heat--I have refreshed myself at Arpinum, and enjoyed the extreme
loveliness of the river during the days of the games, having left my
tribesmen under the charge of Philotimus. I was at Arcanum on the
ioth of September. There I found Mescidius and Philoxenus, and
saw the water, for which they were making a course not far from
your villa, running quite nicely, especially considering the extreme
drought, and they said they were going to collect it in much greater
abundance. Everything is right with Herus. In your Manilian
property I came across Diphilus outdoing himself in dilatoriness.
Still, he had nothing left to construct, except baths, and a
promenade, and an aviary. I liked that villa very much, because its
paved colonnade gives it an air of very great dignity. I never
appreciated this till now that the colonnade itself has been all laid
open, and the columns have been polished. It all depends--and this
I will look to--upon the stuccoing being prettily done. The
pavements seemed to be being well laid. Certain of the ceilings I
did not like, and ordered them to be changed. As to the place in
which they say that you write word that a small entrance hall is to
be built--namely, in the colonnade--I liked it better as it is. For 1
did not think there was space sufficient for an entrance hall; nor is
it usual to have one, except in those buildings which have a larger
court; nor could it have bedrooms and apartments of that kind
attached to it. As it is, from the very beauty of its arched roof, it
will serve as an admirable summer room. However, if you think
differently, write back word as soon as possible. In the bath I have
moved the hot chamber to the other corner of the dressing-room,
because it was so placed that its steampipe was immediately under
the bedrooms. A fair-sized bed-room and a lofty winter one I
admired very much, for they were both spacious and
well-situated--on the side of the promenade nearest to the bath.
Diphilus had placed the columns out of the perpendicular, and not
opposite each other. These, of course, he shall take down; he will
learn some day to use the plumb-line and measure. On the whole, I
hope Diphilus's work will be completed in a few months: for
Qesius, who was with me at the time, keeps a very sharp look-out
upon him.
Thence I started straight along the via Vitularia to your
Fufidianum, the estate which we bought for you a few weeks ago
at Arpinum for 100,000 sesterces (about 8oo pounds). I never saw
a shadier spot in summer--water springs in many parts of it, and
abundant into the bargain. In short, Caesius thought that you would
easily irrigate fifty iugera of the meadow land. For my part, I can
assure you of this, which is more in my line, that you will have a
villa marvellously pleasant, with the addition of a fish-pond,
spouting fountains, a pakestra, and a shrubbery. I am told that you
wish to keep this Bovillae estate. You will determine as you think
good. Calvus said that, even if the control of the water were taken
from you, and the right of drawing it off were established by the
vendor, and thus an easement were imposed on that property, we
could yet maintain the price in case we wish to sell. He said that he
had agreed with you to do the work at three sesterces a foot, and
that he had stepped it, and made it three miles. It seemed to me
more. But I will guarantee that the money could nowhere be better
laid out. I had sent for Cillo from Venafrum, but on that very day
four of his fellow servants and apprentices bad been crushed by the
falling in of a tunnel at Venafrum. On the 23th of September I was
at Laterium. I examined the road, which appeared to me to be so
good as to Seem almost like a high road, except a hundred and
fifty paces--for I measured it myself from the little bridge at the
temple of Furina, in the direction of Satricum. There they had put
down dust, not gravel (this shall he changed), and that part of the
road is a very steep incline. But I understood that it could not be
taken in any other direction, particularly as you did not wish it to
go through the property of Locusta or Varro. The latter alone had
made the road very well where it skirted his own property. Locusta
hadn't touched it; but I will call on him at Rome, and think I shall
be able to stir him up, and at the same tune I think I shall ask M.
