expressed in my presence amazingly warm thanks to you, saying that you
have given most complete and liberal promises to his agents. Since your
words have roused such gratitude in him, you may imagine how grateful he
will be for the thing itself, when, as I hope, you will have performed
your promise. In any case the people of Bullis have shewn that they
intend to do Lucceius right according to the award of Pompey. But we
have very great need of the additional support of your wishes,
influence, and prætorian authority. That you should give us these I beg
you again and again. And this will be particularly gratifying to me,
because Lucceius's agents know, and Lucceius himself gathered from your
letter to him, that no one's influence has greater weight with you than
mine. I ask you once more, and reiterate my request, that he may find
that to be the case by practical experience.
[Footnote 297: There is no direct means of dating these letters, as we
have no other information as to the proconsulship of Culleolus.
Illyricum was not always a separate government, but was sometimes under
the governor of Macedonia, sometimes under the governor of Gaul. The
indications of date are (1) Pompey is at home and often seen by Cicero,
therefore it is not between the spring of B.C. 67 and the end of 62; (2)
it is not later than March, B.C. 58, because from that time for ten
years Cæsar was governor of Illyricum, and before he ceased to be so
Pompey had left Italy, never to return. Even if Culleolus was not
governor of Illyricum, but of Macedonia, the same argument holds good,
for C. Antonius was in Macedonia B.C. 63-60, and Octavius from B.C. 60
to March, B.C. 59. That is, Culleolus could not have been in Macedonia
while Pompey was in Italy till after March, B.C. 59.]
[Footnote 298: L. Lucceius, whom we have heard of before as a candidate
for the consulship with Cæsar, and whom we shall hear of again as the
author of a history of the social and civil wars (Sulla and Marius), and
as being asked to write on Cicero's consulship. He was a close friend of
Pompey, and took his side in B.C. 49 (Cæs. _B. C._ iii. 18). The people
of Bullis owed Lucceius money, and Cicero asks for "mandatory letters"
from Culleolus to get it.]
LIV (F XIII, 41)
TO L. CULLEOLUS (IN ILLYRICUM)
ROME
[Sidenote: B.C. 59, ÆT. 47]
In what you have done for the sake of L. Lucceius, I wish you to be
fully aware that you have obliged a man who will be exceedingly
grateful; and that, while this is very much the case with Lucceius
himself, so also Pompey as often as he sees me--and he sees me very
often--thanks you in no common terms. I add also, what I know will be
exceedingly gratifying to you, that I am myself immensely delighted with
your kindness to Lucceius. For the rest, though I have no doubt that as
you acted before for my sake, so now, for the sake of your own
consistency, you will abide by your liberal intentions, yet I reiterate
my request to you with all earnestness, that what you first gave us
reason to hope, and then actually carried out, you would be so good as
to see extended and brought to a final completion by your means. I
assure you, and I pledge my credit to it, that such a course will be
exceedingly gratifying to both Lucceius and Pompey, and that you will be
making a most excellent investment with them. About politics, and about
the business going on here, and what we are all thinking about, I wrote
to you in full detail a few days ago, and delivered the letter to your
servants. Farewell.
LETTERS IN EXILE
[Sidenote: B.C. 58. Coss., L. Piso, A. Gabinius.]
We have no record in Cicero's correspondence of the final measures
taken by Clodius against him. We find him when the correspondence
for this year opens on his way to exile: all his boasts of staying
and fighting have been thrown to the winds. Clodius, indeed, had
not simply done what Cicero expected at the worst--impeached him.
He had gone more systematically to work. Among other measures
calculated to win popularity, he proposed a modification of the
_lex Ælia Fufia_, declaring it illegal for a magistrate to stop
legislative _comitia_ by "watching the sky." Thus freed from one
hindrance, he next proposed and carried a law for the prosecution
of any magistrate who had put a citizen to death without trial
(_qui indemnatos cives necavisset_). Cicero at once recognized his
danger: if the people voted this law, a jury could scarcely fail to
condemn. The triumvirs would do nothing. Pompey, after all his
promises, avoided seeing Cicero as much as possible: Cæsar offered
him a _legatio_ again; and though he spoke against giving the law a
retrospective effect, he could not consistently object to the law
itself, and shewed no sign of desiring to shelter Cicero, except on
his consenting to leave Rome. Cicero then adopted the course which
was open to all citizens threatened with a prosecution--that of
going away from Rome--and started apparently with the view of going
to Malta. Whether it was wise or not, Cicero afterwards lamented
having taken this course, and thought that he had better have
braved the danger and stood his trial. It at any rate facilitated
the next move of Clodius, who proposed and carried a bill
forbidding Cicero "fire and water" within 500 (afterwards reduced
to 400) miles of Italy, and confiscating his property. Accordingly,
Cicero had to go much farther than he had intended. He crossed from
Brundisium to Dyrrachium, and proceeded along the _via Egnatia_ to
its terminus at Thessalonica, where he spent the autumn, B.C. 58.
