These letters were written between March 44 and July 43 B.C. The translation is by W.G. Williams (1927). Click on the L symbols to go to the Latin text of each section. Click on ** to go to the translator's footnotes.
CONTENTS: 1 from D. Brutus to M. Brutus & C. Cassius ; 2 3 from M. Brutus & C. Cassius to M. Antonius ; 4 9 10 11 13 13a 13b 19 20 23 26 from D. Brutus ; 5 6 7 8 12 14 15 16 17 18 21 22 24 25 to D. Brutus ; 27 to C. Matius ; 28 from C. Matius ; 29 to C. Oppius
← Book 10
DECIMUS JUNIUS BRUTUS ** TO HIS DEAR BRUTUS AND CASSIUS, GREETING
Let me tell you how we are situated ; Hirtius was at my house yesterday evening ; he explained what Antony’s intentions were - utterly base, you may be sure, and untrustworthy ; for he said that he could not possibly give me my province, and also that it was not safe for any of us to be in Rome, so excited were the feelings of the soldiers and the people. You observe, I am sure, that both those statements are false, and that the truth is to be found in what Hirtius pointed out - Antony is afraid that, if our claims should have met with even moderate support. no part would be left for him to play on the political stage.
2 Being in these straits, I decided to demand for myself and our other friends an honorary ambassadorship, ** so as to discover some decent pretext for leaving Rome. This Hirtius has promised to obtain for me, and yet I have no confidence that he will so do, so insolent are these men, and so set on persecuting us. And even if they grant our request, it will not, I fancy, prevent our being declared public enemies or banned as outlaws in the near future.
3 "What then," you say, "have you to suggest?" Well, we must bow to fortune; I think we must get out of Italy and migrate to Rhodes, or somewhere or other; if there is a change for the better, we shall return to Rome ; if there is no great change, we shall live on in exile ; if it comes to the worst. we shall have recourse to the last means of defending ourselves.
4 It will perhaps occur to someone among you at this point to ask why we should wait for that last stage rather than make some strong effort at once? Because we have no centre to rally around, except indeed Sextus Pompeius ** and Caecilius Bassus, ** who, it seems to me, are likely to be more firmly established when they, have this news about Caesar. It will be time enough for us to join them when we have found out what their strength really is. On behalf of you and Cassius, I will make any engagement you wish me to make ; in fact Hirtius insists upon my doing so. result that Bassus got command of the troops, and was now holding his own against an army sent by C. Julius Caesar.
5 I must ask you both to reply to my letter as soon as possible - because I have no doubt that Hirtius will inform me about these matters before the fourth hour - and let me know in your reply at what place we can meet, where you would like me to come.
6 P.S. - Since my last conversation with Hirtius I have determined to ask for permission, while we are at Rome, to have a bodyguard at the public expense ; but I do not expect they will grant us that privilege, because we shall raise a storm of unpopularity against them. Still I thought I should neglect no appeal which I decided to be reasonable.
M. BRUTUS AND CASSIUS, PRAETORS, TO M. ANTONIUS, CONSUL
Had we not been convinced of your sincerity and goodwill towards us, we should not have composed this letter to you; and we are assured, such being your habit of mind, that you will put the best possible construction upon it. We are told by letter that a large number of veterans have already assembled at Rome, ** and that as the Calends of June approach, the number will be much larger. Were we to entertain any doubt or apprehension as regards yourself, we should be untrue to ourselves. But seeing that we have put ourselves at your disposal, and in deference to your advice have dismissed our personal friends from the provincial towns, and have done so not only by edict ** but by letter as well, we surely deserve that you should admit us into your counsels, especially in a matter which affects ourselves.
2 And for that reason we beg of you to inform us of your attitude of mind towards us, whether you think we shall be safe amid so great a throng of veteran soldiers, who, we are told, are even thinking of replacing the altar, ** - a thing we believe that hardly anybody can desire or approve, who desires our own safety and honour.
That we have from the beginning fixed our eyes on tranquillity, and have sought nothing other than the liberty of the community, is made clear by what has happened. Nobody can play us false but yourself, and that is obviously foreign to your high character and integrity ; but nobody else has the means of deceiving us; for it is you, and you alone, that we have trusted and shall continue to trust.
3 Our friends are terribly alarmed about us; and although they are fully assured of your good faith, still they are obsessed by the reflection that a mass of veterans can be more easily driven in any direction by anybody else than held in check by you. We ask you to reply to us on all points. For the allegation that such an order was issued to veterans because it was your intention to bring forward the question of their interests ** in the month of June is as frivolous as it is futile. Whom do you suppose to be likely to obstruct your intention, seeing that, as far as we are concerned, it is definitely decided that we shall take no action ?
Nobody has a right to impute to us an undue love of life, when there is nothing that can befall us unaccompanied by universal ruin and chaos.
BRUTUS AND CASSIUS, PRAETORS, TO M. ANTONY, CONSUL
Sir, ** - We have perused your letter, which closely follows the lines of your public proclamation, being insulting, intimidating, and by no means a proper letter for you to have addressed to us.