Tarus, who is now at Rome, and whom I am told promised to
allow you to do so, about making a watercourse through his
property. I much approved of your steward Nicephorius and I
asked him what orders you had given about that small building at
Laterium, about which you spoke to me. He told me in answer that
he had himself contracted to do the work for sixteen sestertia
(about 128 pounds), but that you had afterwards made many
additions to the work, but nothing to the price, and that he had
therefore given it up. I quite approve by Hercules, of your making
the additions you had determined upon; although the villa as it
stands seems to have the air of a philosopher, meant to rebuke the
extravagance of other villas. Yet, after all, that addition will be
pleasing. I praised your landscape gardener: he has so covered
everything with ivy, both the foundation-wall of the villa and the
spaces between the columns of the walk, that, upon my word,
those Greek statues seemed to be engaged in fancy gardening, and
to be shewing off the ivy. Finally, nothing can be cooler or more
mossy than the dressing-room of the bath. That is about all I have
to say about country matters. The gardener, indeed, as well as
Philotimus and Cincius are pressing on the ornamentation of your
town house; but I also often look in upon it myself, as I can do
without difficulty. Wherefore don't be at all anxious about that.
As to your always asking me about your son, of course I "excuse
you"; but I must ask you to "excuse" me also, for I don't allow that
you love him more than I do. And oh that he had been with me
these last few days at Arpinum, as he had himself set his heart on
being, and as I had no less done! As to Pomponia, please write and
say that, when I go out of town anywhere, she is to come with me
and bring the boy. I'll do wonders with him, if I get him to myself
when I am at leisure: for at Rome there is no time to breathe. You
know I formerly promised to do so for nothing. What do you
expect with such a reward as you promise me? I now come to your
letters which I received in several packets when I was at Arpinum.
For I received three from you in one day, and, indeed, as it seemed,
despatched by you at the same time--one of considerable length, in
which your first point was that my letter to you was dated earlier
than that to Caesar. Oppius at times cannot help this: the reason is
that, having settled to send letter-carriers, and having received a
letter from me, he is hindered by something turning up, and
obliged to despatch them later than he had intended; and I don't
take the trouble to have the day altered on a letter which I have
once handed to him. You write about Caesar's extreme affection
for us. This affection you must on your part keep warm, and I for
mine will endeavour to increase it by every means in my power.
About Pompey, I am carefully acting, and shall continue to act, as
you advise. That my permission to you to stay longer is a welcome
one, though I grieve at your absence and miss you exceedingly, 1
am yet partly glad. What you can be thinking of in sending for
such people as Hippodamus and some others, I do not understand.
There is not one of those fellows that won't expect a present from
you equal to a suburban estate. However, there is no reason for
your classing my friend Trebatius with them. I sent him to Caesar,
and Caesar has done all I expected. If he has not done quite what
he expected himself, I am not bound to make it up to him, and I in
like manner free and absolve you from all claims on his part. Your
remark, that you are a greater favourite with Caesar every day, is a
source of undying satisfaction to me. As to Balbus, who, as you
say, promotes that state of things, he is the apple of my eye. I am
indeed glad that you and my friend Trebonius like each other. As
to what you say about the military tribuneship, I, indeed, asked for
it definitely for Curtius, and Caeesar wrote back definitely to say
that there was one at Curtius's service, and chided me for my
modesty in making the request. If I have asked one for anyone
else--as I told Oppius to write and tell Caesar--I shall not be at all
annoyed by a refusal, since those who pester me for letters are
annoyed at a refusal from me. I like Curtius, as I have told him, not
only because you asked me to do so, but from the character you
gave of him; for from your letter I have gathered the zeal he
shewed for my restoration. As for the British expedition, I
conclude from your letter that we have no occasion either for fear
or exultation. As to public affairs, about which you wish Tiro to
write to you, I have written to you hitherto somewhat more
carelessly than usual, because I knew that all events, small or
great, were reported to Caesar. I have now answered your longest
letter.
