, if you render any assistance to Appius, let me have some of the credit. I advise you not to commit yourself in regard to Dolabella: that is the course most conducive at once to the proposal to which I am referring, to your own position, and to your reputation for fairness—It will be a disgrace to you if I have no Greek panthers.

CCXLII. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome (February), B.C. 50

How soon you want to quit your province I don't know; for myself, the greater your success up to now, the more shall I be tormented by the danger of a Parthian war, as long as you remain where you are, for fear some alarm should dissipate the laughter in which I usually indulge. This letter is shorter than usual, but the letter-carrier of the publicani was in a hurry, and I was suddenly called upon for it. I had already delivered a longer one to your freedman. Moreover, absolutely nothing new has happened, unless you would like my letter to be filled with such anecdotes as the following (and I am sure you would): The younger Cornificius has betrothed himself to Orestilla's daughter. Paulla Valeria, sister of Triarius, has divorced her husband without cause alleged, on the very day he was to arrive from his province. She is going to marry D. Brutus. She has yet given no notice to the pontifices. Servius Ocella would never have convinced anybody that he was an adulterer, if he had not been twice caught in three days. You will ask where? In the last place, by Hercules, I should have wished! I leave you something to find out from others. And I rather like the idea of an imperator questioning one person after another with what woman so-and—so has been caught.

CCXLIII. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (at Rome), Laodicea (February), B.C. 50

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

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

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

CCXLIV. To M. Caelius Rufus (at Rome), Laodicea (February), B.C. 50

I am very intimate with M. Fadius, a most excellent man and most accomplished scholar, and I am wonderfully attached to him, as well for his great talents and consummate learning, as for the singular modesty of his behaviour. Pray take up his business as though it were my own. I know you distinguished advocates: one must commit a murder if one wishes the benefit of your services: but in the case of this man I will accept no excuse. You will throw up every other engagement, if you love me, when Fadius desires your services. I am eagerly looking out and longing for news from Rome, and before all I desire to know how you are: for, owing to the severity of the winter, it is now a long time since any news found its way to us.

CCXLV. To L. Papinius Paetus (at Rome), Laodicea (February), B.C. 50

Your letter has made me a consummate general: I had really no idea that you were so accomplished a tactician. I see you have been poring over the treatises of Pyrrhus and Cineas. So I am thinking of obeying your maxims: more than that, I mean to have some light vessels on the coast: against your Parthian horse they say that no better equipment can be discovered. But why jest? You don't know what a great general you are talking to! The Cyropaedeia, which I had well thumbed over, I have thoroughly exemplified throughout my command. But we will have our joke out when we meet, and that I hope before very long. Now listen to the word of command, or rather "attention!" as they used to say in old times. With M. Fadius, as I think you know, I am very intimate, and I am much attached to him, as well from his extreme honesty and singular modesty of behaviour, as from the fact that I am accustomed to find him of the greatest help in the controversies which I have with your fellow tipplers the Epicureans. He came to see me at Laodicea, and I wanted him to stay with me, but he was suddenly agitated by a most distressing letter containing the announcement that an estate near Herculaneum, of which he is joint owner, had been advertised for sale by his brother Q. Fadius. M. Fadius was exceedingly annoyed at this, and thought that his brother (who is not a wise man) had taken that extreme step at the instigation of his own private enemies. In these circumstances, my dear Paetus, as you love me, take the whole case in hand and free Fadius from his distress. We want you to use your influence, to offer your advice, or even to make it a matter of personal favour. Don't let brothers go to law and engage in a suit discreditable to both. Two of Fadius's enemies are Mato and Pollio. Need I say more? I really cannot, by Hercules, express in writing how much I shall be obliged to you if you put Fadius at his ease. He thinks that this depends on you, and makes me think so also.

CCXLVI. To C. Curtius Peducaeanus (Praetor), Laodicea (February), B.C. 50

I am particularly attached to M. Fadius and see a very great deal of him, and my intimacy with him is of very old standing. In the suit in which he is engaged I don't ask for your decision—you will, as your honour and position demand, stand by your edict and the principles of administration you have established—but only that he may have as ready an approach to you as possible, may obtain his just rights without reluctance on your part, and may find by experience that my friendship, even though I am far away, is of use to him, especially with you. This much I do earnestly and repeatedly ask of you.

CCXLVII. To C. Titus Rufus (Praetor Urbanus), Laodicea (February), B.C. 50

L. Custidius is my fellow tribesman, fellow townsman, and intimate friend. He has a suit at law, which he is about to bring before you. I limit my recommendation of him to you—as your honour and my modesty demand—to asking for him a ready access to you: that in all just demands he may be successful without any reluctance on your part, and may have reason to know that my friendship, though I am very far away, is of service to him, especially with you

CCXLVIII. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (at Rome), Laodicea, February, B.C. 50

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

CCXLIX. To Atticus (in Epirus), Laodicea, 13 February, B.C. 50

I am very glad to hear of your safe arrival in Epirus, and that, as you say, you had a pleasant voyage. I am a little annoyed at your not being in Rome at a crisis of great importance to me, but I console myself with the one reflexion, that you are having a pleasant winter there and are enjoying your rest. Gaius Cassius, brother of your friend Quintus Cassius, had sent a despatch—of which you ask me the meaning—written in a more modest strain than the later one in which he says that he had made an end of the Parthian war. It is true that the Parthians had retired from Antioch before the arrival of Bibulus, but it was from no success of our arms. At this present moment they are, as a matter of fact, wintering in Cyrrhestica, and a most serious war is impending. For the son of the Parthian king Orodes is within the Roman province, and Deiotarus, to whose son the daughter of Ariovasdes is betrothed—so he ought to know—has no doubt of the king himself intending to cross the Euphrates in full force at the beginning of summer. Besides, on the day on which Cassius's victorious despatch was read in the senate (dated the 7th of October) one was read from me also, announcing an alarm of war. My friend Axius says that my despatch made a great impression, that his was not credited. That of Bibulus had not yet been received, which I am quite sure will be thoroughly alarmist. The result of this, I fear, will be that, as Pompey is not allowed to be sent anywhere for fear of a revolution, and no attention is paid by the senate to Caesar's demands, while this knot remains to be untied, the senate will not think that I ought to quit my province till a successor has arrived, and that in such troublous times legates should not be left in charge of two such important provinces. In view of this I tremble lest my tenure should be prolonged, without even a tribune being able to stop it, and all the more so that you are not in town to interpose, as you might have done in many cases by your advice, your personal influence and activity. But you will say I am piling up anxiety for myself with my own hands. I can't help it: I wish that it may be so. But everything causes me alarm. Though your letter that you wrote at Buthrotum in your sickness had a charming finale. "As I see and hope, there will be nothing to delay your departure from your province." I should have preferred that you had confined yourself to "as I see": there was no need to add "and hope."

Again, I have received a letter written just after the triumph of Lentulus, which came with great celerity by the hands of the postmen of the publicani. In this you reiterate the same "bitter-sweet," first saying that there will be no delay of my return, and then adding, "If anything goes wrong you will come to me." Your doubts torture me: at the same time you may see which of your letters I have received. For the one which you say yourself that you delivered to the centurion Hermon's servant I have not received. You have often mentioned having given a letter to Laenius's servants. That one Laenius did deliver to me at last, on my arrival at Laodicea, the 11th of February, dated the 21st of September. I will, at once by what I say to him, and by deeds hereafter, give Laenius reason to be satisfied with your recommendation. That letter had much news that was stale, one thing that was new—about the panthers from Cibyra. I am much obliged to you for telling M. Octavius that you didn't think I would do it. But pray henceforth, in any case of doubt, give a direct negative. The fact is that, supported by a spontaneous resolution of my own, and also, by Hercules, from the inspiration of your influence, I have surpassed everybody (and you will find this to be the case) in preserving clean hands, no less than in justice, courtesy, and mildness. Don't. imagine that anything has ever surprised people more than the fact that not a farthing of expense has been caused to the province during my governorship, either for my public establishment or for any individual on my staff, except L. Tullius. He,' who in other respects is clean-handed enough, did take something on the road in virtue of the Julian law, not as others do at every hamlet, but once only and for the day's journey. He is the only one who has done so: and he forces me to make an exception when I say that not a farthing of expense has been caused. No one except him has taken anything. This blot I owe to our friend Q. Titinius.

At the end of the summer campaign I put my brother Quintus in charge of the winter quarters and of Cilicia. I have sent your friend Tiberius's son-in-law Quintus Volusius —not only a safe man, but also wonderfully disinterested—to Cyprus, with orders to stay some few days there, to prevent the few Roman citizens who are in business there from saying that they have no means of legal redress: for it is illegal for Cyprians to be cited in courts out of the island. I myself started for Asia from Tarsus on the 5th of January, accompanied by an admiration, which, by heaven, it is difficult to describe, from the cities in Cilicia, and specially from the people of Tarsus. As soon, however, as I had crossed the Taurus I found our dioceses in Asia on the tiptoe of expectation: for in the six months of my administration Asia had not received a single letter of injunction from me, nor had had a single official to entertain. Now before my time that particular period had been each year a source of gain, by. the richer states paying large sums of money to be exempted from furnishing the soldiers with winter quarters. The Cyprians used to pay 200 Attic talents, from which island—I am not speaking in hyperbole, but the simple truth—not a single farthing is exacted under my administration. For these benefits, which they regard with speechless astonishment, I allow no honours, except verbal ones, to be decreed to me: statues, temples, marble chariots I forbid; nor am I a nuisance to the states in any other respect—though I may be to you by thus blowing my own trumpet. But, an you love me, put up with it! It was you who wished me to act thus. My progress through Asia was of such a nature that even the famine, which prevailed in my part of Asia at the time—the most distressing thing there is—has been in a manner a welcome event. Wherever I went, without using force, legal compulsion, or strong language, I induced both the Greeks and Roman citizens, who had cornered the wheat, to promise large quantities to the communities. On the 13th of February—the day I am despatching this letter—I have arranged to hold a court at Laodicea for the district of Cibyra and Apamea: from the 15th of March at the same place for the districts of Synnada, Pamphylia (when I will look out for a horn for Phemius), Lycaonia, Isauria. After the 15th of May I start for Cilicia, with the view of spending June there—I hope without trouble from the Parthians. July, if all goes as I wish, will be needed for my return journey through the province. I entered the province at Laodicea in the consulship of Sulpicius and Marcellus on the 31st of July. I am due to leave it on the 30th of July. I shall first of all press my brother Quintus to allow himself to be left in charge, which will be very much against the wishes of us both. But that is the only respectable arrangement possible, especially as I cannot even now keep the excellent Pomptinus: for Postumius hurries him back to Rome, and perhaps Postumia also.

Now you know my plans. Next, let me enlighten you about Brutus. Your friend Brutus has among his intimates certain creditors of the people of Salamis in Cyprus, M. Scaptius and P. Matinius, whom he has recommended to me with more than common earnestness. I have not made the acquaintance of Matinius: Scaptius came to the camp to see me. I promised for the sake of Brutus to see that the Salaminians paid him the money. He thanked me, and asked for a prefecture. I said that I never granted one to a man engaged in business, a rule of which I have already informed you. When Cn. Pompeius asked me he accepted the propriety of this rule—I need not mention Torquatus when he asked for your friend M. Laenius, and many others. But (I said) if he wanted to be a praefectus on account of the bond, I would see to his recovering the money. He thanked me and went away. Our friend Appius had granted certain squadrons of cavalry to this Scaptius to coerce the Salaminians, and had also given him rank as praefectus. He was harrying the Salaminians. I ordered the cavalry squadrons to quit Cyprus. Scaptius felt aggrieved. In short, to keep faith with him I commanded the Salaminians, when they came to see me at Tarsus and Scaptius with them, to pay the money. They had a great deal to say about the bond, a great deal about the wrongs inflicted upon them by Scaptius. I declined to hear it. I urged them, I even asked them as a favour, in consideration of my good services to their state, to settle the business: finally I said that I would use compulsion. The men not only did not refuse, but even said that they would be paying out of my pocket: for that, since I had declined the money they had been accustomed to pay the praetor, they would in a sense be paying out of my pocket, and indeed the debt to Scaptius amounted to considerably less than the praetorian contribution. I warmly commended them: "All right," said Scaptius, "but let us reckon the total." Then there arose this question: One of the clauses in my customary edict was a declaration that I would not recognize more than twelve per cent. interest, besides the yearly addition to the capital of interest accrued, whereas he demanded in virtue of the deed forty-eight per cent. "What do you mean?" said I. "Can I go against my own edict?" He then produced a decree of the senate made in the consulship of Lentulus and Philippus. "The governor of Cilicia shall recognize that bond in giving judgment." I was at first horrified, for it meant the ruin of the town. I find there are two decrees of the senate in the same year about this bond. When the Salaminians wished to raise money at Rome to pay off a debt, they were prevented from doing so by the Gabinian law. Then it was that Brutus's friends, relying on his influence, offered to advance the money if they were secured by a senatorial decree. A decree is passed by Brutus's influence "That the Salaminians and those who lent the money should be indemnified." They paid the money. Afterwards it occurred to the lenders that this senatorial decree would not secure them, because the Gabinian law forbade a legal decision being based on the bond. So the other senatorial decree ("that this bond be recognized in giving judgment") is passed: not giving that particular bond more legal validity than others, but the same. When I had expounded this view, Scaptius took me aside and said that he had nothing to say against it, but that those men were under the impression that their debt was 200 talents, and he was willing to accept that sum, whereas it really amounted to somewhat less; he begs me to induce them to agree on the 200. "Very well," said I. I summon them without the presence of Scaptius. "What do you say," said I, "how much is your debt?" They answered, "One hundred and six." I refer back to Scaptius. He exclaimed loudly. "What is the use of this?" said I. "Check each other's additions." They sit down, they make their calculations: they agree to a penny. They declare themselves willing to pay: and beg him to accept the money. Scaptius again takes me aside: asks me to leave the matter as it is, undecided. I gave in to the fellow's shameless request. When the Greeks grumbled, and demanded that they might deposit the money in a temple, I did not assent. Everybody in court exclaimed that Scaptius was the greatest knave in the world for not being content with twelve per cent. plus the compound interest: others said that he was the greatest fool. In my opinion he was more knave than fool. For either he was content with twelve per cent. on a good security, or he hoped for forty-eight per cent. with a bad one. That is my case; and if Brutus is not satisfied with it, I cannot see why I should regard him as a friend: I am sure that his uncle at any rate will accept it, especially as a senatorial decree has just been passed—I think since you left town—in the matter of money-lenders, that twelve per cent. simple interest was to be the rate. What a wide difference this implies you will certainly be able to reckon, if I know your fingers. And in this regard, by the way, L. Lucceius, son of Marcus, writes me a grumbling letter asserting that—thanks to the senate—there is the utmost danger of these decrees leading to a general repudiation. He recalls what mischief C. Iulius once did by slightly enlarging the time for payment: "public credit never received such a blow."—But to return to the matter in hand: turn over my case in your mind as against Brutus, if it may be called a case, against which nothing can be decently urged: especially as I have left it and its merits undecided.

Now for family matters. As to our "home secret," I am of your opinion—Postumia's son : since Pontidia is playing fast and loose. But I could have wished you had been there. Don't expect anything from my brother Quintus for some months; for Taurus is impassable before June, owing to the snow. I am backing up Thermus, as you ask me to do, by a great number of letters. As for P. Valerius, Deiotarus says that he has nothing, and is being supported by himself. As soon as you know whether there is to be an intercalation at Rome or not, please write me word definitely on what day the mysteries are to take place. I am a little less eager for your letters than if you were at Rome; but yet, after all, I am eager for them.

CCL. To P. Silius Nerva (Propraetor of Bithynia and Pontus), Laodicea, February, B.C. 50

I never thought that I could possibly be at a loss for words, but I certainly am so in writing a letter of commendation for M. Laenius. I will, therefore, state the case to you in a few words, yet enough to shew you my feelings. Both I and my dearest brother have a value for M. Laenius which passes belief. This arises, indeed, from his very numerous services to us, but also from his extreme honesty and the eminent correctness of his conduct. It is with the greatest reluctance that I am parting with him, as well on account of our close intimacy and the charm of his society, as because I am glad to have the advantage of his candid and sound advice. But I am afraid that you will be thinking that the words, for which I said that I was at a loss, are already more than enough. I commend him to you with all the warmth you perceive that I am bound to feel for one of whom I use such language as the above: and I ask you earnestly and repeatedly to facilitate his business in your province, and to give him personally any information you think you fairly can. You will find him most reasonable and gentlemanlike. Therefore I beg you to send him back to me as soon as possible, disembarrassed and free, with his business accomplished as far as it lies in your hands. You will very greatly oblige me and my brother by so doing.

CCLI. To Atticus (in Epirus), Laodicea, 22 February, B.C. 50

I received your letter on the fifth day before the Terminalia (19th of February) at Laodicea. I was delighted to read it, for it teemed with affection, kindness, and an active and obliging temper. I will, therefore, answer it sentence by sentence —for such is your request—and I will not introduce an arrangement of my own, but will follow your order.

