The Letters of Cicero Part 41

Cx.x.xVIII (Q FR II, 12 [14])

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN GAUL)

c.u.mae (MAY)

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

I have up to now received two letters from you, one just as I was leaving town, the other dated Ariminum: others which you say in your letter that you have sent I have not received. I am having a fairly pleasant time (except that you are not here) at c.u.mae and Pompeii, and intend staying in these parts till the 1st of June. I am writing the treatise of which I spoke to you, "On the Republic," a very bulky and laborious work. But if it turns out as I wish, it will be labour well bestowed, and if not I shall toss it into the very sea which I have before my eyes as I write, and set to work on something else; since to do nothing is beyond my power. I will carefully observe your instruction both as to attaching certain persons to myself and not alienating certain others. But my chief care will be to see your son, or rather our son, if possible, every day at any rate, and to watch the progress of his education as often as possible; and, unless he declines my help, I will even offer to be his instructor, a practice to which I have become habituated in the leisure of these days while bringing my own boy, the younger Cicero, on. Yes, do as you say in your letter, what, even if you had not said so, I know you do with the greatest care--digest, follow up, and carry out my instructions. For my part, when I get to Rome, I will let no letter-carrier of Caesar go without a letter for you. During these days you must excuse me: there has been no one to whom I could deliver a letter until the present bearer M. Orfius, a Roman knight, a man that is my friend as well from personal consideration as because he comes from the _municipium_ of Atella,[593]

which you know is under my patronage. Accordingly, I recommend him to you with more than common warmth, as a man in a brilliant position in his own town and looked up to even beyond it. Pray attach him to yourself by your liberal treatment of him: he is a military tribune in your army. You will find him grateful and attentive. I earnestly beg you to be very friendly to Trebatius.

[Footnote 593: A _municipium_ of Campania nine miles from Naples.]

Cx.x.xIX (F VII, 8)

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL)

ROME (JUNE)

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

Caesar has written me a very courteous letter saying that he has not yet seen as much of you as he could wish, owing to his press of business, but that he certainly will do so. I have answered his letter and told him how much obliged I shall be if he bestows on you as much attention, kindness, and liberality as he can. But I gathered from your letters that you are in somewhat too great a hurry: and at the same time I wondered why you despised the profits of a military tribunes.h.i.+p, especially as you are exempted from the labour of military duty. I shall express my discontent to Vacerra and Manilius: for I dare not say a word to Cornelius,[594] who is responsible for your unwise conduct, since you profess to have learnt legal wisdom from him. Rather press on your opportunity and the means put into your hands, than which none better will ever be found. As to what you say of the jurist Precia.n.u.s, I never cease recommending you to him; for he writes me word that you owe him thanks. Be sure to let me know to what that refers. I am waiting for a letter from you dated "Britain."[595]

[Footnote 594: Vacerra, Manilius, Cornelius, well-known lawyers or jurists of the day.]

[Footnote 595: We shall afterwards see that Trebatius did not go to Britain.]

CXL (Q FR II, 13)

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN GAUL)

ROME (3 JUNE)

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

On the 2nd of June, the day of my return to Rome, I received your letter dated Placentia: then next day another dated Blandeno, along with a letter from Caesar filled full of courteous, earnest, and pleasant expressions. These expressions are indeed valuable, or rather _most_ valuable, as tending very powerfully to secure our reputation and exalted position in that state. But believe me--for you know my heart--that what I value most in all this I already possess, that is, first of all, your active contribution to our common position; and, secondly, all that warm affection of Caesar for me, which I prefer to all the honours which he desires me to expect at his hands. His letter too, despatched at the same time as your own--which begins by saying what pleasure your arrival and the renewed memory of our old affection had given him, and goes on to say that he will take care that, in the midst of my sorrow and regret at losing you, I shall have reason to be glad that you are with him of all people--gave me extraordinary delight.

Wherefore you, of course, are acting in a truly brotherly spirit when you exhort me, though, by heaven, I am now indeed forward enough to do so, to concentrate all my attentions upon him alone. Yes, I will do so, indeed, with a burning zeal: and perhaps I shall manage to accomplish what is frequently the fortune of travellers when they make great haste, who, if they have got up later than they intended, have, by increasing their speed, arrived at their destination sooner than if they had waked up before daylight. Thus I, since I have long overslept myself in cultivating that great man, though you, by heaven, often tried to wake me up, will make up for my slowness with horses and (as you say he likes my poem) a poet's chariots. Only let me have Britain to paint in colours supplied by yourself, but with my own brush. But what am I saying? What prospect of leisure have I, especially as I remain at Rome in accordance with his request? But I will see. For perhaps, as usual, my love for you will overcome all difficulties. For my having sent Trebatius to him he even thanks me in very witty and polite terms, remarking that there was no one in the whole number of his staff who knew how to draw up a recognizance. I have asked him for a tribunes.h.i.+p for M. Curtius--since Domitius (the consul) would have thought that he was being laughed at, if my pet.i.tion had been addressed to him, for his daily a.s.sertion is that he hasn't the appointment of so much as a military tribune: he even jested in the senate at his colleague Appius as having gone to visit Caesar,[596] that he might get from him at least one tribunes.h.i.+p. But my request was for next year, for that was what Curtius wished. Whatever line you think I ought to take in politics and in treating my opponents, be sure I shall take, and shall be "gentler than any ear-lap." Affairs at Rome stand thus; there is some hope of the elections taking place, but it is an uncertain one. There is some latent idea of a dictators.h.i.+p,[597] but neither is that confirmed. There is profound calm in the forum, but it is rather the calm of decrepitude than content.