Now hear what I have to say to your small one. The first point is
about Clodius's letter to Caesar. In that matter I approve of
Caesar's policy, in not having given way to your request so far as
to write a single word to that Fury. The next thing is about the
speech of Calventius "Marius." I am surprised at your saying that
you think I ought to answer it, particularly as, while no one is
likely to read that speech, unless I write an answer to it, every
schoolboy learns mine against him as an exercise. My books, all of
which you are expecting, I have begun, but I cannot finish them for
some days yet. The speeches for Scaurus and Plancius which you
clamour for I have finished. The poem to Caesar, which I had
begun, I have cut short. I will write what you ask me for, since
your poetic springs are running dry, as soon as I have time.
Now for the third letter. It is very pleasant and welcome news to
hear from you that Balbus is soon coming to Rome, and so well
accompanied! and will stay with me continuously till the 15th of
May. As to your exhorting me in the same letter, as in many
previous ones, to ambition and labour, I shall, of course, do as you
say: but when am I to enjoy any real life?
Your fourth letter reached me on the 13th of September, dated on
the ioth of August from Britain. In it there was nothing new except
about your Erigona, and if I get that from Oppius I will write and
tell you what I think of it. I have no doubt I shall like it. Oh yes! I
had almost forgotten to remark as to the man who, you say in your
letter, had written to Qesar about the applause given to Milo-- I am
not unwilling that Caesar should think that it was as warm as
possible. And in point of fact it was so, and yet that applause,
which is given to him, seems in a certain sense to be given to me.
I have also received a very old letter, but which was late in coming
into my hands, in which you remind me about the temple of Tellus
and the colonnade of Catulus. Both of these matters are being
actively carried out. At the temple of Tellus I have even got your
statue placed. So, again, as to your reminder about a suburban villa
and gardens, I was never very keen for one, and now my town
house has all the charm of such a pleasure-ground. On my arrival
in Rome on the 18th of September I found the roof on your house
finished: the part over the sitting-rooms, which you did not wish to
have many gables, now slopes gracefully towards the roof of the
lower colonnade. Our boy, in my absence, did not cease working
with his rhetoric master. You have no reason for being anxious
about his education, for you know his ability, and I see his
application. Everything else I take it upon myself to guarantee,
with full consciousness that I am bound to make it good.
As yet there are three parties prosecuting Gabinius: first, L.
Lentulus, son of the flainen, who has entered a prosecution for lese
majeste; secondly, Tib. Nero with good names at the back of his
indictment; thirdly, C. Memmius the tribune in conjunction with L.
Capito. He came to the walls of the city on the 19th of September,
undignified and neglected to the last degree. But in the present
state of the law courts I do not venture to be confident of anything.
As Cato is unwell, he has not yet been formally indicted for
extortion. Pompey is trying hard to persuade me to be reconciled
to him, but as yet he has not yet succeeded at all, nor, if I retain a
shred of liberty, will he succeed. I am very anxious for a letter
from you. You say that you have been told that I was a party to the
coalition of the consular candidates--it is a lie. The compacts male
in that coalition afterwards made public by Memmius, were of
such a nature that no loyal man ought to have been a party to them;
nor at the same time was it possible for me to be a party to a
coalition from which Messalla was excluded, who is thoroughly
satisfied with my conduct in every particular, as also, I think, is
Memmius. To Domitius himself I have rendered many services
which he desired and asked of me. I have put Scaurus under a
heavy obligation by my defence of him. It is as yet very uncertain
both when the elections will be and who will be consuls.
Just as I was folding up this epistle letter-carriers arrived from you
and Caesar (20th September) after a journey of twenty days. How
anxious I was! How painfully I was affected by Caesar's most kind
letter! But the kinder it was, the more sorrow did his loss occasion
me. But to turn to your letter. To begin with, I reiterate my
approval of your staying on, especially as, according to your
account, you have consulted Caesar on the subject. I wonder that
Oppius has anything to do with Publius for I advised against it.
