The Letters of Cicero Part 39

I see that you know of my arrival at Tusculum on the 14th of November. I found Dionysius there. I wish to be at Rome on the 17th. Why do I say "wish"? Rather I am forced to be so. Milo's wedding. There is some idea of an election. Even supposing that to be confirmed,[566] I am glad to have been absent from the wrangling debates which I am told have taken place in the senate. For I should either have defended him, which would have been against my opinion, or have deserted him whom I was bound to defend. But, by Hercules, describe to me to the utmost of your power those events, and the present state of politics, and how the consuls stand this bother. I am very ravenous for news, and, to tell you the truth, I feel no confidence in anything. Our friend Cra.s.sus indeed, people say, started in his official robes with less dignity than in the old times did L. Paullus,[567] at the same time of life as he is, and, like him, in his second consuls.h.i.+p. What a sorry fellow! About my oratorical books, I have been working hard. They have been long in hand and much revised: you can get them copied.[568] I again beg of you an outline sketch of the present situation, that I may not arrive in Rome quite a stranger.

[Footnote 566: _Ego, ut sit rata_, Schutz's reading, which seems the best for the unintelligible _ergo et si irata_ of the MSS. It would mean, "though I regret not having been back for Domitius's election (if it has taken place), I am glad to have been away from the previous wrangling in the senate."]

[Footnote 567: Cra.s.sus starts for Syria; he compares him to L. aemilius Paullus starting for the war with Perses (B.C. 168). Paullus was, like Cra.s.sus, sixty years old, and in his second consuls.h.i.+p. Paullus set out with good omens, Cra.s.sus with a curse, denounced by the tribune C.

Ateius Capito (_de Div._ i. -- 29; Plutarch, _Cra.s.s._ 16).]

[Footnote 568: By his _librarii_. Atticus was again acting as his publisher.]

Cx.x.x (F V, 8)

[Sidenote: B.C. 54. Coss., L. Domitius Ahen.o.barbus, Ap. Claudius Pulcher.]

During this year politics were comparatively uneventful. Cra.s.sus was gone to Syria. Pompey should have gone to Spain, but at the request of the senate he stayed near Rome, and in the autumn his wife Iulia died, thus breaking one strong tie between him and Caesar. Quintus Cicero went as _legatus_ to Caesar and accompanied him to Britain. Cicero himself kept up a correspondence with Caesar, and seems to nurse his friends.h.i.+p with him with an almost feverish eagerness, which, however, lacks spontaneity. He was engaged this year in composing his treatise on the Republic.

TO M. LICINIUS CRa.s.sUS (ON HIS WAY TO SYRIA)

ROME (JANUARY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 54, aeT. 52]

I have no doubt all your friends have written to tell you what zeal I displayed on the ----[569] in the defence, or you might call it the promotion, of your official position. For it was neither half-hearted nor inconspicuous, nor of a sort that could be pa.s.sed over in silence.

In fact, I maintained a controversy against both the consuls and many consulars with a vehemence such as I have never shewn in any cause before, and I took upon myself the standing defence of all your honours, and paid the duty I owed to our friends.h.i.+p--long in arrear, but interrupted by the great complexity of events--to the very utmost. Not, believe me, that the will to shew you attention and honour was ever wanting to me; but certain pestilent persons--vexed at another's fame--did at times alienate you from me, and sometimes changed my feelings towards you. But I have got the opportunity, for which I had rather wished than hoped, of shewing you in the very height of your prosperity that I remember our mutual kindness and am faithful to our friends.h.i.+p. For I have secured not only that your whole family, but that the entire city should know that you have no warmer friend than myself.

Accordingly, that most n.o.ble of women, your wife, as well as your two most affectionate, virtuous, and popular sons, place full confidence in my counsel, advice, zeal, and public actions; and the senate and Roman people understand that in your absence there is nothing upon which you can so absolutely count and depend as upon my exertions, care, attention, and influence in all matters which affect your interests.

What has been done and is being done in the senate I imagine that you are informed in the letters from members of your family. For myself, I am very anxious that you should think and believe that I did not stumble upon the task of supporting your dignity from some sudden whim or by chance, but that from the first moment of my entering on public life I have always looked out to see how I might be most closely united to you.

And, indeed, from that hour I never remember either my respect for you, or your very great kindness and liberality to me, to have failed. If certain interruptions of friends.h.i.+p have occurred, based rather on suspicion than fact, let them, as groundless and imaginary, be uprooted from our entire memory and life. For such is your character, and such I desire mine to be, that, fate having brought us face to face with the same condition of public affairs, I would fain hope that our union and friends.h.i.+p will turn out to be for the credit of us both. Wherefore how much consideration should in your judgment be shewn to me, you will yourself decide, and that decision, I hope, will be in accordance with my position in the state. I, for my part, promise and guarantee a special and unequalled zeal in every service which may tend to your honour and reputation. And even if in this I shall have many rivals, I shall yet easily surpa.s.s them all in the judgment of the rest of the world as well as that of your sons, for both of whom I have a particular affection; but while equally well-disposed to Marcus, I am more entirely devoted to Publius for this reason, that, though he always did so from boyhood, he is at this particular time treating me with the respect and affection of a second father.