On our part, Sir, by no single injurious act have we provoked you, and we never believed that it would cause you surprise if we praetors, or indeed any men holding our position, should have appealed in a public manifesto for some concession from the consul. ** But if you resent our having ventured so far, permit us at least to regret that so small a favour is being refused by you to a Brutus and a Cassius.
2 As for your denial that you made any complaint as to the raising of troops, the requisitioning of sums of money, the tampering with the legions, and the sending of despatches across the sea, we indeed credit you with having made that denial in all good faith ; at the same time, however, we refuse to acknowledge the truth of a single word of those allegations, and it surprises us that, though you kept silent about all this, you were so little able to control your anger as to reproach us with the death of Caesar.
3 This much, however, we would have you consider yourself - how far it is to be tolerated that praetors should not be allowed in the interests of harmony and liberty to waive by public announcement some of their own rights without being threatened with armed violence by the Consul. Your reliance on such methods has no terrors for us ; for neither is it seemly or suitable for us, on our side, to bow our spirit before any peril, nor is it for Antony to claim lordship over those to whose efforts he owes his freedom. As for ourselves, were we urged by other considerations to wish to fan the flame of civil war, your letter would have no effect whatever; for the man who threatens has no authority among free men. But you are perfectly well aware that we are not to be driven either this way or that, and it is quite likely that the motive of your blustering is to give our prudence the appearance of panic.
4 Our sentiments are these: we are anxious that you should hold a high and honourable position in any constitution that is free, and we challenge you to no kind of hostility ; but, for all that, we attach less value to your friendship than to our own liberty.
Consider again and again what you are undertaking, and what strength you have for it; and be sure you remember, not how long was Caesar’s life, but how far from long was his reign. We pray to heaven that your counsels may conduce to the welfare of the State and of yourself; failing that, our prayer is that they may be as little harmful to your self as is consistent with the welfare and honour of the Republic.
August 4th.
[4] L { October/November, 44 }
D. BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE, TO CICERO, GREETING
Had I any doubt as to your feelings towards me, I should make a wordy appeal to you to support my claims ; but I am sure the truth is as I have convinced myself - that you have my interests at heart. I have advanced with my troops as far as the Inalpini, ** not so much because I aimed at the title of imperator, as because I desire to satisfy my men, and strengthen them in support of our cause.
2 In this I believe I have succeeded ; for they have had experience both of my generosity and my courage. ** I have waged war against the most warlike people in the world, captured many fortresses, and devastated much country. I had ample justification for sending a despatch to the Senate. Give me the benefit of your support in the debate ; when you do this, you will have to no slight extent subserved the public interests.
[5] L { soon after December 9, 44 }
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING
Although our friend Lupus ** had come from you and was staying some days at Rome, I was then at various places where I thought it was safe for me to be. The result was that Lupus returned to you without a letter from me, though he had charged himself with the delivery to me of yours. I came to Rome, however, on the 9th of December, ** and nothing seemed to me more urgently important than an early interview with Pansa, and from him I learnt about you what I most earnestly prayed for. ** It follows that you stand in no need of encouragement, seeing that you never felt the lack of anyone to encourage you even in that achievement of yours, which was the greatest within the memory of man. **
2 To this fact, however, I think a brief reference should be made, that the people of Rome look to you for everything, and rest upon you all their hope of ultimately recovering their liberty. If you recall to mind day and night (and I am well aware that you do), how much you have already achieved, you will assuredly not forget how much even now remains for you to achieve. For if once your province falls into the hands of the man you know of - though indeed I was always his friend until] I became aware that he was waging war not only openly but joyously against the Republic - I see no hope of salvation left.
3 And that is why I join my prayers to those of the Senate and people of Rome that you will set the Republic free for all time from the tyranny of a king, and make your ending agree with your beginning. Yours is this task, and yours the part to play ; it is you that the State, nay, rather all the nations of the world, look to for this, and even demand it of you. Although, since you stand in no need of it, I shall waste no more words on encouragement, still I shall do what is incumbent upon me, and promise you all my service and sympathy, my solicitude and my thoughts - whatever in fact will tend to your renown and glory. And so I would have you convince yourself of this, that not only for the sake of the commonwealth, which is more precious to me than my own life, but also because I am personally devoted to you, and desire the exaltation of your high position, I shall at no point fail to support your most admirable policy, your advancement, and your fame.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING
When our friend Lupus came to Rome from Mutina on the 6th day ** he called upon me early on the next day. He was most painstaking in the elucidation of your messages, and delivered your letter. In commending to me the defence of your position you are at the same time. I take it, commending to me my own, which, I solemnly assure you, I do not regard as more precious than yours. You will therefore give me the greatest possible pleasure if you regard it as an indisputable fact that at no point will either my counsel or devotion be found ito fail you in the enhancement of your distinction.
