The Letters of Cicero Part 38

CXXV (F VII, 23)

TO M. FADIUS GALLUS

ROME (MAY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 55, aeT. 51]

I had only just arrived from Arpinum when your letter was delivered to me; and from the same bearer I received a letter from Arria.n.u.s,[553] in which there was this most liberal offer, that when he came to Rome he would enter my debt to him on whatever day I chose. Pray put yourself in my place: is it consistent with your modesty or mine, first to prefer a request as to the day, and then to ask more than a year's credit? But, my dear Gallus, everything would have been easy, if you had bought the things I wanted, and only up to the price that I wished. However, the purchases which, according to your letter, you have made shall not only be ratified by me, but with grat.i.tude besides: for I fully understand that you have displayed zeal and affection in purchasing (because you thought them worthy of me) things which pleased yourself--a man, as I have ever thought, of the most fastidious judgment in all matters of taste. Still, I should like Damasippus[554] to abide by his decision: for there is absolutely none of those purchases that I care to have.

But you, being unacquainted with my habits, have bought four or five of your selection at a price at which I do not value any statues in the world. You compare your Bacchae with Metellus's Muses. Where is the likeness? To begin with, I should never have considered the Muses worth all that money, and I think all the Muses would have approved my judgment: still, it would have been appropriate to a library, and in harmony with my pursuits. But Bacchae! What place is there in my house for them? But, you will say, they are pretty. I know them very well and have often seen them. I would have commissioned you definitely in the case of statues known to me, if I had decided on them. The sort of statues that I am accustomed to buy are such as may adorn a place in a _palaestra_ after the fas.h.i.+on of gymnasia.[555] What, again, have I, the promoter of peace, to do with a statue of Mars? I am glad there was not a statue of Saturn also: for I should have thought these two statues had brought me debt! I should have preferred some representation of Mercury: I might then, I suppose, have made a more favourable bargain with Arria.n.u.s. You say you meant the table-stand[556] for yourself; well, if you like it, keep it. But if you have changed your mind I will, of course, have it. For the money you have laid out, indeed, I would rather have purchased a place of call at Tarracina,[557] to prevent my being always a burden on my host. Altogether I perceive that the fault is with my freedman, whom I had distinctly commissioned to purchase certain definite things, and also with Iunius, whom I think you know, an intimate friend of Arria.n.u.s. I have constructed some new sitting-rooms in a miniature colonnade on my Tusculan property. I want to ornament them with pictures: for if I take pleasure in anything of that sort it is in painting. However, if I am to have what you have bought, I should like you to inform me where they are, when hey are to be fetched, and by what kind of conveyance. For if Damasippus doesn't abide by his decision, I shall look for some would-be Damasippus,[558] even at a loss.

As to what you say about the house, as I was going out of town I intrusted the matter to my daughter Tullia:[559] for it was at the very hour of my departure that I got your letter. I also discussed the matter with your friend Nicias, because he is, as you know, intimate with Ca.s.sius. On my return, however, before I got your last letter, I asked Tullia what she had done. She said that she had approached Licinia[560]

(though I think Ca.s.sius is not very intimate with his sister), and that she at once said that she could not venture, in the absence of her husband (Dexius is gone to Spain), to change houses without his being there and knowing about it. I am much gratified that you should value a.s.sociation with me and my domestic life so highly, as, in the first place, to take a house which would enable you to live not only near me, but absolutely with me, and, in the second place, to be in such a hurry to make this change of residence. But, upon my life, I do not yield to you in eagerness for that arrangement. So I will try every means in my power. For I see the advantage to myself, and, indeed, the advantages to us both. If I succeed in doing anything, I will let you know. Mind you also write me word back on everything, and let me know, if you please, when I am to expect you.

[Footnote 553: C. Arria.n.u.s Evander, a dealer in statues, it seems, from whom Fadius had bought some for Cicero. He offers to let the debt for them (and so the interest) run from any day Cicero pleases.]