Farther on in your letter you say that I am going to be made legatus
to Pompey on the 13th of September: I have heard nothing about it,
and I wrote to Caesar to tell him that neither Vibullius nor Oppius
had delivered his message to Pompey about my remaining at
home. Why, I know not. However, it was I who restrained Oppius
from doing so, because it was Vibullius who should take the
leading part in that matter: for with him Caesar had communicated
personally, with Oppius only by letter. I indeed can have no
"second thoughts" in matters connected with Caesar. He comes
next after you and our children in my regard, and not much after. I
think I act in this with deliberate judgment, for I have by this time
good cause for it, yet warm personal feeling no doubt does
influence me also.
Just as I had written these last words--which are by my own
hand--your boy came in to dine with me, as Pomponia was dining
out. He gave me your letter to read, which he had received shortly
before--a truly Aristophanic mixture of jest and earnest, with
which I was greatly charmed. He gave me also your second letter,
in which you bid him cling to my side as a mentor. How delighted
he was with those letters! And so was I. Nothing could be more
attractive than that boy, nothing more affectionate to me !--This, to
explain its being in another handwriting, I dictated to Tiro while at
dinner.
Your letter gratified Annalis very much, as shewing that you took
an active interest in his concerns, and yet assisted him with
exceedingly candid advice. Publius Servilius the elder, from a
letter which he said he had received from Caesar, declares himself
highly obliged to you for having spoken with the greatest kindness
and earnestness of his devotion to Caesar. After my return to Rome
from Arpinum I was told that Hippodamus had started to join you.
I cannot say that I was surprised at his having acted so
discourteously as to start to join you without a letter from me: I
only say that, that I was annoyed. For I had long resolved, from an
expression in your letter, that if I had anything I wished conveyed
to you with more than usual care, I should give it to him: for, in
truth, into a letter like this, which I send you in an ordinary way, I
usually put nothing that, if it fell into certain hands, might be a
source of annoyance. I reserve myself for Minucius and Salvius
and Labeo. Labeo will either be starting late or will stay here
altogether. Hippodamus did not even ask me whether he could do
anything for me. T. Penarius sends me a kind letter about you: says
that he is exceedingly charmed with your literary pursuits,
conversation, and above all by your dinners. He was always a
favourite of mine, and I see a good deal of his brother. Wherefore
continue, as you have begun, to admit the young man to your
intimacy.
From the fact of this letter having been in hand during many days,
owing to the delay of the letter-carriers, I have jotted down in it
many various things at odd times, as, for instance, the following:
Titus Anicius has mentioned to me more than once that he would
not hesitate to buy a suburban property for you, if he found one. In
these remarks of his I find two things surprising: first, that when
you write to him about buying a suburban property, you not only
don't write to me to that effect, but write even in a contrary sense;
and, secondly, that in writing to him you totally forget his letters
which you shewed me at Tusculum, and as totally the rule of
Epicharmus, "Notice how he has treated another": in fact, that you
have quite forgotten, as I think, the lesson conveyed by the
expression of his face, his conversation, and his spirit. But this is
your concern. As to a suburban property, be sure to let me know
your wishes, and at the same time take care that that fellow doesn't
get you into trouble. What else have I to say? Anything? Yes, there
is this: Gabinius entered the city by night on the 27th of
September, and today, at two o clock, when he ought to have
appeared on his trial for lese majeste, in accordance with the edict
of C. Alflus, he was all but crushed to the earth by a great and
unanimous demonstration of the popular hatred. Nothing could
exceed his humiliating position. However, Piso comes next to him.
So I think of introducing a marvellous episode into my second
book--Apollo declaring in the council of the gods what sort of
return that of the two commanders was to be, one of whom had
lost, and the other sold his army. From Britain I have a letter of
Qesar's dated the 1st of September, which reached me on the 27th,
satisfactory enough as far as the British expedition is concerned, in
which, to prevent my wondering at not getting one from you, he
tells me that you were not with him when he reached the coast. To
that letter I made no reply, not even a formal congratulation, on
account of his mourning. Many, many wishes, dear brother, for
your health.