You say that the last letter you had of mine was from Cybistra, dated 21st September, and you want to know which of yours I have received. Nearly all you mention, except the one that you say that you delivered to Lentulus's messengers at Equotuticus and Brundisium. Wherefore your industry has not been thrown away, as you fear, but has been exceedingly well laid out, if, that is to say, your object was to give me pleasure. For I have never been more delighted with anything. I am exceedingly glad that you approve of my self-restraint in the case of Appius, and of my independence even in the case of Brutus: and I had thought that it might be somewhat otherwise. For Appius, in the course of his journey, had sent me two or three rather querulous letters, because I rescinded some of his decisions. It is exactly as if a doctor, upon a patient having been placed under another doctor, should choose to be angry with the latter if he changed some of his prescriptions. Thus Appius, having treated the province on the system of depletion, bleeding, and removing everything he could, and having handed it over to me in the last state of exhaustion, he cannot bear seeing it treated by me on the nutritive system. Yet he is sometimes angry with me, at other times thanks me; for nothing I ever do is accompanied with any reflexion upon him. It is only the dissimilarity of my system that annoys him. For what could be a more striking difference—under his rule a province drained by charges for maintenance and by losses, under mine, not a penny exacted either from private persons or public bodies? Why speak of his praefecti, staff, and legates? Or even of acts Of plunder, licentiousness, and insult? While as things actually are, no private house, by Hercules, is governed with so much system, or on such strict principles, nor is so well disciplined, as is my whole province. Some of Appius's friends put a ridiculous construction on this, holding that I wish for a good reputation to set off his bad one, and act rightly, not for the sake of my own credit, but in order to cast a reflexion upon him. But if Appius, as Brutus's letter forwarded by you indicated, expresses gratitude to me, I am satisfied. Nevertheless, this very day on which I write this, before dawn, I am thinking of rescinding many of his inequitable appointments and decisions.

I now come to Brutus, whose friendship I embraced with all possible earnestness on your advice. I had even begun to feel genuine affection for him—but here I pull myself up short, lest I should offend you: for don't imagine that there is anything I wish more than to fulfil his commissions, or that there is anything about which I have taken more trouble. Now he gave me a volume of commissions, and you had already spoken with me about the same matters. I have pushed them on with the greatest energy. To begin with, I put such pressure on Ariobarzanes, that he paid him the talents which he promised me. As long as the king was with me, the business was in excellent train: later on be began to be pressed by countless agents of Pompey. Now Pompey has by himself more influence than all the rest put together for many reasons, and especially because there is an idea that he is. coming to undertake the Parthian war. However, even he has to put up with the following scale of payment: on every thirtieth day thirty-three Attic talents (£7,920), and that raised by special taxes: nor is it sufficient for the monthly interest. But our friend Gnaeus is an easy creditor: he stands out of his capital, is content with the interest, and even that not in full. The king neither pays anyone else, nor is capable of doing so: for he has no treasury, no regular income. He levies taxes after the method of Appius. They scarcely produce enough to satisfy Pompey's interest. The king has two or three very rich friends, but they stick to their own as energetically as you or I. For my part, nevertheless, I do not cease sending letters asking, urging, chiding the king. Deiotarus also has informed me that he has sent emissaries to him on Brutus's business: that they have brought him back word that he has not got the money. And, by Hercules, I believe it is the case; nothing can be stripped cleaner than his kingdom, or be more needy than the king. Accordingly, I am thinking either of renouncing my guardianship, or, as Scaevola did on behalf of Glabrio, of stopping payment altogether—principal and interest alike. However, I have conferred the prefectures which I promised Brutus through you on M. Scaptius and L. Gavius, who were acting as Brutus's agents in the kingdom: for they were not carrying on business in my own province. You will remember that I made that condition, that he might have as many prefectures as he pleased, so long as it was not for a man in business. Accordingly, I have given him two others besides: but the men for whom he asked them had left the province. Now for the case of the Salaminians, which I see came upon you also as a novelty, as it did upon me. For Brutus never told me that the money was his own. Nay, I have his own document containing the words, "The Salaminians owe my friends M. Scaptius and P. Matinius a sum of money." He recommends them to me: he even adds, as though by way of a spur to me, that he had gone surety for them to a large amount. I had succeeded in arranging that they should pay with interest for six years at the rate of twelve per cent., and added yearly to the capital sum. But Scaptius demanded forty-eight per cent. I was afraid, if he got that, you yourself would cease to have any affection for me. For I should have receded from my own edict, and should have utterly ruined a state which was under the protection not only of Cato, but also of Brutus himself, and had been the recipient of favours from myself. When lo and behold! at this very juncture Scaptius comes down upon me with a letter from Brutus, stating that his own property is being imperilled—a fact that Brutus had never told either me or you. He also begged that I would confer a prefecture on Scaptius. That was the very reservation that I had made to you—" not to a man in business": and if to anyone, to such a man as that—no! For he has been a praefectus to Appius, and had, in fact, had some squadrons of cavalry, with which he had kept the senate under so close a siege in their own council chamber at Salamis, that five senators died of starvation. Accordingly, the first day of my entering my province, Cyprian legates having already visited me at Ephesus, I sent orders for the cavalry to quit the island at once. For these reasons I believe Scaptius has written some unfavourable remarks about me to Brutus. However, my feeling is this: if Brutus holds that I ought to have decided in favour of forty-eight per cent., though throughout my province I have only recognized twelve per cent., and had laid down that rule in my edict with the assent even of the most grasping money-lenders; if he complains of my refusal of a prefecture to a man in business, which I refused to our friend Torquatus in the case of your protégé Laenius, and to Pompey himself in the case of Sext. Statius, without offending either of them; if, finally, he is annoyed at my recall of the cavalry, I shall indeed feel some distress at his being angry with me, but much greater distress at finding him not to be the man that I had thought him. Thus much Scaptius will own—that he had the opportunity in my court of taking away with him the whole sum allowed by my edict. I will add a fact which I fear you may not approve. The interest ought to have ceased to run (I mean the interest allowed by my edict), but I induced the Salaminians to say nothing about that. They gave in to me, it is true, but what will become of them if Paullus comes here? However, I have granted all this in favour of Brutus, who writes very kind letters to you about me, but to me myself, even when he has a favour to ask, writes usually in a tone of hauteur, arrogance, and offensive superiority. You, however, I hope will write to him on this business, in order that I may know how he takes what I have done. For you will tell me. I have, it is true, written you a full and careful account in a former letter, but I wished you clearly to understand that I had not forgotten what you had said to me in one of your letters: that if I brought home from this province nothing else except his goodwill, I should have done enough. By all means, since you will have it so: but I assume my dealings with him to be without breach of duty on my part. Well, then, by my decree the payment of the money to Statius is good at law: whether that is just you must judge for yourself—I will not appeal even to Cato. But don't think that I have cast your exhortations to the winds: they have sunk deeply into my mind. With tears in your eyes you urged me to be careful of my reputation. Have I ever got a letter from you without the same subject being mentioned? So, then, let who will be angry, I will endure it: "for the right is on my side," especially as I have given six books as bail, so to speak, for my good conduct. I am very glad you like them, though in one point—about Cn. Flavius, son of Annius—you question my history. He, it is true, did not live before the decemvirs, for he was curule aedile, an office created many years after the decemvirs. What good did he do, then, by publishing the Fasti? It is supposed that the tablet containing them had been kept concealed up to a certain date, in order that information as to days for doing business might have to be sought from a small coterie. And indeed several of our authorities relate that a scribe named Cn. Flavius published the Fasti and composed forms of pleading—so don't imagine that I, or rather Africanus (for he is the spokesman), invented the fact. So you noticed the remark about the "action of an actor," did you? You suspect a malicious meaning : I wrote in all simplicity.

You say that Philotimus told you about my having been saluted imperator. But I feel sure that, as you are now in Epirus, you have received my two letters on the whole subject, one from Pindenissus after its capture, another from Laodicea, both delivered to your own messengers. On these events, for fear of accidents at sea, I sent a public despatch to Rome in duplicate by two different letter-carriers.

As to my Tullia, I agree with you, and I have written to her and to Terentia giving my consent. For you have already said in a previous letter to me, "and I could wish that you had returned to your old set." There was no occasion to alter the letter you sent by Memnius: for I much prefer to accept this man from Pontidia, than the other from Servilia. Wherefore take our friend Saufeius into council. He was always fond of me, and now I suppose all the more so as he is bound to have accepted Appius's affection for me with the rest of the property he has inherited. Appius often shewed how much he valued me, and especially in the trial of Bursa. Indeed you will have relieved me of a serious anxiety.

I don't like Furnius's proviso. For, in fact, there is no state of things that alarms me except just that of which he makes the only exception. But I should have written at great length to you on this subject if you had been at Rome. I don't wonder that you rest all your hope of peace on Pompey: I believe that is the truth, and in my opinion you must strike out your word "insincerity." If my arrangement of topics is somewhat random, blame yourself: for I am following your own haphazard order.

My son and nephew are very fond of each other. They take their lessons and their exercise together; but as Isocrates said of Ephorus and Theopompus, the one wants the rein, the other the spur. I intend giving Quintus the toga virilis on the Liberalia. For his father commissioned me to do so. And I shall observe the day without taking intercalation into account. I am very fond of Dionysius: the boys, however, say that he gets into mad passions. But after all there could not be a man of greater learning, purer character, or more attached to you and me. The praises you hear of Thermus and Silius are thoroughly deserved : they conduct themselves in the most honourable manner. You may say the same of M. Nonius, Bibulus, and myself, if you like. I only wish Scrofa had had an opportunity to do the same: for he is an excellent fellow. The rest don't do much honour to Cato's policy. Many thanks for commending my case to Hortensius. As for Amianus, Dionysius thinks there is no hope. I haven't found a trace of Terentius. Moeragenes has certainly been killed. I made a progress through his district, in which there was not a single living thing left. I didn't know about this, when I spoke to your man Democritus. I have ordered the service of Rhosian ware. But, hallo! what are you thinking of? You generally serve us up a dinner of herbs on fern-pattern plates, and the most sparkling of baskets: what am I to expect you to give on porcelain ? have ordered a horn for Phemius: one will be sure to turn up; I only hope he may play something worthy of it.

There is a threat of a Parthian war. Cassius's despatch was empty brag: that of Bibulus had not arrived: when that is read I think the senate will at length be roused. I am myself in serious anxiety. If, as I hope, my government is not prolonged, I have only June and July to fear. May it be so! Bibulus will keep them in check for two months. What will happen to the man I leave in charge, especially if it is my brother? Or, again, what will happen to me, if I don't leave my province so soon? It is a great nuisance. However, I have agreed with Deiotarus that he should join my camp in full force. He has thirty cohorts of four hundred men apiece, armed in the Roman fashion, and two thousand cavalry. That will be sufficient to hold out till the arrival of Pompey, who in a letter he writes to me indicates that the business will be put in his hands. The Parthians are wintering in a Roman province. Orodes is expected in person. In short, it is a serious matter. As to Bibulus's edict there is nothing new, except the proviso of which you said in your letter, "that it reflected with excessive severity on our order." I, however, have a proviso in my own edict of equivalent force, but less openly expressed (derived from the Asiatic edict of Q. Mucius, son of Publius)—" provided that the agreement made is not such as cannot hold good in equity." I have followed Scaevola in many points, among others in this—which the Greeks regard as a charta of liberty—that Greeks are to decide controversies between each other according to their own laws. But my edict was shortened by my method of making a division, as I thought it well to publish it under two heads: the first, exclusively applicable to a province, concerned borough accounts, debt, rate of interest, contracts, all regulations also referring to the publicani: the second, including what cannot conveniently be transacted without an edict, related to inheritances, ownership and sale, appointment of receivers, all which are by custom brought into court and settled in accordance with the edict: a third division, embracing the remaining departments of judicial business, I left unwritten. I gave out that in regard to that class of business I should accommodate my decisions to those made at Rome: I accordingly do so, and give general satisfaction. The Greeks, indeed, are jubilant because they have non-Roman jurors. "Yes," you will say, "a very poor kind." What does that matter? They, at any rate, imagine themselves to have obtained "autonomy." You at Rome, I suppose, have men of high character in that capacity—Turpio the shoemaker and Vettius the broker! You seem to wish to know how I treat the publicani. I pet, indulge, compliment, and honour them: I contrive, however, that they oppress no one. The most surprising thing is that even Servilius maintained the rates of usury entered on their contracts. My line is this: I name a day fairly distant, before which, if they have paid, I give out that I shall recognize only twelve per cent.: if they have not paid, the rate shall be according to the contract. The result is that the Greeks pay at a reasonable rate of interest, and the publicani are thoroughly satisfied by receiving in full measure what I mentioned—complimentary speeches and frequent invitations. Need I say more? They are all on such terms with me that each thinks himself my most intimate friend. However, μηδὲν αὐτοῖς—you know the rest.

As to the statue of Africanus—what a mass of confusion! But that was just what interested me in your letter. Do you really mean it? Does the present Metellus Scipio not know that his great-grandfather was never censor? Why, the statue placed at a high elevation in the temple of Ops had no inscription except CENS, while on the statue near the Hercules of Polycles there is also the inscription CENS, and that this is the statue of the same man is proved by attitude, dress, ring, and the likeness itself. But, by Hercules, when I observed in the group of gilded equestrian statues, placed by the present Metellus on the Capitol, a statue of Africanus with the name of Serapio inscribed under it, I thought it a mistake of the workman. I now see that it is an error of Metellus's. What a shocking historical blunder! For that about Flavius and the Fasti, if it is a blunder, is one shared in by all, and you were quite right to raise the question. I followed the opinion which runs through nearly all historians, as is often the case with Greek writers. For example, do they not all say that Eupolis, the poet of the old comedy, was thrown into the sea by Alcibiades on his voyage to Sicily? Eratosthenes disproves it: for he produces some plays exhibited by him after that date. Is that careful historian, Duris of Samos, laughed out of court because he, in common with many others, made this mistake? Has not, again, every writer affirmed that Zaleucus drew up a constitution for the Locrians? Are we on that account to regard Theophrastus as utterly discredited, because your favourite Timaeus attacked his statement? But not to know that one's own great-grandfather was never censor is discreditable, especially as since his consulship no Cornelius was censor in his lifetime.

As to what you say about Philotimus and the payment of the 20,600 sestertia, I hear that Philotimus arrived in the Chersonese about the 1st of January: but as yet I have not had a word from him. The balance due to me Camillus writes me word that he has received; I don't know how much it is, and I am anxious to know. However, we will talk of this later on, and with greater advantage, perhaps, when we meet ?

But, my dear Atticus, that sentence almost at the end of your letter gave me great uneasiness. For you say, "What else is there to say?" and then you go on to entreat me in most affectionate terms not to forget my vigilance, and to keep my eyes on what is going on. Have you heard anything about anyone? I am sure nothing of the sort has taken place. No, no, it can't be! It would never have eluded my notice, nor will it. Yet that reminder of yours, so carefully worded, seems to suggest something.

As to M. Octavius, I hereby again repeat that your answer was excellent: I could have wished it a little more positive still. For Caelius has sent me a freedman and a carefully written letter about some panthers and also a grant from the states. I have written back to say that, as to the latter, I am much vexed if my course of conduct is still obscure, and if it is not known at Rome that not a penny has been exacted from my province except for the payment of debt ; and I have explained to him that it is improper both for me to solicit the money and for him to receive it; and I have advised him (for I am really attached to him) that, after prosecuting others, he should be extra-careful as to his own conduct. As to the former request, I have said that it is inconsistent with my character that the people of Cibyra should hunt at the public expense while I am governor.

Lepta jumps for joy at your letter. It is indeed prettily written, and has placed me in a very agreeable light in his eyes. I am much obliged to your little daughter for so earnestly bidding you send me her love. It is very kind of Pilia also; but your daughter's kindness is the greater, because she sends the message to one she has never seen. Therefore pray give my love to both in return. The day on which your letter was dated, the last day of December, reminded me pleasantly of that glorious oath of mine, which I have not forgotten. I was a civilian Magnus on that day.

There's your letter completely answered! Not as you were good enough to ask, with "gold for bronze," but tit for tat. Oh, but here is another little note, which I will not leave unanswered. Lucceius, on my word, could get a good price for his Tusculan property, unless, perchance, his flute-player is a fixture (for that's his way), and I should like to know in what condition it is. Our friend Lentulus, I hear, has advertised everything for sale except his Tusculan property. I should like to see these men cleared of their embarrassments, Cestius also, and you may add Caelius, to all of whom the line applies, "Ashamed to shrink and yet afraid to take." I suppose you have heard of Curio's plan for recalling Memmius. Of the debt due from Egnatius of Sidicinum I am not without some hope, though it is a feeble one. Pinarius, whom you recommended to me, is seriously ill, and is being very carefully looked after by Deiotarus. So there's the answer to your note also.

Pray talk to me on paper as frequently as possible while I am at Laodicea, where I shall be up to the 15th of May: and when you reach Athens at any rate send me letter-carriers, for by that time we shall know about the business in the city and the arrangements as to the provinces, the settlement of all which has been fixed for March.

But look here! Have you yet wrung out of Caesar by the agency of Herodes the fifty Attic talents? In that matter you have, I hear, roused great wrath on the part of Pompey. For he thinks that you have snapped up money rightly his, and that Caesar will be no less lavish in his building at the Nemus Dianae.