2 The tribunes of the plebs had given notice that the Senate would meet on the 20th of December, when it was their intention to make a proposal for the protection of the consuls designate; so although I had decided not to attend a Senate before the 1st of January, still, seeing that your proclamation ** had been put down for discussion on that very day, I thought it a scandal that either a Senate should be held without any mention being made of your immortal services to the Republic (and that is what would have happened had I not attended), or that even if any complimentary reference were made to you, I should not be in my place.
3 I therefore came to the Senate early, and on my arrival being noticed, the members flocked together in full force. What I proposed in the Senate concerning you, and what I said at that crowded meeting, I prefer that you should learn from the letters of others; I would only have you assure yourself that I shall always undertake to support with the utmost enthusiasm whatever tends to the advancement of your position, exalted as it is in itself; and although I quite understand that many others will join me in so doing, in this matter I shall aspire to take the lead.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING **
Since Lupus had Libo ** and your cousin Servius ** to meet me at my house, I expect you have learnt what my sentiments were from M. Seius, ** who also took part in our conversation. The rest you will be able to learn from Graeceius, ** though indeed he left only a few minutes after Seius.
2 But the main point is this - and I would have you grasp it and bear it in mind most carefully - that in the matter of preserving the liberty and welfare of the Roman people you are not to await the sanction of a Senate which is still enslaved, for by so doing you would not only stultify your own action (it was by no public authority, you know, that you freed the Republic, and that, of course, makes the achievement all the more magnificent and illustrious), but you would also convict the youth, or rather the boy, ** Caesar, of foolhardy action in having taken up so heavy a public responsibility all on his own initiative; and finally, you would convict of insane folly men who, though country-bred, are yet very gallant soldiers and very excellent citizens - I mean, firstly, the veterans, your own comrades-in-arms, and secondly, the Martian legion, and the Fourth, who declared their own consul a public enemy, and flung themselves into the defence of the public safety. When its formal sanction is obstructed by intimidation, the wishes of the Senate must be regarded as the equivalent of such sanction.
3 Lastly, you have now chosen your side twice, so that you have not a free hand; first on the Ides of March, and again, lately, by the enlistment of your new army and forces. You ought, therefore, whatever happens, to be so prepared and so minded as not indeed to do nothing without orders, but to go on achieving what will meet with universal praise and the most genuine admiration.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING
Your wife Polla ** sent to me to give her anything I felt inclined in the way of a letter to you, just when I did not know what to write about. For all is in suspense, as we are anxiously awaiting the envoys, ** no news of what they have accomplished having yet reached us. This much, however, 1 thought I ought to write, first of all that the Senate and people of Rome are greatly concerned about you, out of regard, not only for their own safety, but also for your own eminent position. In fact there is somehow a marvellous affection inspired by your name, and an unprecedented love of you among all classes of citizens; they are hopeful and confident that as you before delivered the Commonwealth from a monarch, so you will at the present crisis deliver it from a monarchy.
2 A levy is being held at Rome and throughout Italy, if indeed you can call it a levy, when all are offering themselves voluntarily; so intense is the enthusiasm inspired in men’s hearts by their yearning for liberty and their abhorrence of a long term of slavery. About all the other matters, it is now time that I ought to be expecting a letter from you to say what you and your friend Hirtius are doing, and also my friend Caesar, ** both of whom I hope will very shortly have become united to you by the bonds of a common victory. It remains for me to write that about myself which I hope (and I prefer it so) that you are being told in your friends’ correspondence - that in no respect am I failing, and at no time ever will fail, to further your advancement.
D. BRUTUS TO M. CICERO, GREETING
You must see for yourself what damage the Republic has suffered in the loss of Pansa. ** It now lies with you to take measures, with all your influence and forethought, to prevent our enemies, now that the consuls have been removed, ** from entertaining hopes of recovery. For my part, I shall do my best to make it impossible for Antony even to keep a footing in Italy ; I shall pursue him at once. I hope to succeed in both of my objects - in preventing Ventidius ** giving me the slip, and Antony staying on in Italy. First and foremost, I beg you to send a message to that weathercock of a fellow, Lepidus, to preclude the possibility of his resuscitating the war against us by getting Antony to join forces with him. As for Asinius Pollio I imagine you clearly foresee how he is likely to act. The legions of Lepidus and Asinius are numerous, efficient, and steady.
2 I am not writing thus to you under the idea that you do not observe all this for yourself, but because I am absolutely convinced (in case you and your friends have any doubt about him) that Lepidus will never act straightforwardly. There’s Plancus too, whose resolution I implore you all to stiffen; I hope, now that Antony has been defeated, he will remain true to the Commonwealth. If Antony succeeds in crossing the Alps, I have determined to set an outpost in the Alps, and inform you of whatever happens.
The Camp, Regium Lepidi, ** April 29th.
D. BRUTUS TO M. CICERO, GREETING
I do not consider that the Republic owes more to me than I owe to you. You are well aware that my gratitude to you may easily be greater than that of my wrong-headed friends ** to me; and although it should appear that I am only speaking thus under the pressure of the moment, even so you are well aware that I prefer your judgment to that of all those on the other side. For your judgment of me is based on an unequivocal and sincere sentiment, which those others are prevented from feeling by their intense malevolence and jealousy. Well, let them hinder me from being personally honoured, provided they do not hinder the possibility of my helpful administration of the Commonwealth; and what terrible danger that Commonwealth is in, I will explain as briefly as I can.