The opinions I express in the senate are of a kind to win the a.s.sent of others rather than my own:

"Such the effects of miserable war."[598]

[Footnote 596: At Luca in the year B.C. 56.]

[Footnote 597: _Comitia habendi causa_. No such had been appointed since B.C. 202, and the irregular dictators.h.i.+p of Sulla in B.C. 82 made the idea distasteful. Pompey was understood to wish for the appointment, now and later on. See pp. 326, 335.]

[Footnote 598: t??a??' ? t???? p??e?? ??e????eta? (Eur. _Supp._ 119).]

CXLI (Q FR II, 14 [15 b])

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN GAUL)

ROME (JULY)

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

Well! this time I'll use a good pen, well-mixed ink, and superfine paper. For you say you could hardly read my previous letter, for which, my dear brother, he reason was none of those which you suppose. For I was not busy, nor agitated, nor out of temper with some one: but it is always my way to take the first pen that turns up and use it as if it were a good one. But now attend, best and dearest of brothers, to my answer to what you wrote in this same short letter in such a very business-like way. On this subject you beg that I should write back to you with brotherly candour, without concealment, or reserve, or consideration for your feelings--I mean whether you are to hasten home, as we had talked of, or to stay where you are, if there is any excuse for doing so, in order to extricate yourself from your embarra.s.sments.

If, my dear Quintus, it were some small matter on which you were asking my opinion, though I should have left it to you to do what you chose, I should yet have shewn you what mine was. But on this subject your question amounts to this--what sort of year I expect the next to be?

Either quite undisturbed as far as we are concerned, or at any rate one that will find us in the highest state of preparation for defence. This is shewn by the daily throng at my house, my reception in the forum, the cheers which greet me in the theatre. My friends feel no anxiety, because they know the strength of my position in my hold upon the favour both of Caesar and Pompey. These things give me entire confidence. But if some furious outbreak of that madman occurs, everything is ready for crus.h.i.+ng him. This is my feeling, my deliberate opinion: I write to you with entire confidence. I bid you have no doubts, and I do so with no intention of pleasing you, but with brotherly frankness. Therefore, while I should wish you to come at the time you arranged, for the sake of the pleasure we should have in each other's society, yet I prefer the course you yourself think the better one. I, too, think these objects of great importance--ample means for yourself and extrication from your load of debt. Make up your mind to this, that, free from embarra.s.sments, we should be the happiest people alive if we keep well. For men of our habits the deficiency is small, and such as can be supplied with the greatest ease, granted only that we keep our health.

There is an enormous recrudescence of bribery. Never was there anything equal to it. On the 15th of July the rate of interest rose from four to eight per cent., owing to the compact made by Memmius with the consul Domitius:[599] I wish Scaurus could get the better of it. Messalla is very shaky. I am not exaggerating--they arrange to offer as much as 10,000 sestertia (about 80,000) for the vote of the first century. The matter is a burning scandal. The candidates for the tribunes.h.i.+p have made a mutual compact--having deposited 500 sesteria (about 4,000) apiece with Cato, they agree to conduct their canva.s.s according to his direction, with the understanding that anyone offending against it is to be condemned by him. If this election then turns out to be pure, Cato will have been of more avail than all laws and jurors put together.

[Footnote 599: For the nature of this compact, see p. 300.]

CXLII (A IV, 16 AND PART OF 17)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS OR ON HIS JOURNEY TO ASIA)

ROME (? 24 JUNE)

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

The bare fact of my letter being by the hand of an amanuensis will be a sign of the amount of my engagements. I have no fault to find with you as to the number of your letters, but most of them told me nothing except where you were, or at most shewed by the fact that they came from you that no harm had happened to you. Of this cla.s.s of letters there were two which gave me very great pleasure, dated by you from Buthrotum almost at the same time: for I was anxious to know that you had had a favourable crossing. But this constant supply of your letters did not give me so much pleasure by the richness of their contents as by their frequency. The one which your guest, M. Paccius, delivered to me was important and full of matter. I will therefore answer it. And this is the first thing I have to say: I have shewn Paccius, both by word and deed, what weight a recommendation from you has: accordingly, he is among my intimate friends, though unknown to me before. Now for the rest. Varro, of whom you write, shall be got in somewhere, if I can but find a place for him.[600] But you know the style of my Dialogues: just as in those "On the Orator," which you praise to the skies, a mention of anyone by the interlocutors was impossible, unless he had been known to or heard of by them, so in the "Dialogue on the Republic," which I have begun, I have put the discussion in the mouths of Africa.n.u.s, Philus, Laelius, and Manilius. I have added two young men, Q. Tubero and P.