I was told all this by P. Vedius, a hare-brained fellow enough, but yet an intimate friend of Pompey's. This Vedius came to meet me with two chariots, and a carriage and horses, and a sedan, and a large suite of servants, for which last, if Curio has carried his law, he will have to pay a toll of a hundred sestertii apiece. There was also in a chariot a dog-headed baboon, as well as some wild asses. I never saw a more extravagant fool. But the cream of the whole is this. He stayed at Laodicea with Pompeius Vindullus. There he deposited his properties when coming to see me. Meanwhile Vindullus dies, and his property is supposed to revert to Pompeius Magnus. Gaius Vennonius comes to Vindullus's house: when, while putting a seal on all goods, he comes across the baggage of Vedius. In this are found five small portrait busts of married ladies, among which is one of the wife of your friend—" brute," indeed, to be intimate with such a fellow! and of the wife of Lepidus—as easy-going as his name to take this so calmly! I wanted you to know these historiettes by the way; for we have both a pretty taste in gossip. There is one other thing I should like you to turn over in your mind. I am told that Appius is building a propylaeum at Eleusis. Should I be foolishly vain if I also built one at the Academy? "I think so," you will say. Well, then, write and tell me that that is your opinion. For myself, I am deeply attached to Athens itself, I would like some memorial of myself to exist. I loathe sham inscriptions on statues really representing other people. But settle it as you please, and be kind enough to inform me on what day the Roman mysteries fall, and how you have passed the winter. Take care of your health. Dated the 765th day since the battle of Leuctra!

CCLII. To Q. Minucius Thermus (Propraetor of Asia), Laodicea (March), B.C. 50

I am obliged to you for many instances of your attention to my recommendations, but above all for your very courteous treatment of M. Marcilius, son of my friend and interpreter. He has arrived at Laodicea, and in an interview with me has expressed great gratitude to you, and to myself on your account. I therefore ask you as a farther favour, that, as you find your kindness well laid out and meeting with gratitude from those persons, you would be still more ready to oblige them, and would endeavour, as far as your honour shall permit, to prevent the young man's mother-in-law from being prosecuted. I recommended Marcilius to you before with some earnestness: I do so now with still greater, because, in a long course of his service as apparitor, I have found his father Marcilius to be peculiarly and almost incredibly trustworthy, disinterested, and scrupulous.

CCLIII. To Q. Minucius Thermus (Propraetor in Asia), Laodicea, March, B.C. 50

The more I am assured every day by letters and messages that a serious war is on foot in Syria, the more earnest am I in my request to you, in the name of our close friendship, that you would send back my legate M. Anneius to me at the earliest possible moment. For by his activity, wisdom, and knowledge of military affairs I well know that both I and the state can receive the most important assistance. Indeed, had it not been of such urgent importance to him, he would never have been induced to quit me, nor I to let him go. I think of starting for Cilicia about the 1st of May. Before that day M. Anneius is bound to rejoin me. The request which I pressed upon you very earnestly, both in a personal interview and by letter, I now reiterate— that you should take pains to enable him to settle the business he has with the Sardians as the justice of his case and the dignity of his character demand. I gathered from your remarks, when I conversed with you at Ephesus, that you were ready to do anything for the sake of M. Anneius himself. Yet I should wish you to think that you could not oblige me more than by letting me see that he has settled his business to his satisfaction owing to your support, and I beg you again and again to see that done at the earliest possible time.

CCLIV. To M. Caelius Rufus (Curule Aedile), Laodicea, 4 April, B.C. 50

Would you have supposed that words could possibly fail me, and not only oratorical words, such as you advocates use, but even this common vernacular which I employ? Still, fail me they do, and for this reason—I am surprisingly anxious as to what decree may pass about the provinces. An astonishing yearning for the city possesses me, an incredible longing for my friends and for you among the first, and at the same time a weariness of a province, either because I seem to have gained so much reputation, that an accession to it is now not so much to be sought, as some change of fortune to be feared; or because the whole business is one unworthy of my powers, able and accustomed as I am to sustain more important burdens in the public service; or, again, because an alarm of a serious war is hanging over us, which I seem likely to avoid by quitting my province on the day appointed. The panthers are being energetically attended to by the ordinary hunters in accordance with my orders: but there is a great scarcity of them, and such as there are, I am told, complain loudly that they are the only things for which traps are set in all my province, and they are said in consequence to have resolved to quit our province for Caria. However, the business is being pushed on zealously, and especially by Patiscus. All that turn up shall be at your service, but how many that is I don't in the least know. I assure you I am much interested in your aedileship: the day itself reminds me of it; for I am writing on the very day of the Megalensia. Please write the fullest particulars as to the state of politics in general: for I shall look on information from you as the most trustworthy I get.

CCLV. To Atticus (in Epirus), Laodicea, May (between 1 and 7), B.C. 50

Your freedman Philogenes having come to call on me at Laodicea, and telling me that he was on the point of setting sail to join you, I intrust him with this letter, in answer to the one which I received by Brutus's letter-carrier. And first I will answer your last page, which gave me great uneasiness —that is, the account sent you by Cincius of his conversation with Statius, in which what annoyed me most was Statius saying that the plan had my approbation. Approbation, indeed! I need say no more than this: I wish the bonds uniting our close friendship to be as numerous as possible, though none can be so close as those of personal affection. So far am I from wishing that any one tie between us should be relaxed. He, however, I have often found by actual experience, is accustomed to speak with some asperity on the subjects you mention, and I have also often succeeded in pacifying his anger. That I think you know. In the course of our recent progress, or campaign, if I may call it so, I have often seen him fly into a rage, and often calm down again. What he has written to Statius I don't know. Whatever he meant to do in such a matter, he certainly ought not to have written to a freedman. I will take the greatest care to prevent anything occurring contrary to our wishes and to what is proper. And in a case of this kind it is not enough that each should answer for himself: for instance, the most important rôle in the kindly work of this reconciliation is that of the boy, or young man, I should say, Quintus: and this I am in the habit of impressing upon him. He seems to me, indeed, to be strongly attached to his mother, as he ought to be, and wonderfully so to you. But the boy's character, though certainly a lofty one, has yet many complications, and gives me enough to do to guide it.

Having thus in my first answered your last page, I will now return to your first. That all the Peloponnesian states possessed a seaboard is a fact that I accepted on the authority of the maps of Dicaearchus, a respectable writer, and one who has even received your approbation. In his account of Trophonius—put into the mouth of Chaeron—he criticises the Greeks on many accounts for their persistent clinging to the sea, and he does not except any place in the Peloponnesus. Though I thought well of him as an authority—for he was a most careful inquirer, and had lived in Peloponnesus—I was yet surprised at the statement, and feeling scarcely convinced of its truth, consulted Dionysius. He was at first taken aback; but presently, as he thought no less well of Dicaearchus, than you do of C. Vestorius, and I of M. Cluvius, entertained no doubt that we should believe him. His conclusion was that Arcadia had a seaport called Lepreon; while Tenea, Aliphera, and Tritia he thought were more recent foundations; and that view he backed up by Homer's "Catalogue of the Ships," where there is no mention of them. Accordingly, I translated that passage from Dicaearchus word for word. I know the form usually employed is "Phliasii," and so take care to have it in your copies: that is the form I now have in mine. But at first I was deceived by the analogy of Ὀποῦς Ὀπούντιοι, Σίπους Σιπούντιοι (so Φλιοῦς Φλιούντιοι Phliuntii), but I have at once corrected this.

I see that you rejoice at my equitable and disinterested administration: you would have done so still more, if you had been here. Why, in these very sessions which I have been holding at Laodicea from the 13th of February to the 1st of May for all the dioceses except that of Cilicia, I have effected astonishing results. A great number of states have been entirely released from debt, and many very sensibly relieved: all have enjoyed their own laws, and with this attainment of autonomy have quite revived. I have given them the opportunity of freeing themselves from debt, or lightening their burdens, in two ways: first, in the fact that no expense has been imposed upon them during my government—and when I say "no expense" I do not speak hyperbolically, but I mean none, not a farthing. It is almost incredible how this fact has helped them to escape from their difficulties. The other way is this. There was an astonishing amount of peculation in the states committed by the Greeks themselves—I mean their own magistrates. I personally questioned those who had been in office in the course of the last ten years. They openly confessed it: and accordingly, without being punished by any mark of disgrace, repaid the sums of money to the communities out of their own pockets. The consequence is that, whereas the communities had paid the publicani nothing for the present quinquennium, they have now, without any signs of distress, paid them the arrears of the last quinquennium also. So I am the apple of their eye to the publicani—" A grateful set," quoth you. Yes, I have found it so. The rest of my administration of justice has not been without skill, while its lenity has been enhanced by a marvellous courtesy. The ease with which I have admitted men to my presence is a new thing in the provinces. I don't employ a chamberlain. Before daybreak I walk up and down in my house, as I used to do in old times as a candidate. This is very popular and a great convenience, nor have I found it as yet fatiguing to me, being an old campaigner in that respect. On the 15th of May I am thinking of going to Cilicia: having spent the month of June there—pray heaven, in peace! for a serious war on the part of the Parthians is threatening—I mean to devote July to my return journey. For my year of service is finished on the 30th of July: and I am in 'great hopes that there will be no extension of my time. I have the city gazette up to the 15 of March, from which I gather that, owing to the persistence of my friend Curio, every kind of business is coming on rather than that of assigning the provinces. Therefore, as I hope, I shall see you before long.

I now come to your friend Brutus, or rather our friend, since you will have it so. Indeed, I have on my side done everything that I could accomplish in my province, or attempt in Cappadocia. Thus I have urged the king in every possible way, and continue to do so, that is to say, by letter—for I have only had him with me three or four days, and in the midst of political troubles, from which I relieved him. But, alike in our personal interviews, and afterwards by very frequent letters, I have never ceased begging and beseeching him for my sake, and advising him for his own. I have had considerable effect, but how much I do not, at this distance from him, know for certain. The Salaminians, however—for upon them I could put pressure —I have brought to consent to pay the entire debt to Scaptius, but with interest calculated at one per cent. per month, and not added to the capital each month, but only at the end of each year. The money was actually paid down: Scaptius would not take it. What do you mean, then, by saying that Brutus is willing to lose something? He had forty-eight per cent. in his bond. It could not be paid, nor, if it could, could I have allowed it. I hear, after all, that Scaptius repents his refusal. For as to the decree of the senate which he quoted—" that the money should be recoverable on the bond "—its intention was to cover the case of the Salaminians having borrowed money contrary to the lex Gabinia. For Aulus's law forbade the recovery of money so borrowed. The senate accordingly decreed that it should be recoverable on that particular bond. Now this bond has exactly the same validity as all other bonds, not a bit more. I think Brutus will acknowledge that my conduct has been quite regular and correct. I don't know about you, Cato certainly will.

But now I return to yourself. Do you really, Atticus, mean to say— you, the panegyrist of my integrity and punctilious honour—"do you venture out of your own mouth" (to quote Ennius) to ask me to give Scaptius cavalry to help him to exact the money? Would you, if you were with me—and you say in your letter that you are sometimes sore at heart to think that you are not with me—would you have suffered me to do so, even if I had wished it? "Not more than fifty," you say. There were fewer than that with Spartacus at first. What misery would they not have inflicted in so weak an island? "They would not have done it," do you say? Nay, what did they not do before my arrival? They kept the Salaminian senators shut up in their chamber for so many days, that some of them died of hunger. For Scaptius was a praefectus of Appius, and Appius allowed him some squadrons. Well, then, do you ask me— you, whose face, by heaven! is ever before my eyes when I think of duty and honour—do you, I say, ask me to allow Scaptius to be praefectus of mine? To let alone the fact that I had resolved that no man in business should be one, and with Brutus's approval of the rule—is such a fellow as that to have squadrons? Why rather than cohorts of the legions? Oh, Scaptius is spending his money, and is now cutting a great figure! The chief men of Salamis, says he, wish it. I know all about that: for they came to see me even at Ephesus, and with tears in their eyes told me of the abominable conduct of the cavalry and of their own miseries. Accordingly, I at once sent a letter ordering the cavalry to quit Cyprus by a fixed day, and for that, among other reasons, the Salaminians have praised me to the skies in their decrees. But where was the need of cavalry? The Salaminians offer payment—unless, by heaven, we choose to use armed force to compel the payment of forty-eight per cent. interest! And shall I ever dare to read or even to touch those books again which you compliment so highly, if I have committed such an act as that? You have indulged your affection for Brutus too far in this, too far I repeat, my dearest Atticus. Perhaps I have not done so enough: and so I have told Brutus that you have written in this sense to me.

Now for the rest. I do all I can here for Appius, yet only so far as my duty allows, though with a right good will. For I don't dislike him, while to Brutus I am warmly attached, and Pompey is surprisingly urgent, of whom, by heaven, I grow fonder and fonder every day. You have heard that C. Caelius is coming here as quaestor. I don't know what it is, but I don't like that business of Pammenes. I hope to be at Athens in September. I should much like to know the dates of your tours. I understood the silly conduct of C. Sempronius Rufus from your letter written in Corcyra. In short, I am jealous of the influence of Vestorius. I wanted to go on chatting, but the day is breaking; the crowd is coming in; Philogenes is in a hurry. So good-bye, and give my love to Pilia, when you write, and to our dear Caecilia, and accept the same from my son.

CCLVI. To M. Caelius Rufus (Curule Aedile), Laodicea, May, B.C. 50

Though your letters are rare (perhaps they don't all reach me), yet I always receive them with delight. For instance, the last received— how sensible it is! How kind and instructive! Though in all points I had made up my mind that I must act as you advise, yet my plans are confirmed when I see that farseeing and faithful advisers agree with me. I am very fond of Appius, as I have often remarked to you in the course of conversation, and I perceived that the moment our quarrel was at an end he began to like me. For when consul he shewed me great respect, and as a friend he has made himself agreeable, and has taken great interest in my pursuits. That good services on my side were in truth not wanting you are witness, and are supported now, I think, by Phania coming in pat, like a character in a farce; and, by heaven! I valued him still more from perceiving that he was attached to you. You know that I am now wholly Pompey's: you understand that Brutus is the object of my warm affection. What is there to prevent my wishing to embrace a man who has all the advantages of youth, wealth, honours, genius, children, relations, marriage connexions, and friends: especially as he is my colleague, and in regard even to the reputation and learning of the college shews great value for me? I write at the greater length on this subject, because your letter hints a kind of doubt as to my feelings towards him. I suppose you have been told something: it is false, believe me, if you have. My official principles and policy present certain points of contrast with his method of administering the province. From that circumstance, perhaps, people have suspected that this contrast arises from estrangement of feeling, not mere difference of opinion. I have, however, never done or said anything with the object of lessening his reputation. Moreover, since this trouble that has come upon him from the rash act of our Dolabella, I am putting myself forward as his apologist and defender.

Your letter mentioned "a lethargy on the state." I am very glad to hear it, and rejoice that our friend has been frozen by the public tranquillity. Your last page, in your own handwriting, was like a dagger in my heart. What! Curio now standing up for Caesar? Who had ever expected it? No one but myself! For, as I live, I thought that would happen. Immortal gods! How I yearn for the laugh we should have over it together! My intention is, since I have finished hearing my cases, have enriched the states, have secured for the publicani even the arrears of the last quinquennium without a murmur from the allies, and have made myself agreeable to private persons from the highest to the lowest, to start for Cilicia on the 15th of May, and, as soon as I have reached the summer quarters and have got the troops established in them, to quit the province in accordance with the senatorial decree. I desire to see you while still aedile; and the city, as well as all my friends, and you among the first, inspire me with extraordinary longing.

CCLVII. To Q. Minucius Thermus (Propraetor of Asia), Laodicea (May), B.C. 50

I am exceedingly glad that such services as I have rendered to Rhodon, and any other kindnesses I have done you and yours, have pleased you, the most grateful of men; and let me assure you that I feel greater interest every day in promoting your position, though, indeed, you have yourself so enhanced it by the purity and lenity of your administration, that it seems scarcely to admit of any increase. But as I think over your plans, I am more and more convinced every day of the soundness of the advice which I originally gave our friend Ariston, when he came to see me, that you would be incurring dangerous enmity, if a young man of powerful connexions and high birth received a slight from you. And, by heaven! it certainly will be a slight: for you have no one with you of higher official rank. The man himself, too, to say nothing of his high birth, has claims superior to those of the excellent and unimpeachable officers, your legates, in this special particular, that he is a quaestor and your quaestor. That no individual can, however provoked, do you any harm I quite see; yet I would not like you to have three brothers, of the highest birth, energetic, and not without eloquence, angry with you at once, especially on any good ground: men too whom I see will be successively tribunes during the next three years. Who knows, again, what sort of times await the Republic? In my opinion, they will be stormy. Why should I wish you to incur the alarms which tribunes can cause, especially when, without exciting remark from anyone, you can give the preference to a quaestor over legates of only quaestorian rank? And if he shews himself worthy of his ancestors, as I hope and trust he may do, the credit will to a certain extent be yours: if, on the other hand, he comes to grief in any way, the discredit will be all his, not yours at all. I thought, as I am on the point of starting for Cilicia, that I ought to write and tell you what occurred to me as being for your interests. Whatever you decide upon doing I pray heaven to prosper. But if you will listen to me, you will avoid enmities, and take measures for your tranquillity in the future.

CCLVIII. To Gaius Memmius (in Mitylene), Laodicea, May?, B.C. 50

I am very intimate with C. Avianius Evander, who is at present lodging in your treasure-chamber, as well as with his patron M. Aemilius. I ask you, therefore, with more than common earnestness, to give him any accommodation you can, without causing yourself inconvenience, as to his place of residence. For owing to his having many orders on hand for a number of people, it would hurry him very much if he were forced to quit your house on the 1st of July. My modesty will not allow me to use more words in preferring my request: yet I feel sure that, if it is not inconvenient, or not very much so, you will feel as I should have felt if you had asked a favour of me. I, at any rate, shall be extremely obliged to you.

CCLIX. To Gaius Memmius (in Mitylene), Laodicea, May?, B.C. 50

Aulus Fufius is an intimate friend of mine, and most attentive and attached to me. He is a good scholar, a very good-natured man, and in the highest degree worthy of your friendship. Pray treat him as you promised me personally you would. It will oblige me in the very highest degree possible. You will also bind him to you himself for ever by the strongest ties of affection and respect.

