the estate which we bought for you a few weeks ago at Arpinum for
100,000 sesterces (about £800). I never saw a shadier spot in
summer--water springs in many parts of it, and abundant into the
bargain. In short, Cæsius thought that you would easily irrigate fifty
_iugera_ of the meadow land. For my part, I can assure you of this,
which is more in my line, that you will have a villa marvellously
pleasant, with the addition of a fish-pond, spouting fountains, a
_palæstra_, and a shrubbery. I am told that you wish to keep this
Bovillæ estate. You will determine as you think good. Calvus said that,
even if the control of the water were taken from you, and the right of
drawing it off were established by the vendor, and thus an easement were
imposed on that property, we could yet maintain the price in case we
wished to sell. He said that he had agreed with you to do the work at
three sesterces a foot, and that he had stepped it, and made it three
miles. It seemed to me more. But I will guarantee that the money could
nowhere be better laid out. I had sent for Cillo from Venafrum, but on
that very day four of his fellow servants and apprentices had been
crushed by the falling in of a tunnel at Venafrum. On the 13th of
September I was at Laterium. I examined the road, which appeared to me
to be so good as to seem almost like a high road, except a hundred and
fifty paces--for I measured it myself from the little bridge at the
temple of Furina, in the direction of Satricum. There they had put down
dust, not gravel (this shall be changed), and that part of the road is a
very steep incline. But I understood that it could not be taken in any
other direction, particularly as you did not wish it to go through the
property of Locusta or Varro. The latter alone had made the road very
well where it skirted his own property. Locusta hadn't touched it; but I
will call on him at Rome, and think I shall be able to stir him up, and
at the same time I shall ask M. Taurus, who is now at Rome, and whom I
am told promised to allow you to do so, about making a watercourse
through his property. I much approved of your steward Nicephorius, and I
asked him what orders you had given about that small building at
Laterium, about which you spoke to me. He told me in answer that he had
himself contracted to do the work for sixteen sestertia (about £128),
but that you had afterwards made many additions to the work, but nothing
to the price, and that he had therefore given it up. I quite approve, by
Hercules, of your making the additions you had determined upon; although
the villa as it stands seems to have the air of a philosopher, meant to
rebuke the extravagance of other villas. Yet, after all, that addition
will be pleasing. I praised your landscape gardener: he has so covered
everything with ivy, both the foundation-wall of the villa and the
spaces between the columns of the walk, that, upon my word, those Greek
statues seemed to be engaged in fancy gardening, and to be shewing off
the ivy. Finally, nothing can be cooler or more mossy than the
dressing-room of the bath. That is about all I have to say about country
matters. The gardener, indeed, as well as Philotimus and Cincius are
pressing on the ornamentation of your town house; but I also often look
in upon it myself, as I can do without difficulty. Wherefore don't be at
all anxious about that.
