friend Cincius handed me your letter dated 13th February. It is this
letter of yours which I will now proceed to answer. And first let me say
how glad I am that you have fully understood my appreciation of
you;[137] and next how excessively rejoiced I am that you have been so
extremely reasonable in regard to those particulars in which you
thought[138] that I and mine had behaved unkindly, or with insufficient
consideration for your feelings: and this I regard as a proof of no
common affection, and of the most excellent judgment and wisdom.
Wherefore, since you have written to me in a tone so delightful,
considerate, friendly and kind, that I not only have no call to press
you any farther, but can never even hope to meet from you or any other
man with so much gentleness and good nature, I think the very best
course I can pursue is not to say another word on the subject in my
letters. When we meet, if the occasion should arise, we will discuss it
together.
As to what you say about politics, your suggestions indeed are both
affectionate and wise, and the course you suggest does not differ
substantially from my own policy--for I must neither budge an inch from
the position imposed upon me by my rank, nor must I without forces of my
own enter the lines of another, while that other, whom you mention in
your letter, has nothing large-minded about him, nothing lofty, nothing
which is not abject and time-serving. However, the course I took was,
after all, perhaps not ill-calculated for securing the tranquillity of
my own life; but, by heaven, I did greater service to the Republic than,
by suppressing the attacks of the disloyal, I did to myself, when I
brought conviction home to the wavering mind of a man of the most
splendid fortune, influence and popularity, and induced him to
disappoint the disloyal and praise my acts. Now if I had been forced to
sacrifice consistency in this transaction, I should not have thought
anything worth that price; but the fact is that I have so worked the
whole business, that I did not seem to be less consistent from my
complacency to him, but that he appeared to gain in character by his
approbation of me. In everything else I am so acting, and shall continue
so to act, as to prevent my seeming to have done what I did do by mere
chance. My friends the loyalists, the men at whom you hint, and that
"Sparta" which you say has fallen to my lot,[139] I will not only never
desert, but even if I am deserted by her, I shall still stand by my
ancient creed. However, please consider this, that since the death of
Catulus I am holding this road for the loyalists without any garrison or
company. For as Rhinton, I think, says:
"Some are stark naught, and some care not at all."[140]
However, how our friends the fish-breeders[141] envy me I will write you
word another time, or will reserve it till we meet. But from the
senate-house nothing shall ever tear me: either because that course is
the right one, or because it is most to my interests, or because I am
far from being dissatisfied with the estimation in which I am held by
the senate.
As to the Sicyonians, as I wrote to you before,[142] there is not much
to be hoped for in the senate. For there is no one now to lay a
complaint before it. Therefore, if you are waiting for that, you will
find it a tedious business. Fight some other way if you can. At the time
the decree was passed no one noticed who would be affected by it, and
besides the rank and file of the senators voted in a great hurry for
that clause. For cancelling the senatorial decree the time is not yet
ripe, because there are none to complain of it, and because also many
are glad to have it so, some from spite, some from a notion of its
equity. Your friend Metellus is an admirable consul: I have only one
fault to find with him--he doesn't receive the news from Gaul of the
restoration of peace with much pleasure. He wants a triumph, I suppose.
I could have wished a little less of that sort of thing: in other
respects he is splendid. But the son of Aulus behaves in such a way,
that his consulship is not a consulship but a stigma on our friend
Magnus. Of my writings I send you my consulship in Greek completed. I
have handed that book to L. Cossinius. My Latin works I think you like,
but as a Greek you envy this Greek book. If others write treatises on
the subject I will send them to you, but I assure you that, as soon as
they have read mine, some how or other they become slack. To return to
my own affairs, L. Papirius Pætus, an excellent man and an admirer of
mine, has presented me with the books left him by Servius Claudius. As
your friend Cincius told me that I could take them without breaking the
_lex Cincia_[143], I told him that I should have great pleasure in
accepting them, if he brought them to Italy. Wherefore, as you love me,
as you know that I love you, do try by means of friends, clients,
guests, or even your freedmen or slaves, to prevent the loss of a single
leaf. For I am in urgent need of the Greek books which I suspect, and of
the Latin books which I know, that he left: and more and more every day
I find repose in such studies every moment left to me from my labours in
the forum. You will, I say, do me a very great favour, if you will be as
zealous in this matter as you ever are in matters in which you suppose
me to feel strongly; and Pætus's own affairs I recommend to your
kindness for which he thanks you extremely. A prompt visit from yourself
is a thing which I do not merely ask for, I advise it.