In November, B.C. 58, he returned to Dyrrachium, ready for the
recall which he heard was imminent. Meanwhile his town house was
destroyed, its site made a _templum_, and a statue of Liberty set
up in it, and his villas at Tusculum and Antium dismantled. The
dangers of his position are not exaggerated in his letters, and may
account for much of their melancholy tone. He had lost the
protection of the laws, and any one of his many enemies meeting him
might have killed him with practical impunity. He seems to have
left Rome in April.
LV (A III, 3)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
VIBO, APRIL
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
I hope I may see the day when I shall thank you for having compelled me
to remain alive! At present I thoroughly repent it. But I beg you to
come and see me at Vibo at once, to which town I have for several
reasons directed my journey.[299] But if you will only come there, I
shall be able to consult you about my entire journey and exile. If you
don't do so, I shall be surprised, but I feel sure you will.
[Footnote 299: Mod. _Monte Leone_, on the road to Rhegium, from which at
this time Cicero meant to cross to Sicily, and thence to Malta.]
LVI (A III, 2)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
NARES LUCANÆ,[300] APRIL
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
The reason for having come this journey is that there was no place where
I could be independent except on Sica's estate,[301] especially till the
bill is emended,[302] and at the same time because I find that from this
spot I can reach Brundisium, if you were only with me, but without you I
cannot stay in those parts owing to Autronius.[303] At present, as I
said in my previous letter, if you will come to me, we shall be able to
form a plan for the whole business. I know the journey is troublesome,
but the whole calamity is full of troubles. I cannot write more, I am so
heart-broken and dejected. Take care of your health.
From Nares Lucanæ, 8 April.
[Footnote 300: Nares Lucanæ (_Monte Nero_), near the River Silarus, and
on the _via Popilia_ (south-western branch of the _Appia_). Cicero has
therefore come north again from Vibo, having given up the idea of
Rhegium and Sicily, and making for Beneventum, and so by the _via Appia_
for Brundisium.]
[Footnote 301: A friend of Cicero's, of whose death at Brundisium we
afterwards hear (_Fam._ xiv. 4, § 6).]
[Footnote 302: The bill originally named 500 miles as the distance from
Italy. Before passing it had to be put up in public three weeks
(_trinundinæ_), and meanwhile might be amended, and was amended to 400.]
[Footnote 303: P. Autronius Pætus, one of Catiline's confederates, who
would injure Cicero if he could. Cicero would not be able to reach
Epirus without coming within his reach; for he had been condemned for
_ambitus_, and was in exile there or in Achaia. _Illas partes_=Epirus.]
LVII (A III, 4)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
NEAR VIBO, APRIL
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
I hope you will attribute my sudden departure from Vibo, whither I had
asked you come, to my unhappiness rather than to fickleness. A copy of
the bill for my ruin was brought to me, in which the correction of which
I had been told was to the effect that I might legally remain anywhere
beyond 400 miles. Since I was not allowed to go yonder,[304] I set out
towards Brundisium before the day for carrying the bill had come, both
to prevent Sica, in whose house I was staying, from being ruined,[305]
and because I was prevented from residing at Malta. So now make haste to
catch me up, if only I shall find any welcome there.[306] At present I
receive kind invitations. But about the rest of my journey I am nervous.
Truly, my dear Pomponius, I am very sorry I consented to live: in which
matter you exercised the chief influence with me. But of these things
when we meet. Only be sure and come.