CCLX. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (at Rome), Laodicea, May, B.C. 50

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

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

CCLXI. To C. Caelius Caldus (Appointed Quaestor for Cilicia), Cilicia, June, B.C. 50

M. Tullius Cicero, imperator, son of Marcus, grandson of Marcus, greets C. Caelius Caldus, son of Lucius, grandson of Gaius, quaestor. When I first received the most welcome intelligence that the lot had assigned you to me as quaestor, I hoped that this chance would be a source of greater pleasure the longer you were with me in the province. For it appeared to me of great importance that the connexion between us, thus formed by fortune, should be supplemented by personal intercourse. When subsequently I failed to hear anything from yourself, or to receive a letter from anyone else as to your arrival, I began to fear, what I still fear may be the case, that I should have left the province before you arrived in it. However, when I was in camp in Cilicia, I received a letter from you on the 21st of June, expressed in the most cordial terms, and sufficiently manifesting your kindness and abilities. But it contained no indication of day or place of writing, nor of the time at which I might expect you; nor was the person who delivered it to me the one to whom you had given it: for then I might have ascertained from him where and when it was despatched. In spite of this uncertainty, I yet thought that I must contrive to send some of my orderlies and lictors to you with a letter. If you receive it in anything like time, you will be doing me a very great favour if you will join me in Cilicia as soon as you can. For though, of course, what your cousin Curius, who is, as you know, a very great ally of mine, and also what your relative and my most intimate friend C. Vergilius, have written to me about you with the greatest earnestness has, of course, very great importance in my eyes—as a serious recommendation of such very warm friends is bound to have—yet your own letter, and especially what you say about your own position and our connexion, has, to my mind, the greatest weight of all. No quaestor could have been assigned to me that would have been more welcome. Wherefore whatever marks of distinction I can shew you, shall be shewn, demonstrating to all the world that I fully recognize your own and your ancestors' high position. I shall be better able to do this, if you join me in Cilicia, which I think is very much to my interest and that of the state, and above all to your own.

CCLXII. To M. Caelius Rufus (Curule Aedile), Cilicia, June, B.C. 50

I am much worried by events in the city. Such stormy meetings are reported to me, such a disturbed Quinquatrian holiday: for what has happened since I have not yet heard. But after all nothing worries me so much as the being debarred in the midst of these troubles from having a laugh with you at the comic points in them. These are, in fact, numerous, but I dare not trust them to paper. What annoys me is that I have not as yet received a line from you on these subjects. Wherefore, though by the time you read this letter I shall have finished my year of office, pray, nevertheless, send a letter to meet and enlighten me on all public affairs, that I may not arrive home an utter stranger. No one can do this better than you. Your friend Diogenes, a steady good man, has left me in company with Philo for Pessinus. They are on their way to visit Adiatorix, where they are fully prepared to find neither kindness nor a full exchequer.

The City, the City, my dear Rufus—stick to that and live in its full light! Residence elsewhere—as I made up my mind in early life—is mere eclipse and obscurity to those whose energy is capable of shining at Rome. Knowing this thoroughly, would that I had been true to my convictions! Before heaven, I do not compare all the advantages of a province put together with one stroll and one conversation with you. I hope I have gained a reputation for integrity. I had that, however, quite as much from rejecting as from administering a province. "But what about the hope of a triumph?" say you. I had already had a sufficiently glorious triumph: I never ought to have been so long separated from all that I love best. But I shall, I hope, soon see you. Mind you send some letters to meet me worthy of yourself.

CCLXIII. To Atticus (in Epirus), Cilicia, June, B.C. 50

Though I know of nothing new having happened since I gave a letter for you to your freedman Philogenes, yet as I am sending Philotimus back to Rome, I felt obliged to write you something. And first on the subject which causes me most anxiety—not that you can help me at all, for the matter is actually in hand, and you are far away in another part of the world: And in the gulf between Full many a wide sea's wave the south wind rolls.

The time is creeping on, as you see—for I am bound to leave the province on the 30th of July—and no successor is named. Whom shall I leave in command of the province? Sound policy and public opinion demand my brother. First, because it is regarded as an honour: next, because no one is fitter: thirdly, because he is the only ex-praetor I have. For Pomptinus, in accordance with an agreement and bargain— for he accompanied me on that condition—has already left me. No one thinks my quaestor fit for the post. For he is unsteady, loose, and has an itching palm. However, in regard to my brother, the first point is, that I do not think I could persuade him to do it: for he dislikes a province. And, by heaven, nothing can be more disagreeable and tiresome. Then again, suppose him not to like to say no to me, what about my own duty to him? Seeing that a serious war is believed to be actually going on in Syria, and is thought likely to spread into this province, while there is here no adequate protection, and the ordinary supplies for the year only have been voted, would it seem consistent with natural affection to leave my brother, or with proper prudence to leave some fainéant? You see, therefore, that I am in great anxiety, and much at a loss as to the course to take. In short, I never ought to have undertaken the business at all. What a much better "province" is yours! You will leave it whenever you choose, if indeed you have not already done so, and you can put anyone you choose in charge of Thesprotia and Chaonia! However, I have not yet seen Quintus, so as to be quite sure, if I made up my mind to it, whether he could be induced; nor, if he could, am I certain what my real wishes are. That is how this matter stands. The rest is as yet all praise and thanks—worthy of the books you praise so highly. Communities have been put on a sound footing, the publicani have been thoroughly satisfied, no one has been insulted, some few have suffered by a judicial edict, at once just and strict, yet in no case does anyone venture to complain; there has been a campaign deserving of a triumph, but in this matter too I shall do nothing in a spirit of self-seeking, nothing at all indeed without your advice. The last word of the play—the handing over of my province—is the difficulty. But this some god will direct.

About events in the city you, of course, know more than I: your news are more frequent and more authentic. I am myself vexed not to get information by a letter from you. For reports of an unpleasant nature reach me here about Curio and about Paullus —not that I see anything to fear as long as Pompey can stand or even sit: if he only recover his health ! But, by heaven! I am vexed for Curio and Paullus, my own familiar friends! Please, therefore, send me, if you are in Rome or when you get there, a sketch-plan of the whole position of public affairs to meet me on my way, by which I may mould my conduct, and consider beforehand in what spirit to approach the city. For it is something that a man on his arrival should not be a foreigner and stranger.

And then—what I had almost forgotten to mention—about your friend Brutus. I have done everything I could for him, as I often mentioned to you in my letters. The Cyprians were ready to pay the money. But Scaptius was not content with twelve per cent. and compound interest reckoned yearly. Ariobarzanes was not more inclined to accommodate Pompey for his own sake, than Brutus for mine. But I cannot pledge myself for him, for he is a very poor sovereign, and I am at so great a distance from him, that my only weapons are letters, and with these I have not ceased to ply him. The upshot is this: Brutus, in proportion to the amount of the debt, has been treated more liberally than Pompey. For Brutus this year there has been secured about a hundred talents; Pompey has had two hundred promised in six months. Again, in the business of Appius I can scarcely express the extent of my concessions to Brutus. Why should I trouble myself, then? His friends are men of straw—Matinius and Scaptius—the latter of whom, because he did not get some squadrons of cavalry from me wherewith to bully Cyprus, as he had done before my governorship, is perhaps angry with me; or because he is not a praefectus, an office which I bestowed on no one engaged in business, not even on C. Vennonius, who was my intimate friend, or on M. Laenius, who was yours. To this principle, which I communicated to you at Rome, I have stuck. But of what has a man to complain, who, when he might have taken the money, refused to do so? The other Scaptius (who is in Cappadocia) I think I have fully satisfied. Having received the office of military tribune from me, which I had offered him in consequence of a letter from Brutus, he afterwards wrote me word that he did not wish to avail himself of it. There is a certain Gavius, who, after my offering him a praefectura on the request of Brutus, said and did a good deal meant to reflect upon me—one of Publius Clodius's sleuthhounds! He neither paid me the compliment of joining my escort when I was quitting Apamea, nor on his subsequently visiting the camp and being about to leave it did he ask me "whether I had any commands," and made no secret of being, I don't know why, no friend to me. If I had regarded such a fellow as one of my praefecti, what would you have thought of me? Was I, who, as you know, never would put up with insolence from the most powerful of men, to endure it from this led—captain? Yet it is more than "putting up with" a man to bestow on him a place of profit and honour. So, then, this Gavius, when he saw me at Apamea, as he was starting for Rome, addressed me in a tone I should scarcely have ventured to adopt to Culleolus: "Will you be good enough to tell me," said he, "where I am to look for the allowances of a praefectus?" I answered more mildly than those present thought I should have done, that it was not my practice to give allowances to those whom I had not actually employed. He went off in a rage. If Brutus can be affected by the talk of such a windbag as this, you may love him all to yourself, you will have no rival in me. But I think he will behave as he ought. However, I wished you to be acquainted with the facts of the case, and I have told Brutus the story with the greatest minuteness. Generally speaking (between ourselves), Brutus has never written me a letter, not even the last one about Appius, in which there was not something haughty and distant. But you often have on your lips (from Lucilius): "Then Granius too Thinks highly of himself and loathes proud kings." However, in that matter he usually stirs my laughter rather than my bile; but he evidently doesn't sufficiently consider what he is writing, and to whom. The young Quintus, I think, and indeed I am sure, read your letter addressed to his father. For he is accustomed, and that by my advice, to open his father's letters, in case there is anything that ought to be known. Now in that letter there was the same remark about your sister as in your letter to me. Imagine the boy's distress! He told me of his sorrow with tears in his eyes. In short, he shewed me clearly how dutiful, sweet-tempered, and kind he was, which makes me the more hope that nothing unbecoming will occur. So I wished you to know it. I will not omit the following either. Young Hortensius, at the time of the gladiatorial exhibition at Apamea, behaved in a scandalous and disgraceful manner. For his father's sake I asked him to dinner the day he arrived, and for his father's sake also went no farther. He remarked that he would wait for me at Athens, that we might leave the country together. "All right," said I: for what could I say? After all, I don't think he meant what he said. I hope not, indeed, lest I should offend his father, of whom, by heaven, I am exceedingly fond. But if he is to be in my suite, I will so manage him as to avoid giving offence where I least wish to do so. That is all: no, there is this— please send me the speech of Quintus Celer against M. Servilius. Send me a letter as soon as possible. If there is no news, let me know there is none at least by a letter-carrier of yours. Love to Pilia and your daughter. Take care of your health.

CCLXIV. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (at Rome), Cilicia, June, B.C. 50

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

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

CCLXV. M. Porcius Cato to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome (June), B.C. 50

I gladly obey the call of the state and of our friendship, in rejoicing that your virtue, integrity, and energy, already known at home in a most important crisis, when you were a civilian, should be maintained abroad with the same painstaking care now that you have military command. Therefore what I could conscientiously do in setting forth in laudatory terms that the province had been defended by your wisdom; that the kingdom of Ariobarzanes, as well as the king himself, had been preserved; and that the feelings of the allies had been won back to loyalty to our empire—that I have done by speech and vote. That a thanksgiving was decreed I am glad, if you prefer our thanking the gods rather than giving you the credit for a success which has been in no respect left to chance, but has been secured for the Republic by your own eminent prudence and self-control. But if you think a thanksgiving to be a presumption in favour of a triumph, and therefore prefer fortune having the credit rather than yourself, let me remind you that a triumph does not always follow a thanksgiving; and that it is an honour much more brilliant than a triumph for the senate to declare its opinion, that a province has been retained rather by the uprightness and mildness of its governor, than by the strength of an army or the favour of heaven: and that is what I meant to express by my vote. And I write this to you at greater length than I usually do write, because I wish above all things that you should think of me as taking pains to convince you, both that I have wished for you what I believed to be for your highest honour, and am glad that you have got what you preferred to it. Farewell: continue to love me; and by the way you conduct your home-journey, secure to the allies and the Republic the advantages of your integrity and energy.

CCLXVI. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome, June, B.C. 50

Your "thanksgiving" has given us some sharp twinges, though they have not lasted long: for we came to a serious deadlock. The fact is, Curio, who is very fond of you, finding that every device was being employed to deprive him of comitial days, declared that nothing would induce him to allow the thanksgiving to pass the senate, lest he should appear to have thrown away by his own blundering the advantage he had obtained by the infatuation of Paullus, and should be regarded as having sold the cause of the Republic. Accordingly, we have had to adopt a compromise, and the consuls have pledged themselves not to hold the thanksgiving this year. Plainly you have reason to thank both consuls: Paullus certainly the rather of the two. For Marcellus answered him that he did not build much on those thanksgivings ; Paullus said that in any case he would not hold them this year. I was told that Hirrus meant to talk out the decree. I got hold of him: he not only did not do so, but when the vote for the victims was brought forward, and he could have put a spoke in our wheel, if he had called for a count, he held his tongue. He merely signified his agreement with Cato, who, while speaking of you in complimentary terms, voted against the thanksgiving. Favonius made a third with them. Wherefore you must thank everybody according to his peculiar idiosyncrasy and principles: these three, because they only shewed their wishes instead of making speeches, and because when they might have hindered they shewed no fight; and Curio, because he deviated from his own line of obstructive policy for your sake. For Furnius and Lentulus, as in duty bound, just as though they were personally affected, went round with me and took trouble in the matter. I can also speak in high terms of the exertions and earnestness of Cornelius Balbus. For he both spoke in strong terms to Curio, saying that, if he acted otherwise, he would be inflicting an injury on Caesar, and also managed to create a feeling of mistrust as to Curio's sincerity. Some voted for the decree who really wished for a decision unfavourable to you—such as the Domitii, the Scipios; and when they interposed in this matter with the design of provoking his veto, Curio made a very neat reply. "He was all the more happy," he said, "not to veto the decree, because he saw that certain persons who voted for it did not wish it carried."

As for politics, every controversy centres on one point—the provinces. In this matter Pompey as yet seems to have thrown all his weight on the side of the senate's wish that Caesar should leave his province on the 13th of November. when it was held, or whether it was held at all, and he would be influenced by the convenience of public business. Curio is resolved to submit to anything rather than allow this: he has given up all his other proposals. Our people, whom you know so well, do not venture to push matters to extremes. The situation turns entirely on this: Pompey, professing not to be attacking Caesar, but to be making an arrangement which he considers fair to him, says that Curio is deliberately seeking pretexts for strife. However, he is strongly against, and evidently alarmed at, the idea of Caesar becoming consul-designate before handing over his army and province. He is being attacked with some violence, and his whole second consulship is being roughly criticised by Curio. Mark my words—if they push their suppression of Curio to extremes, Caesar will interpose in favour of the vetoing tribune; if, as it seems they will do, they shrink from this, Caesar will stay in his province as long as he chooses. The vote given by each is in the memorandum of city events from which pick out what is worth reading: skip much, especially the hissing at the games and accounts of funerals and other unimportant gossip. It has a good deal worth knowing. The fact is, I prefer erring on the side of telling what you don't want, to passing over anything necessary. I am glad that you have interested yourself in the business of Sittius. But since you suspect the men I sent to you of being of doubtful fidelity, please act as my agent yourself.

CCLXVII. To Atticus (at Rome), Tarsus, June, B.C. 50

I arrived at Tarsus on the 5th of June. There I was disturbed on many accounts—a serious war in Syria; serious cases of brigandage in Cilicia; difficulty in fixing on any definite scheme of administration, considering that only a few days remained of my year of office; and, greatest difficulty of all, the necessity, according to the decree of the senate, of leaving some one at the head of the province. No one could be less suitable than the quaestor Mescinius —for of Caelius I don't hear a word. Far the best course appears to be to leave my brother Quintus with imperium. But in doing that many disagreeable consequences are involved—our separation, the risk of a war, the ill-conduct of the soldiers, hundreds of others. What a nuisance the whole business is! But let fortune look to it, since any great exercise of reason is out of the question. As for you, since by this time, I hope, you are safe at Rome, you will as usual be good enough to look after everything which you may understand to affect my interests, especially in regard to my Tullia, about whose marriage I have written to Terentia my decision, since you were in Greece. In the next place, see to the honour to be decreed to me: for owing to your absence from Rome, I fear that the motion in the senate, in virtue of my despatch, was not sufficiently pressed. The following I will write to you in a more enigmatical style than usual—your sagacity will smell out the meaning: my wife's freedman —you know whom I mean—seemed to me, from a remark he casually let fall the other day, to have cooked his accounts as to the purchase of the property of the Crotonian tyrannicide. I really fear that you may have noticed something. Pray on your sole responsibility, examine thoroughly into the matter and make the remainder completely secure.

I cannot express the extent of my fear. Pray let a letter from you fly to meet me. I write this in haste, being on the march, and with the army. Love to Pilia, and the prettiest of maids, Caecilia.

CCLXVIII. To Atticus (at Rome), Tarsus, 26 June, B.C. 50

By this time you must surely be in Rome; and I rejoice at your safe arrival there, if it is so. As long, in fact, as you were absent from town, you seemed to me farther removed from me than if you were at home, for my own affairs were less known to me, and so were those of the state. Wherefore, though I hope by the time you read this to be far advanced on my way home, pray send letters frequently, and as talkative as possible on every kind of subject, to meet me: above all, on the subject on which I wrote to you before: my wife's freedman, as in our meetings and conversations he continually stammered and seemed at a loss, appeared to me to have a little cooked the accounts of the Crotonian." Please run that to earth, as is your wont; but still more the following: When leaving the city of the seven hills he handed in an account of two debts of 24 and 48 minae due to Camillus: and entered himself as liable for 24 minae from the Crotonian's estate, and 48 from the property in the Chersonese. And having received in legacies two sums of 640 minae, of this he says that not a penny has been paid, though it was all due on the 1st of the 2nd month: but that Milo's freedman, the namesake of Conon's father (Timotheus), had entirely failed to provide for the payment of the money. In regard, then, to this money, if possible secure the whole amount, and if not, don't neglect the interest calculated from the above-mentioned day. I have felt much alarm about this all the days I had to endure him. For he visited me to survey the situation, and almost with a hope of something turning up. But when he gave up that hope he quitted me without reason assigned, and with the remark: "I yield, 'Twere shame to linger here. And he flung in my teeth the proverb, "Never refuse a good offer." See to the surplus, and do the best that can be done in the matter.