[Footnote 137: Contained in Letter XXII, pp. 46-47.]
[Footnote 138: Reading _tibi_ for _mihi_, as Prof. Tyrrell suggests.]
[Footnote 139: Σπάρτην ἔλαχες κείνην κοσμεῖ. "Sparta is your lot, do it
credit," a line of Euripides which had become proverbial.]
[Footnote 140: οἱ μὲν παρ' οὐδέν εἰσι, τοῖς δ' οὐδεν μέλει. Rhinton, a
dramatist, _circa_ B.C. 320-280 (of Tarentum or Syracuse).]
[Footnote 141: See pp. 52, 56, 65.]
[Footnote 142: See p. 57.]
[Footnote 143: The _lex Cincia_ (B.C. 204) forbade the taking of
presents for acting as advocate in law courts.]
XXVI (A II, 1)
TO ATTICUS (IN GREECE)
ROME, JUNE
[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ÆT. 46]
On the 1st of June, as I was on my way to Antium, and eagerly getting
out of the way of M. Metellus's gladiators, your boy met me, and
delivered to me a letter from you and a history of my consulship written
in Greek.[144] This made me glad that I had some time before delivered
to L. Cossinius a book, also written in Greek, on the same subject, to
take to you. For if I had read yours first you might have said that I
had pilfered from you. Although your essay (which I have read with
pleasure) seemed to me just a trifle rough and bald, yet its very
neglect of ornament is an ornament in itself, as women were once thought
to have the best perfume who used none. My book, on the other hand, has
exhausted the whole of Isocrates's unguent case, and all the paint-boxes
of his pupils, and even Aristotle's colours. This, as you tell me in
another letter, you glanced over at Corcyra, and afterwards I suppose
received it from Cossinius.[145] I should not have ventured to send it
to you until I had slowly and fastidiously revised it. However,
Posidonius, in his letter of acknowledgment from Rhodes, says that as he
read my memoir, which I had sent him with a view to his writing on the
same subject with more elaboration, he was not only not incited to
write, but absolutely made afraid to do so. In a word, I have routed the
Greeks. Accordingly, as a general rule, those who were pressing me for
material to work up, have now ceased to bother me. Pray, if you like the
book, see to there being copies at Athens and other Greek towns;[146]
for it may possibly throw some lustre on my actions. As for my poor
speeches, I will send you both those you ask for and some more also,
since what I write to satisfy the studious youth finds favour, it seems,
with you also. [For it suited my purpose[147]--both because it was in
his Philippics that your fellow citizen Demosthenes gained his
reputation, and because it was by withdrawing from the mere
controversial and forensic style of oratory that he acquired the
character of a serious politician--to see that I too should have
speeches that may properly be called _consular_. Of these are, first,
one delivered on the 1st of January in the senate, a second to the
people on the agrarian law, a third on Otho, a fourth for Rabirius, a
fifth on the Sons of the Proscribed, a sixth when I declined a province
in public meeting, a seventh when I allowed Catiline to escape, which I
delivered the day after Catiline fled, a ninth in public meeting on the
day that the Allobroges made their revelation, a tenth in the senate on
the 5th of December. There are also two short ones, which may be called
fragments, on the agrarian law. This whole cycle I will see that you
have. And since you like my writings as well as my actions, from these
same rolls you will learn both what I have done and what I have said--or
you should not have asked for them, for I did not make you an offer of
them.]
You ask me why I urge you to come home, and at the same time you
intimate that you are hampered by business affairs, and yet say that you
will nevertheless hasten back, not only if it is needful, but even if I
desire it. Well, there is certainly no absolute necessity, yet I do
think you might plan the periods of your tour somewhat more
conveniently. Your absence is too prolonged, especially as you are in a
neighbouring country, while yet I cannot enjoy your society, nor you
mine. For the present there is peace, but if my young friend
Pulcher's[148] madness found means to advance a little farther, I should
certainly summon you from your present sojourn. But Metellus is offering
him a splendid opposition and will continue to do so. Need I say more?
He is a truly patriotic consul and, as I have ever thought, naturally an
honest man. That person, however, makes no disguise, but avowedly
desires to be elected tribune. But when the matter was mooted in the
senate, I cut the fellow to pieces, and taunted him with his
changeableness in seeking the tribuneship at Rome after having given out
at Hera, in Sicily,[149] that he was a candidate for the ædileship; and
went on to say that we needn't much trouble ourselves, for that he would
not be permitted to ruin the Republic any more as a plebeian, than
patricians like him had been allowed to do so in my consulship.