[Footnote 304: To Malta. The proprætor of Sicily, C. Vergilius, opposed
his going to Malta, which was in the province of Sicily, though it had a
_primus_ of its own (_Planc._ 40; Plut. _Cic._ 32).]
[Footnote 305: Because of entertaining the condemned man, a special
proviso in this law (Dio, xxxviii. 17).]
[Footnote 306: In Epirus, believing that Atticus will understand that
his going to Brundisium means that he will go to Epirus: and as Atticus
lives there, he naturally asks him to come to meet him. Epirus was, for
certain purposes at least, in the province of Macedonia, and it depended
on the governor, L. Appuleius Saturninus, what reception he would meet.
His friend Plancius was quæstor.]
LVIII (A III, 1)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
FROM THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THURIUM, ON THE WAY TO BRUNDISIUM, APRIL
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
I always thought that it was of great importance to me that you should
be with me: but when I read the bill, then, indeed, I understood that
there could be nothing more desirable for me than that you should
overtake me as soon as possible, in order that, if after quitting Italy
I should have to travel through Epirus, I might avail myself of your
protection and that of your friends; or, if I had to adopt any other
plan, I might come to some definite resolution in accordance with your
opinion. Wherefore I beg you to do your best to overtake me promptly,
which will be easier for you to do since the law about the province of
Macedonia has now been passed.[307] I would urge you at greater length
were it not that with you facts speak for me.
[Footnote 307: One of Clodius's concessions to the consuls, to keep them
quiet, was to get Macedonia assigned by a _lex_ to L. Calpurnius Piso.
As Atticus lived in what was practically part of the province, and had
much business there, it was important to him to be on the spot, and try
to influence the choice of a governor. That being over, he would not
have so much to detain him in Rome.]
LIX (A III, 5)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
THURIUM, 10 APRIL
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
Terentia thanks you frequently and very warmly. That is a great comfort
to me. I am the most miserable man alive, and am being worn out with the
most poignant sorrow. I don't know what to write to you. For if you are
at Rome, it is now too late for you to reach me; but if you are on the
road, we shall discuss together all that needs to be discussed when you
have overtaken me. All I ask you is to retain the same affection for me,
since it was always myself you loved. For I am the same man: my enemies
have taken what was mine, they have not taken myself. Take care of your
health.
From Thurium, 10 April.
LX (A III, 6)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
ON THE WAY TO TARENTUM, 18 APRIL
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
I had felt certain of seeing you at Tarentum or Brundisium, and that was
of importance to me in many respects: among others, as to my being able
to stay in Epirus and consult you about the future. My disappointment in
this is only another item in the long list of my misfortunes.[308] I
mean to go to Asia, to Cyzicus for choice. I commend my family to you. I
am very wretched and can scarcely support my life.
From near Tarentum, 17 April.
[Footnote 308: We suppose that Cicero has heard from Atticus that he is
not going to be at Tarentum or Brundisium, for he writes before arriving
at either.]
LXI (F XIV, 4)
TO TERENTIA, TULLIOLA, AND YOUNG CICERO (AT ROME)
BRUNDISIUM, 29 APRIL
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
Yes, I do write to you less often than I might, because, though I am
always wretched, yet when I write to you or read a letter from you, I am
in such floods of tears that I cannot endure it. Oh, that I had clung
less to life! I should at least never have known real sorrow, or not
much of it, in my life. Yet if fortune has reserved for me _any_ hope of
recovering at any time any position again, I was not utterly wrong to do
so: if these miseries are to be permanent, I only wish, my dear, to see
you as soon as possible and to die in your arms, since neither gods,
whom you have worshipped with such pure devotion, nor men, whom I have
ever served, have made us any return. I have been thirteen days at
Brundisium in the house of M. Lænius Flaccus, a very excellent man, who
has despised the risk to his fortunes and civil existence in comparison
to keeping me safe, nor has been induced by the penalty of a most
iniquitous law to refuse me the rights and good offices of hospitality
and friendship. May I some time have the opportunity of repaying him!
Feel gratitude I always shall. I set out from Brundisium on the 29th of
April,[309] and intend going through Macedonia to Cyzicus. What a fall!
