something of this sort, _quæ cum erit absoluta, sane facile ac libenter
eum nunc fieri consulem viderim_. This at any rate gives nearly the
required sense, which is that Cicero regards the influence which Thermus
will gain by managing the repair of the _Flaminia_ as likely to make him
a formidable candidate, and therefore he would be glad to see him
elected in the present year 65 (_nunc_) rather than wait for the next,
his own year.]
[Footnote 49: C. Calpurnis Piso, consul in B.C. 67, then proconsul of
Gallia Transalpina (Narbonensis). He was charged with embezzlement in
his province and defended by Cicero in B.C. 63. There were no votes in
Transalpine Gaul, but Cicero means in going and coming to canvass the
Cispadane cities.]
[Footnote 50: Pompey was this year on his way to take over the
Mithridatic War. But Cicero may have thought it likely that he or some
of his staff would pass through Athens and meet Atticus.]
[Footnote 51: L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, prætor in B.C. 58, and consul
B.C. 54, fell at Pharsalia, fighting against Cæsar.]
[Footnote 52: Q. Cæcilius, a rich uncle of Atticus, so cross-grained
that no one but Atticus could get on with him, to whom he accordingly
left his large fortune (Nep. _Att._ 5).]
[Footnote 53: Hom. _Il._ xxii. 159, Achilles pursuing Hector:
"Since not for sacred beast or oxhide shield
They strove,--man's guerdon for the fleet of foot:
Their stake was Hector's soul, the swift steed's lord."
]
[Footnote 54: Reading _eius_ ἀνάθημα, and taking the latter word in the
common sense of "ornament": the Hermathena is so placed that the whole
gymnasium is as it were an ornament to it, designed to set it off,
instead of its being a mere ornament to the gymnasium. Professor
Tyrrell, however, will not admit that the words can have this or any
meaning, and reads, ἡλίου ἄναμμα, "sun light"--"the whole gymnasium
seems as bright as the sun"--a curious effect, after all, for one statue
to have.]
XI (A I, 2)
TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)
ROME, JULY
[Sidenote: B.C. 65, ÆT. 41]
I have to inform you that on the day of the election of L. Iulius Cæsar
and C. Marcius Figulus to the consulship, I had an addition to my family
in the shape of a baby boy. Terentia doing well.
Why such a time without a letter from you? I have already written to you
fully about my circumstances. At this present time I am considering
whether to undertake the defence of my fellow candidate, Catiline.[55]
We have a jury to our minds with full consent of the prosecutor. I hope
that if he is acquitted he will be more closely united with me in the
conduct of our canvass; but if the result be otherwise I shall bear it
with resignation. Your early return is of great importance to me, for
there is a very strong idea prevailing that some intimate friends of
yours, persons of high rank, will be opposed to my election. To win me
their favour I see that I shall want you very much. Wherefore be sure to
be in Rome in January, as you have agreed to be.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: B.C. 62. Coss., D. Iunius Silanus, L. Licinius Murena.]
We have no letters to or from Cicero in the years B.C. 64 and
63,[56] partly, no doubt, because Atticus was in Rome a great deal
during these years. We take up the correspondence, therefore, after
an interval of two years, which in many respects were the most
important in Cicero's life. In B.C. 64 he attained his chief
ambition by being elected to the consulship, but we have little
trace of his public actions that year, only the fragments of one
speech remaining, in defence of Q. Gallius on a charge of
_ambitus_. The animus of the popular party, however, is shewn by
the prosecution of some surviving partisans of Sulla on charges of
homicide, among them Catiline, who by some means escaped conviction
(Dio, xxxvii. 10). In the year of the consulship (B.C. 63) some of
Cicero's most important speeches were delivered. The three on the
agrarian proposals of Rullus present him to us for the first time
as discussing an important question of home politics, the disposal
of the _ager publicus_, a question which had become again prominent
owing to the great additions made to it by the confiscations of
Sulla. He also defended C. Rabirius, prosecuted by Iulius Cæsar for
the murder of Saturninus as long ago as B.C. 100, and later in the
year defended Murena on a charge of _ambitus_. Finally, the three
Catilinarian speeches illustrate the event which coloured the whole
of Cicero's life. In B.C. 62 his brother Quintus was prætor and
Cicero defended in his court P. Sulla, accused of complicity with
Catiline. On the 29th of December (B.C. 63) the tribune Q. Cæcilius
Metellus Nepos prevented Cicero from making a speech when laying
down his consulship, and went on to propose summoning Pompey to
Rome, "to protect the lives of the citizens." This led to scenes of
violence, and Metellus fled to Pompey, who reached Italy late in
the year B.C. 62 from the East.
