The Letters of Cicero Part 10

[Footnote 126: Praetor B.C. 63, defended by Cicero in an extant oration.]

[Footnote 127: Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Clodia.n.u.s, consul in B.C. 72.

Cicero puns on the name Lentulus from _lens_ (pulse, fa??), and quotes a Greek proverb for things incongruous. See Athenaeus, 160 (from the _Necuia_ of Sopater):

??a??? ?d?sse??, t? ??? t? fa?? ????

p??est?? ???se?, ???.

[Footnote 128: B.C. 133, the year before the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus. The law of Gracchus had not touched the public land in Campania (the old territory of Capua). The object of this clause (which appears repeatedly in those of B.C. 120 and 111, see Bruns, _Fontes Iuris_, p. 72) is to confine the allotment of _ager publicus_ to such land as had become so subsequently, _i.e._, to land made "public"

princ.i.p.ally by the confiscations of Sulla.]

[Footnote 129: That is, he proposed to hypothecate the _vectigalia_ from the new provinces formed by Pompey in the East for five years.]

[Footnote 130: The consuls.h.i.+p. The bribery at Afranius's election is a.s.serted in Letter XXI.]

[Footnote 131: The day of the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators.]

[Footnote 132: Epicharmus, twice quoted by Polybius, xviii. 40; x.x.xi.

21. ??fe ?a? ??a?' ?p?ste??, ????a ta?ta t?? f?e???.]

[Footnote 133: _Pedarii_ were probably those senators who had not held curule office. They were not different from the other senators in point of legal rights, but as ex-magistrates were asked for their _sententia_ first, they seldom had time to do anything but signify by word their a.s.sent to one or other motion, or to cross over to the person whom they intended to support.]

[Footnote 134: P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, son of the conqueror of the Isaurians. As he had not yet been a praetor, he would be called on after the _consulares_ and _praetorii_. He then moved a new clause to the decree, and carried it.]

[Footnote 135: The decree apparently prevented the recovery of debts from a _libera civitas_ in the Roman courts. Atticus would therefore have to trust to the regard of the Sicyonians for their credit.]

[Footnote 136: A son must be hard up for something to say for himself if he is always harping on his father's reputation; and so must I, if I have nothing but my consuls.h.i.+p. That seems the only point in the quotation. I do not feel that there is any reference to praise of his father in Cicero's own poem. There are two versions of the proverb:

t?? pat??' a???se? e? ? ?a??da???e? ????

and

t?? pat??' a???se? e? ? e?da???e? ????.

XXV (A I, 20)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

ROME, 13 MAY

[Sidenote: B.C. 60, aeT. 46]

On my return to Rome from my villa at Pompeii on the 12th of May, our friend Cincius handed me your letter dated 13th February. It is this letter of yours which I will now proceed to answer. And first let me say how glad I am that you have fully understood my appreciation of you;[137] and next how excessively rejoiced I am that you have been so extremely reasonable in regard to those particulars in which you thought[138] that I and mine had behaved unkindly, or with insufficient consideration for your feelings: and this I regard as a proof of no common affection, and of the most excellent judgment and wisdom.

Wherefore, since you have written to me in a tone so delightful, considerate, friendly and kind, that I not only have no call to press you any farther, but can never even hope to meet from you or any other man with so much gentleness and good nature, I think the very best course I can pursue is not to say another word on the subject in my letters. When we meet, if the occasion should arise, we will discuss it together.

As to what you say about politics, your suggestions indeed are both affectionate and wise, and the course you suggest does not differ substantially from my own policy--for I must neither budge an inch from the position imposed upon me by my rank, nor must I without forces of my own enter the lines of another, while that other, whom you mention in your letter, has nothing large-minded about him, nothing lofty, nothing which is not abject and time-serving. However, the course I took was, after all, perhaps not ill-calculated for securing the tranquillity of my own life; but, by heaven, I did greater service to the Republic than, by suppressing the attacks of the disloyal, I did to myself, when I brought conviction home to the wavering mind of a man of the most splendid fortune, influence and popularity, and induced him to disappoint the disloyal and praise my acts. Now if I had been forced to sacrifice consistency in this transaction, I should not have thought anything worth that price; but the fact is that I have so worked the whole business, that I did not seem to be less consistent from my complacency to him, but that he appeared to gain in character by his approbation of me. In everything else I am so acting, and shall continue so to act, as to prevent my seeming to have done what I did do by mere chance. My friends the loyalists, the men at whom you hint, and that "Sparta" which you say has fallen to my lot,[139] I will not only never desert, but even if I am deserted by her, I shall still stand by my ancient creed. However, please consider this, that since the death of Catulus I am holding this road for the loyalists without any garrison or company. For as Rhinton, I think, says:

"Some are stark naught, and some care not at all."[140]

However, how our friends the fish-breeders[141] envy me I will write you word another time, or will reserve it till we meet. But from the senate-house nothing shall ever tear me: either because that course is the right one, or because it is most to my interests, or because I am far from being dissatisfied with the estimation in which I am held by the senate.