[Footnote 554: A well-known connoisseur, mentioned by Horace, _Sat._ ii.

3, 64, _seq._. He seems to have offered to take the bargain off Cicero's hands.]

[Footnote 555: That is, for his _palaestra_ or gymnasium, as he calls it, in his Tusculanum. See Letters I, II, VII.]

[Footnote 556: An ornamental leg or stand for table or sideboard (_abacus_). See picture in Rich's _Dictionary of Antiquities_.]

[Footnote 557: On the _via Appia_, where the ca.n.a.l across the marshes began. Cicero stops there a night between Formiae and Pomptina Summa (_Att._ vii. 5).]

[Footnote 558: One who professes to be an amateur of art like Damasippus.]

[Footnote 559: As in Letter CVI, Tullia, not Terentia, seems to be in Cicero's confidence and presiding in his house. Terentia must already have been on bad terms with him, and perhaps was residing on her own property.]

[Footnote 560: Half-sister of Gaius Ca.s.sius.]

CXXVI (F VII, I)

TO M. MARIUS (AT c.u.mae)

ROME (OCTOBER?)

[Sidenote: B.C. 55, aeT. 51]

If some bodily pain or weakness of health has prevented your coming to the games, I put it down to fortune rather than your own wisdom: but if you have made up your mind that these things which the rest of the world admires are only worthy of contempt, and, though your health would have allowed of it, you yet were unwilling to come, then I rejoice at both facts--that you were free from bodily pain, and that you had the sound sense to disdain what others causelessly admire. Only I hope that some fruit of your leisure may be forthcoming, a leisure, indeed, which you had a splendid opportunity of enjoying to the full, seeing that you were left almost alone in your lovely country. For I doubt not that in that study of yours, from which you have opened a window into the Stabian waters of the bay, and obtained a view of Misenum, you have spent the morning hours of those days in light reading, while those who left you there were watching the ordinary farces[561] half asleep. The remaining parts of the day, too, you spent in the pleasures which you had yourself arranged to suit your own taste, while we had to endure whatever had met with the approval of Spurius Maecius.[562] On the whole, if you care to know, the games were most splendid, but not to your taste. I judge from my own. For, to begin with, as a special honour to the occasion, those actors had come back to the stage who, I thought, had left it for their own. Indeed, your favourite, my friend aesop, was in such a state that no one could say a word against his retiring from the profession. On the beginning to recite the oath his voice failed him at the words "If I knowingly deceive." Why should I go on with the story? You know all about the rest of the games, which hadn't even that amount of charm which games on a moderate scale generally have: for the spectacle was so elaborate as to leave no room for cheerful enjoyment, and I think you need feel no regret at having missed it. For what is the pleasure of a train of six hundred mules in the "Clytemnestra," or three thousand bowls in the "Trojan Horse," or gay-coloured armour of infantry and cavalry in some battle? These things roused the admiration of the vulgar; to you they would have brought no delight. But if during those days you listened to your reader Protogenes, so long at least as he read anything rather than my speeches, surely you had far greater pleasure than any one of us. For I don't suppose you wanted to see Greek or Oscan plays, especially as you can see Oscan farces in your senate-house over there, while you are so far from liking Greeks, that you generally won't even go along the Greek road to your villa. Why, again, should I suppose you to care about missing the athletes, since you disdained the gladiators? in which even Pompey himself confesses that he lost his trouble and his pains. There remain the two wild-beast hunts, lasting five days, magnificent--n.o.body denies it--and yet, what pleasure can it be to a man of refinement, when either a weak man is torn by an extremely powerful animal, or a splendid animal is transfixed by a hunting spear? Things which, after all, if worth seeing, you have often seen before; nor did I, who was present at the games, see anything the least new. The last day was that of the elephants, on which there was a great deal of astonishment on the part of the vulgar crowd, but no pleasure whatever. Nay, there was even a certain feeling of compa.s.sion aroused by it, and a kind of belief created that that animal has something in common with mankind.[563] However, for my part, during this day, while the theatrical exhibitions were on, lest by chance you should think me too blessed, I almost split my lungs in defending your friend Caninius Gallus.[564] But if the people were as indulgent to me as they were to aesop, I would, by heaven, have been glad to abandon my profession and live with you and others like us. The fact is I was tired of it before, even when both age and ambition stirred me on, and when I could also decline any defence that I didn't like; but now, with things in the state that they are, there is no life worth having. For, on the one hand, I expect no profit of my labour; and, on the other, I am sometimes forced to defend men who have been no friends to me, at the request of those to whom I am under obligations. Accordingly, I am on the look-out for every excuse for at last managing my life according to my own taste, and I loudly applaud and vehemently approve both you and your retired plan of life: and as to your infrequent appearances among us, I am the more resigned to that because, were you in Rome, I should be prevented from enjoying the charm of your society, and so would you of mine, if I have any, by the overpowering nature of my engagements; from which, if I get any relief--for entire release I don't expect--I will give even you, who have been studying nothing else for many years, some hints as to what it is to live a life of cultivated enjoyment. Only be careful to nurse your weak health and to continue your present care of it, so that you may be able to visit my country houses and make excursions with me in my litter. I have written you a longer letter than usual, from superabundance, not of leisure, but of affection, because, if you remember, you asked me in one of your letters to write you something to prevent you feeling sorry at having missed the games. And if I have succeeded in that, I am glad: if not, I yet console myself with this reflexion, that in future you will both come to the games and come to see me, and will not leave your hope of enjoyment dependent on my letters.[565]