As to your always asking me about your son, of course I "excuse you";
but I must ask you to "excuse" me also, for I don't allow that you love
him more than I do. And oh that he had been with me these last few days
at Arpinum, as he had himself set his heart on being, and as I had no
less done! As to Pomponia, please write and say that, when I go out of
town anywhere, she is to come with me and bring the boy. I'll do wonders
with him, if I get him to myself when I am at leisure: for at Rome there
is no time to breathe. You know I formerly promised to do so for
nothing. What do you expect with such a reward as you promise me? I now
come to your letters which I received in several packets when I was at
Arpinum. For I received three from you in one day, and, indeed, as it
seemed, despatched by you at the same time--one of considerable length,
in which your first point was that my letter to you was dated earlier
than that to Cæsar. Oppius at times cannot help this: the reason is
that, having settled to send letter-carriers, and having received a
letter from me, he is hindered by something turning up, and obliged to
despatch them later than he had intended; and I don't take the trouble
to have the day altered on a letter which I have once handed to him. You
write about Cæsar's extreme affection for us. This affection you must on
your part keep warm, and I for mine will endeavour to increase it by
every means in my power. About Pompey, I am carefully acting, and shall
continue to act, as you advise. That my permission to you to stay longer
is a welcome one, though I grieve at your absence and miss you
exceedingly, I am yet partly glad. What you can be thinking of in
sending for such people as Hippodamus and some others, I do not
understand. There is not one of those fellows that won't expect a
present from you equal to a suburban estate. However, there is no reason
for your classing my friend Trebatius with them. I sent him to Cæsar,
and Cæsar has done all I expected. If he has not done quite what _he_
expected himself, I am not bound to make it up to him, and I in like
manner free and absolve you from all claims on his part. Your remark,
that you are a greater favourite with Cæsar every day, is a source of
undying satisfaction to me. As to Balbus, who, as you say, promotes that
state of things, he is the apple of my eye. I am indeed glad that you
and my friend Trebonius like each other. As to what you say about the
military tribuneship, I, indeed, asked for it definitely for Curtius,
and Cæsar wrote back definitely to say that there was one at Curtius's
service, and chided me for my modesty in making the request. If I have
asked one for anyone else--as I told Oppius to write and tell Cæsar--I
shall not be at all annoyed by a refusal, since those who pester me for
letters _are_ annoyed at a refusal from me. I like Curtius, as I have
told him, not only because you asked me to do so, but from the
character you gave of him; for from your letter I have gathered the zeal
he shewed for my restoration. As for the British expedition, I conclude
from your letter that we have no occasion either for fear or exultation.
As to public affairs, about which you wish Tiro to write to you, I have
written to you hitherto somewhat more carelessly than usual, because I
knew that all events, small or great, were reported to Cæsar. I have now
answered your longest letter.
Now hear what I have to say to your small one. The first point is about
Clodius's letter to Cæsar. In that matter I approve of Cæsar's policy,
in not having given way to your request so far as to write a single word
to that Fury. The next thing is about the speech of Calventius
"Marius."[622] I am surprised at your saying that you think I ought to
answer it, particularly as, while no one is likely to read that speech,
unless I write an answer to it, every schoolboy learns mine against him
as an exercise. My books, all of which you are expecting, I have begun,
but I cannot finish them for some days yet. The speeches for Scaurus and
Plancius which you clamour for I have finished. The poem to Cæsar, which
I had begun, I have cut short. I will write what you ask me for, since
your poetic springs are running dry, as soon as I have time.
Now for the third letter. It is very pleasant and welcome news to hear
from you that Balbus is soon coming to Rome, and so well
accompanied![623] and will stay with me continuously till the 15th of
May. As to your exhorting me in the same letter, as in many previous
ones, to ambition and labour, I shall, of course, do as you say: but
when am I to enjoy any real life?
Your fourth letter reached me on the 13th of September, dated on the
10th of August from Britain. In it there was nothing new except about
your _Erigona_, and if I get that from Oppius I will write and tell you
what I think of it. I have no doubt I shall like it.[624] Oh yes! I had
almost forgotten to remark as to the man who, you say in your letter,
had written to Cæsar about the applause given to Milo--I am not
unwilling that Cæsar should think that it was as warm as possible. And
in point of fact it was so, and yet that applause, which is given to
him, seems in a certain sense to be given to me.[625]
I have also received a very old letter, but which was late in coming
into my hands, in which you remind me about the temple of Tellus and the
colonnade of Catulus. Both of these matters are being actively carried
out. At the temple of Tellus I have even got your statue placed. So,
again, as to your reminder about a suburban villa and gardens, I was
never very keen for one, and now my town house has all the charm of such
a pleasure-ground. On my arrival in Rome on the 18th of September I
found the roof on your house finished: the part over the sitting-rooms,
which you did not wish to have many gables, now slopes gracefully
towards the roof of the lower colonnade. Our boy, in my absence, did not
cease working with his rhetoric master. You have no reason for being
anxious about his education, for you know his ability, and I see his
application. Everything else I take it upon myself to guarantee, with
full consciousness that I am bound to make it good.
