your letter what you and Pompey have been saying. That any movement in
politics is impending I cannot see as clearly as you either see, or
perhaps only suggest for my consolation. For, as the case of Tigranes
was passed over, all hope of a rupture is at an end.[317] You bid me
thank Varro: I will do so; also Hypsæus.[318] As to your advice not to
go farther off till the _acta_[319] of the month of May reach me, I
think I shall do as you suggest. But where to stay? I have not yet come
to any decision. And indeed my mind is so uneasy about Quintus, that I
can determine on nothing. However, I will let you know immediately. From
the incoherent nature of my letters I think you will understand the
agitation of my mind, caused not so much by my misery, though I have
been overwhelmed by an incredible and unparalleled calamity, as by the
recollection of my blunder. For by whose unprincipled advice I was egged
on and betrayed you certainly now perceive,[320] and oh that you had
perceived it before, and had not given your whole mind to lamentation
along with me! Wherefore, when you are told that I am prostrate and
unmanned with grief, consider that I am more distressed at my own folly
than at the result of it, in having believed a man whom I did not think
to be treacherous. My writing is impeded both by the recollection of my
own disasters, and by my alarm about my brother. Yes, pray look after
and direct all the affairs you mention. Terentia expresses the warmest
gratitude to you. I have sent you a copy of the letter which I have
written to Pompey.
Thessalonica, 29 May.
[Footnote 316: Reading _ab Ilio_ with Madvig for _ab illo_.]
[Footnote 317: Tigranes, a son of the king of Armenia, was brought to
Rome by Pompey to adorn his triumph, and put under the care of Lucius
Flavius. This prince was, for a bribe, released by Clodius by a trick,
and the attempt to get him away led to a scuffle in which lives were
lost. Pompey regarded this as a slight upon himself, and his partisan,
the consul Gabinius, attempted to prevent it. But both were hustled in
the forum and treated with insults. The hope of a breach in the
triumvirate arose from the supposition that Clodius had the support of
Cæsar in his high-handed proceeding (Dio, xxxviii. 30; Plut. _Pomp._ 48;
Ascon. 47).]
[Footnote 318: P. Plautius Hypsæus, who had been Pompey's quæstor and on
intimate terms with him. He had been, it seems, interesting himself on
Cicero's behalf.]
[Footnote 319: The gazette of public transactions and measures passed in
the senate, which was sent round to the provinces. We shall hear of it
again.]
[Footnote 320: The next letter shews that he means Hortensius. The
blunder which he complains of having committed, by the advice of
Hortensius, is that of having left Rome, rather than stay and brave the
impeachment.]
LXIV (A III, 9)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
THESSALONICA, 13 JUNE
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
My brother Quintus having quitted Asia before the 1st of May, and
arrived at Athens on the 15th, he would have to make great haste to
prevent proceedings being commenced against him in his absence,
supposing there to be some one who was not content with the misfortunes
we have already sustained. Accordingly, I preferred that he should hurry
on to Rome rather than come to me; and at the same time--for I will tell
you the truth, and it will give you a notion of the extent of my
wretchedness--I could not make up my mind to see him, devotedly attached
to me as he is, and a man of most tender feelings, or to obtrude upon
him my miseries and ruin in all their wretchedness, or to endure their
being seen by him. And I was besides afraid of what certainly would have
happened--that he would not have had the resolution to leave me. I had
ever before my eyes the time when he would either have to dismiss his
lictors,[321] or be violently torn from my arms. The prospect of this
bitter pain I have avoided by the other bitter pain of not seeing my
brother. It is all you, who advised me to continue living, that have
forced me into this distressful position. Accordingly, I am paying the
penalty of my error. However, I am sustained by your letter, from which
I easily perceive how high your own hopes are. This did give me some
consolation, but only, after all, till you passed from the mention of
Pompey to the passage beginning "Now try and win over Hortensius and
men of that sort." In heaven's name, my dear Pomponius, don't you yet
perceive by whose means, by whose treachery, by whose dishonest advice,
I have been ruined? But all this I will discuss with you when we meet. I
will only say this much, which I think you know: it is not my enemies,
but my jealous rivals, that have ruined me. Now, however, if things are
really as you hope, I will keep up my spirits, and will rely upon the
hope on which you bid me rely. But if, as I myself think, this proves
illusory, what I was not allowed to do at the best time shall be done at
a worse.[322] Terentia often expresses her gratitude to you. For myself
one of my miseries also consists in fear--the business of my unhappy
brother. If I could only know how it stands, I should know what I ought
to do. Personally, the hope of the advantages and of the letters you
mention keeps me still, as you advise, at Thessalonica. If I get any
news, I shall know what I ought to do about the rest. Yes, if, as you
say in your letter, you left Rome on the 1st of June, you will soon see
us. I have sent you a letter which I wrote to Pompey.