Although I am now almost at the end of my year's full term of office—for there are only thirty-three days left—I am yet overpowered with anxiety for the province to the highest possible degree. For as Syria is in a war fever, and Bibulus has the burden of an extreme anxiety as to the war in the midst of such bitter private sorrow, and as his legates, quaestor, and friends write to me to come to his aid, though I have only a weak army (the auxiliaries are certainly good, Galatians, Pisidians, Lycians—for they are the flower of my force), yet I thought it my duty to keep my army as near as possible to the enemy, as long as the decree of the senate allowed me to remain governor of the province. But what pleases me most is that Bibulus is not importunate; he writes to me about everything rather than this, and the day of my departure is insensibly creeping on. When that arrives there is another "problem "—who to put in charge, unless my quaestor Caldus shall have arrived, of whom as yet I have had no certain intelligence. I should like, by Hercules, to compose a longer letter, but I neither have anything to tell you, nor can I jest for anxiety. Good-bye, therefore, and give my love to the little maid "Atticula" and our Pilia.

CCLXIX. To Atticus (at Rome), Tarsus, June (after the 26th), B.C. 50

Quintus the younger has managed to reconcile his father to your sister. He shewed real filial feeling in the matter; and though it is true that I earnestly exhorted him to do so, yet my persuasion fell on willing ears. Your letter moved us both very strongly. Well! I feel confident that things are as we wish. I have written to you twice about money matters in Greek, and enigmatically—if the letters have but reached you. Of course no active step is to be taken. Yet, by putting plain questions to him about Milo's debts, and by urging him to fulfil his obligations to me, you will do some good. I have ordered my quaestor Mescinius to await me at Laodicea, that I may be able, in accordance with the Julian law, to leave two copies of my accounts complete in two cities. I then intend to go to Rhodes for the sake of the boys, thence as soon as possible to Athens, though the Etesian winds are strong against me. But I wish to get home while the present magistrates are in office, whose good disposition to myself I have experienced in the matter of the supplication. Nevertheless, be sure you send a letter to meet me, to tell me whether in your opinion there is any reason on the score of politics for my delaying my return. Tiro would have written to you, only I left him seriously ill at Issus. But I have news that he is better. Nevertheless I am distressed. For nothing can exceed that young man's purity of conduct and attention to business.

CCLXX. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (in Cilicia), Rome (June), B.C. 50

I congratulate you on a son-in-law who is, on my word, the best of men: for that is my opinion of him. Some other blemishes in his character, by which he has hitherto stood in his own light, are already shaken off by age; and, if any remain, I feel sure that they will be quickly removed by your society and influence, and by the modesty of Tullia. For he is not obstinate in vice, nor blunted beyond the power of understanding the higher life. Last, but not least, I am very fond of him.

You will be eager, my dear Cicero, to hear that our friend Curio had a fine conclusion to his veto of the decrees concerning the provinces. For on a motion in regard to the veto being brought before the house—a motion ordered by decree of the senate—and when M. Marcellus had proposed that the tribunes should be remonstrated with, a full senate voted a direct negative. The fact is that Pompey is now so out of sorts, that he can scarcely find anything to suit him. They have come round to this—that Caesar is to be allowed to stand for the consulship without giving up army or provinces. How Pompey is likely to endure this I will write you word as soon as I know. What is to happen to the Republic, if he resists this in arms or ignores it, that will be the concern of you rich seniors. At the moment of my writing Hortensius is dying.

CCLXXI. To Gnaeus Sallustius (Proquaestor in Syria), Tarsus, 18 July, B.C. 50

Your orderly delivered me your letter at Tarsus on the 17th of July, and I will now proceed to answer it, as I perceive is your wish, in detail. About my successor I have heard nothing, and I don't think there will be one. There is no reason for my not leaving the province to the day, especially as all fear from the Parthians is removed. I am strongly inclined to stop nowhere. I think I shall go to Rhodes for the sake of the boys, but of even that I am not certain. I wish to arrive outside the city as soon as possible, yet the course of politics and events in Rome will guide the course of my journey. Your successor cannot in any case make such haste as to enable you to meet me in Asia. As to delivering the copies of accounts, your non-delivery of them, for which you say Bibulus gave you licence, is no inconvenience to me: but I scarcely think you are justified in so doing by the Julian law, which Bibulus disregards on a certain settled principle, but which I think you ought certainly to observe. You say that the garrison ought not to have been withdrawn from Apamea; I see that others think the same, and I am much annoyed that rather unpleasant remarks have been made by my ill-wishers. As to whether the Parthians have crossed or not I perceive that you are the only man who has any doubt. Accordingly, all the garrisons, which I had raised to a state of great effectiveness, I have been induced by the positive assertions I hear made to dismiss. As to my quaestor's accounts, it was neither reasonable that I should send them to you, nor were they then made up. I think of depositing them at Apamea. Of the booty taken by me no one, except the quaestors of the city—that is, the Roman people—has touched or will touch a farthing. At Laodicea I think I shall accept sureties for all public money, so that both I and the people may be insured against loss in transit. As to what you say about the 100,000 drachmae, in a matter of that kind no concession to anyone is possible on my part. For every sum of money is either treated as booty, in which case it is administered by the praefecti or it is paid over to me, in which case it is administered by the quaestor. You ask me what my opinion is as to the legions which the senate has ordered for Syria. I had my doubts before about their coming; now I feel no doubt, if news is received in time of there being peace in Syria, that they will not come. I see that Marius, the successor to the province, will be slow in coming precisely because the Senate has decreed that he should accompany the legions.

There's the answer to one letter. Now for the second. You ask me to recommend you as earnestly as possible to Bibulus. In this matter inclination on my part is not wanting, but it seems to me to be a proper opportunity for expostulating with you: for you are the only man of all Bibulus's staff who never informed me of his complete and causeless alienation from me. For a number of people reported to me that, when there was a great alarm at Antioch, and great hopes were entertained of me and my army, he was accustomed to say that they would prefer to endure anything rather than be thought to have wanted my help. I am not at all annoyed that, from the loyalty due from a quaestor to his praetor, you say nothing of this: although I was informed of the treatment you are receiving. He, for his part, when writing to Thermus about the Parthian war, never sent me a line, though he knew that the danger from that war specially affected me. The only subject on which he wrote to me was the augurship of his son: in regard to which I was induced by compassion, and by the friendly feelings I had always entertained to Bibulus, to be at the pains of writing to him with the greatest cordiality. If he is universally ill-natured—which I never thought—I am the less offended by his conduct to me: but if he is on special bad terms with me, a letter from me will do you no good. For instance, in his despatch to the senate, Bibulus took the whole credit for matters in which we both had a share. He says in it that he had secured that the rate of exchange should be to the public advantage. Again—and this is wholly my doing—the declining to employ Transpadane auxiliaries he mentions as a concession of his own, also to the profit of the people. On the other hand, when a thing is entirely his own doing, he brings me into it: "When WE demanded more corn for the auxiliary cavalry" he writes. Surely, again, it is the mark of a small mind, and one which from sheer ill-nature is poor and mean, that because the senate conferred the title of king on Ariobarzanes through me, and commended him to me, he in his despatch does not call him king, but the "son of king Ariobarzanes." Men of this temper are all the worse if favours are asked of them. Nevertheless, I have yielded to your wish, and have written him a letter, with which you can do what you like when you have received it.

CCLXXII. To M. Caelius Rufus (at Rome), Asia, August, B.C. 50

Nothing could have been more correct or wise than your dealings with Curio as to my supplicatio: and, by Hercules, the business was settled exactly as I wished, both from its speed and because the person whom it irritated—the rival, I mean, of us both —voted with the man who complimented my achievements in terms of extraordinary praise. Wherefore let me tell you I have hopes of the next step : so be prepared for it. I am glad in the first place to hear your compliments to Dolabella, and in the second place to find that you like him. For what you say of the possibility of his being reformed by Tullia's good sense, I know to what letter of your own it is an answer. What if you were to read the letter which I wrote to Appius at the time after reading yours? But what would you have? It is the way of the world. What is done is done, and heaven prosper it! I hope I shall find him an agreeable son-in-law, and in that respect your kindness will be of much assistance.

Politics make me very anxious. I am fond of Curio: I wish Caesar to shew himself an honest man: I could die for Pompey: but after all nothing is dearer in my sight than the Republic itself. In this you are not making yourself very conspicuous, for you seem to me to have your hands tied—by being at once a good citizen and a good friend. On quitting my province, I have put my quaestor Caelius in command. "A mere boy," say you. Yes, but a quaestor, a young man of high rank, and in accordance with nearly universal precedent: for there was no one who had held higher office for me to put in that position. Pomptinus had departed long ago: my brother Quintus could not be induced: moreover, if I had left him, enemies would have said that I had not really left the province at the end of a year, in accordance with the decree of the senate, since I left a second self behind me. Perhaps they might even have added, that the senate had ordered that those should govern provinces who had not done so before; whereas my brother had governed Asia for three years. In fine, I have now no anxieties: if I had left my brother behind, I should have been afraid of everything. Lastly, not so much of my own initiative, as following the precedent set by the two most powerful men of the day, who have secured the allegiance of all the Cassii and Antonii, I have not so much been desirous to attract a young man to myself, as unwilling to repel him You must needs praise this policy of mine: for it cannot now be changed. You did not write clearly enough to me about Ocella, and it was not mentioned in the gazette. Your doings are so well known, that even on the other side of Mount Taurus the story of Matrinius was heard. Unless the Etesian winds delay me, I shall, I hope, see you before long.

CCLXXIII. To C. Claudius Marcellus (Consul), Asia, August, B.C. 50

How much trouble you have taken as to the honour to be bestowed on me, and how far your conduct as consul in complimenting me and promoting my dignity has been exactly the same as—in common with your ancestors and your whole family—it had always been before, though facts spoke for themselves, I have nevertheless been informed by letters from all my friends. Accordingly, there is no service so great that I am not bound and fully purposed zealously and gladly to do in your interests. For it makes a great difference who the man is to whom one is under an obligation: but there is no one to whom I preferred to be under an obligation before yourself, to whom, while common interests and kindnesses received both from your father and yourself had already closely united me, there is now added what in my opinion is the strongest bond of all, the fact that your present and past administration of the Republic (the thing dearest to me in the world) is of such a nature, that I cannot disown an obligation to you in my single person as great as that which all loyalists put together owe you. Wherefore I wish you the success which you deserve, and which I feel confident you will have. Unless my voyage, which falls in precisely with the Etesian winds, delays me, I hope to see you shortly.

CCLXXIV. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (at Rome), Sida, 3 August, B.C. 50

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

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

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

CCLXXV. To Atticus (at Rome), Sida, 11 August?, B.C. 50

While employed in my province in doing everything for the honour of Appius, I suddenly became his accuser's father-in-law. "Heaven prosper it," you say. So say I, and I am sure you wish it. But believe me, it was the last thing I expected: in fact, I had even sent confidential messengers to my wife and daughter in regard to Tiberius Nero, who had made proposals to me; but they arrived at Rome after the betrothal had taken place. However, I hope this will be better. I understand that the ladies are much pleased with the young man's accommodating temper and courtesy. As for the rest, pick no holes!

But you now! Corn doles to Athens? Do you approve of this? However, my treatise at any rate did not forbid it: for that was not a largess to citizens, but a gift to hosts. Yet do you bid me think about the "propylon" for the Academy, though Appius has abandoned his idea about Eleusis? I am sure you grieve for Hortensius. I am heart-broken myself: for I had resolved to live on very intimate terms with him. I have put Caelius in command of the province: a mere boy, you will say, and perhaps empty-headed, with neither solidity nor self-control. I agree: but nothing else was possible. The letter, indeed, which I received from you a good while ago, in which you said that you "hesitated" as to what I ought to do about leaving a substitute, gave me a twinge, for I saw your reasons for your "hesitation," and I had the very same. Hand over my province to a mere boy? Well, to my brother, then? The latter was against my interest: for there was no one except my brother whom I could prefer to my quaestor without casting a slur on him, especially as he was of noble birth. Nevertheless, as long as the Parthians appeared to be threatening, I had resolved to leave my brother, or even to remain myself, contrary to the decree of the senate, for the sake of the Republic. But when by incredible good fortune they had dispersed, all my hesitation was at an end. I saw what people would say: "What, leave his brother! is this what he calls not holding his province more than a year? Did not the senate, again, intend that the governors of provinces should be those who had not had them before? Yet this man has held one for three years!" So here are my reasons for the public ear. What am I to give you privately? I should never have been without anxiety as to something happening from ill-temper, violent language, or carelessness, as will happen in this world. Again, if his son did anything—a mere lad and a lad full of self-confidence? What a distress it would have been! His father was resolved not to part with him, and was annoyed with you for expressing an opinion that he should do so. But as to Caelius, as things are, I don't say that I don't care about his antecedents, but at any rate I care much less. Then there is this consideration: Pompey— so strong a man and in so secure a position—selected Q. Cassius without regard to the lot; Caesar did the same in the case of Antony: was I to put such a slight on one regularly assigned me by lot, as to make him act as a spy on any man I left in command? No, the course I adopted was the better one, and for it there are many precedents, and certainly it is more suited to my advanced time of life. But, good heavens! what credit I have given you in his eyes! I read him the letter written, not by you, but by your amanuensis. My friends' letters summon me to a triumph—a thing which, in view of the resuscitation of my reputation, I do not think I ought to neglect. Wherefore, my dear Atticus, do begin to wish it too, that I may look somewhat less foolish.

CCLXXVI. To Appius Claudius Pulcher (at Rome), Asia (August), B.C. 50

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

CCLXXVII. To M. Porcius Cato (at Rome), Asia, September, B.C. 50

Right glad am I to be praised"—says Hector, I think, in Naevius—"by thee, reverend senior, who hast thyself been praised." For certainly praise is sweet that comes from those who themselves have lived in high repute. For myself, there is nothing I should not consider myself to have attained either by the congratulation contained in your letter, or the testimony borne to me in your senatorial speech: and it was at once the highest compliment and the greatest gratification to me, that you willingly conceded to friendship, what you transparently conceded to truth. And if, I don't say all, but if many were Catos in our state—in which it is a matter of wonder that there is even one—what triumphal chariot or laurel should I have compared with praise from you? For in regard to my feelings, and in view of the ideal honesty and subtilty of your judgment, nothing can be more complimentary than the speech of yours, which has been copied for me by my friends. But the reason of my wish, for I will not call it desire, I have explained "to you in a 'former letter. And even if it does not appear to you to be entirely sufficient, it at any rate leads to this conclusion not that the honour is one to excite excessive desire, but yet is one which, if offered by the senate, ought certainly not to be rejected. Now I hope that that House, considering the labours I have undergone on behalf of the state, will not think me undeserving of an honour, especially one that has become a matter of usage. And if this turns out to be so, all I ask of you is that—to use your own most friendly words—since you have paid me what in your judgment is the highest compliment, you will still "be glad" if I have the good fortune to get what I myself have preferred. For I perceive that you have acted, felt, and written in this sense: and the facts themselves shew that the compliment paid me of a supplicatio was agreeable to you, since your name appears on the decree: for decrees of the senate of this nature are, I am aware, usually drawn out by the warmest friends of the man concerned in the honour. I shall, I hope, soon see you, and may it be in a better state of political affairs than my fears forbode!

CCLXXVIII. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (on his journey home), Rome, September, B.C. 50

I am ashamed to confess to you and to complain of the injuries done me by Appius—that most ungrateful of men, who begins to hate me because he is under great obligations to me; and since, in his avarice, he could not constrain himself to pay his debt, he has declared a secret war against me, yet not so secret either but that many people reported it to me, and I myself observed without difficulty that he was harbouring evil thoughts of me. When, however, I discovered that he had been tampering with the college, then that he had been openly colloguing with certain persons, deliberating with L. Domitius —at present my bitterest enemy—and expressing a wish to offer this trifling favour to 'Cn. Pompeius, I could not prevail on myself to upbraid him personally, or to beg one, whom I considered owed his life to me, to refrain from injuring me. What, then, could I do? However, I spoke to several of his friends, who were acquainted with my services to him. When I perceived that he did not think me even worth conciliating, I preferred putting myself under an obligation to his colleague —a man very much out of sympathy with me, and not likely to be very well-disposed to me, owing to my friendship with you—rather than endure the sight of that ape. When he ascertained this, he flew into a rage and kept exclaiming that I was looking for an excuse for hostility, in order that, since he had not done what I wanted in regard to the money, I might cover my attack upon him by this show of a personal quarrel. Since then he has not ceased egging on Servius Pola to accuse me, and concerting measures with Domitius. And when they were not successful in securing anyone to accuse me under any law, they wanted me to be attacked under a law which gave them no ground for saying a word. Their impudence was so boundless, that they secured an information being laid against me under the Scantinian law at the very height of the Circensian games, in which I was presiding. Scarcely had Pola got the words out of his mouth, when I laid an information under the same law against the censor Appius. I never saw a more successful stroke. For it has been approved by the people, and not all the lowest of them, to such an extent, that the scandal has given Appius greater pain than the legal proceedings. Besides this, I have started an action for recovering a shrine now within the walls of his house.

