I received great pleasure from your letter, because I found that your
opinion of me was what I had hoped and wished it to be; not that I was
in any doubt about it, but for the very reason that I valued it so
highly, I was most anxious that it should remain unimpaired. Conscious
however that I had done nothing which could give offense to the feelings
of any good citizen, I was naturally the less inclined to believe that
you, adorned as you are with so many excellences of the most admirable
kind, could have allowed yourself to be convinced of anything on mere
idle report; particularly seeing that you were a friend for whom my
spontaneous attachment had been and still was unbroken. And knowing now
that it has been as I hoped, I will answer those attacks which you have
often opposed on my behalf, as was fairly to be expected from your
well-known generosity and the friendship existing between us.
For I am well aware of all they have been heaping on me since Caesar's
death. They make it a reproach against me that I go heavily for the loss
of a friend, and think it cruel that one whom I loved should have
fallen, because, say they, country must be put before friends----as
though they have hitherto been successful in proving that his death
really was the gain of the commonwealth. But I will not enter any subtle
plea; I admit that I have not attained to your higher grades of
philosophy: for I have neither been a partisan of Caesar in our civil
dissensions,----though I did not abandon my friend even when his action
was a stumbling-block to me,----nor did I ever give my approval to the
civil war, or even to the actual ground of quarrel, of which indeed I
earnestly desired that the first sparks should be trampled out. And so
in the triumph of a personal friend I was never ensnared by the charms
either of place or of money; prizes which have been recklessly abused by
the rest, though they had less influence with him than I had. I may even
say that my own private property was impaired by that act of Caesar,
thanks to which many of those who are rejoicing at Caesar's death
continued to live in their own country. That our defeated fellow
countrymen should be spared was as much an object to me as my own
safety. Is it possible then for me, who wanted all to be left uninjured,
not to feel indignation that he by whom this was secured is dead? above
all when the very same men were the cause at once of his unpopularity
and his untimely end. You shall smart then, say they, since you dare to
disapprove of our deed. What unheard of insolence! One man then may
boast of a deed, which another is not even allowed to lament without
punishment. Why, even slaves have always been free of this----to feel
their fears, their joys, their sorrows as their own, and not at anybody
else's dictation; and these are the very things which now, at least
according to what your "liberators" have always in their mouths, they
are trying to wrest from us by terrorism. But they try in vain. There is
no danger which has terrors enough ever to make me desert the side of
gratitude or humanity; for never have I thought that death in a good
cause is to be shunned, often indeed that it deserves to be courted. But
why are they inclined to be enraged with me, if my wishes are simply
that they may come to regret their deed, desiring as I do that Caesar's
death may be felt to be untimely by us all? It is my duty as a citizen
to desire the preservation of the constitution? Well, unless both my
life in the past and all my hopes for the future prove without any words
of mine that I do earnestly desire this, I make no demand to prove it by
my professions.
To you therefore I make a specially earnest appeal to let facts come
before assertions, and to take my word for it that, if you feel that
honesty is the best policy, it is impossible I should have any
association with lawless villains. Or can you believe that the
principles I pursued in the days of my youth, when even error could pass
with some excuse, I shall renounce now that I am going down the hill,
and with my own hands unravel all the web of my life? That I will not
do; nor yet will I commit any act that could give offense, beyond the
fact that I do lament the sad fall of one who was to me the dearest
friend and the most illustrious of men. But were I otherwise disposed, I
would never deny what I was doing, lest it should be thought I was at
once shameless in doing wrong and false and cowardly in dissembling it.
But then I undertook the management of those games which Caesar's heir
celebrated for Caesar's victory? Well, this is a matter which belongs to
one's private obligations, not to any political arrangement; it was
however in the first place a tribute of respect which I was called upon
to pay to the memory and the eminent position of a man whom I dearly
loved, even though he was dead, and also one that I could not refuse at
the request of a young man so thoroughly promising, and so worthy in
every way of Caesar as he is.
Again, I have frequently paid visits of compliment to the consul
Antonius. And you will find that the very men who think me but a
lukewarm patriot are constantly going to his house in crowds, actually
for the purpose of soliciting or carrying away some favor. But what a
monstrous claim it is, that while Caesar never laid any such embargo as
this to prevent me from associating freely with anybody I
pleased,----even if they were people whom he personally did not
like,----these men who have robbed me of my friend should attempt by
malicious insinuations to prevent my showing a kindness to whomsoever I
will!
I have however no fear that the moderation of my life will hereafter
prove an insufficient defense against false insinuations, and that even
those who do not love me, because of my loyalty to Caesar, would not
rather have their own friend imitate me than themselves. Such of life as
remains to me, at least if I succeed in what I desire, I shall spend in
quiet at Rhodes; but if I find that some chance has put a stop to this,
I shall simply live at Rome as one who is always desirous that right
should be done.
I am deeply grateful to our good friend Trebatius for having thus
disclosed to me your sincere and friendly feeling, and given me even an
additional reason for honoring and paying respect to one whom it has
always been a pleasure to me to regard as a friend. Farewell heartily,
and let me have your esteem.