Thessalonica, 15 June.
[Footnote 321: Because, though a provincial governor retained his
lictors till he reached Rome, he was bound to go straight home or
dismiss them.]
[Footnote 322: _I.e._, suicide.]
LXV (Q FR I, 3)
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (ON HIS WAY TO ROME)
THESSALONICA, 15 JUNE
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
Brother! Brother! Brother! did you really fear that I had been induced
by some angry feeling to send slaves to you without a letter? Or even
that I did not wish to see you? I to be angry with you! Is it possible
for me to be angry with you? Why, one would think that it was you that
brought me low! Your enemies, your unpopularity, that miserably ruined
me, and not I that unhappily ruined you! The fact is, the much-praised
consulate of mine has deprived me of you, of children, country, fortune;
from you I should hope it will have taken nothing but myself. Certainly
on your side I have experienced nothing but what was honourable and
gratifying: on mine you have grief for my fall and fear for your own,
regret, mourning, desertion. _I_ not wish to see you? The truth is
rather that I was unwilling to be seen by you. For you would not have
seen your brother--not the brother you had left, not the brother you
knew, not him to whom you had with mutual tears bidden farewell as he
followed you on your departure for your province: not a trace even or
faint image of him, but rather what I may call the likeness of a living
corpse. And oh that you had sooner seen me or heard of me as a corpse!
Oh that I could have left you to survive, not my life merely, but my
undiminished rank! But I call all the gods to witness that the one
argument which recalled me from death was, that all declared that to
some extent your life depended upon mine. In which matter I made an
error and acted culpably. For if I had died, that death itself would
have given clear evidence of my fidelity and love to you. As it is, I
have allowed you to be deprived of my aid, though I am alive, and with
me still living to need the help of others; and my voice, of all others,
to fail when dangers threatened my family, which had so often been
successfully used in the defence of the merest strangers. For as to the
slaves coming to you without a letter, the real reason (for you see that
it was not anger) was a deadness of my faculties, and a seemingly
endless deluge of tears and sorrows. How many tears do you suppose these
very words have cost me? As many as I know they will cost you to read
them! Can I ever refrain from thinking of you or ever think of you
without tears? For when I miss you, is it only a brother that I miss?
Rather it is a brother of almost my own age in the charm of his
companionship, a son in his consideration for my wishes, a father in the
wisdom of his advice! What pleasure did I ever have without you, or you
without me? And what must my case be when at the same time I miss a
daughter: How affectionate! how modest! how clever! The express image of
my face, of my speech, of my very soul! Or again a son, the prettiest
boy, the very joy of my heart? Cruel inhuman monster that I am, I
dismissed him from my arms better schooled in the world than I could
have wished: for the poor child began to understand what was going on.
So, too, your own son, your own image, whom my little Cicero loved as a
brother, and was now beginning to respect as an elder brother! Need I
mention also how I refused to allow my unhappy wife--the truest of
helpmates--to accompany me, that there might be some one to protect the
wrecks of the calamity which had fallen on us both, and guard our common
children? Nevertheless, to the best of my ability, I did write a letter
to you, and gave it to your freedman Philogonus, which, I believe, was
delivered to you later on; and in this I repeated the advice and
entreaty, which had been already transmitted to you as a message from me
by my slaves, that you should go on with your journey and hasten to
Rome. For, in the first place, I desired your protection, in case there
were any of my enemies whose cruelty was not yet satisfied by my fall.