XV
To P. LENTTJLUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA)
ROME (OCTOBER)
M. CICERO desires his warmest regards to P. Lentulus, imperator.
Your letter was very gratifying to me, from which I gathered that
you fully appreciated my devotion to you: for why use the word
kindness, when even the word "devotion" itself, with all its solemn
and holy associations, seems too weak to express my obligations to
you? As for your saying that my services to you are gratefully
accepted, it is you who in your overflowing affection make things,
which cannot be omitted without criminal negligence, appear
deserving of even gratitude. However, my feelings towards you
would have been much more fully known and conspicuous, if,
during all this time that we have been separated, we had been
together, and together at Rome. For precisely in what you declare
your intention of doing--what no one is more capable of doing, and
what I confidently look forward to from you--that is to say, in
speaking in the senate, and in every department of public life and
political activity, we should together have been in a very strong
position (what my feelings and position are in regard to politics
I will explain shortly, and will answer the questions you ask), and
at any rate I should have found in you a supporter, at once most
warmly attached and endowed with supreme wisdom, while in me
you would have found an adviser, perhaps not the most unskilful in
the world, and at least both faithful and devoted to your interests.
However, for your own sake, of course, I rejoice, as I am bound to
do, that you have been greeted with the title of imperator, and are
holding your province and victorious army after a successful
campaign. But certainly, if you had been here, you would have
enjoyed to a fuller extent and more directly the benefit of the
services 1which I am bound to render you. Moreover, in taking
vengeance on those whom you know in some cases to be your
enemies, because you championed the cause of my recall, in others
to be jealous of the splendid position and renown which that
measure brought you, I should have done you yeoman's service as
your associate. However, that perpetual enemy of his own friends,
who, in spite of having been honoured with the highest
compliments on your part, has selected you of all people for the
object of his impotent and enfeebled violence, has saved me the
trouble by punishing himself. For he has made attempts, the
disclosure of which has left him without a shred, not only of
political position, but every of freedom of action. And though I
should have preferred that you should have gained your experience
in my case alone, rather than in your own also, yet in the midst of
my regret I am glad that you have learnt what the fidelity of
mankind is worth, at no great cost to yourself, which I learnt at the
price of excessive pain. And I think that I have now an opportunity
presented me, while answering the questions you have addressed
to me, of also explaining my entire position and view. You say in
your letter that you have been informed that I have become
reconciled to Cmesar and Appius, and you add that you have no
fault to find with that. But you express a wish to know what
induced me to defend and compliment Vatinius. In order to make
my explanation plainer I must go a little farther back in the
statement of my policy and its grounds.
Well, Lentulus! At first--after the success of your efforts for my
recall--I looked upon myself as having been restored not alone to
my friends, but to the Republic also; and seeing that I owed you an
affection almost surpassing belief, and every kind of service,
however great and rare, that could be bestowed on your person, I
thought that to the Republic, which had much assisted you in
restoring me, I at least was bound to entertain the feeling which I
had in old times shewed merely from the duty incumbent on all
citizens alike, and not as an obligation incurred by some special
kindness to myself. That these were my sentiments I declared to
the senate when you were consul, and you had yourself a full view
of them in our conversations and discussions. Yet from the very
first my feelings were hurt by many circumstances, when, on your
mooting the question of the full restoration of my position, I
detected the covert hatred of some and the equivocal attachment of
others. For you received no support from either in regard to my
vexatious to me: but much more so was the fact that they used,
before my very eyes, so to embrace, fondle, make much of, and
kiss my enemy mine do I say? rather the enemy of the laws, of the
law courts, of peace, of his country, of all loyal men ! that they did
not indeed rouse my bile, for I have utterly lost all that, but
imagined they did. In these circumstances, having, as far as is
possible for human prudeuce, thoroughly examined my whole
position, and having balanced the items of the account, I arrived at
a final result of all my reflexions, which, as well as I can, I will
now briefly put before you.