The Letters of Cicero Part 21

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

FROM THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THURIUM, ON THE WAY TO BRUNDISIUM, APRIL

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, aeT. 48]

I always thought that it was of great importance to me that you should be with me: but when I read the bill, then, indeed, I understood that there could be nothing more desirable for me than that you should overtake me as soon as possible, in order that, if after quitting Italy I should have to travel through Epirus, I might avail myself of your protection and that of your friends; or, if I had to adopt any other plan, I might come to some definite resolution in accordance with your opinion. Wherefore I beg you to do your best to overtake me promptly, which will be easier for you to do since the law about the province of Macedonia has now been pa.s.sed.[307] I would urge you at greater length were it not that with you facts speak for me.

[Footnote 307: One of Clodius's concessions to the consuls, to keep them quiet, was to get Macedonia a.s.signed by a _lex_ to L. Calpurnius Piso.

As Atticus lived in what was practically part of the province, and had much business there, it was important to him to be on the spot, and try to influence the choice of a governor. That being over, he would not have so much to detain him in Rome.]

LIX (A III, 5)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

THURIUM, 10 APRIL

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, aeT. 48]

Terentia thanks you frequently and very warmly. That is a great comfort to me. I am the most miserable man alive, and am being worn out with the most poignant sorrow. I don't know what to write to you. For if you are at Rome, it is now too late for you to reach me; but if you are on the road, we shall discuss together all that needs to be discussed when you have overtaken me. All I ask you is to retain the same affection for me, since it was always myself you loved. For I am the same man: my enemies have taken what was mine, they have not taken myself. Take care of your health.

From Thurium, 10 April.

LX (A III, 6)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

ON THE WAY TO TARENTUM, 18 APRIL

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, aeT. 48]

I had felt certain of seeing you at Tarentum or Brundisium, and that was of importance to me in many respects: among others, as to my being able to stay in Epirus and consult you about the future. My disappointment in this is only another item in the long list of my misfortunes.[308] I mean to go to Asia, to Cyzicus for choice. I commend my family to you. I am very wretched and can scarcely support my life.

From near Tarentum, 17 April.

[Footnote 308: We suppose that Cicero has heard from Atticus that he is not going to be at Tarentum or Brundisium, for he writes before arriving at either.]

LXI (F XIV, 4)

TO TERENTIA, TULLIOLA, AND YOUNG CICERO (AT ROME)

BRUNDISIUM, 29 APRIL

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, aeT. 48]

Yes, I do write to you less often than I might, because, though I am always wretched, yet when I write to you or read a letter from you, I am in such floods of tears that I cannot endure it. Oh, that I had clung less to life! I should at least never have known real sorrow, or not much of it, in my life. Yet if fortune has reserved for me _any_ hope of recovering at any time any position again, I was not utterly wrong to do so: if these miseries are to be permanent, I only wish, my dear, to see you as soon as possible and to die in your arms, since neither G.o.ds, whom you have wors.h.i.+pped with such pure devotion, nor men, whom I have ever served, have made us any return. I have been thirteen days at Brundisium in the house of M. Laenius Flaccus, a very excellent man, who has despised the risk to his fortunes and civil existence in comparison to keeping me safe, nor has been induced by the penalty of a most iniquitous law to refuse me the rights and good offices of hospitality and friends.h.i.+p. May I some time have the opportunity of repaying him!

Feel grat.i.tude I always shall. I set out from Brundisium on the 29th of April,[309] and intend going through Macedonia to Cyzicus. What a fall!

What a disaster! What can I say? Should I ask you to come--a woman of weak health and broken spirit? Should I refrain from asking you? Am I to be without you, then? I think the best course is this: if there is any hope of my restoration, stay to promote it and push the thing on: but if, as I fear, it proves hopeless, pray come to me by any means in your power. Be sure of this, that if I have you I shall not think myself wholly lost. But what is to become of my darling Tullia? You must see to that now: I can think of nothing. But certainly, however things turn out, we must do everything to promote that poor little girl's married happiness and reputation. Again, what is my boy Cicero to do? Let him, at any rate, be ever in my bosom and in my arms.[310] I can't write more. A fit of weeping hinders me. I don't know how you have got on; whether you are left in possession of anything, or have been, as I fear, entirely plundered. Piso, as you say, I hope will always be our friend.

As to the manumission of the slaves you need not be uneasy. To begin with, the promise made to yours was that you would treat them according as each severally deserved. So far Orpheus has behaved well, besides him no one very markedly so. With the rest of the slaves the arrangement is that, if my property is forfeited, they should become my freedmen, supposing them to be able to maintain at law that status.[311] But if my property remained in my owners.h.i.+p, they were to continue slaves, with the exception of a very few. But these are trifles. To return to your advice, that I should keep up my courage and not give up hope of recovering my position, I only wish that there were any good grounds for entertaining such a hope. As it is, when, alas! shall I get a letter from you? Who will bring it me? I would have waited for it at Brundisium, but the sailors would not allow it, being unwilling to lose a favourable wind. For the rest, put as dignified a face on the matter as you can, my dear Terentia. Our life is over: we have had our day: it is not any fault of ours that has ruined us, but our virtue. I have made no false step, except in not losing my life when I lost my honours. But since our children preferred my living, let us bear everything else, however intolerable. And yet I, who encourage you, cannot encourage myself. I have sent that faithful fellow Clodius Philhetaerus home, because he was hampered with weakness of the eyes. Sall.u.s.tius seems likely to outdo everybody in his attentions. Pescennius is exceedingly kind to me; and I have hopes that he will always be attentive to you.