I would have you believe that this letter will have the force of a treaty, not of a mere epistle; and that I will most sacredly observe and most carefully perform what I hereby promise and undertake. The defence of your political position which I have taken up in your absence I will abide by, not only for the sake of our friends.h.i.+p, but also for the sake of my own character for consistency. Therefore I thought it sufficient at this time to tell you this--that if there was anything which I understood to be your wish or for your advantage or for your honour, I should do it without waiting to be asked; but that if I received a hint from yourself or your family on any point, I should take care to convince you that no letter of your own or any request from any of your family has been in vain. Wherefore I would wish you to write to me on all matters, great, small, or indifferent, as to a most cordial friend; and to bid your family so to make use of my activity, advice, authority, and influence in all business matters--public or private, forensic or domestic, whether your own or those of your friends, guests, or clients--that, as far as such a thing is possible, the loss of your presence may be lessened by my labour.

[Footnote 569: The date has been lost.]

Cx.x.xI (Q FR II, 9)

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN THE COUNTRY)

ROME (FEBRUARY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 54, aeT. 52]

Your note by its strong language has drawn out this letter. For as to what actually occurred on the day of your start, it supplied me with absolutely no subject for writing. But as when we are together we are never at a loss for something to say, so ought our letters at times to digress into loose chat. Well then, to begin, the liberty of the Tenedians has received short shrift,[570] no one speaking for them except myself, Bibulus, Calidius, and Favonius. A complimentary reference to you was made by the legates from Magnesia and Sipylum, they saying that you were the man who alone had resisted the demand of L.

Sestius Pansa.[571] On the remaining days of this business in the senate, if anything occurs which you ought to know, or even if there is nothing, I will write you something every day. On the 12th I will not fail you or Pomponius. The poems of Lucretius are as you say--with many flashes of genius, yet very technical.[572] But when you return, ... if you succeed in reading the _Empedoclea_ of Sall.u.s.tius, I shall regard you as a hero, yet scarcely human.

[Footnote 570: Lit. "has been beheaded with the axe of Tenes," mythical founder and legislator of Tenedos, whose laws were of Draconian severity. A _legatio_ from Tenedos, heard as usual in February, had asked that Tenedos might be made a _libera civitas_.]

[Footnote 571: Some _publica.n.u.s_ who had made a charge on the Magnesians which they considered excessive.]

[Footnote 572: Lucretius seems to have been now dead, according to Donatus 15 October (B.C. 55), though the date is uncertain. I have translated the reading _multae tamen artis_, which has been changed by some to _multae etiam artis_. But the contrast in the criticism seems to be between the fine poetical pa.s.sages in the _de Rerum Natura_ and the ma.s.s of technical exposition of philosophy which must have repelled the "general reader" at all times. It suggests at once to Cicero to mention another poem on a similar subject, the _Empedoclea_ of Sall.u.s.tius, of which and its writer we know nothing. It was not the historian.]

Cx.x.xII (Q FR II, 10)

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN THE COUNTRY)

ROME (FEBRUARY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 54, aeT. 52]

I am glad you like my letter: however, I should not even now have had anything to write about, if I had not received yours. For on the 12th, when Appius had got together a thinly-attended meeting of the senate, the cold was so great that he was compelled by the general clamour[573]

to dismiss us. As to the Commagenian, because I have blown that proposition to the winds, Appius makes wonderful advances to me both personally and through Pomponius; for he sees that if I adopt a similar style of discussion in the other business, February will not bring him anything in. And certainly I did chaff him pretty well, and not only wrenched from his grasp that petty towns.h.i.+p of his--situated in the territory of Zeugma on the Euphrates[574]--but also raised a loud laugh by my satire on the man's purple-edged toga, which he had been granted when Caesar was consul.[575] "His wish," said I, "for a renewal of the same honour, to save the yearly re-dying of his purple-edged toga, I do not think calls for any decree of the house; but you, my lords, who could not endure that the Bostrian[576] should wear the _toga praetexta_, will you allow the Commagenian to do so?" You see the style of chaff, and the line I took. I spoke at length against the petty princeling, with the result that he was utterly laughed out of court. Alarmed by this exhibition, as I said, Appius is making up to me. For nothing could be easier than to explode the rest of his proposals. But I will not go so far as to trip him up, lest he appeal to the G.o.d of hospitality, and summon all his Greeks--it is they who make us friends again. I will do what Theopompus wants. I had forgotten to write to you about Caesar: for I perceive what sort of letter you have been expecting. But the fact is, he has written word to Balbus that the little packet of letters, in which mine and Balbus's were packed, had been so drenched with rain that he was not even aware that there was a letter from me. He had, however, made out a few words of Balbus's letter, to which he answered as follows: "I perceive that you have written something about Cicero, which I have not fully made out: but, as far I could guess, it was of a kind that I thought was more to be wished than hoped for." Accordingly, I afterwards sent Caesar a duplicate copy of the letter. Don't be put off by that pa.s.sage about his want of means. In answer to it I wrote back saying that he must not stop payment from any reliance on my money chest, and descanted playfully on that subject, in familiar terms and yet without derogating from my dignity. His good feeling towards us, however, according to all accounts, is marked. The letter, indeed, on the point of which you expect to hear, will almost coincide with your return:[577] the other business of each day I will write on condition of your furnis.h.i.+ng me with letter-carriers. However, such cold weather is threatening,[578] that there is very great danger that Appius may find his house frost-bitten and deserted![579]

