The Letters of Cicero Part 4

VI (A I, 10)

TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)

TUSCULUM

[Sidenote: B.C. 67, aeT. 39]

"Being in my Tusculan villa" (that's for your "being in the Ceramicus")--however, I being there, a courier sent by your sister arrived from Rome and delivered me a letter from you, announcing at the same time that the courier who was going to you started that very afternoon. The result is that, though I do send _an_ answer, I am forced by the shortness of the time to write only these few words. First, as to softening my friend's feeling towards you, or even reconciling him outright, I pledge you my word to do so. Though I have been attempting it already on my own account, I will now urge the point more earnestly and press him closer, as I think I gather from your letter that you are so set upon it. This much I should like you to realize, that he is very deeply offended; but since I cannot see any serious ground for it, I feel confident that he will do as I wish and yield to my influence. As for my statues and Hermeracles, pray put them on board, as you say in your letter, at your very earliest convenience, and anything else you light upon that may seem to you appropriate to the place you wot of, especially anything you think suitable to a palaestra and gymnasium. I say this because I am sitting there as I write, so that the very place itself reminds me. Besides these, I commission you to get me some medallions to let into the walls of my little entrance-court, and two engraved stone-curbs. Mind you don't engage your library to anyone, however keen a lover you may find; for I am h.o.a.rding up my little savings expressly to secure that resource for my old age. As to my brother, I trust that all is as I have ever wished and tried to make it.

There are many signs of that result--not least that your sister is _enceinte_. As for my election, I don't forget that I left the question entirely to you, and I have all along been telling our common friends that I have not only not asked you to come, but have positively forbidden you to do so, because I understood that it was much more important to you to carry through the business you have now in hand, than it is to me to have you at my election. I wish you therefore to feel as though you had been sent to where you are in my interests. Nay, you will find me feeling towards you, and hear of it from others, exactly as though my success were obtained not only in your presence, but by your direct agency.

Tulliola gives notice of action against you. She is dunning me as your surety.

VII (A I, 11)

TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)

ROME

[Sidenote: B.C. 67, aeT. 39]

I was doing so before spontaneously, and have been since greatly stirred by your two letters, with their earnest expressions to the same effect.

Besides, Sall.u.s.tius has been always at my side to prompt me to spare no pains to induce Lucceius to be reconciled to you. But after doing everything that could be done, not only did I fail to renew his old feelings towards you, but I could not even succeed in eliciting the reason of his alienation. On his part, however, he keeps harping on that arbitration case of his, and the other matters which I knew very well before you left Rome were causing him offence. Still, he has certainly got something else fixed deeper in his mind; and this no letters _from_ you, and no commissioning of me will obliterate as easily as you will do in a personal interview, I don't mean merely by your words, but by the old familiar expression of your face--if only you think it worth while, as you will if you will listen to me, and be willing to act with your habitual kindness. Finally, you need not wonder why it is that, whereas I intimated in my letters that I felt hopeful of his yielding to my influence, I now appear to have no such confidence; for you can scarcely believe how much more stubborn his sentiment appears to me than I expected, and how much more obstinate he is in this anger. However, all this will either be cured when you come, or will only be painful to the party in fault.

As to the sentence in your letter, "you suppose by this time I am praetor-elect," let me tell you that there is no cla.s.s of people at Rome so hara.s.sed by every kind of unreasonable difficulty as candidates for office; and that no one knows when the elections will be.[35] However, you will hear all this from Philadelphus. Pray despatch at the earliest opportunity what you have bought for my "Academia." I am surprisingly delighted with the mere thought of that place, to say nothing of its actual occupation. Mind also not to let anyone else have your books.

Reserve them, as you say in your letter, for me. I am possessed with the utmost longing for them, as I am with a loathing for affairs of every other kind, which you will find in an incredibly worse position than when you left them.[36]

[Footnote 35: The _comitia_ were twice postponed this year. Apparently the voting for Cicero had in each case been completed, so that he is able to say that he was "thrice returned at the head of the poll by an unanimous vote" (_de Imp. Pomp._ -- 2). The postponement of the elections was probably connected with the struggles of the senate to hinder the legislation (as to bribery) of the Tribune, Gaius Cornelius (Dio, 36, 38-39).]

[Footnote 36: The first allusion in these letters to the disturbed position of public affairs. See the pa.s.sage of Dio quoted in the previous note. There were so many riots in the interval between the proclamation and the holding of the elections, not without bloodshed, that the senate voted the consuls a guard.]

VIII (A I, 3)

[Sidenote: B.C. 66. Coss., M. aemilius Lepidus, L. Volcatius Tullus.]

In this year Cicero was praetor, and delivered his first extant public speech (_apud populum_) in support of the _lex Manilia_, which gave Pompey the command in the Mithridatic War with the provinces of Asia and Bithynia. The strict Optimates opposed it.