2 First of all, the utter chaos in the affairs of the City caused by the death of the consuls, and the eager cupidity aroused in the hearts of men by vacant places, cannot have escaped your notice. I think I have written quite as much as can be entrusted to a letter ; for I know to whom I am writing.
3 I now return to Antony; although after his flight he had but a very small body of foot-soldiers, and those unarmed, still by liberating convicts and snatching up all sorts of men he appears to have made up quite a large force. To this has been added Ventidius’s contingent, which after crossing the Apennines and accomplishing a most difficult march arrived at Vada, ** and there affected a junction with Antony. There is quite a large number of veterans and armed men with Ventidius.
4 Antony’s plans must necessarily be as follows : either to march over to Lepidus, since Lepidus welcomes him, or to confine himself to the Apennines and Alps, and by means of cavalry raids (and he has plenty of cavalry) to devastate the districts he has invaded, or to retire again into Etruria, since in that part of Italy there is no army. But if only Caesar had listened to me and crossed the Apennines, I should have reduced Antony to such straits that he would have been ruined by starvation rather than by the sword. But there - neither can Caesar be controlled, nor can Caesar control his own army; and each of these facts is as deplorable as the other.
All this being so, I do not, as I have written above, interfere with men’s hindering me so far as I am personally concerned. How these difficulties can be smoothed away I fear to think, or, even if they are smoothed away by you, I fear fresh obstacles will arise.
5 I can no longer afford to feed my men. When I approached the task of liberating the Republic, I had a fund of over 40,000 sestertia. ** So far is it from being the case that any of my private property is unencumbered, that I have already burdened all my friends with debt. I am just now supporting a force consisting of seven legions ; with what difficulty you may imagine. Not even if i had the treasure of Varro ** could I possibly stand the expense. The moment I have any trustworthy information about Antony, I shall pass it on to you. You will, I am sure, continue to love me, but only if you feel that I love you to the same extent.
In camp, Dertona, ** May 5th.
D. BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE TO M. CICERO, GREETING
A letter from you has been delivered to me which is a duplicate of that brought by my servant. I consider that my debt to you is so great as to be difficult to discharge in full. I write to tell you what is being done here. Antony is on the march; he is making for Lepidus ; he has not yet given up hope even as regards Plancus, as I observe in some note-books of his which have fallen into my hands, those in which he wrote the names of the men he was sending to Asinius, to Lepidus, and to Plancus. I, however, without a moment’s hesitation sent to Plancus, and within two days I expect envoys from the Allobroges and the whole of Gaul, whose loyalty I shall strengthen, and send them back home.
2 If it be necessary to make any arrangements where you are, you will be good enough to provide for their being made according to your wishes and to the advantage of the Republic. You will, if you find it possible, actively oppose the general ill-feeling against me. If you find it impossible, you will console yourself with the reflection that by no amount of insult can they frighten me away from the position I now occupy.
In camp, in the territory of the Statiellenses, ** May 6.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING
I have received three letters from you on the same day, one a short one which you had handed to Flaccus Volumnius, and two in fuller terms, one of which was brought me by T. Vibius’s letter-carrier, the other sent me by Lupus. It appears from your letter and from what Graeceius says, that the war, so far from having been stifled, has been set ablaze. Now I have no doubt that, with your extraordinary sagacity, you clearly see that, if Antony once succeeds in securing anything like a firm footing, all those distinguished services you have rendered the Republic are destined to end in nothing. "Distinguished services," I say, for the news that had reached Rome, and the universal conviction was that Antony had fled, yes, fled with a handful of unarmed, terror-stricken, and dispirited men.
2 But if his position is such that, as I am told by Graeceius, a conflict with him without risk is impossible, then it seems to me that he did not flee from Mutina, but merely changed his ground for carrying on the war. Consequently there has been a general revulsion of feeling ; some people even express their disappointment that you and your army have failed to hunt him down. They think he could have been crushed, had you acted with expedition. It is, generally speaking, characteristic of a people, and of our people most of all, to abuse the privilege of free speech by preferably attacking the very man to whom they owe that privilege. But anyhow we must see to it that there should be no possible grounds for just complaint. This is how the matter stands; the man who has crushed Antony, will have finished the war. What that implies, I prefer you to calculate for yourself, rather than that I should write more openly.
D. BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE TO M. CICERO, GREETING
I have done with thanking you ; for the nature of the case does not permit of the man, whom I can hardly requite in deeds, being satisfied with mere words. I would have you attentively consider what I have on my hands; for such is your penetration, that nothing will escape your notice, if you read my letter carefully.
The reasons why I could not follow Antony immediately, Cicero, were as follows: I was without cavalry and without baggage-animals; I was unaware that Hirtius had fallen; and I was disinclined to trust Caesar until I had met him and conversed with him. And that is how that day passed away.