I am much disturbed by the detention of the slave who takes this letter to you. For since the receipt of your last he has been more than forty days in town. I don't know what to say to you. You know that Domitius dreads the day of election. I am looking forward much to your return and desire to see you as soon as possible. I beg you to feel as much vexed at my wrongs, as you think I ever grieve at, and try to avenge yours.

CCLXXIX. M. Caelius Rufus to Cicero (on his journey home), Rome, September, B.C. 50

Taking Arsaces prisoner and storming Seleucia was not worth your missing the spectacle of events which have been going on here. Your eyes would never have ached again, if you had only seen Domitius's look when he lost the election. It was a very full comitia, and the voting was evidently on party lines: a very few voted from motives of personal connexion or obligation. Accordingly, Domitius is most bitterly angry with me. He never hated any one even of his own friends so much as he does me: and all the more so that he thinks the augurship has been snatched from him unfairly, and that I am at the bottom of it. Now he is furious that people are so much rejoiced at his vexation, and that there was only one man more zealous for Antony than I was. For the young Cn. Domitius himself has given notice of action against the young Cn. Saturninus—who is very unpopular owing to his past life. The trial is now imminent, with good hope, too, of an acquittal, after the acquittal of Sextus Peducaeus. As to high politics—I have often told you in my letters that I see no chance of peace lasting a year; and the nearer the struggle comes, which must come, the clearer does that danger appear. The point, on which the men in power are bound to fight, is this: Cn. Pompeius has made up his mind not to allow C. Caesar to become consul, except on condition of his first handing over his army and provinces: while Caesar is fully persuaded that he cannot be safe if he quits his army. He, however, proposes as a compromise that both should give up their armies. So that mighty love and unpopular union of theirs has not degenerated into mere secret bickering, but is breaking out into open war. Nor can I conceive what line to take in my own conduct—and I feel sure that this doubt will exercise you a good deal also—for between myself and these men there are ties of affection and close connexion, since it is the cause, not the men, that I dislike. I think you are alive to this rule, that men ought in a case of home differences, so long as the contest is carried on constitutionally without an appeal to arms, to follow the party most in the right: when it comes to war and the camp, the stronger party; and to make up one's mind that the safer course is the better. In this quarrel I perceive that Cn. Pompeius has on his side the senate and the iudices: that Caesar will be joined by all whose past life gives them reason to be afraid, or their future no reason to hope: that there is no comparison between their armies. On the whole, there is time enough to weigh the forces of both, and to choose sides.

I almost forgot what above everything else I was bound to write to you. Do you know that the censor Appius is doing marvels? Busying himself about statues, pictures, land-owning, and debt with the greatest vigour? He is persuaded that his censorship is a kind of soap or soda. I think he is wrong: while he is meaning to wash off stains, he is really exposing all his veins and vitals. Hurry home, in the name of gods and men! Come as quickly as you can to enjoy a laugh, that a trial under the Scantinian law should be before Drusus, and that Appius should be making regulations about statues and pictures. Believe me, you ought to make haste. Our friend Curio is thought to have acted prudently in his concession as to Pompey's money for his troops. In a word, you want my opinion as to the future. Unless one or the other of these two goes to the Parthian war, I see that a violent quarrel is impending, which the sword and main force will decide. Both are prepared in resolution and forces. If it could only be transacted without extreme danger, fortune is preparing for you a great and enjoyable spectacle.

CCLXXX. To Atticus (at Rome), Ephesus, 1 October, B.C. 50

Just as I had resolved to write to you and had actually taken up my pen, Batonius came to me straight from his ship to my house at Ephesus, and gave me your letter on the 29th of September. I am delighted with the pleasant nature of your voyage, with Pilia's opportune appearance, and also, by Hercules, with her remarks about Tullia's marriage.

Batonius, however, brought news about Caesar that is really terrifying, and he enlarged still more on the subject in conversation with Lepta. I hope what he said was false, but it is certainly alarming: that he would on no account dismiss his army; that Of the magistrates-elect the praetors, Cassius the tribune, Lentulus the consul, side with him; that Pompey is thinking of leaving the city. But look here! are you very sorry for the man that is wont to think himself more than a match for the uncle of your sister's son? But what men to be beaten by ! However, to business. The Etesian winds have much retarded me. Exactly twenty days, too, were swallowed up by the Rhodian open ship. On the 1st of October, as I am embarking to leave Ephesus, I give this letter to L. Tarquitius, who is leaving the harbour at the same time, but is sailing faster than I am. I am forced to wait for fair weather owing to the open ships and other war vessels of the Rhodians; nevertheless, nothing can exceed the hurry I am in. As to the payment to the Puteolanian, many thanks. Now please look into affairs at Rome, and see what steps you think I ought to take as to the triumph, to which my friends invite me. If it had not been that Bibulus, who, as long as there was a single enemy in Syria, never set foot out of doors any more than he did out of his house at Rome, was exerting himself to get a triumph, I should have been quite indifferent on the matter. Now, however, "'twere base to say no word." But look into the whole matter, that we may be able to decide on our course the day we meet. This is long enough, considering my haste, and that I am giving the letter to a man who will arrive with me, or only a little before me. My son sends his kindest regards to you. Pray give the same from us both to Pilia and your daughter.

CCLXXXI. To Atticus (at Rome), Athens, 15 October, B.C. 50

Immediately on my landing in the Piraeus, on the 14th of October, I received your letter from the hand of my slave Acastus. Having been long looking forward to it, I was surprised, as soon as I looked at the letter before breaking the seal, at its brevity; when I opened it I was again surprised at the cramped handwriting, for your letters are generally supremely well-written and clear, and, to make a long story short, I understood from the fact of your writing like that, that you had arrived at Rome on the 19th of September in a fit of fever. Much disturbed—but not more than I was bound to be—I at once questioned Acastus. He said that both you and he thought, and his impression was confirmed by what your people at Rome told him, that it could not be anything serious. This appeared to be supported by an expression used by you at the end of your letter, that you wrote while suffering from a" slight touch of fever." Yet it roused my gratitude, as well as my surprise, that you should, in spite of it, have written to me with your own hand. So enough about this. For I hope, considering your prudence and temperate life, and, by heaven, I feel confident—as Acastus bids me—that by this time you are as well as I could wish.

I am glad you have got my letter from Turranius. Keep an eye, an you love me, and a very keen one, upon the ambition of that cooker of accounts. This legacy again—which I swear is a source of great grief to me, for I loved the man—this legacy of Precius don't let him lay a single finger upon. You will say that I shall want some ready money for the expenses of the triumph, which, as you advise, you shall find me neither weakly vain in seeking, nor over-modest in declining. I gather from your letter that Turranius told you that I had handed over my province to my brother. Do you think I so entirely failed to grasp the wise caution of your letter? You said your judgment was in "suspense." What could have called for your hesitation, if there had been any reason whatever for deciding that a brother should be left in command, and such a brother? I took your meaning to be "dogmatic rejection," not "suspension of judgment." You urged in regard to the young Quintus, that I should not leave him in any case. "You tell me my own dream." The same points occurred to us both, just as though we had talked it over together. It was the only thing to be done, and your "long suspension of judgment" relieved me of all doubt. But I fancy you have already a letter on this subject written in more detail. I intend to send off letter-carriers tomorrow, who I think will arrive sooner than our friend Saufeius. But it was scarcely decent that he should arrive without a letter from me to you. In your turn, pray fulfil your promise of writing fully to me of my Tulliola, that is, of Dolabella, of politics—which I foresee will be in a very dangerous situation—of the censors, and especially what is taking place about the statues and pictures, whether the matter will be brought before the senate. I write this on the 15th of October, on which day, you tell me, Caesar is going to bring four legions to Placentia. Pray, what is to become of us? My post on the Acropolis of Athens seems to me at present the best one.

CCLXXXII. To Terentia (at Rome), Athens, 16 October, B.C. 50

If you and my darling Tullia are well, I and my dearest boy Cicero are so too. On the 14th of October I arrived at Athens, after experiencing unfavourable winds and a slow and unpleasant voyage. As I was disembarking, Acastus met me with letters, the 21st day since his start, which is very active travelling. I received one from you, in which you tell me that you fear your previous letters did not reach me. I got them all: you have shewn the greatest energy in writing me full accounts of everything, and I am exceedingly obliged to you. I was not surprised that the letter brought by Acastus was short: for you are expecting me, or rather us, immediately in person: and we are anxious to reach you at the earliest possible time, though I am fully aware to what a state of public affairs I am coming: for the letters brought me by Acastus from many of my friends have shewn me that things look warlike, so that when I do arrive I shall not be able to cloak my sentiments. But since there is no shirking fate, I shall make the more haste, that I may consider the whole crisis with greater ease. Pray, as well as your health will permit, come as far as you can to meet me. As to the inheritance from Precius—I am deeply grieved at it, for I loved the man—I wish you to see to this: if the auction takes place before my arrival, let Pomponius, or, if he can't, Camillus act for us. As soon as I am safe at home I will look after the rest of the business myself. But if you have already started from Rome, still see that this arrangement is made. Dearest, sweetest Terentia, as you love me, take care, all of you, of your health. Good-bye.

CCLXXXIII. To Atticus (at Rome), Athens (16 October), B.C. 50

I did, in fact, give L. Saufeius a letter, and to you alone, because, though I had not sufficient time for writing, I was yet unwilling that a man so intimate with you should reach you without a letter from me. But considering the deliberate pace adopted by philosophers, I think the present letter will reach you first. If, however, you have already received the former, you are aware that I arrived at Athens on the 14th of October: that on disembarking at the Piraeus, I received your letter from the hands of Acastus: that I was much disturbed at your having arrived at Rome with a fever on you, but was reassured by Acastus bringing the news I wished for as to your convalescence; that I was, however, horrified at what your letter told me of Caesar's legions; and urged you to take care that the "φιλοτιμία" of him you wot of does us no injury. Lastly, on a subject on which I had long ago written to you, but Turranius had misinformed you at Brundisium—as I learnt from a letter received from that excellent man Xeno—I explained briefly why I had not placed my brother at the head of my province. Such was nearly the substance of that letter. Now for the rest. In the name of fortune, do devote all the affection with which you have blessed me, and all the wisdom you possess—which in my judgment is unrivalled on every subject—to considering my entire position. For I think I foresee such a violent struggle—unless the same god, who relieved me from fear of a Parthian war by a stroke of luck beyond what I had ventured to hope, shall now shew regard for the Republic—such a struggle, I say, as there has never been before. Well! this is a misery which I share with all the world. I don't bid you reflect on that. It is my own particular "problem" that I would beg you to take up. Don't you see that it was on your advice that I sought the friendship of both? Yes, and I could wish that I had listened to your most friendly hints from the beginning: But in my breast my heart thou couldst not sway. Yet at length, after all, you did persuade me to embrace the one, because he had done me eminent service, and the other, because he was so powerful. I did so, therefore: and by shewing them every kind of attention contrived that neither of them should regard anyone with more affection than myself. My idea, in fact, was this— if I were allied with Pompey, I should not hereafter be compelled to take any improper step in politics, nor, if I agreed with Caesar, have to fight with Pompey: for their union was so close. Now there is impending, as you shew, and as I see, a mortal combat between them. Each of them, again, regards me as his own, unless by any chance one of them is playing a part. Pompey, of course, has no doubt: for he rightly judges that his present view of politics has my approbation. From each, however, I received a letter, at the same time as yours, of a kind calculated to shew that neither values anyone in the world above myself. But what am I to do? I don't mean in the last resort of all—for, if it shall come to downright war, I see clearly that it is better to be beaten with the one, than to conquer with the other—but as to what will be in actual debate when I arrive: that he be not a candidate without returning to Rome—that he dismiss his army. "Speak, Marcus Tullius I" What am I to say? "Wait, please, till I have an interview with Atticus?" It is no time for shuffling. Against Caesar? What is to become of all our mutual pledges? For the fact is that I helped him to secure this privilege, having been asked by Caesar himself at Ravenna to induce Caelius, the tribune, to bring in the bill. By Caesar himself, do I say? Nay, by our friend Gnaeus also, in that immortal third consulship of his. Shall I change my opinions? "I fear to face" not only Pompey, but also Trojan men and women. Polydamas will be the first to blame. Who is he? Why, you yourself, the applauder of my acts and writings. So it seems, then, that during the last two consulships of the Marcelli I have avoided this trap, when the subject of Caesar's province was before the senate, only to fall now into the very jaws of the danger. Therefore let some one else be called upon first for his vote—I am well pleased to be busying myself on something to secure my triumph, and to have an unimpeachable excuse for remaining outside the city. Nevertheless, they will do their best to elicit my opinion. You will perhaps laugh at what I am now going to say. How I wish I were still lingering in my province! I clearly had better have done so, if this was impending. Though nothing could be less pleasant. For I wish you, by the way, to know this—all those virtues displayed at the beginning of my government, which you, too, in your letters, used to praise to the skies, were only skin deep. How far from an easy thing is virtue! Nay, how difficult a lasting affectation of it! For whereas I thought it equitable and a thing of which to be proud, that out of the sum decreed to me for the year's expenses, I left my quaestor C. Caelius enough to last a year, and paid back into the treasury 1,000,000 sesterces (£8,000), my staff grumbled, thinking that the whole of this money ought to have been divided among them—that I might be found a better friend of the treasuries of the Phrygians and Cilicians than of our own. But they did not move me: for my reputation had supreme weight with me. Nevertheless, there is no mark of honour in my power to bestow on any of them that I have omitted. However, all this, to use the phrase of Thucydides, is a digression, though not without its point. For your part, pray think over my position: in the first place, by what contrivance I may preserve Caesar's good will; in the second, as to my triumph, which, unless the state of the Republic hinders it, I see is feasible. I judge both from my friends' letters and from the supplicatio; for the man who voted against it really voted for more, than if he had voted all the triumphs in the world. Moreover, only one man voted with him who is my intimate friend— Favonius; and another who is annoyed with me—Hirrus. Moreover, Cato was both on the committee for drawing out the decree, and also sent me a very gratifying letter as to his vote. Nevertheless, Caesar, in sending me his congratulations on the supplicatio, exults over Cato's vote, and yet does not mention what he really said in delivering it, but merely remarks that he voted against my supplicatio. To return to Hirrus. You have begun softening his feelings towards me. Complete the process. You have Scrofa and Silius with you; I have already written to them, and to Hirrus himself. For he had mentioned to them in obliging terms that he could have hindered the decree, but was unwilling to do so: nevertheless, he agreed with Cato—my very warm friend—when he delivered his vote in terms highly complimentary to me, but remarked that I had not written to him while writing to everyone else. It was quite true: for he and Crassipes were the only people to whom I had not written. So much for public affairs. To return to domestic business, I wish to dissociate myself from that man. He is a complete juggler—a regular son of Laertes: But what is past I leave, though grieved at heart. Let us get what remains on a sound footing. This money, coming from Precius to begin with—which adds anxiety to my regret—whatever it amounts to, I do not wish to be mixed up with the accounts of mine of which that fellow has the handling. I have written to Terentia, and to Philotimus himself, to say that whatever money I should collect for the adornment of my expected triumph I should deposit with you. Thus I think there will be no feeling of resentment; but as they choose! Here is another task for you—to consider how I am to set about this business. You gave some indication on this subject in a letter dated from Epirus or Athens, and I will back you up in the course you proposed.

CCLXXXIV. To Tiro (ill at Patrae), On the Voyage from Patrae to Alyzia (3 November), B.C. 50

Greetings to their dear Tiro from Tullius and my son, brother, and nephew. I did not think I should miss you so much, but I really cannot do without you: and though it is of great consequence to securing my triumph that I should arrive at the city wall as early as possible, yet I feel guilty for having left you: but as you seemed to have made up your mind that you quite determined not to sail till you had recovered your strength, I expressed approval of your plan, nor do I now retract it, if you are still of the same way of thinking. If, however, after having taken food, you think you can overtake me, you must decide for yourself. I have sent Mario to you with directions to rejoin me as soon as possible with you, or, if you are still delayed, to return at once. But pray be fully assured of this: if it is compatible with your state of health, my first desire is to have you with me: if, however, you are certain that a short stay at Patrae is necessary for your convalescence, my first desire is that you should be well. If you set sail at once, you will catch us up at Leucas: but if you determine to stay to confirm your health, pray take particular care to secure suitable fellow travellers, weather, and ship. Be especially careful, dear Tiro, as you love me, not to allow Mario's arrival or this letter to influence you. If you do what will best conduce to your recovery, you will be most strictly obeying my wishes. In considering these matters let your own heart be your guide. I miss you: yes! but I also love you. Love prompts the wish to see you in good health; the other motive would make me wish to see you as soon as possible. The former is therefore to be preferred. Accordingly, let your first care be to get well: of the innumerable services you have done me this will be the most acceptable.

3 November.

CCLXXXV. To Tiro (at Patrae), Alyzia, 5 November, B.C. 50

I cannot express to you in a letter, nor do I wish to do so, what my feelings are. I will merely say, that the greatest possible pleasure both to yourself and me will be to see you as soon as possible in restored health. We arrived at Alyzia on the third day after leaving you. That place is 120 stades south of Leucas. At Leucas I am expecting either to receive you, or a letter from you by the hands of Mario. Let your efforts to be well be as strong as your affection for me, or as you know mine to be for you.