[Footnote 55: Asconius assigns this to the accusation of embezzlement in
Africa. But that seems to have been tried in the previous year, or
earlier in this year. The new impeachment threatened seems to have been
connected with his crimes in the proscriptions of Sulla (Dio, xxxvii,
10). Cicero may have thought of defending him on a charge relating to so
distant a period, just as he did Rabirius on the charge of murdering
Saturninus (B.C. 100), though he had regarded his guilt in the case of
extortion in Africa as glaring.]
[Footnote 56: The essay on the duties of a candidate attributed to
Quintus is hardly a letter, and there is some doubt as to its
authenticity. I have therefore relegated it to an appendix.]
XII (F V, 7)
TO CN. POMPEIUS MAGNUS
ROME
_M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets Cn. Pompeius, son of Cneius,
Imperator._
[Sidenote: B.C. 62. ÆT. 44]
If you and the army are well I shall be glad. From your official
despatch I have, in common with everyone else, received the liveliest
satisfaction; for you have given us that strong hope of peace, of which,
in sole reliance on you, I was assuring everyone. But I must inform you
that your old enemies--now posing as your friends--have received a
stunning blow by this despatch, and, being disappointed in the high
hopes they were entertaining, are thoroughly depressed. Though your
private letter to me contained a somewhat slight expression of your
affection, yet I can assure you it gave me pleasure: for there is
nothing in which I habitually find greater satisfaction than in the
consciousness of serving my friends; and if on any occasion I do not
meet with an adequate return, I am not at all sorry to have the balance
of kindness in my favour. Of this I feel no doubt--even if my
extraordinary zeal in your behalf has failed to unite you to me--that
the interests of the state will certainly effect a mutual attachment and
coalition between us. To let you know, however, what I missed in your
letter I will write with the candour which my own disposition and our
common friendship demand. I did expect _some_ congratulation in your
letter on my achievements, for the sake at once of the ties between us
and of the Republic. This I presume to have been omitted by you from a
fear of hurting anyone's feelings. But let me tell you that what I did
for the salvation of the country is approved by the judgment and
testimony of the whole world. You are a much greater man than Africanus,
but I am not much inferior to Lælius either; and when you come home you
will recognize that I have acted with such prudence and spirit, that
you will not be ashamed of being coupled with me in politics as well as
in private friendship.
XIII (F V, I)
Q. METELLUS CELER TO CICERO
CISALPINE GAUL
_Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul, greets M. Tullius
Cicero._[57]
[Sidenote: B.C. 62. ÆT. 44]
If you are well I am glad. I had thought, considering our mutual regard
and the reconciliation effected between us, that I was not likely to be
held up to ridicule in my absence, nor my brother attacked by you in his
civil existence and property for the sake of a mere word. If his own
high character was not a sufficient protection to him, yet either the
position of our family, or my own loyal conduct to you and the Republic,
ought to have been sufficient to support him. As it is, I see that he
has been ruined and I abandoned by the last people in the world who
ought to have done so. I am accordingly in sorrow and wearing mourning
dress, while actually in command of a province and army and conducting a
war. And seeing that your conduct in this affair has neither been
reasonable nor in accordance with the milder methods of old times, you
must not be surprised if you live to repent it. I did not expect to find
you so fickle towards me and mine. For myself, meanwhile, neither family
sorrow nor ill-treatment by any individual shall withdraw me from the
service of the state.