2 Early on the morrow I was summoned by Pansa to Bononia. When I was on the march news was brought me that he had died. I hurried back to my paltry little corps - for so I can truthfully term it. It is terribly thinned out and in the worst possible plight owing to a lack of everything needful. Antony had two days start of me; he made much longer marches, being in flight, than I in pursuit, for he marched in loose order, while I kept my ranks. Whatever road he took, he released prisoners from gaol, and swept up men. He never halted anywhere until he came to Vada, ** a place I should like you to know about ; it lies between the Apennines and the Alps, a spot most difficult to march to.
3 When I was thirty miles from him, and Ventidius had already joined him, a public speech of his was reported to me, in which he began to entreat his men to follow him across the Alps, adding that he had an agreement with M. Lepidus. A murmur arose and most of those who murmured were the soldiers of Ventidius (for Antony has very few indeed of his own), to the effect that they were bound either to die or to conquer in Italy ; and they began to implore him to let them march to Pollentia ** ; being unable to resist them, he put off his march until the following day.
4 On the receipt of that news, I immediately sent five cohorts in advance to Pollentia, and directed my own march thither. My advanced guard reached Pollentia an hour before Trebellius ** and his cavalry. I rejoiced exceedingly, for I consider that on this victory depends . . .
[ D. BRUTUS AND L. PLANCUS TO THE MAGISTRATES, SENATE AND PEOPLE OF ROME ]
. . . ** [Their] hopes had been raised because they neither supposed that Plancus’s four legions were a match for their united forces, nor believed that an army could be so rapidly thrown across from Italy.
So far the Allobroges by themselves, together with the cavalry which we had sent on in advance, have resisted the enemy quite contemptuously, and we are sure that our arrival will make their resistance easier. Nevertheless, should they even by any chance cross the Isara, we shall do our very utmost to prevent their inflicting any damage upon the State.
5 As for yourselves, we would have you keep a high heart, and hope for the best, regarding the interests of the Commonwealth, since you see that both we and our armies, united as they are in uncommon harmony, are prepared to face every risk for your sakes. But for all that it is your duty to permit no relaxation of your vigilance, and to do all you can to ensure our being perfectly equipped both in troops and in every other respect to engage in a conflict in defence of your welfare against a most iniquitous conspiracy of public enemies - men who have suddenly transformed those forces, which they have so long been pretending to collect for the benefit of the State, into a danger to the land that bore them.
D. BRUTUS, CONSUL DESIGNATE, TO M. CICERO, GREETING
The inhabitants of Parma, poor wretches, . . . **
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING **
You would be surprised, my dear Brutus, how delighted I am that my plans and proposals as to the decemvirate ** and doing honour to the young Caesar, meet with your approval. But what matters it? Believe me (and I am not given to talking big), I am now absolutely paralysed, Brutus ; the tool I worked with was the Senate, and that tool is now in pieces. Your brilliant sally from Mutina, and the flight of Antony after his army had been cut to pieces, had brought us such high hopes of an assured victory, that we are all suffering from a nervous reaction, and those vehement harangues of mine seem mere phantom-fighting.
2 But, to return to business, those who know them declare that in no circumstances whatever can the Martian ** and the Fourth legion be brought over to you. As to the money of which you feel the lack, measures to raise it can be, and will be, taken. As to sending for Brutus, ** and keeping Caesar to guard Italy, I heartily agree with you. But, as you write, you have your detractors; myself, I parry them with the utmost ease; but for all that they are a hindrance. We are expecting the legions from Africa.
3 But the recrudescence of the war where you are is a matter of general surprise. Never was anything less expected. For when the victory ** was announced on your birthday we had a vista of an independent Republic for countless ages. These fresh fears unravel what has been woven. However, you wrote to me in the letter you sent me on May 15th that you had just received a letter from Plancus, saying that Antony was not being well received by Lepidus. If that is so, it makes everything easier ; if otherwise, it opens up a big business, the issue of which causes me no alarm; you take the stage. Myself, I can do no more than I have done ; as for you, however, it is my desire, as it is my hope, to see you the greatest and most distinguished man on earth.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING
Great as was the pleasure your letter gave me, I was even more pleased with your having commissioned your colleague Plancus, engrossed with business as you were yourself, to make your apologies to me by letter, and he did so with every care. Nothing however stirs my affection more than your courtesy and the pains you take. Your union with your colleague and the harmony between you, which is made clear in your common despatch, is the most gratifying thing that has happened to the Senate and people of Rome.
2 As for what remains, press on, my dear Brutus, and no longer rival others, but be your own rival. I ought not to write any more, especially to you, under whose tuition I intend to practise brevity. I look forward to a letter from you with intense eagerness, and such a letter too as I most earnestly desire.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING
The time at which this letter is put into your hands is of paramount importance, whether it is when you have some anxiety on your mind, or when you are free from all annoyance. I have therefore instructed the person whom I have sent to you to watch his time for the delivery of the letter. You know that, just as in personal interviews those who approach us at an unfavourable moment are often an annoyance, so letters too are a cause of offence, if delivered inopportunely. If however (and I hope it is so), you have nothing to disturb, nothing to embarrass you, and my messenger has been clever and tactful enough in choosing the moment to approach you, I feel sure I shall have no difficulty in getting you to do what I desire.