As yet there are three parties prosecuting Gabinius: first, L. Lentulus,
son of the _flamen_, who has entered a prosecution for _lèse
majesté_;[626] secondly, Tib. Nero, with good names at the back of his
indictment; thirdly, C. Memmius the tribune in conjunction with L.
Capito. He came to the walls of the city on the 19th of September,
undignified and neglected to the last degree. But in the present state
of the law courts I do not venture to be confident of anything. As Cato
is unwell, he has not yet been formally indicted for extortion. Pompey
is trying hard to persuade me to be reconciled to him, but as yet he has
not succeeded at all, nor, if I retain a shred of liberty, will he
succeed. I am very anxious for a letter from you. You say that you have
been told that I was a party to the coalition of the consular
candidates--it is a lie. The compacts made in that coalition, afterwards
made public by Memmius, were of such a nature that no loyal man ought to
have been a party to them;[627] nor at the same time was it possible for
me to be a party to a coalition from which Messalla was excluded, who is
thoroughly satisfied with my conduct in every particular, as also, I
think, is Memmius. To Domitius himself I have rendered many services,
which he desired and asked of me. I have put Scaurus under a heavy
obligation by my defence of him. It is as yet very uncertain both when
the elections will be and who will be consuls.
Just as I was folding up this epistle letter-carriers arrived from you
and Cæsar (20th September) after a journey of twenty days. How anxious I
was! How painfully I was affected by Cæsar's most kind letter![628] But
the kinder it was, the more sorrow did his loss occasion me. But to turn
to your letter. To begin with, I reiterate my approval of your staying
on, especially as, according to your account, you have consulted Cæsar
on the subject. I wonder that Oppius has anything to do with Publius,
for I advised against it. Farther on in your letter you say that I am
going to be made _legatus_ to Pompey on the 13th of September: I have
heard nothing about it, and I wrote to Cæsar to tell him that neither
Vibullius nor Oppius had delivered his message to Pompey about my
remaining at home. Why, I know not. However, it was I who restrained
Oppius from doing so, because it was Vibullius who should take the
leading part in that matter: for with him Cæsar had communicated
personally, with Oppius only by letter. I indeed can have no "second
thoughts"[629] in matters connected with Cæsar. He comes next after you
and our children in my regard, and not much after. I think I act in this
with deliberate judgment, for I have by this time good cause for it,
yet warm personal feeling no doubt does influence me also.
Just as I had written these last words--which are by my own hand--your
boy came in to dine with me, as Pomponia was dining out. He gave me your
letter to read, which he had received shortly before--a truly
Aristophanic mixture of jest and earnest, with which I was greatly
charmed.[630] He gave me also your second letter, in which you bid him
cling to my side as a mentor. How delighted he was with those letters!
And so was I. Nothing could be more attractive than that boy, nothing
more affectionate to me!--This, to explain its being in another
handwriting, I dictated to Tiro while at dinner.
Your letter gratified Annalis very much, as shewing that you took an
active interest in his concerns, and yet assisted him with exceedingly
candid advice. Publius Servilius the elder, from a letter which he said
he had received from Cæsar, declares himself highly obliged to you for
having spoken with the greatest kindness and earnestness of his devotion
to Cæsar. After my return to Rome from Arpinum I was told that
Hippodamus had started to join you. I cannot say that I was surprised at
his having acted so discourteously as to start to join you without a
letter from me: I only say this, that I was annoyed. For I had long
resolved, from an expression in your letter, that if I had anything I
wished conveyed to you with more than usual care, I should give it to
him: for, in truth, into a letter like this, which I send you in an
ordinary way, I usually put nothing that, if it fell into certain hands,
might be a source of annoyance. I reserve myself for Minucius and
Salvius and Labeo. Labeo will either be starting late or will stay here
altogether. Hippodamus did not even ask me whether he could do anything
for me. T. Penarius sends me a kind letter about you: says that he is
exceedingly charmed with your literary pursuits, conversation, and above
all by your dinners. He was always a favourite of mine, and I see a good
deal of his brother. Wherefore continue, as you have begun, to admit the
young man to your intimacy.