[Footnote 57: Q. Metellus Celer had been prætor in B.C. 63 and was now
(B.C. 62), as proconsul in Gallia Cisalpina, engaged against the remains
of the Catilinarian conspiracy. Meanwhile his brother (or cousin) Q.
Cæcilius Metellus Nepos, a tribune, after trying in vain to bring Cicero
to trial for the execution of the conspirators, at last proposed to
summon Pompey to Rome to prevent danger to the lives of citizens. This
attempt led to riots and contests with Cato, and Nepos finally fled from
Rome to Pompey. By leaving Rome he broke the law as to the tribunes, and
the senate declared his office vacant, and this letter would even seem
to shew that the senate declared him a public enemy. This letter of
remonstrance is peremptory, if not insolent, in tone, and the reader
will observe that the formal sentences, dropped in more familiar
letters, are carefully used.]
XIV (F V, 2)
TO Q. METELLUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL)
ROME
_M. Tullius, son of Marcus, to Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus,
proconsul, wishes health._
[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ÆT. 44]
If you and the army are well I shall be glad. You say in your letter
that you "thought, considering our mutual regard and the reconciliation
effected between us, that you were not likely to be held up to ridicule
by me." To what you refer I do not clearly understand, but I suspect
that you have been informed that, while arguing in the senate that there
were many who were annoyed at my having saved the state, I said that
your relations, whose wishes you had been unable to withstand, had
induced you to pass over in silence what you had made up your mind you
ought to say in the senate in my praise. But while saying so I also
added this--that the duty of supporting the Republic had been so divided
between us that I was defending the city from internal treachery and the
crime of its own citizens, you Italy from armed enemies and covert
conspiracy;[58] yet that this association in a task so noble and so
glorious had been imperilled by your relations, who, while you had been
complimented by me in the fullest and most laudatory terms, had been
afraid of any display of mutual regard on your part being put to my
credit. As this sentence betrayed how much I had looked forward to your
speech, and how mistaken I had been in that expectation, my speech
caused some amusement, and was received with a moderate amount of
laughter; but the laugh was not against you, it was rather at my
mistake, and at the open and _naïve_ confession of my eagerness to be
commended by you. Surely it cannot but be a compliment to you that in
the hour of my greatest triumph and glory I yet wished for some
testimony of approval from your lips. As to your expression,
"considering our mutual regard"--I don't know your idea of what is
"mutual" in friendship; mine is an equal interchange of good feeling.
Now if I were to mention that I passed over a province for your sake,
you might think me somewhat insincere; for, in point of fact, it suited
my convenience, and I feel more and more every day of my life the
advantage and pleasure which I have received from that decision. But
this I do say--the moment I had announced in public meeting my refusal
of a province, I began at once thinking how I might hand it on to you. I
say nothing as to the circumstances of your allotment: I only wish you
to suspect that nothing was done in that matter by my colleague without
my cognizance. Recall the other circumstances: how promptly I summoned
the senate on that day after the lots had been drawn, at what a length I
spoke about you. You yourself said at the time that my speech was not
merely complimentary to you, but absolutely a reflexion on your
colleagues. Farther, the decree of the senate passed on that day has
such a preamble that, so long as it is extant, there can never be any
doubt of my services to you. Subsequently, when you had gone out of
town, I would have you recall my motions in the senate, my speeches in
public meetings, my letters to yourself. And having reviewed all these
together, I would like you to judge yourself whether you think that your
approach to Rome the last time you came quite shewed an adequate return
for all these services.[59] Again, as to your expression, "the
reconciliation effected between us"--I do not understand why you speak
of "reconciliation" in the case of a friendship that had never been
broken. As to what you say, that your brother Metellus ought not "to
have been attacked by me for a mere word," in the first place I would
like to assure you that your feeling and fraternal partiality--so full
of human kindness and natural affection--meet with my warmest
approbation; in the next place I must claim your indulgence if I have in
any matter opposed your brother in the interests of the Republic, for my
devotion to the Republic is paramount. If, however, it is my personal
safety that I have defended against a most ruthless assault of his, I
think you should be content that I make no complaint even to you of your