2 L. Lamia ** is a candidate for the praetorship. There is no man living with whom I am on more intimate terms. There is a long-standing friendship and a close intimacy between us ; and (what weighs most with me) nothing delights me more than my constant intercourse with him. Moreover, I am under an obligation to him for his great kindness and great good services. In the Clodian days, when he was head of the equestrian order ** and was fighting with conspicuous gallantry in defence of my civil rights, he was banished ** by the consul Gabinius - a thing which never before that time befell any Roman citizen. When the people of Rome remember this, it is highly discreditable that it should not be remembered by me.
For this reason persuade yourself, my dear Brutus, that it is I who am candidate for the praetorship. For although he has to his credit the most distinguished position, a widespread popularity, and the very magnificent show he gave as aedile, for all that, just as though those claims did not exist, I have taken the whole business upon my shoulders. And now, if you value me as highly as I am sure you do, since you hold in your hand certain centuries of the equites, among whom you are king, send a message to our friend Lupus to secure those centuries for us. I shall not detain you with more words, but put at the end of my letter what is in my heart, - though there is nothing I do not expect of you, Brutus, you could do nothing that would give me greater pleasure.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, GREETING **
There is no man living with whom I am on more friendly terms than Lamia. His good services to me, to say nothing of his acts of kindness, have been remarkable, and they are very well known to the people of Rome. Having discharged the functions of aedile with the utmost splendour, he is now a candidate for the praetorship, and everybody is aware that he lacks neither position nor popularity. But the canvassing in this case is of such exceptional consequence that I see danger in every direction, and I feel that I should myself undertake the whole responsibility of Lamia’s candidature. How much you can help me in this matter, I can easily discern; nor indeed have I any doubt of the amount of help you are willing to give for my sake. I should therefore like you, my dear Brutus, to convince yourself that I can make no more pressing request of you, and that you can do nothing more gratifying to me, than that you should help Lamia in his candidature with all your resources and all your enthusiasm ; and that is what I earnestly beg of you to do.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING
Although from the message you sent the Senate through Galba and Volumnius ** we suspected what you thought was to be feared and suspected, still it struck us that the messages showed more fear than was worthy of the victory you and the Roman people had won. Now the senate, my dear Brutus, is full of courage and has courageous leaders ; and so it felt annoyed that you, whom it judged to be the most courageous man that ever lived, should judge it to be timorous and unenterprising.
2 For seeing that during your investment everybody had had the greatest confidence in your valour, and that too when Antony was carrying all before him, who in the world could have any reason to fear when he had been put to flight, and you released ?
Nor of Lepidus either had we any fear; for who could possibly imagine him to be so insane that, after saying in the midst of a terrible war that he was all for peace, he should yet in the midst of that most desirable peace declare war upon the Republic? And yet I doubt not that you have a deeper insight into affairs.
3 But anyhow when the thanksgivings, which we celebrated in your name in all the temples of the gods, were still so recent, the renewal of alarm caused us no little annoyance.
It is therefore my wish, as it is my hope, that Antony has been utterly cast out and crushed; but if he succeeds in collecting anything of a force, he will find to his cost that neither does the Senate lack judgment, nor the Roman people valour, nor the Republic, as long as you are alive, a commander-in-chief.
D. BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE TO M. CICERO, GREETING
I should like you first to read over the despatch I have sent to the Senate, and if any alterations occur to you, to make them. You will yourself observe that I wrote under compulsion, for when I supposed that the Fourth legion and the Martians ** would be on my side, according to the motion of Drusus and Paullus ** which you all supported, I did not think it necessary to trouble myself so much about anything else. As it is, however, seeing that I am left with only the neediest of recruits, I have every reason to fear on my account as well as yours.
2 The Vicetini ** are showing special deference to M. Brutus and myself. I beg you not to allow these people to have any injustice done them in the Senate in the matter of the native slaves. ** They have a very strong case, they are sincerely devoted to the Republic, and their opponents are a disorderly and thoroughly indolent class of men.
Vercellae, ** May 21st.
D. BRUTUS TO M. CICERO, GREETING
What I do not do on my own account, my love for you and your kind services to me compel me to do on yours, - and that is to fear. Though I had often been told the story, and had thought seriously of it, only the other day Labeo Segulius (and it is just like him) told me that he had been with Caesar, and there had been a deal of talk about you; that Caesar himself had made no complaint at all about you, except as to the remark which he said you had made "that the young man should be praised, honoured, and immortalised," ** adding that he had no intention of allowing himself to be made immortal. For my part, I believe that it was Labeo who reported the remark to him, or made it up himself, and that it was not young Caesar who first brought it on the tapis.
As for the veterans, however, Labeo would have me believe that they are using the most shocking language, that danger threatens you from that quarter, and that the main reason of their indignation is that, as they say, neither Caesar nor I are to be found among the ten commissioners, and that you and your friends have been given a free hand in all respects.