From the fact of this letter having been in hand during many days, owing
to the delay of the letter-carriers, I have jotted down in it many
various things at odd times, as, for instance, the following. Titus
Anicius has mentioned to me more than once that he would not hesitate to
buy a suburban property for you, if he found one. In these remarks of
his I find two things surprising: first, that when you write to him
about buying a suburban property, you not only don't write to me to that
effect, but write even in a contrary sense; and, secondly, that in
writing to him you totally forget his letters which you shewed me at
Tusculum, and as totally the rule of Epicharmus, "Notice how he has
treated another":[631] in fact, that you have quite forgotten, as I
think, the lesson conveyed by the expression of his face, his
conversation, and his spirit. But this is your concern. As to a suburban
property, be sure to let me know your wishes, and at the same time take
care that that fellow doesn't get you into trouble. What else have I to
say? Anything? Yes, there is this: Gabinius entered the city by night on
the 27th of September, and to-day, at two o'clock, when he ought to have
appeared on his trial for _lèse majesté_, in accordance with the edict
of C. Alfius, he was all but crushed to the earth by a great and
unanimous demonstration of the popular hatred. Nothing could exceed his
humiliating position. However, Piso comes next to him. So I think of
introducing a marvellous episode into my second book[632]--Apollo
declaring in the council of the gods what sort of return that of the two
commanders was to be, one of whom had lost, and the other sold his army.
From Britain I have a letter of Cæsar's dated the 1st of September,
which reached me on the 27th, satisfactory enough as far as the British
expedition is concerned, in which, to prevent my wondering at not
getting one from you, he tells me that you were not with him when he
reached the coast. To that letter I made no reply, not even a formal
congratulation, on account of his mourning. Many, many wishes, dear
brother, for your health.
[Footnote 620: That is, to get them seats at the games. See Letter XXVI,
p. 63.]
[Footnote 621: The _porticus_ is a kind of cloister round the
_peristylium_ or _atrium_.]
[Footnote 622: Calventius is said to stand for L. Calpurnius Piso
Cæsoninus, the consul of B.C. 58, against whom Cicero's speech was
spoken in B.C. 55 in the senate. He calls him Calventius from his
maternal grandfather, and Marius because--as he had said, in the speech,
§ 20--he had himself gone into exile rather than come to open fight with
him; just as Q. Metellus had done in B.C. 100, when, declining to take
the oath to the agrarian law of Saturninus, rather than fight Marius,
who had taken the oath, he went into exile. This seems rather a
roundabout explanation; but no better has been proposed, and, of course,
Quintus, who had lately read the speech, would be able better to
understand the allusion.]
[Footnote 623: _I.e._, with money.]
[Footnote 624: This tragedy of Quintus's never reached Cicero. It was
lost in transit. Perhaps no great loss.]
[Footnote 625: Milo was ædile and had just given some splendid games.]
[Footnote 626: _Maiestas._ He would be liable to this charge, under a
law of Sulla's, for having left his province to interfere in Egypt.]
[Footnote 627: See p. 300.]
[Footnote 628: Apparently referring to the death of his daughter Iulia.]
[Footnote 629: δευτέρας φροντίδας from Eurip. _Hipp._ 436, αἱ δευτέραι
πως φροντίδες σοφωτέραι.]
[Footnote 630: Or, "as kindly and critical at once as Aristophanes (of
Byzantium)," as though Quintus had written a Caxtonian criticism of his
son's style.]
[Footnote 631: γυῶθι πῶς ἄλλω κέχρηται.]
[Footnote 632: Of his poem "On his own Times." Piso in Macedonia, where
he had been unsuccessful with border tribes: Gabinius in going to Egypt
to support Ptolemy. He left many of his soldiers there.]