Presently, on his saying that he had completed the journey from the
straits in seven days, and that it was impossible for anyone to have
gone out to meet him, and that he had entered the city by night,[150]
and making a great parade of this in a public meeting, I remarked that
that was nothing new for him: seven days from Sicily to Rome, three
hours from Rome to Interamna![151] Entered by night, did he? so he did
before! No one went to meet him? neither did anyone on the other
occasion, exactly when it should have been done! In short, I bring our
young upstart to his bearings, not only by a set and serious speech, but
also by repartees of this sort. Accordingly, I have come now to rally
him and jest with him in quite a familiar manner. For instance, when we
were escorting a candidate, he asked me "whether I had been accustomed
to secure Sicilians places at the gladiatorial shows?" "No," said I.
"Well, I intend to start the practice," said he, "as their new patron;
but my sister,[152] who has the control of such a large part of the
consul's space, wont give me more than a single foot." "Don't grumble,"
said I, "about one of your sister's feet; you may lift the other also."
A jest, you will say, unbecoming to a consular. I confess it, but I
detest that woman--so unworthy of a consul. For
"A shrew she is and with her husband jars,"
and not only with Metellus, but also with Fabius,[153] because she is
annoyed at their interference in this business.[154] You ask about the
agrarian law: it has completely lost all interest, I think. You rather
chide me, though gently, about my intimacy with Pompey. I would not have
you think that I have made friends with him for my own protection; but
things had come to such a pass that, if by any chance we had quarrelled,
there would inevitably have been violent dissensions in the state. And
in taking precautions and making provision against that, I by no means
swerved from my well-known loyalist policy, but my object was to make
him more of a loyalist and induce him to drop somewhat of his
time-serving vacillation: and he, let me assure you, now speaks in much
higher terms of my achievements (against which many had tried to incite
him) than of his own. He testifies that while he served the state well,
I preserved it. What if I even make a better citizen of Cæsar,[155] who
has now the wind full in his sails--am I doing so poor a service to the
Republic? Farthermore, if there was no one to envy me, if all, as they
ought to be, were my supporters, nevertheless a preference should still
be given to a treatment that would cure the diseased parts of the state,
rather than to the use of the knife. As it is, however, since the
knighthood, which I once stationed on the slope of the Capitoline,[156]
with you as their standard-bearer and leader, has deserted the senate,
and since our leading men think themselves in a seventh heaven, if there
are bearded mullets in their fish-ponds that will come to hand for food,
and neglect everything else, do not you think that I am doing no mean
service if I secure that those who have the power, should not have the
will, to do any harm? As for our friend Cato, you do not love him more
than I do: but after all, with the very best intentions and the most
absolute honesty, he sometimes does harm to the Republic. He speaks and
votes as though he were in the Republic of Plato, not in the scum of
Romulus. What could be fairer than that a man should be brought to trial
who has taken a bribe for his verdict? Cato voted for this: the senate
agreed with him. The equites declared war on the senate, not on me, for
I voted against it. What could be a greater piece of impudence than the
equites renouncing the obligations of their contract? Yet for the sake
of keeping the friendship of the order it was necessary to submit to the
loss. Cato resisted and carried his point. Accordingly, though we have
now had the spectacle of a consul thrown into prison,[157] of riots
again and again stirred up, not one of those moved a finger to help,
with whose support I and the consuls that immediately followed me were
accustomed to defend the Republic. "Well, but," say you, "are we to pay
them for their support?" What are we to do if we can't get it on any
other terms? Are we to be slaves to freedmen or even slaves? But, as you
say, _assez de sérieux!_ Favonius[158] carried my tribe with better
credit than his own; he lost that of Lucceius. His accusation of
Nasica[159] was not creditable, but was conducted with moderation: he
spoke so badly that he appeared when in Rhodes to have ground at the
mills more than at the lessons of Molon.[160] He was somewhat angry
with me because I appeared for the defence: however, he is now making up
to me again on public grounds. I will write you word how Lucceius is
getting on when I have seen Cæsar, who will be here in a couple of days.