2 When I had been told all this, and was already on the march, I thought it a mistake to cross the Alps before I knew what was going on at Rome. As regards your own danger, take my word for it, what they hope is that, when you have been thoroughly frightened and the young man provoked to anger by their blustering language and threats of danger, they may possibly secure handsome rewards; and the whole object of circulating that jingle of yours is to line their own pockets as nicely as they can. But all the same I would not have you be imprudent, or run any risk of being entrapped, because nothing can possibly be sweeter or more precious to me than your life.
3 See to it that your fears do not force you to fear yet more, and that you meet the wishes of the veterans in all respects in which they can be met; first, do what they hanker for in the matter of the decemvirate; secondly, regarding the rewards, record your opinion, if you think fit to do so, that the lands of those veterans who were with Antony should be assigned by us both; as to the pecuniary grants, assure them that the Senate, not hurriedly but after going into the whole question of the money, will definitely settle that matter. For the four legions, ** to whom the Senate has voted that assignments should be made, I see that plenty of land will be available from the confiscations of Sulla and the Campanian territory. I think it is right that the lands should be assigned to the legions in equal portions or by drawing lots.
4 I am being urged to write to you thus not by any consideration for my own interests, but by my affection for you and my eager desire for peace, which cannot possibly subsist without you. For myself, unless there be some pressing necessity, I shall not leave Italy. I am arming and getting ready my legions; I hope to have not the worst of armies to meet any contingency and any attack men can make upon me. Out of the army which Pansa had, Caesar refuses to send me back a single legion. Please write me a reply to this letter at once, and send one of your own men with it, if there is anything somewhat confidential which you think it necessary for me to know.
Eporedia, ** May 24th.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING **
May the gods curse that Segulius of yours, the worst of all rogues, present, past, or future! What ? Do you suppose that he only spoke about it to you, or to Caesar ? - a fellow who could never have passed over a single person with whom he could converse, without retailing that same stuff? None the less, my dear Brutus, do I love you, as I am bound to do, for having wanted to apprise me of all that twaddle, whatever was in it. You have given me a signal proof of your affection.
2 As for what that same Segulius told you, that the veterans are complaining that you and Caesar are not on the decemvirate, ** I only wish I were not, either. It is the greatest nuisance in the world. Anyhow, when I had expressed my opinion that a vote ought to be taken about the generals in command of armies, the same old gang who always do so shouted me down ; you two were therefore definitely left out, in spite of my violent opposition. For that reason let us think no more of Segulius, who always has his eye on political changes of fortune - not that he has eaten up his own former fortune, for he never had any, but this same recent revolutionary tit-bit he has swallowed down at a gulp. **
3 You write, however, that you are doing for me what you would not do for yourself - that is, having some fear on my account; well, Brutus, most excellent of men and most dear to myself, I absolve you from all apprehension about me ; for in what can be foreseen, I shall make no false step, and as for what will admit of no precautions, I do not worry myself so very much about that. For it were shameless of me to demand more than can be bestowed upon mortal man by nature.
4 Your advice to me to be on my guard against being forced by my fears to fear yet more, is the advice of a wise and very friendly man. But while all are agreed as to your pre-eminence in that particular form of fortitude which prevents your ever being afraid, or even disconcerted, I would have you convince yourself that I too approximate very nearly to that fortitude of yours ; and for that reason, while dreading nothing, I shall be on my guard against everything. But you must see to it, my dear Brutus, that from now onwards, the blame may not be yours, if I have any fear at all. For even if we were inclined to fear, we should be enabled to cast away all fear thanks to your resources and your being consul, especially since everybody - and I most of all - is convinced of your exceptional regard for us.
5 As to the schemes proposed in your letter regarding the four legions and the assignment of the lands by both of you, I heartily agree with them ; so when certain of our colleagues were smacking their lips at the prospect of controlling the agrarian negotiations, I scattered the suggestion to the winds, and kept back the whole business so that you two might have carte blanche to deal with it.
If there be anything of a more secret nature, or (to quote your word) confidential, I shall send one of my own men, to ensure greater honesty in the delivery of the letter.
June 4th.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, GREETING
I am on terms of the closest friendship, based on the numerous good services we have done one another, with Appius Claudius, son of Gaius. ** I beg of you with more earnestness than usual, whether because of your kindliness or for my own sake, to desire his reinstatement by your personal influence, which is paramount. I wish you, seeing that you are known to be the most gallant of men, to be also thought the most merciful. It will be a great feather in your cap that a youth of the highest birth should owe his restoration to your kindness. His case ought to be all the stronger, because it was a son’s gratitude for his father’s restoration that induced him to throw in his lot with Antony.
2 Although for that reason you cannot plead for him as convincingly as you might, you can at any rate advance some plea or other that will not lack even plausibility. By a single nod you can maintain in the full rights of citizenship a man of the highest birth and of outstanding ability and merit, and one, moreover, of a most obliging disposition and full of gratitude.