Sica had said that he would accompany me; but he has left Brundisium.

Take the greatest possible care of your health, and believe me that I am more affected by your distress than my own. My dear Terentia, most faithful and best of wives, and my darling little daughter, and that last hope of my race, Cicero, good-bye!

29 April, from Brundisium.

[Footnote 309: Reading _prid. Kal._ instead of _a. d. II. Kal._, which Tyrrell calls _audacius_ in Schutz. But absolute nonsense is not to be kept even for a MS.

(1) Cicero says that he has been thirteen days at Brundisium. In the next letter he tells Atticus he arrived on the 17th. That, in the Roman way of counting, brings it to _prid._ (29th).

(2) Either the date at the end of the letter is wrong, or _prid._ must be used here

(3) There is no such date properly as _a. d. II. Kal._ The day before _prid._ is _a. d. III_.

In regard to dates we must remember that Cicero is using the prae-Julian calendar, in which all months, except February, March, May, July, and October, had twenty-nine days. These last four had thirty-one and February twenty-eight.]

[Footnote 310: Cicero does not mean that young Marcus is to come to him at once, but that, when Tullia's marriage portion is settled, Terentia is to bring him with her if she comes. Really he didn't mean any of them to come, at any rate for a long while. Piso is Tullia's husband.]

[Footnote 311: If Cicero's property was confiscated, it might be held that the slaves went with it, and would be sold with it, and that his manumission of them was an evasion, which could not hold good at law. If his property was not confiscated, they were to remain in their status as slaves. See Letter CXCII.]

LXII (A III, 7)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

BRUNDISIUM, 29 APRIL

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, aeT. 48]

I arrived at Brundisium on the 17th of April. On that day your slaves delivered me your letter, and some other slaves, on the next day but one, brought me another. As to your invitation and advice to stay at your house in Epirus, your kindness is most gratifying, and far from being a novelty. It is a plan that would have exactly suited my wishes, if I might have spent all my time there: for I loathe a crowd of visitors, I can scarcely bear the light, and that solitude, especially in a spot so familiar, would have been the reverse of disagreeable. But to put up there as a mere stage in my journey! In the first place it is far out of my way, and in the next it is only four days from Autronius and the rest, and in the third place you are not there. Had I been going to reside permanently, a fortified castle would have been an advantage, but to one only pa.s.sing through it is unnecessary. Why, if I had not been afraid, I should have made for Athens[312]--there were circ.u.mstances that made me much wish to go--but as it is, I have enemies in the neighbourhood, you are not there, and I fear they[313] might hold even that town not to be the legal distance from Italy, nor do you mention by what day I am to expect you. As to your urging me to remain alive, you carry one point--that I should not lay violent hands upon myself: the other you cannot bring to pa.s.s--that I should not regret my policy and my continuance in life. For what is there to attach me to it, especially if the hope which accompanied me on my departure is non-existent? I will not attempt to enumerate all the miseries into which I have fallen through the extreme injustice and unprincipled conduct, not so much of my enemies, as of those who were jealous of me, because I do not wish to stir up a fresh burst of grief in myself, or invite you to share the same sorrow. I say this deliberately--that no one was ever afflicted with so heavy a calamity, that no one had ever greater cause to wish for death; while I have let slip the time when I might have sought it most creditably. Henceforth death can never heal, it can only end my sorrow.[314] In politics I perceive that you collect all circ.u.mstances that you think may inspire me with a hope of a change: and though they are insignificant, yet, since you will have it so, let us have patience. In spite of what you say, you will catch us up if you make haste. For I will either come into Epirus to be near you, or I will travel slowly through Candavia.[315] My hesitation about Epirus is not caused by vacillation on my part, but by the fact that I do not know where I am likely to see my brother. As to him, I neither know how I am to see him, nor how I shall let him go. That is the greatest and most distressing of all my distresses. I would indeed have written to you oftener, and at greater length, had it not been that sorrow, while it has affected all parts of my intellect, has above all entirely destroyed my faculty for this kind of writing. I long to see you. Take care of your health.

Brundisium, 29 April.

[Footnote 312: He means that had it not been for enemies in Greece and Epirus, he should not only have gone as far south as Epirus, but farther--to Athens. There is a good deal to be said for Schutz's reading, _Achaiam_ for _Athenas_, but as the MS. reading can be explained, it is safer to keep it.]