Rutilius, and the two sons-in-law of Laelius, Scaevola and Fannius. So I am thinking how (since I employ introductions to each book, as Aristotle does in what he calls his "Exoterics") to contrive some pretext for naming your friend in a natural way, as I understand is your wish. May I only be enabled to carry out my attempt! For, as you cannot but observe, I have undertaken a subject wide, difficult, and requiring the utmost leisure--the very thing that, above all others, I lack. In those books which you commend you complain of the absence of Scaevola among the speakers. Well, I did not withdraw him without a set purpose, but I did exactly what that G.o.d of our idolatry, Plato, did in his Republic. When Socrates had come to the Piraeus on a visit to Cephalus, a wealthy and cheerful old man, during all the introductory conversation the old man takes part in the discussion; then, after having himself made a speech very much to the point, he says that he wants to go away to attend on the religious rites, and does not return again. I believe Plato hardly thought that it would be quite natural, if he kept a man of that age any longer in a conversation so protracted. I thought that I was bound to be still more careful in the case of Scaevola, who was at the age and with the broken health as you remember he then was, and who had enjoyed such high offices, that it was scarcely in accordance with etiquette for him to be staying several days in the Tusculan villa of Cra.s.sus. Besides, the conversation in the first book was not unconnected with Scaevola's special pursuits: the other books, as you know, contain a technical discussion. In such I was unwilling that that facetious veteran, as you know he was, should take part.

As to Pilia's business, which you mention, I will see to it. For the matter is quite clear, as you say, from the information supplied by Aurelia.n.u.s, and in managing it I shall have also an opportunity of glorifying myself in my Tullia's eyes. I am supporting Vestorius: for I know that it gratifies you, and I am careful that he would understand that to be the case. But do you know the sort of man he is? Though he has two such good-natured people to deal with, nothing can exceed his impracticability. Now as to what you ask about Gaius Cato. You know that he was acquitted under the _lex Iunia Licinia_:[601] I have to tell you that he will be acquitted under the _lex Fufia_,[602] and not so much to the satisfaction of his defenders as of his accusers. However, he has become reconciled to myself and Milo. Drusus has had notice of prosecution by Lucretius. The 3rd of July is the day fixed for challenging his jurors. About Procilius[603] there are sinister rumours--but you know what the courts are. Hirrus is on good terms with Domitius.[604] The senatorial decree which the present consuls have carried about the provinces--"whoever henceforth, etc."--does not seem to me likely to have any effect.

As to your question about Messalla, I don't know what to say: I have never seen candidates so closely matched. Messalla's means of support you know. Scaurus has had notice of prosecution from Triarius. If you ask me, no great feeling of sympathy for him has been roused. Still, his aediles.h.i.+p is remembered with some grat.i.tude, and he has a certain hold on the country voters from the memory of his father. The two remaining plebeian candidates have compensating advantages which make them about equal: Domitius Calvinus is strong in friends, and is farther supported by his very popular exhibition of gladiators; Memmius finds favour with Caesar's veterans and relies on Pompey's client towns in Gaul. If this does not avail him, people think that some tribune will be found to push off the elections till Caesar comes back, especially since Cato has been acquitted.

I have answered your letter brought by Paccius: now for the rest. From my brother's letter I gather surprising indications of Caesar's affection for me, and they have been confirmed by a very cordial letter from Caesar himself. The result of the British war is a source of anxiety. For it is ascertained that the approaches to the island are protected by astonis.h.i.+ng ma.s.ses of cliff. Moreover, it is now known that there isn't a pennyweight of silver in that island, nor any hope of booty except from slaves, among whom I don't suppose you can expect any instructed in literature or music.

Paullus has almost brought his basilica in the forum to the roof, using the same columns as were in the ancient building: the part for which he gave out a contract he is building on the most magnificent scale.[605]

Need I say more? Nothing could be more gratifying or more to his glory than such a monument. Accordingly, the friends of Caesar--I mean myself and Oppius, though you burst with anger--have thought nothing of 60,000 sestertia (about 480,000) for that monument, which you used to speak of in such high terms, in order to enlarge the forum and extend it right up to the Hall of Liberty. The claims of private owners could not be satisfied for less. We will make it a most glorious affair. For in the Campus Martius we are about to erect voting places for the _comitia tributa_, of marble and covered, and to surround them with a lofty colonnade a mile in circ.u.mference: at the same time the _Villa Publica_ will also be connected with these erections.[606] You will say: "What good will this monument do me?" But why should I trouble myself about that? I have told you all the news at Rome: for I don't suppose you want to know about the l.u.s.trum, of which there is now no hope,[607] or about the trials which are being held under the (Cincian) law.[608]