What a disaster! What can I say? Should I ask you to come--a woman of
weak health and broken spirit? Should I refrain from asking you? Am I to
be without you, then? I think the best course is this: if there is any
hope of my restoration, stay to promote it and push the thing on: but
if, as I fear, it proves hopeless, pray come to me by any means in your
power. Be sure of this, that if I have you I shall not think myself
wholly lost. But what is to become of my darling Tullia? You must see to
that now: I can think of nothing. But certainly, however things turn
out, we must do everything to promote that poor little girl's married
happiness and reputation. Again, what is my boy Cicero to do? Let him,
at any rate, be ever in my bosom and in my arms.[310] I can't write
more. A fit of weeping hinders me. I don't know how you have got on;
whether you are left in possession of anything, or have been, as I fear,
entirely plundered. Piso, as you say, I hope will always be our friend.
As to the manumission of the slaves you need not be uneasy. To begin
with, the promise made to yours was that you would treat them according
as each severally deserved. So far Orpheus has behaved well, besides him
no one very markedly so. With the rest of the slaves the arrangement is
that, if my property is forfeited, they should become my freedmen,
supposing them to be able to maintain at law that status.[311] But if my
property remained in my ownership, they were to continue slaves, with
the exception of a very few. But these are trifles. To return to your
advice, that I should keep up my courage and not give up hope of
recovering my position, I only wish that there were any good grounds for
entertaining such a hope. As it is, when, alas! shall I get a letter
from you? Who will bring it me? I would have waited for it at
Brundisium, but the sailors would not allow it, being unwilling to lose
a favourable wind. For the rest, put as dignified a face on the matter
as you can, my dear Terentia. Our life is over: we have had our day: it
is not any fault of ours that has ruined us, but our virtue. I have made
no false step, except in not losing my life when I lost my honours. But
since our children preferred my living, let us bear everything else,
however intolerable. And yet I, who encourage you, cannot encourage
myself. I have sent that faithful fellow Clodius Philhetærus home,
because he was hampered with weakness of the eyes. Sallustius seems
likely to outdo everybody in his attentions. Pescennius is exceedingly
kind to me; and I have hopes that he will always be attentive to you.
Sica had said that he would accompany me; but he has left Brundisium.
Take the greatest possible care of your health, and believe me that I am
more affected by your distress than my own. My dear Terentia, most
faithful and best of wives, and my darling little daughter, and that
last hope of my race, Cicero, good-bye!
29 April, from Brundisium.
[Footnote 309: Reading _prid. Kal._ instead of _a. d. II. Kal._, which
Tyrrell calls _audacius_ in Schutz. But absolute nonsense is not to be
kept even for a MS.
(1) Cicero says that he has been thirteen days at Brundisium. In the
next letter he tells Atticus he arrived on the 17th. That, in the Roman
way of counting, brings it to _prid._ (29th).
(2) Either the date at the end of the letter is wrong, or _prid._ must
be used here
(3) There is no such date properly as _a. d. II. Kal._ The day before
_prid._ is _a. d. III_.
In regard to dates we must remember that Cicero is using the præ-Julian
calendar, in which all months, except February, March, May, July, and
October, had twenty-nine days. These last four had thirty-one and
February twenty-eight.]
[Footnote 310: Cicero does not mean that young Marcus is to come to him
at once, but that, when Tullia's marriage portion is settled, Terentia
is to bring him with her if she comes. Really he didn't mean any of them
to come, at any rate for a long while. Piso is Tullia's husband.]
[Footnote 311: If Cicero's property was confiscated, it might be held
that the slaves went with it, and would be sold with it, and that his
manumission of them was an evasion, which could not hold good at law. If
his property was not confiscated, they were to remain in their status as
slaves. See Letter CXCII.]