[Footnote 561: _Communis_, which is not satisfactory. But neither is the emendation proposed, _cominus_. For _communis_, "common," "vulgar," see _de Off._ ii. -- 45.]

[Footnote 562: Whom Pompey employed to select the plays to be exhibited in his new theatre.]

[Footnote 563: Pliny (_N. H._ viii. -- 21) says that the people were so moved that they loudly cursed Pompey.]

[Footnote 564: L. Caninius Gallus (see p. 210). What he was accused of does not appear.]

[Footnote 565: I do not like to think this letter a mere rhetorical exercise, as has been suggested, rather than a true account of Cicero's feelings as to the theatre and amphitheatre. He often expresses his want of interest in the latter. The vulgar display in the theatre, unlike the severe simplicity of Greek art, was an old evil (see Polyb. x.x.x. 14).]

CXXVII (F XIII, 74)

TO Q. PHILIPPUS (PROCONSUL IN ASIA)

ROME

[Sidenote: B.C. 55, aeT. 51]

Though, considering your attention to me and our close ties, I have no doubt of your remembering my recommendation, yet I again and again recommend to you the same L. Oppius, my intimate friend who is now in Rome, and the business of L. Egnatius, my very intimate friend who is now abroad. With the latter my connexion and intimacy are so strong, that I could not be more anxious if the business were my own. Wherefore I shall be highly gratified if you take the trouble too make him feel that I have as high a place in your affections as I think I have. You cannot oblige me more than by doing so: and I beg you warmly to do it.

CXXVIII (F XIII, 40)

TO Q. ANCHARIUS (PROCONSUL IN MACEDONIA)

ROME

[Sidenote: B.C. 55, aeT. 51]

Lucius and Gaius, sons of Lucius Aurelius, with whom, as with their excellent father, I am most intimately acquainted, I recommend to you with more than usual earnestness, as young men endowed with the best qualities, as being very closely allied to myself, and as being in the highest degree worthy of your friends.h.i.+p. If any recommendations of mine have ever had influence with you, as I know that many have had much, I beg you to let this one have it. If you treat them with honour and kindness, you will not only have attached to yourself two very grateful and excellent young men, but you will also have done me the very greatest favour.

CXXIX (A IV, 13)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

TUSCULUM, 15 NOVEMBER

[Sidenote: B.C. 55, aeT. 51]