5 November, Alyzia.

CCLXXXVI. To Tiro (at Patrae), Alyzia, 6 November, B.C. 50

At Alyzia, from which I sent my last letter to you, we have stayed one day, because Quintus had not caught us up. That was the 5th of November. Just as we are starting from thence, before daybreak of the 6th, I despatch this to you. Pray, as you love us all, and especially me, who taught you, get well. I am looking forward with very great anxiety, first of all, of course, for yourself, in default of that for Mario with a letter from you. We are all eager, especially myself, to see you as soon as possible, but only, dear Tiro, if fully recovered. Wherefore don't hurry at all. It will be enough if you are well the day I see you. I can get on without your services. I want you to be well, first of all for your own sake, and then for mine, dear Tiro. Good-bye.

CCLXXXVII. To Tiro (at Patrae), Leucas, 7 November, B.C. 50

Warmest greeting from Tullius, his son, brother, and nephew to Tiro. Your letter gave me varied emotions. I was much agitated by the first page, a little cheered by the second. So I am now quite clear that, until you are entirely recovered, you should not risk a journey either by sea or land. I shall see you quite soon enough, if I see you thoroughly restored to health. Yes, what you say in your letter about the doctor being well thought of, I am also told about him. Yet I am far from satisfied with his treatment. For you ought not to have had soup given you when suffering from weak digestion. However, I have written to him with great earnestness, as also to Lyso. To Curius, indeed, that most agreeable, attentive, and kindly of men, I have written at great length. Among other things I have asked him to transfer you from where you are to his own house, if you wished it. For I fear our friend Lyso is somewhat careless: first, because all Greeks are so, and secondly because, though he got a letter from me, he has sent me no answer. However, you speak well of him: you must therefore yourself decide what is best to be done. I do beg you, dear Tiro, not to spare expense in anything whatever necessary for your health. I have written to Curius to honour your draft to any amount: something, I think, ought to be paid to the doctor himself to make him more zealous. Your services to me are past counting—at home, in the forum, at Rome, in my province: in private and public business, in my literary studies and compositions. But there is one service you can render me that will surpass them all—gratify my hopes by appearing before me well and strong! I think, if you are recovered, you will have a most charming voyage home with the quaestor Mescinius. He is not without culture, and is, I thought, attached to you. And while health should be your first and most careful consideration, consider also how to secure a safe voyage, dear Tiro. I wouldn't have you hurry yourself now in any way whatever. I care for nothing but your safety. Be assured, dear Tiro, that no one loves me without loving you; and though it is you and I who are most directly concerned in your recovery, yet it is an object of anxiety to many. Up to this time, in your desire never to leave me in the lurch, you have never had the opportunity of getting strong. Now there is nothing to hinder you: throw everything aside, be a slave to your body. I shall consider the amount of attention you pay to your health the measure of your regard for me. Good-bye, dear Tiro, good-bye good-bye, and good health to you! Lepta and all the rest send their kind regards. Good-bye!

Leucas, 7 November.

CCLXXXVIII. To Tiro (at Patrae), Off Leucas, 7 November, B.C. 50

Tullius and his son, Quintus and his son, send warm greetings to Tiro, gentlest and best of men. See what a fascination you possess! We have been two hours at Thyreum. My host Xenomenes is as fond of you as if he had been brought up with you. He has promised to supply you with everything you want: I think he will do so. I should like him, if you are better, to transport you to Leucas, that you might complete your cure there. See what Curius, Lyso, and the doctor think of it. I intended to send Mario back to you, that you might despatch him to me when you were a little better: but I reflected that Mario could only bring me one letter, while I was anxious for several. So you will be able (and pray do so, if you love me) to make Acastus go down to the harbour every day: there will be plenty of people to whom you may safely intrust a letter, and who will be pleased to convey it to me. For my part, I will not omit anyone who is going to Patrae. I place all my reliance for your proper treatment on Curius. Nothing can be kinder than he is, or more attached to me. Put yourself entirely in his hands. I would rather see you a little later strong and well, than at once in a feeble state. Devote yourself, therefore, exclusively to getting well. I will look after everything else. Good-bye again and again.

Just starting from Leucas, 7 November.

CCLXXXIX. To Tiro (at Patrae), Actium, 7 November, B.C. 50

Tullius and his son, Quintus and his son, send warm greetings to Tiro. I write this letter, the third I have written to you the same day, rather in maintenance of my rule, having found some one to whom to give it, than because I have anything to say. The upshot is this: let your attention to yourself be as great as your affection for me. To your innumerable services to me add this, which will be more acceptable to me than them all. When you have taken, as I hope, full account of your health, then see about your voyage also. Send a letter to me by everyone who is going to Italy, and I will not pass over anyone going to Patrae. Take care, good care of yourself, dear Tiro. Since you missed the chance of sailing with me, there is no reason for your being in a hurry or taking thought for anything except getting well. Good-bye ! good-bye !

Actium, 7 November (evening).

CCXC. To Tiro (at Patrae), Corcyra, 16 November, B.C. 50

Cicero and his son greet Tiro. This is the seventh day of my detention at Corcyra, while Quintus—father and son—are at Buthrotum. I am wonderfully anxious about your health. But I am not surprised at getting no letter from you; for a voyage from your present residence requires winds, such that, if they were blowing now, we should not be loitering at Corcyra. So then take care of yourself and get strong, and, as soon as your health and the time of year allow of your sailing without discomfort, come to us who love you dearly. No one loves us without having a regard for you. Your arrival is eagerly expected, and you will find an affectionate welcome from everyone. Take care of your health. Again and again, dear Tiro, good-bye!

Corcyra, 16 November.

CCXCI. To Tiro (at Patrae), Brundisium, 26 November, B.C. 50

Cicero and his son greet Tiro warmly. We parted from you, as you know, on the 2nd of November. We arrived at Leucas on the 6th of November, on the 7th at Actium. There we were detained till the 8th by a storm. Thence on the 9th we arrived at Corcyra after a charming voyage. At Corcyra we were detained by bad weather till the 15th. On the 16th we continued our voyage to Cassiope, a harbour of Corcyra, a distance of 120 stades. There we were detained by winds until the 22nd. Many of those who in this interval impatiently attempted the crossing suffered shipwreck. On the 22nd, after dinner, we weighed anchor. Thence with a very gentle south wind and a clear sky, in the course of that night and the next day we arrived in high spirits on Italian soil at Hydrus, and with the same wind next day—that is, the 24th of November—at 10 o'clock in the morning we reached Brundisium, and exactly at the same time as ourselves Terentia (who values you very highly) made her entrance into the town. On the 26th, at Brundisium, a slave of Cn. Plancius at length delivered to me the ardently expected letter from you, dated the 13th of November. It greatly lightened my anxiety: would that it had entirely removed it! However, the physician Asclapo positively asserts that you will shortly be well. What need is there for me at this time of day to exhort you to take every means to re-establish your health? I know your good sense, temperate habits, and affection for me: I am sure you will do everything you can to join me as soon as possible. But though I wish this, I would not have you hurry yourself in any way. I could have wished you had shirked Lyso's concert, for fear of incurring a fourth fit of your seven-day fever. But since you have preferred to consult your politeness rather than your health, be careful for the future. I have sent orders to Curius for a douceur to be given to the physician, and that he should advance you whatever you want, engaging to pay the money to any agent he may name. I am leaving a horse and mule for you at Brundisium. At Rome I fear that the 1st of January will be the beginning of serious disturbances. I shall take a moderate line in all respects. It only remains to beg and entreat you not to set sail rashly—seamen are wont to hurry things for their own profit: be cautious, my dear Tiro: you have a wide and difficult sea before you. If you can, start with Mescinius; he is usually cautious about a sea passage: if not, travel with some man of rank, whose position may give him influence over the ship-owner. If you take every precaution in this matter and present yourself to us safe and sound, I shall want nothing more of you. Good-bye, again and again, dear Tiro! I am writing with the greatest earnestness about you to the physician, to Curius, and to Lyso. Good-bye, and God bless you.

CCXCII. To Atticus (at Rome), Brundisium, 25 November, B.C. 50

I arrived at Brundisium on the 24th of November, after a sea passage of your fortunate kind: so delightfully Blew from Epirus the softest of breezes—Onchesmites. There 's a spondaic hexameter for you! You may pass it off as your own before any of our young poets you choose. The state of your health gives me much uneasiness. For your letter indicates that you are really suffering. I, however, knowing your courage, strongly suspect that there is something which absolutely compels you to give in and almost exhausts your strength, although your Pamphilus informed me that one fit of quartan ague had departed, and that another less serious one was approaching. Terentia, indeed, who entered the gate at the same time as I entered the port of Brundisium, told me that L. Pontius had informed her at Trebulanum that that too had left you. If this is the case, it answers, by heaven, to my highest wishes, and I expect that you have obtained it by your prudence and temperate habits.

I now come to your letters, great budgets of which have reached me at the same time, one more delightful than the other, at any rate those that were in your own handwriting. For while I like the handwriting of Alexis, for its excellent imitation of your own, yet I don't like it for its indication that you are not well. And talking of him, I have left Tiro in at Patrae, a young man, as you know, and add, if you please, of excellent character. I have never seen a better. Accordingly, I miss him very much. Though he did not think himself seriously il, I am yet anxious, and rest my greatest hopes in the assiduous attention of Manius Curius, of which Tiro has spoken in his letters and many have told me by word of mouth. Moreover, Curius himself felt how much you wished that I should like him. And, in fact, I took great delight in his society: there is a natural vein of humour in the man that is very attractive. I am carrying home his will sealed up with the signets of two Ciceros and of the praetorian staff. In their presence he declared you heir to one-tenth, and me to one-fortieth. At Actium in Corcyra Alexis made me a splendid present. Nothing could prevent Quintus Cicero from going to see the river Thyamis. I am glad you find such delight in your little daughter, and are convinced of the doctrine as to "the natural instinct for procreation." For in the absence of this instinct there can be no natural tie uniting man and man, and, without that, social life is impossible. "Heaven prosper what we do," quoth Carneades, somewhat indecently, and yet with more modesty than our countryman Lucius and Patro—who in referring everything to a selfish motive, and denying that anything is ever done for another's sake, and teaching that a man's only motive for being virtuous is to avoid evil consequences to himself, not because right is right, do not perceive that they are describing a crafty man, not a good one. But all this, I think, is discussed in those books which you encourage me by praising.

To return to business. How anxious I was for the letter, which you said that you gave to Philoxenus! For you had told me that it contained an account of Pompey's conversation at Naples. Patro delivered it to me at Brundisium, having received it, I presume, at Corcyra. Nothing could have been more delightful. For it contained information about politics, about the great man's opinion as to my uprightness, about the kind feeling towards me which he manifested in what he said about the triumph. But what pleased me more than anything else was to learn that you had visited him to ascertain what his disposition was towards me. This, I say, gave me the greatest pleasure of all. As to the triumph, I never felt any great desire for it till Bibulus's utterly bare faced despatch, which was followed by a supplicatio voted in the most complimentary terms. If he had really done what he stated in his despatch, I should have rejoiced and been in favour of bestowing honour upon him. But as it is—that he, who never set foot outside the city gate as long as the enemy was west of the Euphrates, should be specially honoured, and that I, on whose army he depended entirely, should not be able to obtain a similar honour, is an insult to us: I say "us," because I include you. Accordingly, I will leave no stone unturned, and, as I hope, shall succeed. But if you had been in good health, I should already have got rid of certain difficulties. But, I hope, you will soon recover. About the debt to Numerius I am much obliged to you. I am longing to know what Hortensius has done, and what Cato is doing: the latter, it is true, has been disgracefully spiteful to me. He gave his testimony to my integrity, equity, clemency, good faith, which I did not ask for: what I did ask for he withheld. Accordingly, in his letter of congratulation, containing also every kind of promise, how Caesar exults over the slight put upon me by Cato's signal ingratitude! Cato, too, who votes twenty days' supplicatio to Bibulus! Pardon me, I cannot and will not put up with this. I am itching to answer all your letters, but it is unnecessary: for I shall see you directly. However, I must just tell you about Chrysippus—for about the other fellow (a mere mechanic) I am less surprised. Yet there could not be a more rascally trick than his either. But Chrysippus—that he, whom I liked seeing and held in honour for his tincture of letters, should abandon my boy without my knowledge! I say nothing about many other things of which I am told; I say nothing of his embezzlements; but I cannot put up with his absconding. It seemed to me the most unprincipled thing in the world. Accordingly, I have availed myself of that ancient expedient of Drusus when praetor, as it is said, in the case of a man who on being manumitted declined to take the same oaths. I denied having manumitted those men, especially as there was no one present at the time by whom their manumission could legally be maintained. Tell me what you think of that: I will abide by your opinion. The most eloquent by far of all your letters I have not answered, that in which you speak of the dangers of the Republic. What was I to write back? I was much upset. But the Parthians prevent my being much afraid, who suddenly retreated, leaving Bibulus half dead with fright.

CCXCIII. To Atticus (at Rome), Trebulanum (Villa of Pontius), 9 December, B.C. 50

On the 6th of December I reached Aeculanum, and there read the letter from you which Philotimus delivered to me. The first glance at it gave me pleasure from seeing that it was in your own handwriting, and presently I was extraordinarily delighted at its extreme minuteness and attention to detail. To begin with, you say you disagree with Dicaearchus: but although I sought with the greatest eagerness, and with your approbation, not to remain more than a year in my province, this was not brought about by any exertions on my part. For let me tell you that no proposal was ever made in the senate about any of us governors of provinces, to the effect that we should remain in them beyond the term mentioned in the decree: so that I cannot now be blamed even for having been a shorter time in the province than was perhaps for the good of the public service. But the common expression "Perhaps it was all for the best" seems to come in pat, as though it were made for the case. For whether a peace can possibly be patched up, or the victory of the loyalists secured, I should wish in either case to lend a helping hand, or at any rate not to be wholly out of it. But if, on the contrary, the loyalists are beaten, I should have been beaten with them, wherever I was. Wherefore the rapidity of my return should be no cause for regret. If, again, the idea of a triumph had not been suggested to me— an idea which you also approve—you certainly would not have found me fall much short of the ideal statesman sketched in the sixth book of my Republic. Well, what would you have me do, you who have devoured those books? Indeed, even now, I shall not scruple to throw this hope aside, great as it is, if it turns out to be the better course. The two things indeed cannot be done at the same time—to canvass for a triumph, and to speak with independence on politics. But do not doubt for a moment that the more righteous course will have the preference in my eyes. For as to your opinion, that it is more advantageous, whether for my personal safety, or as enabling me to serve the state, to retain my imperium—that we will discuss when we meet. For it is a matter requiring serious consideration, though to a great extent I agree with you. About my loyalty to the Republic I thank you for feeling no doubt: and I also quite endorse your judgment that, considering my services to him, and considering what he has done for others, Caesar has been by no means overliberal in his conduct to me. Your explanation of that fact also is the true one, and agrees strikingly with what you say has been done in the case of Fabius and Caninius. Even if things had been different, and he had been profuse in his liberality to me, yet that "Guardian goddess of the city," whom you mention in your letter, would have compelled me to remember the inscription upon her statue, and would not have allowed me to imitate Volcatius and Servius, who satisfy you, but would have compelled me to entertain sentiments and maintain some course worthy of myself: which, indeed, I would have done, if I could, in a different way from that in which I must now act. It is for their own supremacy that these men are now contending, but it is at the risk of the constitution. For if it is the constitution that is being now defended by Caesar, why was it not defended in his own consulship? Why was I, in whose cause the safety of the constitution was involved, not defended in the next year? Why was his imperium extended, or why in that particular way? Why was such a fight made that the ten tribunes should propose a law allowing him to be a candidate in his absence? Owing to these measures he has become so strong, that there is only one citizen with sufficient force to resist him; and I wish that he had refused to grant him all this power, rather than resist him now when he is so strong.

But since it has come to this pass, I will not ask, as you say: Where is the hull that once the Atreidae owed? The one hull for me will be that which has Pompey for steersman. Yes, that is just as you say. "What is to happen when the consul says: "Your vote, Marcus Tullius?" I shall answer in a word: "I vote with Gnaeus Pompeius." Nevertheless, in private, I shall exhort Pompey to keep the peace. For my opinion is that there is the most imminent danger. Of course you are better informed as being in the city. But my view of the situation is this: we have to do with a man of the most consummate boldness, and in the highest state of preparation: all who have been condemned, or branded with infamy, or who deserve condemnation and infamy, are on his side; nearly all the young men; all the lowest city rabble; some influential tribunes, including Gaius Cassius; all who are overwhelmed with debt, who I find are more numerous than I thought. The only thing this cause lacks is merit: it has everything else in abundance. On our side everyone is doing everything he can to avert an appeal to arms, of which the result is in all cases uncertain, while on this particular occasion there is reason to fear its going the other way. Bibulus has quitted his province, and has left Veiento in charge of it. I hear he will be somewhat slow on his return journey. In complimenting him Cato remarked that the only people he did not envy were those whose political position admitted of no improvement, or at any rate little. Now for private affairs: for I have pretty well answered your letters on politics, both the one you wrote in your suburban villa, and that which you wrote subsequently. So now I am coming to private affairs. Still, there is one thing more—about Caelius. So far from his affecting my opinion, I am strongly of opinion that he must himself be sorry for having changed his views. But how came it that those properties of Lucceius were conveyed to him? I wonder you passed that over. As to Philotimus, I will do as you advise. But I was not expecting to have the accounts from him, which he submitted to you, but the balance which he himself, at Tusculum, wished me to enter in my day-book with my own hand, and for which he also gave me a bill in Asia in his own handwriting. If he paid the sum which be declared to you to be the amount of my debt, he would still owe me as much again, and more. But in business of this kind, if only the state of public affairs permit, I shall not henceforth expose myself to blame; nor, by heaven, was I really careless about it in former times, but my time was swallowed up by a crowd of friends. Accordingly, I shall have the benefit, as you promise, of your assistance and advice, and yet shall not, I hope, be troublesome to you. You need not alarm yourself about the splints I made my staff wear. They have pulled themselves together of their own accord from admiration of my upright conduct. But no one had given me a greater surprise than the man of whom you think so meanly. He had been at the beginning, and at this day still is, excellent. But just at the moment of leaving the province he indicated to me that he had hoped for something. He did not, however, cling to the idea, upon which he had allowed his mind to dwell for a time, but quickly returned to his better self, and being much affected by the extremely high honours bestowed on him by me, he looked upon them as more valuable than any money. I have received his will from Curius, and am bringing it with me. I am informed of the legacies Hortensius has to pay. I am now eager to know the man's position, and what properties he is putting up to auction. For I don't know why, since Caelius has monopolized the Porta Flumentana, I should not make myself owner of Puteoli.