brother's injurious conduct. Now, when I had become aware that he was
deliberately making every preparation to use his tribunician office to
my ruin, I appealed to your wife Claudia[60] and your sister Mucia[61]
(of whose kindness to me for the sake of my friendship with Pompey I had
satisfied myself by many instances) to deter him from that injurious
conduct. And yet, as I am sure you have heard, on the last day of
December he inflicted upon me--a consul and the preserver of my
country--an indignity such as was never inflicted upon the most disloyal
citizen in the humblest office: that is to say, he deprived me when
laying down my office of the privilege of addressing the people--an
indignity, however, which after all redounded to my honour. For, upon
his forbidding me to do anything but take the oath, I pronounced an oath
at once the most absolutely true and the most glorious in a loud
voice--an oath which the people swore also in a loud voice to be
absolutely true. Though I had actually suffered this signal indignity, I
yet on that same day sent common friends to Metellus to persuade him to
alter his resolution; to whom he answered that he was no longer free to
do so. And, in fact, a short time previously he _had_ said in a public
meeting that a man who had punished others without trial ought not
himself to be allowed the privilege of speech. What a model of
consistency! What an admirable citizen! So he deemed the man who had
saved the senate from massacre, the city from the incendiary, Italy from
war, deserving of the same penalty as that inflicted by the senate, with
the unanimous approval of all loyal citizens, upon those who had
intended to set fire to the city, butcher magistrates and senate, and
stir up a formidable war! Accordingly, I did withstand your brother
Metellus to his face: for on the 1st of January, in the senate, I
maintained a debate with him on the state of the Republic, such as
taught him that he had to contend with a man of courage and firmness. On
the 3rd of January,[62] on again opening the debate, he kept harping on
me and threatening me at every third word of his speech; nor could any
intention be more deliberate than his was to overthrow me by any means
in his power, not by calm and judicial argument, but by violence and
mere browbeating. If I had not shewn some boldness and spirit in
opposing his intemperate attack, would not everyone have concluded that
the courage I had displayed in my consulship was the result of accident
rather than design? If you did not know that Metellus was contemplating
these measures in regard to me, you must consider that you have been
kept in the dark by your brother on matters of the utmost importance:
if, on the other hand, he did intrust any part of his designs to you,
then surely I ought to be regarded by you as a man of placable and
reasonable temper for not addressing a word of reproach to you even on
such occurrences as these. Understanding then that it was by no "mere
word" (as you express it) of Metellus that I was roused, but by his
deliberate policy and extraordinary animosity towards me, next observe
my forbearance--if "forbearance" is the name to be given to irresolution
and laxity under a most galling indignity. I never once delivered a vote
in a speech against your brother: every time a motion was before the
house I assented without rising to those whose proposal appeared to me
to be the mildest. I will also add that, though in the circumstances
there was no obligation upon me to do so, yet so far from raising
objections I actually did my best to secure that my enemy, because he
was your brother, should be relieved from penalties by a decree of the
senate.[63] Wherefore I have not "attacked" your brother, but only
defended myself from your brother's attack; nor have I been "fickle" (to
quote your word), but, on the contrary, so constant, that I remained
faithful to my friendship to you, though left without any sign of
kindness from you. For instance, at this moment, though your letter
amounts almost to a threat, I am writing back an answer such as you see.
I not only pardon your vexation, I even applaud it in the highest
degree; for my own heart tells me how strong is the influence of
fraternal affection. I ask you in your turn to put a liberal
construction upon my vexation, and to conclude that when attacked by
your relatives with bitterness, with brutality, and without cause, I not
only ought not to retract anything, but, in a case of that kind, should
even be able to rely upon the aid of yourself and your army. I have
always wished to have you as a friend: I have taken pains to make you
understand that I am a warm friend to you. I abide by that sentiment,
and shall abide by it as long as _you_ will let me; and I shall more
readily cease to be angry with your brother for love of you, than I
shall from anger with him abate in the smallest degree my kindness for
you.
[Footnote 58: Metellus had been employed with Antonius against the camp
at Fæsulæ, but was now engaged against some Alpine tribes.]