Cicero supported it on the grounds of the importance of the war and the proofs Pompey had already given of military ability, courage, personal prestige, and good fortune. He takes occasion to point out the mischief done to the Roman name by oppressive or fraudulent governors and imperators. In this same year he delivered one of his ablest speeches in court in defending A. Cluentius Habitus on a charge of poisoning. At the consular elections this year the two first elected were disabled for bribery.

TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)

ROME, JANUARY

[Sidenote: B.C. 66, aeT. 40]

I have to inform you of the death of your grandmother from pining at your long absence, and at the same time because she was afraid that the Latin towns would revolt and fail to bring the victims up the Alban Mount. I presume that L. Saufeius will send you a letter of condolence on the subject.[37] I am expecting you here in the course of January--is it a mere rumour or does it come from letters of yours to others? For to me you have not mentioned the subject. The statues which you got for me have been landed at Caieta. I haven't seen them, for I have been unable to leave Rome. I have sent a man to clear the freightage. I am exceedingly obliged to you for having taken so much trouble to get them, and so reasonably. As to your frequent remarks in your letters about pacifying my friend, I have done everything I could and tried every expedient; but he is inveterate against you to a surprising degree, on what suspicions, though I think you have been told, you shall yet learn from me when you come. I failed to restore Sall.u.s.tius[38] to his old place in his affections, and yet he was on the spot. I tell you this because the latter used to find fault with me in regard to you. Well, he has found by personal experience that _he_ is not so easy to pacify, and that on my part no zeal has been lacking either on his or your behalf. I have betrothed Tulliola to C. Piso Frugi, son of Lucius.[39]

[Footnote 37: The point of this frigid joke is not clear. Was the grandmother really dead? What was she to do with the Latin _feriae_? Mr.

Strachan Davidson's explanation is perhaps the best, that Cicero means that the old lady was thinking of the Social War in B.C. 89, when the loyalty of the Latin towns must have been a subject of anxiety. She is in her dotage and only remembers old scares. This is understanding _civitates_ with _Latinae_. Others understand _feriae_ or _mulieres_.

Saufeius, a Roman eques, was an Epicurean, who would hold death to be no evil. He was a close friend of Atticus, who afterwards saved his property from confiscation by the Triumvirs (Nep. _Att._ 12).]

[Footnote 38: Cneius Sall.u.s.tius, a learned friend of Cicero's, of whom we shall often hear again.]

[Footnote 39: C. Calpurnius Piso, quaestor B.C. 58, died in B.C. 57. The marriage took place in B.C. 63.]

IX (A I, 4)

TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)

ROME

[Sidenote: B.C. 65, aeT. 41]

You keep on making me expect you again and again. Only the other day, when I thought you on the point of arriving, I was suddenly put off by you till Quintilis (July). Now, however, I _do_ think that you should come at the time you mention if you possibly can. You will thereby be in time for my brother Quintus's election, will pay me a long-deferred visit, and will settle the dispute with Acutilius. This latter Peducaeus also suggested my mentioning to you, for I think it is full time that you settled that affair. My good offices are at your service and always have been so. Here at Rome I have conducted the case of Gaius Macer with a popular approval surpa.s.sing belief and unparalleled. Though I had been inclined to take a lenient view of his case, yet I gained much more substantial advantage from the popular approval on his condemnation than I should have got from his grat.i.tude if he had been acquitted.[40]

I am very glad to hear what you say about the Hermathena. It is an ornament appropriate to my "Academia" for two reasons: Hermes is a sign common to all gymnasia, Minerva specially of this particular one. So I would have you, as you say, adorn the place with the other objects also, and the more the better. The statues which you sent me before I have not yet seen. They are in my villa at Formiae, whither I am at this moment thinking of going. I shall get them all transferred to my Tusculan villa. If I find myself with more than I want there I shall begin adorning Caieta. Please reserve your books, and don't despair of my being able to make them mine. If I succeed in that, I am superior to Cra.s.sus in wealth and look down on everybody's manors and pastures.[41]

[Footnote 40: The annalist C. Licinius Macer was impeached _de repetundis_ (he was praetor about B.C. 70 or 69, and afterwards had a province), and finding that he was going to be condemned, committed suicide. He was never therefore condemned regularly (Val. Max. ix. 127; Plut. _Cic._ 9). Cicero presided at the court as praetor.]

[Footnote 41: The books must have been a very valuable collection, or Cicero would hardly have made so much of being able to buy them, considering his lavish orders for statues or antiques.]

X (A I, 1)

[Sidenote: B.C. 65. Coss., L. Aurelius Cotta, L. Manlius Torquatus.]

The election to the consuls.h.i.+p is not till the next year (B.C. 64), but Cicero is already making preparation for it, and looking out for support. In July his only son was born. He does not refer to the so-called "first Catilinarian conspiracy," but mentions Catiline as a possible compet.i.tor, and even contemplates defending him on some charge brought against him to prevent his standing for the consuls.h.i.+p.

TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)