As to the Sicyonians, as I wrote to you before,[142] there is not much to be hoped for in the senate. For there is no one now to lay a complaint before it. Therefore, if you are waiting for that, you will find it a tedious business. Fight some other way if you can. At the time the decree was pa.s.sed no one noticed who would be affected by it, and besides the rank and file of the senators voted in a great hurry for that clause. For cancelling the senatorial decree the time is not yet ripe, because there are none to complain of it, and because also many are glad to have it so, some from spite, some from a notion of its equity. Your friend Metellus is an admirable consul: I have only one fault to find with him--he doesn't receive the news from Gaul of the restoration of peace with much pleasure. He wants a triumph, I suppose.

I could have wished a little less of that sort of thing: in other respects he is splendid. But the son of Aulus behaves in such a way, that his consuls.h.i.+p is not a consuls.h.i.+p but a stigma on our friend Magnus. Of my writings I send you my consuls.h.i.+p in Greek completed. I have handed that book to L. Cossinius. My Latin works I think you like, but as a Greek you envy this Greek book. If others write treatises on the subject I will send them to you, but I a.s.sure you that, as soon as they have read mine, some how or other they become slack. To return to my own affairs, L. Papirius Paetus, an excellent man and an admirer of mine, has presented me with the books left him by Servius Claudius. As your friend Cincius told me that I could take them without breaking the _lex Cincia_[143], I told him that I should have great pleasure in accepting them, if he brought them to Italy. Wherefore, as you love me, as you know that I love you, do try by means of friends, clients, guests, or even your freedmen or slaves, to prevent the loss of a single leaf. For I am in urgent need of the Greek books which I suspect, and of the Latin books which I know, that he left: and more and more every day I find repose in such studies every moment left to me from my labours in the forum. You will, I say, do me a very great favour, if you will be as zealous in this matter as you ever are in matters in which you suppose me to feel strongly; and Paetus's own affairs I recommend to your kindness for which he thanks you extremely. A prompt visit from yourself is a thing which I do not merely ask for, I advise it.

[Footnote 137: Contained in Letter XXII, pp. 46-47.]

[Footnote 138: Reading _tibi_ for _mihi_, as Prof. Tyrrell suggests.]

[Footnote 139: Sp??t?? ??a?e? ?e???? ??se?. "Sparta is your lot, do it credit," a line of Euripides which had become proverbial.]

[Footnote 140: ?? ?? pa?' ??d?? e?s?, t??? d' ??de? ??e?. Rhinton, a dramatist, _circa_ B.C. 320-280 (of Tarentum or Syracuse).]

[Footnote 141: See pp. 52, 56, 65.]

[Footnote 142: See p. 57.]

[Footnote 143: The _lex Cincia_ (B.C. 204) forbade the taking of presents for acting as advocate in law courts.]

XXVI (A II, 1)

TO ATTICUS (IN GREECE)

ROME, JUNE

[Sidenote: B.C. 60, aeT. 46]

On the 1st of June, as I was on my way to Antium, and eagerly getting out of the way of M. Metellus's gladiators, your boy met me, and delivered to me a letter from you and a history of my consuls.h.i.+p written in Greek.[144] This made me glad that I had some time before delivered to L. Cossinius a book, also written in Greek, on the same subject, to take to you. For if I had read yours first you might have said that I had pilfered from you. Although your essay (which I have read with pleasure) seemed to me just a trifle rough and bald, yet its very neglect of ornament is an ornament in itself, as women were once thought to have the best perfume who used none. My book, on the other hand, has exhausted the whole of Isocrates's unguent case, and all the paint-boxes of his pupils, and even Aristotle's colours. This, as you tell me in another letter, you glanced over at Corcyra, and afterwards I suppose received it from Cossinius.[145] I should not have ventured to send it to you until I had slowly and fastidiously revised it. However, Posidonius, in his letter of acknowledgment from Rhodes, says that as he read my memoir, which I had sent him with a view to his writing on the same subject with more elaboration, he was not only not incited to write, but absolutely made afraid to do so. In a word, I have routed the Greeks. Accordingly, as a general rule, those who were pressing me for material to work up, have now ceased to bother me. Pray, if you like the book, see to there being copies at Athens and other Greek towns;[146]