[Footnote 59: When Metellus was commanding against Catiline, it is
suggested that he marched towards Rome to support his brother, but this
is conjecture.]
[Footnote 60: Sister of P. Clodius. Of this famous woman we shall hear
often again. She is believed to be the Lesbia of Catullus, and she is
the "Palatine Medea" of the speech _pro Cælio_. Yet, in spite of
Cicero's denunciations of her, he seems at one time to have been so fond
of her society as to rouse Terentia's jealousy.]
[Footnote 61: Wife of Pompey--divorced by him on his return from the
East.]
[Footnote 62: On the next meeting of the senate. The second was a _dies
comitialis_ on which the senate usually did not meet (Cæs. _B. Civ._ i.
I).]
[Footnote 63: For the riots caused by his contests with Cato (on which
the senate seems to have passed the _senatus consultum ultimum_), and
for his having left Rome while tribune.]
XV (F V, 6)
TO P. SESTIUS[64] (IN MACEDONIA)
ROME, DECEMBER
[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ÆT. 44]
Decius the copyist has been to see me, and begged me to try and secure
that no successor should be appointed to you this turn. Though I
regarded him as a man of good character and attached to you, yet,
remembering the tenor of your previous letter to me, I could not feel
certain that the wishes of a cautious man of the world like yourself had
undergone so complete a change. But after your wife Cornelia had called
on Terentia, and I had had a conversation with Q. Cornelius, I took care
to be present at every meeting of the senate, and found that the
greatest trouble was to make Fufius the tribune, and the others to whom
you had written, believe me rather than your own letters. The whole
business has, after all, been postponed till January, but there is no
difficulty about it. Roused by your congratulations--for in a letter
sometime ago you wished me good luck on the completion of my purchase of
a house from Crassus--I have bought that very house for 3,500 sestertia
(about £28,000), a good while subsequent to your congratulation.
Accordingly, you may now look upon me as being so deeply in debt as to
be eager to join a conspiracy if anyone would admit me! But, partly from
personal dislike they shut their doors in my face and openly denounce me
as the punisher of conspiracy, partly are incredulous and afraid that I
am setting a trap for them! Nor do they suppose that a man can be short
of money who has relieved the money-lenders from a state of siege. In
point of fact, money is plentiful at six per cent., and the success of
my measures has caused me to be regarded as a good security. Your own
house, and all the details of its construction, I have examined and
strongly approve. As for Antonius,[65] though everyone notices his want
of attention to my interests, I have nevertheless defended him in the
senate with the utmost earnestness and persistence, and have made a
strong impression on the senate by my language as well as by my personal
prestige. Pray write to me more frequently.
[Footnote 64: P. Sestius was serving as proquæstor in Macedonia under
Gaius Antonius. As tribune in B.C. 57 he worked for Cicero's recall, but
was afterwards prosecuted _de vi_, and defended by Cicero.]
[Footnote 65: Gaius Antonius, Cicero's colleague in the consulship. He
had the province of Macedonia after the consulship, Cicero having
voluntarily withdrawn in his favour to secure his support against
Catiline. Scandal said that he had bargained to pay Cicero large sums
from the profits of the province. He governed so corruptly and
unsuccessfully that he was on his return condemned of _maiestas_.]
XVI (A I, 12)
[Sidenote: B.C. 61. Coss., M. Papius Piso, M. Valerius Messalla.]
The letters of this year are much concerned with the sacrilege of
P. Clodius, who, it was alleged, had been detected in disguise in
the house of the Pontifex Maximus Iulius Cæsar, when his wife was
celebrating the mysteries of the Bona Dea, from which males were
excluded. His trial was made the occasion of bitter party
struggles, and by giving evidence in contradiction of Clodius's
alibi Cicero incurred his enmity, and eventually, therefore, his
own exile. Quintus is proprætor in Asia, Cæsar in Spain. Pompey
reached Rome early this year. The _ordo equester_ is much irritated
with the senate on the question of the contracts for the collection
of the Asiatic taxes.
TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)
ROME, 1 JANUARY
[Sidenote: B.C. 61, ÆT. 45]