LXII (A III, 7)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
BRUNDISIUM, 29 APRIL
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
I arrived at Brundisium on the 17th of April. On that day your slaves
delivered me your letter, and some other slaves, on the next day but
one, brought me another. As to your invitation and advice to stay at
your house in Epirus, your kindness is most gratifying, and far from
being a novelty. It is a plan that would have exactly suited my wishes,
if I might have spent all my time there: for I loathe a crowd of
visitors, I can scarcely bear the light, and that solitude, especially
in a spot so familiar, would have been the reverse of disagreeable. But
to put up there as a mere stage in my journey! In the first place it is
far out of my way, and in the next it is only four days from Autronius
and the rest, and in the third place you are not there. Had I been going
to reside permanently, a fortified castle would have been an advantage,
but to one only passing through it is unnecessary. Why, if I had not
been afraid, I should have made for Athens[312]--there were
circumstances that made me much wish to go--but as it is, I have enemies
in the neighbourhood, you are not there, and I fear they[313] might hold
even that town not to be the legal distance from Italy, nor do you
mention by what day I am to expect you. As to your urging me to remain
alive, you carry one point--that I should not lay violent hands upon
myself: the other you cannot bring to pass--that I should not regret my
policy and my continuance in life. For what is there to attach me to it,
especially if the hope which accompanied me on my departure is
non-existent? I will not attempt to enumerate all the miseries into
which I have fallen through the extreme injustice and unprincipled
conduct, not so much of my enemies, as of those who were jealous of me,
because I do not wish to stir up a fresh burst of grief in myself, or
invite you to share the same sorrow. I say this deliberately--that no
one was ever afflicted with so heavy a calamity, that no one had ever
greater cause to wish for death; while I have let slip the time when I
might have sought it most creditably. Henceforth death can never heal,
it can only end my sorrow.[314] In politics I perceive that you collect
all circumstances that you think may inspire me with a hope of a change:
and though they are insignificant, yet, since you will have it so, let
us have patience. In spite of what you say, you will catch us up if you
make haste. For I will either come into Epirus to be near you, or I will
travel slowly through Candavia.[315] My hesitation about Epirus is not
caused by vacillation on my part, but by the fact that I do not know
where I am likely to see my brother. As to him, I neither know how I am
to see him, nor how I shall let him go. That is the greatest and most
distressing of all my distresses. I would indeed have written to you
oftener, and at greater length, had it not been that sorrow, while it
has affected all parts of my intellect, has above all entirely destroyed
my faculty for this kind of writing. I long to see you. Take care of
your health.
Brundisium, 29 April.
[Footnote 312: He means that had it not been for enemies in Greece and
Epirus, he should not only have gone as far south as Epirus, but
farther--to Athens. There is a good deal to be said for Schutz's
reading, _Achaiam_ for _Athenas_, but as the MS. reading can be
explained, it is safer to keep it.]
[Footnote 313: The Clodian party at Rome. "That town" is Athens.]
[Footnote 314: "I have lost my chance of dying with honour; henceforth
death may end my grief, but cannot heal my damaged reputation." _Reliqua
tempora_, _i.e._, other opportunities of suicide.]
[Footnote 315: A mountain range in Illyria, over which the _via Egnatia_
passes (mod. _Elbassán_).]
LXIII (A III, 8)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
THESSALONICA, 29 MAY
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
I wrote to you at Brundisium, when on the point of starting, the reasons
for my not going to Epirus: namely, the proximity of Achaia, which was
full of enemies of the most unscrupulous character, and secondly, the
difficulty of leaving it when I wished to resume my journey. Added to
this, while I was at Dyrrachium two messages reached me: the first, that
my brother was coming from Ephesus to Athens by ship; the second, that
he was coming through Macedonia by land. Accordingly, I sent a message
to meet him at Athens, telling him to come thence to Thessalonica. I
myself continued my journey, and arrived at Thessalonica on the 23rd of
May, but have no certain intelligence about his journey except that he
had left Ephesus some time ago. At present I am feeling very nervous as
to what steps are being taken at Rome. Although you say in one of your
letters, dated the 15th of May, that you hear that he will be vigorously
prosecuted, in another you say that things are calming down. But then
the latter is dated a day before the former; which makes me all the more
anxious. So while my own personal sorrow is every day tearing my heart
and wearing out my strength, this additional anxiety indeed scarcely
leaves me any life at all. However, the voyage itself was very
difficult, and he perhaps, being uncertain where I was, has taken some
other course. For my freedman Phaetho saw nothing of him. Phaetho was
driven by the wind from Ilium[316] to Macedonia, and met me at Pella.
How formidable other circumstances are I am fully aware, and I don't
know what to say to you. I fear everything, nor is there any misery
which would not seem possible in my present unfortunate position.
Miserable as I still am in the midst of my heavy trials and sorrows, now
that this anxiety is added to them, I remain at Thessalonica in a state
of suspense without venturing upon any step whatever.