The injury done you by the Sicyonians you attribute to Cato and his
imitator Servilius.[161] Why? did not that blow reach many excellent
citizens? But since the senate has so determined, let us commend it, and
not be in a minority of one.[162] My "Amaltheia"[163] is waiting and
longing for you. My Tusculan and Pompeian properties please me
immensely, except that they have overwhelmed me--me, the scourge of
debt!--not exactly in Corinthian bronze, but in the bronze which is
current in the market.[164] In Gaul I hope peace is restored. My
"Prognostics,"[165] along with my poor speeches, expect shortly. Yet
write and tell me what your ideas are as to returning. For Pomponia sent
a message to me that you would be at Rome some time in July. That does
not agree with your letter which you wrote to me about your name being
put on the census roll. Pætus, as I have already told you, has presented
me with all books left by his brother. This gift of his depends upon
your seeing to it with care. Pray, if you love me, take measures for
their preservation and transmission to me. You could do me no greater
favour, and I want the Latin books preserved with as much care as the
Greek. I shall look upon them as virtually a present from yourself. I
have written to Octavius:[166] I had not said anything to him about you
by word of mouth; for I did not suppose that you carried on your
business in that province, or look upon you in the light of general
money-lender: but I have written, as in duty bound, with all
seriousness.
[Footnote 144: Nep. _Att._ c. 18.]
[Footnote 145: Atticus seems to have seen a copy belonging to some one
else at Corfu. Cicero explains that he had kept back Atticus's copy for
revision.]
[Footnote 146: Cicero evidently intends Atticus to act as a publisher.
His _librarii_ will make copies. See p. 32, note 1.]
[Footnote 147: The passage in brackets is believed by some, not on very
good grounds, to be spurious. Otho is L. Roscius Otho, the author of the
law as to the seats in the theatre of the equites. The "proscribed" are
those proscribed by Sulla, their sons being forbidden to hold office, a
disability which Cicero maintained for fear of civil disturbances. See
_in Pis._ §§ 4-5.]
[Footnote 148: Pulchellus, _i.e._, P. Clodius Pulcher, the diminutive of
contempt.]
[Footnote 149: Where he had been as quæstor. Hera is said to be another
name for Hybla. Some read _heri_, "only yesterday."]
[Footnote 150: Clodius is shewing off his modesty. It was usual for
persons returning from a province to send messengers in front, and to
travel deliberately, that their friends might pay them the compliment of
going out to meet them. Entering the city after nightfall was another
method of avoiding a public reception. See Suet. _Aug._ 53.]
[Footnote 151: See p. 37, note 3.]
[Footnote 152: Clodia, wife of the consul Metellus. See p. 22, note.]
[Footnote 153: We don't know who this is; probably a _cavaliere
servente_ of Clodia's.]
[Footnote 154: _I.e._, in the business of her brother Clodius's attempt
to get the tribuneship.]
[Footnote 155: Though Cæsar has been mentioned before in regard to his
candidature for the consulship, and in connexion with the Clodius case,
this is the first reference to him as a statesman. He is on the eve of
his return from Spain, and already is giving indication of his coalition
with Pompey. His military success in Spain first clearly demonstrated
his importance.]
[Footnote 156: During the meeting of the senate at the time of the
Catilinarian conspiracy (2 _Phil._ § 16).]
[Footnote 157: The consul Cæcilius Metellus was imprisoned by the
tribune Flavius for resisting his land law (Dio, xxxvii. 50).]
[Footnote 158: M. Favonius, an extreme Optimate. _Ille Catonis æmulus_
(Suet. _Aug._ 13). He had a bitter tongue, but a faithful heart (Plut.
_Pomp._ 60, 73; Vell. ii 73). He did not get the prætorship (which he
was now seeking) till B.C. 49. He was executed after Philippi (Dio. 47,
49).]
[Footnote 159: P. Scipio Nasica Metellus Pius, the future father-in-law
of Pompey, who got the prætorship, was indicted for _ambitus_ by
Favonius.]
[Footnote 160: Ἀπολλόνιος Μόλων of Alabanda taught rhetoric at Rhodes.
Cicero had himself attended his lectures. He puns on the name Molon and
_molæ_, "mill at which slaves worked."]
[Footnote 161: See pp. 57, 60.]
[Footnote 162: Reading _discessionibus_, "divisions in the senate," with
Manutius and Tyrrell, not _dissentionibus_; and _deinde ne_, but not
_st_ for _si_.]
[Footnote 163: His study, which he playfully calls by this name, in
imitation of that of Atticus. See p. 30.]
[Footnote 164: See Letter XV, p. 25.]
[Footnote 165: His translation of the _Prognostics_ of Aratus.]