In the next place, I dreaded the renewed lamentation which our meeting
would cause: while I could not have borne your departure, and was afraid
of the very thing you mention in your letter--that you would be unable
to tear yourself away. For these reasons the supreme pain of not seeing
you--and nothing more painful or more wretched could, I think, have
happened to the most affectionate and united of brothers--was a less
misery than would have been such a meeting followed by such a parting.
Now, if you can, though I, whom you always regarded as a brave man,
cannot do so, rouse yourself and collect your energies in view of any
contest you may have to confront. I hope, if my hope has anything to go
upon, that your own spotless character and the love of your fellow
citizens, and even remorse for my treatment, may prove a certain
protection to you. But if it turns out that you are free from personal
danger, you will doubtless do whatever you think can be done for me. In
that matter, indeed, many write to me at great length and declare that
they have hopes; but I personally cannot see what hope there is, since
my enemies have the greatest influence, while my friends have in some
cases deserted, in others even betrayed me, fearing perhaps in my
restoration a censure on their own treacherous conduct. But how matters
stand with you I would have you ascertain and report to me. In any case
I shall continue to live as long as you shall need me, in view of any
danger you may have to undergo: longer than that I cannot go on in this
kind of life. For there is neither wisdom nor philosophy with sufficient
strength to sustain such a weight of grief. I know that there has been a
time for dying, more honourable and more advantageous; and this is not
the only one of my many omissions, which, if I should choose to bewail,
I should merely be increasing your sorrow and emphasizing my own
stupidity. But one thing I am not bound to do, and it is in fact
impossible--remain in a life so wretched and so dishonoured any longer
than your necessities, or some well-grounded hope, shall demand. For I,
who was lately supremely blessed in brother, children, wife, wealth, and
in the very nature of that wealth, while in position, influence,
reputation, and popularity, I was inferior to none, however
distinguished--I cannot, I repeat, go on longer lamenting over myself
and those dear to me in a life of such humiliation as this, and in a
state of such utter ruin. Wherefore, what do you mean by writing to me
about negotiating a bill of exchange? As though I were not now wholly
dependent on your means! And that is just the very thing in which I see
and feel, to my misery, of what a culpable act I have been guilty in
squandering to no purpose the money which I received from the treasury
in your name,[323] while you have to satisfy your creditors out of the
very vitals of yourself and your son. However, the sum mentioned in your
letter has been paid to M. Antonius, and the same amount to Cæpio. For
me the sum at present in my hands is sufficient for what I contemplate
doing. For in either case--whether I am restored or given up in
despair--I shall not want any more money. For yourself, if you are
molested, I think you should apply to Crassus and Calidius. I don't know
how far Hortensius is to be trusted. Myself, with the most elaborate
pretence of affection and the closest daily intimacy, he treated with
the most utter want of principle and the most consummate treachery, and
Q. Arrius helped him in it: acting under whose advice, promises, and
injunctions, I was left helpless to fall into this disaster. But this
you will keep dark for fear they might injure you. Take care also--and
it is on this account that I think you should cultivate Hortensius
himself by means of Pomponius--that the epigram on the _lex
Aurelia_[324] attributed to you when candidate for the ædileship is not
proved by false testimony to be yours. For there is nothing that I am so
afraid of as that, when people understand how much pity for me your
prayers and your acquittal will rouse, they may attack you with all the
greater violence. Messalla I reckon as really attached to you: Pompey I
regard as still pretending only. But may you never have to put these
things to the test! And that prayer I would have offered to the gods had
they not ceased to listen to prayers of mine. However, I do pray that
they may be content with these endless miseries of ours; among which,
after all, there is no discredit for any wrong thing done--sorrow is the
beginning and end, sorrow that punishment is most severe when our
conduct has been most unexceptionable. As to my daughter and yours and
my young Cicero, why should I recommend them to you, my dear brother?