CXLVIII (A IV, 17 AND PARTS OF 16)
TO ATTICUS (ABROAD)
ROME, 1 OCTOBER
[Sidenote: B.C. 54, ÆT. 52]
You think I imagine that I write more rarely to you than I used to do
from having forgotten my regular habit and purpose, but the fact is
that, perceiving your locality and journeys to be equally uncertain, I
have never intrusted a letter to anyone--either for Epirus, or Athens,
or Asia, or anywhere else--unless he was going expressly to you. For my
letters are not of the sort to make their non-delivery a matter of
indifference; they contain so many confidential secrets that I do not as
a rule trust them even to an amanuensis, for fear of some jest leaking
out in some direction or another.
The consuls are in a blaze of infamy because Gaius Memmius, one of the
candidates, read out in the senate a compact which he and his fellow
candidate, Domitius Calvinus, had made with the consuls--that both were
to forfeit to the consuls 40 sestertia apiece (in case they were
themselves elected consuls), if they did not produce three augurs to
depose that they had been present at the passing of a _lex curiata_,
which, in fact, had not been passed; and two consulars to depose to
having helped to draft a decree for furnishing the consular provinces,
though there had not even been a meeting of the senate at all.[633] As
this compact was alleged not to have been a mere verbal one, but to
have been drawn up with the sums to be paid duly entered, formal orders
for payment, and written attestations of many persons, it was, on the
suggestion of Pompey, produced by Memmius, but with the names
obliterated. It has made no difference to Appius--he had no character to
lose! To the other consul it was a real knock-down blow, and he is, I
assure you, a ruined man. Memmius, however, having thus dissolved the
coalition, has lost all chance of election, and is by this time in a
worse position than ever, because we are now informed that his
revelation is strongly disapproved of by Cæsar. Our friend Messalla and
his fellow candidate, Domitius Calvinus, have been very liberal to the
people. Nothing can exceed their popularity. They are certain to be
consuls. But the senate has passed a decree that a "trial with closed
doors" should be held before the elections in respect to each of the
candidates severally by the panels already allotted to them all. The
candidates are in a great fright. But certain jurors--among them
Opimius, Veiento, and Rantius--appealed to the tribunes to prevent their
being called upon to act as jurors without an order of the people[634].
The business goes on. The _comitia_ are postponed by a decree of the
senate till such time as the law for the "trial with closed doors" is
carried. The day for passing the law arrived. Terentius vetoed it. The
consuls, having all along conducted this business in a half-hearted kind
of way, referred the matter back to the senate. Hereupon--Bedlam! my
voice being heard with the rest. "Aren't you wise enough to keep quiet,
after all?" you will say. Forgive me: I can hardly restrain myself. But,
nevertheless, was there ever such a farce? The senate had voted that the
elections should not be held till the law was passed: that, in case of a
tribunician veto, the whole question should be referred to them afresh.
The law is introduced in a perfunctory manner: is vetoed, to the great
relief of the proposers: the matter is referred to the senate. Upon that
the senate voted that it was for the interest of the state that the
elections should be held at the earliest possible time!
Scaurus, who had been acquitted a few days before,[635] after a most
elaborate speech from me on his behalf--when all the days up to the 29th
of September (on which I write this) had one after the other been
rendered impossible for the _comitia_ by notices of ill omens put in by
Scævola--paid the people what they expected at his own house, tribe by
tribe. But all the same, though his liberality was more generous, it was
not so acceptable as that of the two mentioned above, who had got the
start of him. I could have wished to see your face when you read
this;[636] for I am certain you entertain some hope that these
transactions will occupy a great many weeks! But there is to be a
meeting of the senate to-day, that is, the 1st of October--for day is
already breaking. There no one will speak his mind except Antius and
Favonius,[637] for Cato is ill. Don't be afraid about me: nevertheless,
I make no promises. Is there anything else you want to know? Anything?
Yes, the trials, I think. Drusus and Scaurus[638] are believed not to
have been guilty. Three candidates are thought likely to be prosecuted:
Domitius Calvinus by Memmius, Messalla by Q. Pompeius Rufus,
Scaurus[639] by Triarius or by L. Cæsar. "What will you be able to say
for them?" quoth you. May I die if I know! In those books[640]
certainly, of which you speak so highly, I find no suggestion.