[Footnote 166: Gaius Octavius, father of Augustus, governor of
Macedonia.]
XXVII (A II, 2)
TO ATTICUS (ON HIS WAY TO ROME)
TUSCULUM (DECEMBER)
[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ÆT. 46]
Take care of my dear nephew Cicero, I beg of you. I seem to share his
illness. I am engaged on the "Constitution of Pellene," and, by heaven,
have piled up a huge heap of Dicæarchus at my feet.[167] What a great
man! You may learn much more from him than from Procilius. His
"Constitution of Corinth" and "Constitution of Athens" I have, I think,
at Rome. Upon my word, you will say, if you read these, "What a
remarkable man!" Herodes, if he had any sense, would have read him
rather than write a single letter himself.[168] He has attacked me by
letter; with you I see he has come to close quarters. I would have
joined a conspiracy rather than resisted one, if I had thought that I
should have to listen to him as my reward. As to Lollius, you must be
mad. As to the wine, I think you are right.[169] But look here! Don't
you see that the Kalends are approaching, and no Antonius?[170] That the
jury is being empanelled? For so they send me word. That Nigidius[171]
threatens in public meeting that he will personally cite any juror who
does not appear? However, I should be glad if you would write me word
whether you have heard anything about the return of Antonius; and since
you don't mean to come here, dine with me in any case on the 29th. Mind
you do this, and take care of your health.
[Footnote 167: The roll being unwound as he read and piled on the
ground. Dicæarchus of Messene, a contemporary of Aristotle, wrote on
"Constitutions" among other things. Procilius seems also to have written
on polities.]
[Footnote 168: Herodes, a teacher at Athens, afterwards tutor to young
Cicero. He seems to have written on Cicero's consulship.]
[Footnote 169: These remarks refer to something in Atticus's letter.]
[Footnote 170: Gaius Antonius, about to be prosecuted for _maiestas_ on
his return from Macedonia.]
[Footnote 171: P. Nigidius Figulus, a tribune (which dates the letter
after the 10th of December). The tribunes had no right of summons
(_vocatio_), they must personally enforce their commands.]
XXVIII (A II, 3)
TO ATTICUS (ON HIS WAY TO ROME)
ROME (DECEMBER)
[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ÆT. 46]
First, I have good news for you, as I think. Valerius has been
acquitted. Hortensius was his counsel. The verdict is thought to have
been a favour to Aulus's son; and "Epicrates,"[172] I suspect, has been
up to some mischief. I didn't like his boots and his white
leggings.[173] What it is I shall know when you arrive. When you find
fault with the narrow windows, let me tell you that you are criticising
the Cyropædeia.[174] For when I made the same remark, Cyrus used to
answer that the views of the gardens through broad lights were not so
pleasant. For let α be the eye, βγ the object seen, δ and ε the rays ...
you see the rest.[175] For if sight resulted from the impact of
images,[176] the images would be in great difficulties with a narrow
entrance: but, as it is, that "effusion" of rays gets on quite nicely.
If you have any other fault to find you won't get off without an answer,
unless it is something that can be put right without expense.
I now come to January and my "political attitude," in which, after the
manner of the Socratics, I shall put the two sides; at the end, however,
as they were wont to do, the one which I approve. It is, indeed, a
matter for profound reflexion. For I must either firmly oppose the
agrarian law--which will involve a certain struggle, but a struggle full
of glory--or I must remain altogether passive, which is about equivalent
to retiring to Solonium[177] or Antium; or, lastly, I must actually
assist the bill, which I am told Cæsar fully expects from me without any
doubt. For Cornelius has been with me (I mean Cornelius Balbus,[178]
Cæsar's intimate), and solemnly assured me that he meant to avail
himself of my advice and Pompey's in everything, and intended to
endeavour to reconcile Crassus with Pompey.[179] In this last course
there are the following advantages: a very close union with Pompey, and,
if I choose, with Cæsar also; a reconciliation with my political
enemies, peace with the common herd, ease for my old age. But the
conclusion of the third book of my own poem has a strong hold on me:
"Meanwhile the tenor of thy youth's first spring,
Which still as consul thou with all thy soul
And all thy manhood heldest, see thou keep,
And swell the chorus of all good men's praise."[180]
These verses Calliope herself dictated to me in that book, which
contains much written in an "aristocratic" spirit, and I cannot,
therefore, doubt that I shall always hold that
"The best of omens is our country's cause."[181]