Rather I grieve that their orphan state will cause you no less sorrow
than it does me. Yet as long as you are uncondemned they will not be
fatherless. The rest, by my hopes of restoration and the privilege of
dying in my fatherland, my tears will not allow me to write! Terentia
also I would ask you to protect, and to write me word on every subject.
Be as brave as the nature of the case admits.
Thessalonica, 13 June.
[Footnote 323: See pp. 92, 107.]
[Footnote 324: Quintus was a candidate in B.C. 66 for the ædileship of
the following year. The _lex Aurelia_, which divided the juries between
the senators, equites, and _tribuni ærarii_, was passed in Pompey's
first consulship, B.C. 70. As this was the compromise in the matter of
the _iudicia_ favoured by Pompey, Hortensius, and the like, an attack on
it would be likely to give offence.]
LXVI (A III, 10)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
THESSALONICA, 17 JUNE
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
The public transactions up to the 25th of May I have learnt from your
letter. I am waiting for the rest, as you advised, at Thessalonica; and
when they arrive I shall be better able to decide where to be. For if
there is any reason, if any action is being taken, if I shall see any
hopes, I shall either wait in the same place or go to your house; but
if, as you say, these hopes have vanished into air, I shall look out for
something else. At present you do not give me any indication except the
disagreement of those friends of yours, which, however, arises between
them on every kind of subject rather than myself. Therefore I don't see
what good it is to me. However, as long as you all will have me hope, I
shall obey you. For as to your scoldings so frequent and so severe, and
your saying that I am faint-hearted, I would ask you what misery is
there so heavy as not to be included in my disfranchisement? Did anyone
ever fall from such a high position, in so good a cause, with such
endowments of genius, wisdom and popularity, with such powerful supports
from all loyalists? Can I forget what I was, and not feel what I am? Of
what honour, of what glory, of what children, of what means, of what a
brother I am deprived? This last, indeed, to draw your attention to a
new kind of disaster--though I valued him, and always had done so, more
than myself--I have avoided seeing, lest I should behold his grief and
mourning, or lest I--whom he had left in the highest prosperity--should
obtrude myself upon him in a state of ruin and humiliation. I pass over
the other particulars that are past bearing: for I am prevented by my
tears. And here, let me ask, am I to be blamed for my grief, or for the
unfortunate mistake of not retaining these advantages (and I could
easily have done so, had not a plot for my destruction been hatched
within my own walls), or at least of not losing them without losing my
life at the same time? My purpose in writing these words is that you
should rather console me, as you do, than think me deserving of
correction or chiding; and the reason of the comparative brevity of my
letters is, in the first place, that I am hindered by outbursts of
sorrow, and, in the second place, that I have news to expect from Rome
rather than any to communicate myself. But when that news arrives I will
let you know my plans. Pray, as you have done hitherto, write to me on
as many subjects as possible, that I may not be ignorant of any possible
thing there is to know.
Thessalonica, 17 June.
LXVII (A III, 11)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
THESSALONICA, 27 JUNE
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
I have been kept at Thessalonica up to this time as well by your letter
and some good news (which, however, did not rest on the best authority),
and the expectation of hearing from you all at Rome, as by the fact that
you advised my doing so. When I receive the letters which I expect, if
there turns out to be the hope which rumour brings me, I shall go to
your house;[325] if otherwise, I will inform you of what I have done.
Pray go on, as you are doing, and help me by your exertions, advice, and
influence. Cease now consoling me, but yet don't chide me; for when you
do that, I fail to recognize your affection and regret! Yet I believe
you to be so distressed yourself at my wretchedness, that it is not
within anyone's power to console you. Give your support to Quintus, my
best and kindest of brothers. Pray write to me fully on everything.
27 June.
[Footnote 325: _I.e._, to the house of Atticus at Buthrotum.]