[Footnote 633: The object of the existing consuls in making such a
bargain was to get to their provinces without difficulty, with
_imperium_, which had to be bestowed by a formal meeting of the old
_comitia curiata_. But that formality could be stopped by tribunes or
other magistrates "watching the sky," or declaring evil omens: and just
as these means were being resorted to to put off the elections, so they
were also likely to be used in this matter. If it was thus put off into
the next year, Domitius and Appius, not being any longer consuls, would
have still greater difficulty. Corrupt as the arrangement was, it seems
not to have come under any existing law, and both escaped punishment.
Appius went as proconsul to Cilicia, in spite of the _lex curiata_ not
being passed, but Domitius Ahenobarbus seems not to have had a province.
The object of Domitius Calvinus and Memmius in making the compact was to
secure their own election, which the existing consuls had many means of
assisting, but it is not clear what Memmius's object in disclosing it
was. Perhaps anger on finding his hopes gone, and an idea that anything
that humiliated Ahenobarbus would be pleasing to Cæsar. He also seems to
have quarrelled with Calvinus. Gaius Memmius Gemellus is not to be
confounded with Gaius Memmius the tribune mentioned in the next letter.]
[Footnote 634: There is considerable uncertainty as to the exact nature
of _iudicium tacitum_, here rendered "a trial with closed doors," on the
analogy of the _senatus consultum tacitum_ described by Capitolinus, _in
Gordian_. ch. xii. It is not, I think, mentioned elsewhere (_iudiciis
tacitis_ of 2 _Off._ § 24, is a general expression for "anonymous
expressions of opinion"), and the passage in Plutarch (_Cato min._ 44)
introduces a new difficulty, for it indicates a court in which
candidates _after_ election are to purge themselves. Again, _quæ erant
omnibus sortita_ is very difficult. Cicero nowhere else, I believe, uses
the passive _sortitus_. But, passing that, what are the _consilia_
meant? The tense and mood shew, I think, that the words are explanatory
by the writer, not part of the decree. I venture, contrary to all
editors, to take _omnibus_ as dative, and to suppose that the _consilia_
meant are those of the _album iudicum_ who had been selected to try
cases of _ambitus_, of which many were expected. There is no proof that
the _iudices_ in a _iudicium tacitum_ had to be senators, and the names
in the next sentence point the other way. The senate proposed that the
law should allow this selection from the _album_ to form the _iudicium
tacitum_, which would give no public verdict, but on whose report they
could afterwards act.]
[Footnote 635: M. Æmilius Scaurus was acquitted on the 2nd of September
on a charge of extortion in Sardinia. The trial had been hurried on lest
he should use the Sardinian money in bribing for the consulship. Hence
he could not begin distributing his gifts to the electors till after
September 2nd, and his rivals Domitius and Messalla got the start of
him. See Asconius, 131 _seq._]
[Footnote 636: He means that Atticus--as a lender of money--would be
glad of anything that kept the rate of interest up (see p. 286). He is,
of course, joking.]
[Footnote 637: Antius is not known. Favonius was a close imitator of
Cato's Stoicism. He was now opposing both Pompey and Cæsar strenuously,
but on the Civil War breaking out, attached himself strongly to Pompey.
He was put to death by Augustus after the battle of Philippi (Suet.
_Aug._ 13). He had a very biting tongue. See Plut. _Pomp._ 60.]
[Footnote 638: Drusus was probably Livius Drusus, the father of Livia,
wife of Augustus; he was accused by Lucretius of _prævaricatio_,
"collusion."]
[Footnote 639: This time for _ambitus_.]
[Footnote 640: The _de Oratore_.]
CXLIX (Q FR III, 2)
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN GAUL)
ROME, OCTOBER
[Sidenote: B.C. 54, ÆT. 52]