[Footnote 573: Retaining _populi convicio_, and explaining _populus_ to have the general meaning of the crowd, including senators and spectators. Cicero uses _populus_ in this vague way elsewhere.]

[Footnote 574: Zeugma I take to mean the "territory of Zeugma," a town on the Euphrates, part of the Roman province of Syria, and close to the frontier of Commagene. Antiochus had asked that some stronghold should be reckoned as his rather than as belonging to the province.]

[Footnote 575: Appius, he insinuates, hoped to make money by granting the request of Antiochus, left king of Commagene by Pompey, for some special privileges, among which was the right of wearing the _toga praetexta_, which symbolized some position with a shadow of Roman _imperium_, while at the same time conveying a compliment to the Roman suzernainty. See Polyb. lib. xxvi.; x.x.x. 26; Suet. _Aug._ 60.]

[Footnote 576: Some petty prince of Bostra (_Bozra_), in Arabia, of whom we know nothing.]

[Footnote 577: Quintus was expecting, what he got, the offer of serving under Caesar as _legatus_. Caesar was preparing for his second invasion of Britain.]

[Footnote 578: Which will prevent meetings of the senate, and so give me no news to send you.]

[Footnote 579: There is a _double entendre_. Cold weather will prevent the meetings of the senate actually, but metaphorically politics will be also cold and dull, and that dullness will probably be nowhere so evident as in the deserted state of the consul Appius's house, which in all probability will miss its usual bevy of callers. This explanation--put forward by Prof. Tyrrell--is not wholly satisfactory, yet it is the best that has been given.]

Cx.x.xIII (F VII, 5)

TO CaeSAR (IN GAUL)

ROME (FEBRUARY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 54, aeT. 52]

Cicero greets Caesar, _imperator_. Observe how far I have convinced myself that you are my second self, not only in matters which concern me personally, but even in those which concern my friends. It had been my intention to take Gaius Trebatius with me for whatever destination I should be leaving town, in order to bring him home again honoured as much as my zeal and favour could make him. But when Pompey remained at home longer than I expected, and a certain hesitation on my part (with which you are not unacquainted) appeared to hinder, or at any rate to r.e.t.a.r.d, my departure,[580] I presumed upon what I will now explain to you. I begin to wish that Trebatius should look to you for what he had hoped from me, and, in fact, I have been no more sparing of my promises of goodwill on your part than I had been wont to be of my own. Moreover, an extraordinary coincidence has occurred which seems to support my opinion and to guarantee your kindness. For just as I was speaking to our friend Balbus[581] about this very Trebatius at my house, with more than usual earnestness, a letter from you was handed to me, at the end of which you say: "Miscinius Rufus,[582] whom you recommend to me, I will make king of Gaul, or, if you choose, put him under the care of Lepta. Send me some one else to promote." I and Balbus both lifted our hands in surprise: it came so exactly in the nick of time, that it appeared to be less the result of mere chance than something providential. I therefore send you Trebatius, and on two grounds, first that it was my spontaneous idea to send him, and secondly because you have invited me to do so. I would beg you, dear Caesar, to receive him with such a display of kindness as to concentrate on his single person all that you can be possibly induced to bestow for my sake upon my friends. As for him I guarantee--not in the sense of that hackneyed expression of mine, at which, when I used it in writing to you about Milo, you very properly jested, but in good Roman language such as sober men use--that no honester, better, or more modest man exists. Added to this, he is at the top of his profession as a jurisconsult, possesses an unequalled memory, and the most profound learning. For such a man I ask neither a tribunes.h.i.+p, prefecture, nor any definite office, I ask only your goodwill and liberality: and yet I do not wish to prevent your complimenting him, if it so please you, with even these marks of distinction. In fact, I transfer him entirely from my hand, so to speak, to yours, which is as sure a pledge of good faith as of victory. Excuse my being somewhat importunate, though with a man like you there can hardly be any pretext for it--however, I feel that it will be allowed to pa.s.s. Be careful of your health and continue to love me as ever.