LXVIII (A III, 12)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
THESSALONICA, 17 JULY
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
Well, you argue earnestly as to what hope is to be entertained, and
especially through the action of the senate, and yet you mention that
the clause of the bill is being posted up, in virtue of which the
subject is forbidden to be mentioned in the senate. Accordingly, not a
word is said about it. In these circumstances you find fault with me for
distressing myself, when the fact is I am already more distressed than
anybody ever was, as you know very well. You hold out hope as a
consequence of the elections. What hope can there be with the same man
tribune, and a consul-designate who is my enemy?[326] But you have dealt
me a blow in what you say about my speech having got abroad.[327] Pray
do your best to heal that wound, as you express it. I did indeed write
one some time ago, in a fit of anger at what he had first composed
against me; but I had taken such pains to suppress it, that I thought it
would never get into circulation. How it has leaked out I cannot think.
But since the occasion never arose for my having a word of dispute with
him, and since it appears to me to be more carelessly written than my
other speeches, I think it might be maintained not to be by me. Pray
look after this if you think I can do anything to remedy the mischief;
but if my ruin is inevitable, I don't so much care about it. I am still
lying idle in the same place, without conversation, without being able
to think. Though, as you say, I have "intimated" to you my desire that
you should come to me, yet it is now clear to me[328] that you are doing
me useful service where you are, but could not give me even a word of
relief here. I cannot write any more, nor have I anything to say: I am
rather waiting to hear from you all.
Thessalonica, 17 July.
[Footnote 326: Clodius was not re-elected, and Q. Cæcilius Metellus
Nepos, who had as tribune (B.C. 63-62) been hostile to Cicero, now as
consul supported Pompey in befriending Cicero.]
[Footnote 327: The speech in the senate _in Curionem et Clodium_,
_i.e._, against the elder C. Curio, who had been Clodius's advocate in
B.C. 61 on the charge _de incesto_. Fragments only of it are preserved.
They are sufficiently violent. Cicero suggests repudiating the
authorship, because the speech had never been delivered, and therefore
was not necessarily intended for publication. There is no special reason
for abusing Cicero's character on this account. If some enemy had got
hold of the MS. and published it without his consent, it was not really
the expression of his deliberate sentiments.]
[Footnote 328: Reading _nunc tamen intellego_ for _si donatam ut
intellego_, which is meaningless. There may be latent in _si donatam_
some proper name, as _Dodonam_ or _Macedoniam_, but it is not possible
to extract it now. _Istic_, as usual, means "where you are," _i.e._, at
Rome.]
LXIX (A III, 14)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
THESSALONICA, 21 JULY
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]
From your letter I am full of anxiety to hear what Pompey's view is of
my case, or what he professes to be his view. The elections, I presume,
are over; and when they were over you say that he was of opinion that my
case should be mooted. If I seem foolish to you for entertaining hopes,
it is at your bidding that I do so: yet I know that you have in your
letters been usually inclined rather to check me and my hopes. Now pray
write distinctly what your view is. I know that I have fallen into this
distress from numerous errors of my own. If certain accidents have in
any degree corrected those errors, I shall be less sorry that I
preserved my life then and am still living. Owing to the constant
traffic along the road[329] and the daily expectation of political
change, I have as yet not removed from Thessalonica. But now I am being
forced away, not by Plancius--for he, indeed, wishes to keep me
here--but by the nature of the place, which is not at all calculated for
the residence of a disfranchised man in such a state of sorrow. I have
not gone to Epirus, as I had said I would, because all of a sudden the
messages and letters that arrived have all indicated it to be
unnecessary for me to be in the immediate neighbourhood of Italy. From
this place, as soon as I have heard something about the elections, I
shall set my face towards Asia, but to what particular part I am not yet
certain: however, you shall know.
Thessalonica, 21 July.
[Footnote 329: The _via Egnatia_, the road across Macedonia, which was
one of the great channels of communication between Rome and the East,
and which terminated at Thessalonica.]
LXX (A III, 13)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
THESSALONICA, 5 AUGUST
[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]