Now for the word Piraeea: in using it I exposed myself to severer criticism for writing Peiraeea instead of Piraeum—which is the form adopted by all our countrymen—than for adding an in. For I did not prefix the preposition to the word as the name of a town, but of a locality: and, after all, our friend Dionysius, and Nicias of Cos, who is with me, did not consider the Piraeus to be a town. But I will see to it. The fact is that, if I have made a mistake, it is in not speaking of it as a town, but as a place; and for having followed, I don't say Caecilius (mane ut ex portu in Piraeum), for he is a poor authority for Latinity, but Terence, whose plays, owing to the elegance of their language, were thought to be written by Laelius. He says, "Heri aliquot adulescentuli coimus in Piraeum"; and also, "Mercator hoc addebati...captam e Sunio." Now if we choose to consider demes to be towns, Sunium is as much a town as Piraeus. But since you are by way of being a grammarian, you will relieve me of much vexation if you solve me this knotty point. He sends me courteous letters. Balbus does the same for him. I am resolved not to swerve a finger's breadth from the most absolute loyalty in any direction. But you know the balance he has against me. Do you think, then, that some one will twit me with it, if I am lukewarm in opposition, or that he will demand repayment if I am overvigorous? What solution can you find to this? "Pay him," you say. Well, then, I will borrow from Caelius. However, pray turn this matter over in your mind. For I imagine, if I have at any time made a fine speech in defence of the constitution, that your Tartessian friend will say to me as I am leaving the house, "Be so good as to direct the money to be paid." What else is there to say? Why, this. My son-in-law makes himself very agreeable to me, to Tullia, and to Terentia. He has any amount whether of ability or culture. We must be content. Other points in his character, with which you are acquainted, must be tolerated. For you know the men whom we have [rejected], who all, except the one about whom we negotiated through you, think that I am making money. For no one will advance them any on their own credit. But of this when we meet; for it is a subject for a long talk. My hope of Tiro's recovery is centred on Manius Curius, to whom I said in a letter that you will be very grateful to him.

Pontius's Villa at Trebula, 9 December.

CCXCIV. To Atticus (at Rome), Formiae, 11 December, B.C. 50

Dionysius was burning with desire to be with you, and I have accordingly sent him, but, by Hercules, with great reluctance. However, I was obliged to give way. I have found him, indeed, both a good scholar (which I knew before) and a man of high character, very obliging, careful too of my reputation, honest, and—not to give him only the praise that suits a freedman—a thoroughly good man.

I saw Pompey on the 10th of December: we were together perhaps two hours. He seemed to me to be much delighted at my return: urged me to a claim a triumph: undertook to do his part: warned me not to enter the senate until I had gained my object, for fear of alienating some tribune by the speeches I delivered. Need I say more? In cordiality of mere language nothing could have been more explicit. On the political situation, however, the tone of his remarks assumed the existence of downright war. He held out no hope of maintaining peace: "he had felt before that Caesar was alienated from him, he had recently become quite sure of it. Hirtius, Caesar's most intimate friend, had been in the neighbourhood, but had not called on him. Moreover, Hirtius having arrived in the evening of the 6th of December, and Balbus having arranged to visit Scipio on the 7th, before daybreak, Hirtius started to rejoin Caesar late in the previous night." This seemed to him to be a clear "symptom" of alienation. In short, nothing else consoles me but the opinion that the man, to whom even his enemies have assigned a second consulship, and fortune has given supreme power, will not be so mad as to put these advantages in danger. But if he once begins to run amuck, I verily have many fears which I do not venture to put into writing. However, as the matter stands at present, I think of approaching the city on the 3rd of January.

CCXCV. To Atticus (at Rome), Formiae, December, B.C. 50

I have received several letters from you at the same time, and though I am in receipt of later news from visitors, they yet gave me much pleasure. For they shewed your zeal and kindness. I am disturbed by your illness, and Pilia's having fallen ill of the same complaint must, I think, cause you all the more anxiety. So take care, both of you, to get well. I see that you are interested about Tiro. Though he is serviceable to me in a thousand ways, when he is well, in every department of my business and my studies, yet my anxiety for his recovery is founded on his own kindness and high character, rather than on my convenience. Philogenes never said a word to me about Luscenius. As to other matters, you have Dionysius with you. I wonder that your sister has not come to Arcanum. I am glad you approve my decision as to Chrysippus. I have no intention of going to Tusculum at such a time as this. It is out of the way for people coming to meet me, and has other disadvantages. But from Formiae I mean to go to Tarracina on the 29th of December. Thence to Pomptina Summa, thence to Pompey's Alban villa, and so to the city on the 3rd, my birthday. The political situation gives me greater terror every day. For the loyalists are not, as people think, united. How many Roman knights, how many senators, have I seen prepared to inveigh against the whole policy, and especially the progress through Italy now being made by Pompey. What we want is peace. From a victory, among many evil results, one, at any rate, will be the rise of a tyrant. But we will talk of this together before long. At present I have absolutely nothing to write to you about—either in politics (for neither of us knows more than the other) or in domestic affairs, which are equally known to us both. The only thing left is to jest, if this personage will allow us. For I am one who thinks it more expedient to yield to his demands than to fight. For it is too late in the day to be resisting a man, whom we have been nursing up against ourselves these ten years past. "What will be your view, then?" say you. None, of course, except in accordance with yours: nor shall I express any till I have accomplished or laid aside my own affair of the triumph. So take care of your health. Do at length shake off your quartan fever by exercising the prudence in which no one surpasses you.

CCXCVI. To Atticus (at Rome), Formiae, December, B.C. 50

I have absolutely nothing to say to you. You know everything, nor can I expect any fresh news from you. Let me, then, merely maintain my old habit of never letting anyone going to you depart without a letter. At the political situation I am thoroughly alarmed, and up to now I have found hardly anyone not convinced that it would be better to yield to Caesar's demand than to fight. That demand, it is true, shameless as it is, is more serious than we thought. But why begin resisting him now? For naught more dreadful is upon us now. than when we voted his additional five years, or when we allowed his being a candidate in his absence: for we did not, I presume, give him arms then, that we might have a well-furnished enemy to fight with now! You will say, "What, then, will be your view?" Not the one I shall express. For my real view will be "anything rather than fight": I shall say exactly what Pompey does. And that I shall do from no abject cowardice: but once more it is a very serious evil to the constitution, and less allowable perhaps in my case than in that of others, that in matters of such importance I should differ from Pompey.

CCXCVII. To Atticus (at Rome), Formiae, December, B.C. 50

"Dionysius, a most excellent fellow — as I, too, have reason to know—and also a very good scholar and warmly devoted to you, arrived in Rome on the 16th of January and delivered me a letter from you." Those are your exact words about Dionysius in your letter. You don't add, "and he expressed his gratitude to you." And yet he certainly ought to have done so, and, if he had, you are always so good-natured that you would have added it to your sentence. However, any palinode in regard to him is made impossible for me, owing to the character I gave him in my last letter. Let him, then, pass for an excellent man. I am obliged to him for one thing at least—he has given me this opportunity also of knowing him thoroughly. Philogenes was quite correct in what he wrote to you: for he has paid the money due. I wished him to have the use of the money as long as he legally could; accordingly, he has kept it fourteen months. I hope Pomptinus is recovering, and as to having entered the city, as you say in your letter, I feel somewhat anxious as to what he means by it. For he would not have done so except for some weighty reason. As the 2nd of January is the Compitalia, I don't want to arrive at Pompey's Alban villa on that day, for fear of inconveniencing his servants. I shall do so, therefore, on the 3rd, and go thence to the city on the 4th. I don't know on what day your quartan fit is due; but I am very unwilling that you should be disturbed to the detriment of your health. As to my triumph, unless Caesar has been secretly intriguing by means of the tribunes who are in his interest, everything else appears to be going smoothly. My mind, however, is supremely calm, and regards the whole thing with utter indifference: the more so that I am told by many that Pompey and his council have determined to send me to Sicily on the ground of my having imperium. That is worthy of Abdera! For neither has the senate decreed nor the people ordered me to have imperium in Sicily. But if the state delegates this to Pompey, why should he send me rather than some unofficial person? So, if the possession of this imperium is going to be a nuisance to me, I shall avail myself of the first city gate I came to. For as to what you say, that my coming is awaited with astonishing interest, and that none of the loyalists, or even the semi loyalists, have any doubt about what I am likely to do—I don't understand whom you mean by the "loyalists"—I know of none—that is to say, no class of such men: for, of course, there are individuals who are loyalists; but when it is a case of political divisions, what we have to look for is classes and sets of loyalists. Do you regard the senate as loyalist, when it is owing to it that the provinces have no governors' with imperium? For Curio would never have held out if negotiations with him had been set on foot—a measure which the senate refused to adopt, with the result that no successor was named to Caesar. Or the publicani who, having never been staunch, are now warmly in favour of Caesar? Or the financiers or the farmers, whose chief interest is peace? Unless you can suppose such men to dread being under royal rule, who have never declined it, so long only as they were left in peace and quiet. Well then! Do I approve of votes being taken for a man who is retaining an army beyond the legal day? For my part, I say no; nor in his absence either. But when the former was granted him, so was the latter. "Why, do you approve of the ten years' grant, and of the way in which the law was carried?" If I do, then I approve of my own banishment, and the loss of the Campanian land, and of the adoption of a patrician by a plebeian, of a Gaditanian by a Mytilenean; I approve of the wealth of Labienus and Mamurra, of the pleasure-grounds and Tusculan villa of Balbus. But the fountain-head of all these things is the same. We should have resisted him when he was weak, and that would have been easy. Now we are confronted by eleven legions, cavalry at his desire, the Transpadani, the city rabble, all these tribunes, a rising generation corrupted as we see, a leader of such influence and audacity. With such a man we must either fight a pitched battle, or admit his candidature in virtue of the law. "Fight," say you, "rather than be a slave." To what end? To be proscribed, if beaten: to be a slave after all, if victorious? "What do you mean to do, then ?" say you. Just what animals do, who when scattered follow the flocks of their own kind. As an ox follows a herd, so shall I follow the loyalists or whoever are said to be loyalists, even if they take a disastrous course. What the best course is in this unfortunate dilemma I see clearly. For no one can be certain of the result when once we come to fighting: but everyone is certain that, if the loyalists are beaten, this man will not be more merciful than Cinna in the massacre of the nobility, nor less rapacious than Sulla in confiscating the property of the rich. I have been talking politics with you all this time, and I would have gone on doing so, had not my lamp failed me. The upshot is this : " Your vote, M. Tullius!" "I vote with Gnaeus Pompeius: that is, with Titus Pomponius." Pray give my regards to Alexis, that very accomplished boy, unless perchance he has become a man during my absence, for he seemed on the point of doing so.

CCXCVIII. To Atticus (at Rome), Formiae, 26 December, B.C. 50

What need was there to speak so strongly about Dionysius? Wouldn't the slightest hint from you have been enough for me? The fact is, your silence had roused all the more suspicion in me, first because your usual custom is to cement friendship by testifying to mutual goodwill, and secondly because I was told that he had spoken to others in a different tone. However, I am quite convinced that the truth is as you say. Accordingly, my feelings towards him are what you wish them to be. The day on which your fit was due I had noted for myself, from a letter which you wrote in the early stages of your feverish attack, and I had calculated that, as things are, you could come to the Alban villa to meet me on the 3rd of January without inconvenience. But pray do nothing to injure your health. For what does one day or another matter? I see that by Livia's will Dolabella, takes a third between himself and two others, but is ordered to change his name. Here is a problem in politics for you —can a young man of rank properly change his name in accordance with a woman's will? We shall be able to solve that question in a more scientific spirit, when we know to about how much a third of a third amounts.

What you thought would be the case—that I should see Pompey before arriving at Rome—has happened. For he caught me up near the Lavernium on the 25th. We came together to Formiae and from two o'clock till evening had a private conversation. As to your question whether there is any hope of making peace, as far as I could gather from a long and exhaustive discourse of Pompey's, he hasn't even the wish for it. His view is this: if he becomes consul, even after dismissing his army, there will be a bouleversement of the constitution. Besides, he thinks that when Caesar is told that preparations against him are being pushed on energetically, he will throw aside the consulship for this year, and prefer retaining his army and province. But if Caesar were to act such a mad part, he entertained a low opinion of his power, and felt confident in his own and the state's resources. The long and the short of it was that, although intestine war " was often in my thoughts, yet I felt my anxiety removed while I listened to a man of courage, military skill, and supreme influence, discoursing like a statesman on the dangers of a mock peace. Moreover, we had in our hands the speech of Antony, delivered on the 21st of December, which contained an invective against Pompey, beginning from his boyhood, a complaint as to those who had been condemned, and a threat of armed intervention. On reading this Pompey remarked, "What do you think Caesar himself will do, if he obtains supreme power in the state, when his quaestor—a man of no influence or wealth—dares to talk like that ?" In short, he appeared to me not merely not to desire the peace you talk of, but even to fear it. However, he is, I think, somewhat shaken in his idea of abandoning the city by the scandal it would cause. My chief vexation is that I must pay the money to Caesar, and devote what I had provided for the expenses of my triumph to that. For it is "an ugly business to owe money to a political opponent." But this and much besides when we meet.

CCXCIX. To Atticus (at Rome), Formiae, 27 December, B.C. 50

Am I to receive," quoth you, "a letter from you every single day?" Yes! if I find anyone to give it to, every day. "But you are all but here in person." Well, when I have arrived, I will stop writing. I see that one of your letters has not reached me. While my friend L. Quintius was conveying it, he was wounded and robbed near the tomb of Basilus. Please consider, therefore, whether there was anything in it which I ought to know, and at the same time "solve this strictly political problem." Seeing that it is necessary, EITHER that Caesar should be allowed to stand for the consulship while he still holds his army (whether by the favour of senate or tribunes); OR that Caesar should be persuaded to hand over his province and army, and so become consul; OR, if he cannot be persuaded to do so, that the election should be held without admitting his name as candidate; OR, if he employs tribunes to prevent that, and yet makes no warlike move, that there must be an interregnum; OR, if on the ground of his legal candidateship having been ignored he moves up his army, that we must fight him with arms, while he must begin hostilities either at once before we are prepared, or as soon as his friends have their demand for having him recognized as a candidate at the election refused: but that he will either have the one excuse for an appeal to arms (that his candidature is ignored), or will have an additional one, if it chances that some tribune, when vetoing the senate or stirring up the people, is censured, or hampered by a senatorial decree, or forcibly removed, or driven out of the city, or flies to him, alleging that he has been so driven out: SEEING finally, that, if war is once begun, we must either defend the city, or abandon it and try to cut him off from supplies and other resources: consider, I say, which of these evils, some one of which we must confront, you think the least.

You will no doubt say "to persuade him to hand over his army, and so become consul." Well, certainly against this proposal, supposing him to submit so far, nothing can be said: and, since he doesn't succeed in getting his candidature acknowledged while he still retains his army, I wonder he does not do so. For us, however, as certain persons think, nothing is more to be dreaded than his becoming consul. "But I would prefer his being consul on these terms to his being so with an army," you will say. Certainly. But even on "these terms," I tell you, there is one who thinks it a grave evil. Nor is there any remedy against it: we must submit if he insists upon it. Imagine him consul a second time after our experience of his former consulship! "Why, comparatively weak as he was then," you say, "he was more powerful than the whole state." What, then, do you think will be the case now? Moreover, if he is consul, Pompey is resolved to be in Spain. What a sad state of things, when the very worst alternative is just the one which cannot be rejected, and the one which, if he adopts it, would at once secure him the highest favour with all the loyalists!

Let us, then, put this out of the question. They say that he cannot be induced to accept it. Which is the worst of the other alternatives? Why, to concede to him what, according to the same authority, is his most impudent demand. For could anything be more impudent? "You have held a province for ten years, a time not granted you by the senate, but assumed by yourself with the help of violence and sedition: this period—not assigned by the law, but by your own caprice—has passed. Let us, however, grant that it was by the law: a decree is made for naming your successor: you cry halt and say, "Take my candidature into consideration." Rather, do you take us into consideration. Are you to have an army longer than the vote of the people gave it you? "You must fight unless you grant it." Certainly—to quote Pompey again—and with a fair prospect either of conquering or of dying free men. Moreover, if fight we must, the time depends on chance, the plan on circumstances. Therefore I do not worry you on that point. In regard to what I have said, pray make any suggestion that occurs to you: for my part, I am on the rack day and night.