for it may possibly throw some l.u.s.tre on my actions. As for my poor speeches, I will send you both those you ask for and some more also, since what I write to satisfy the studious youth finds favour, it seems, with you also. [For it suited my purpose[147]--both because it was in his Philippics that your fellow citizen Demosthenes gained his reputation, and because it was by withdrawing from the mere controversial and forensic style of oratory that he acquired the character of a serious politician--to see that I too should have speeches that may properly be called _consular_. Of these are, first, one delivered on the 1st of January in the senate, a second to the people on the agrarian law, a third on Otho, a fourth for Rabirius, a fifth on the Sons of the Proscribed, a sixth when I declined a province in public meeting, a seventh when I allowed Catiline to escape, which I delivered the day after Catiline fled, a ninth in public meeting on the day that the Allobroges made their revelation, a tenth in the senate on the 5th of December. There are also two short ones, which may be called fragments, on the agrarian law. This whole cycle I will see that you have. And since you like my writings as well as my actions, from these same rolls you will learn both what I have done and what I have said--or you should not have asked for them, for I did not make you an offer of them.]

You ask me why I urge you to come home, and at the same time you intimate that you are hampered by business affairs, and yet say that you will nevertheless hasten back, not only if it is needful, but even if I desire it. Well, there is certainly no absolute necessity, yet I do think you might plan the periods of your tour somewhat more conveniently. Your absence is too prolonged, especially as you are in a neighbouring country, while yet I cannot enjoy your society, nor you mine. For the present there is peace, but if my young friend Pulcher's[148] madness found means to advance a little farther, I should certainly summon you from your present sojourn. But Metellus is offering him a splendid opposition and will continue to do so. Need I say more?

He is a truly patriotic consul and, as I have ever thought, naturally an honest man. That person, however, makes no disguise, but avowedly desires to be elected tribune. But when the matter was mooted in the senate, I cut the fellow to pieces, and taunted him with his changeableness in seeking the tribunes.h.i.+p at Rome after having given out at Hera, in Sicily,[149] that he was a candidate for the aediles.h.i.+p; and went on to say that we needn't much trouble ourselves, for that he would not be permitted to ruin the Republic any more as a plebeian, than patricians like him had been allowed to do so in my consuls.h.i.+p.

Presently, on his saying that he had completed the journey from the straits in seven days, and that it was impossible for anyone to have gone out to meet him, and that he had entered the city by night,[150]

and making a great parade of this in a public meeting, I remarked that that was nothing new for him: seven days from Sicily to Rome, three hours from Rome to Interamna![151] Entered by night, did he? so he did before! No one went to meet him? neither did anyone on the other occasion, exactly when it should have been done! In short, I bring our young upstart to his bearings, not only by a set and serious speech, but also by repartees of this sort. Accordingly, I have come now to rally him and jest with him in quite a familiar manner. For instance, when we were escorting a candidate, he asked me "whether I had been accustomed to secure Sicilians places at the gladiatorial shows?" "No," said I.

"Well, I intend to start the practice," said he, "as their new patron; but my sister,[152] who has the control of such a large part of the consul's s.p.a.ce, wont give me more than a single foot." "Don't grumble,"

said I, "about one of your sister's feet; you may lift the other also."

A jest, you will say, unbecoming to a consular. I confess it, but I detest that woman--so unworthy of a consul. For

"A shrew she is and with her husband jars,

and not only with Metellus, but also with Fabius,[153] because she is annoyed at their interference in this business.[154] You ask about the agrarian law: it has completely lost all interest, I think. You rather chide me, though gently, about my intimacy with Pompey. I would not have you think that I have made friends with him for my own protection; but things had come to such a pa.s.s that, if by any chance we had quarrelled, there would inevitably have been violent dissensions in the state. And in taking precautions and making provision against that, I by no means swerved from my well-known loyalist policy, but my object was to make him more of a loyalist and induce him to drop somewhat of his time-serving vacillation: and he, let me a.s.sure you, now speaks in much higher terms of my achievements (against which many had tried to incite him) than of his own. He testifies that while he served the state well, I preserved it. What if I even make a better citizen of Caesar,[155] who has now the wind full in his sails--am I doing so poor a service to the Republic? Farthermore, if there was no one to envy me, if all, as they ought to be, were my supporters, nevertheless a preference should still be given to a treatment that would cure the diseased parts of the state, rather than to the use of the knife. As it is, however, since the knighthood, which I once stationed on the slope of the Capitoline,[156]