This I so beg of you to do, that there is no request I could make with greater earnestness or more wholeheartedly.
D. BRUTUS TO M. CICERO, GREETING
We are doing well here, and shall make every effort to do better still. Lepidus’s attitude towards us seems quite satisfactory. We ought to put away every fear, and consider the interests of the Republic like free men. Supposing every thing were against us, nevertheless, with three such armies entirely at the service of the Republic and in full strength, you ought to show that stout spirit which you have always shown, and which, now that fortune is befriending us, you can display to an even greater degree.
2 What I wrote to you with my own hand in my last letter is only what people are saying with the object of intimidating you. If you take the bit between your teeth, ** I’ll stake my life that not one of the whole lot will be able to face you if you attempt to speak. As for me, as I wrote to you before, I shall stay on in Italy until I get a letter from you.
May 25th, Eporedia. **
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL DESIGNATE, GREETING
A word in your ear - I have hitherto been a little irritated by the shortness of your letters ; now it seems to me that I talk too much, so I shall follow your example. What a lot in a little letter! "that you are doing well, and are making every effort to do better every day ; that Lepidus’s attitude is quite satisfactory ; that it behoves us to have any amount of confidence in your three armies." Even if I were timorous, that letter of yours would have wiped away all fear from my heart. But, as you advise, I have taken the bit between my teeth. Indeed, seeing that during your investment I rested all my hopes upon you, what do you imagine I am doing now? Well, my present desire, Brutus, is to make over my spirit of watchfulness to you, though without prejudice to my own policy of firmness.
2 You write that you intend to stay on in Italy, until you get a letter from me; well, if the enemy let you do so, you will be quite right, for there is ever so much going on at Rome; but if your arrival can bring the war to an end, you may take it as being of the first importance to you. All the money that was most readily available has been decreed to you. You have in Servius a most devoted friend, and I am always at your service.
June 6th.
M. CICERO TO DECIMUS BRUTUS, GREETING
While I was daily awaiting a letter from you, our friend Lupus suddenly and peremptorily informed me that, if I wanted to say anything, I was to write to you. Now although I did not know what to write (being aware that the Acta were being despatched to you, and being told on the other hand that you found no pleasure in the frivolous gossip of letters), I have put myself under your tuition and followed the path of brevity. I would have you know then that all our hopes lie in you and your colleague. 2 As to M. Brutus, ** however, so far there is no certainty ; I never cease calling upon him in my private correspondence, according to your directions, to take his part in everybody’s war. I only wish he were here now! We should have less fear of the internal troubles in our city, and they are not inconsiderable. ** But what am I doing? I am not imitating your laconic style ; here is a second page now well on its way. Here’s victory to you, and good health.
June 18th.
D. BRUTUS TO M. CICERO, GREETING **
In my intense misery I find comfort in the fact that the world now sees that my past fears of what has now occurred were not groundless. Let the Senate fully discuss the question whether they are to bring the legions across from Africa or not - and from Sardinia ** too; whether to send for M. Brutus or not ; and whether to give me my men’s pay at once, or decree its payment. I have sent a despatch to the Senate. Believe me, unless everything I have specified is done exactly according to my despatch, there is overwhelming danger in store for us all. I entreat you, be careful, all of you, to whom you assign the business of bringing me the legions. Loyalty and speed - there is need of both.
In camp, June 3rd.
M. CICERO TO MATIUS, ** GREETING
I have not yet quite made up my mind whether I am more annoyed or pleased with the visit of our friend Trebatius, most obliging as he is, and devotedly attached to both of us. I only reached my Tusculum villa in the evening, and though he has not yet quite recovered his strength, he came to see me early the following day; and when I scolded him for not giving his health enough consideration, he replied that there was nothing he had been waiting for with greater impatience than the chance of seeing me. "Is there news of any kind?" I asked, and then he told me all about your grievance. Well, as to that, before I give you my answer, I shall state a few facts by way of preface.
2 As far as my memory enables me to retrace the past, I have no friend of longer standing than yourself; but while the length of our friendship is something that many others can claim as well, the warmth of it is not so. I took to you the day I made your acquaintance, and I was convinced that you too took to me. Your subsequent departure, and that for a prolonged period, my own adoption of politics, and the dissimilarity of our careers, did not permit of our sympathies becoming cemented by familiarity of intercourse. For all that, I had reason to recognise your feeling towards myself many years before the Civil War, when Caesar was still in Gaul ** ; for you succeeded in bringing about what you were strongly of opinion was of advantage to me, and not without advantage even to Caesar - you gained me his special favour and respect, and a footing among his intimates. Many as were our very friendly conversations and the letters that passed between us in those days, I pass them over, since more serious events followed.
3 And at the beginning of the Civil War, when you were on your way towards Brundisium to visit ** Caesar, you came to see me at my Formian villa. In the first place, how great was the significance of that in itself, especially at such a time! In the next place, do you imagine that I have forgotten your counsel, your conversation, and your kindness? And in all this I remember that Trebatius played his part. Nor indeed have I forgotten the letter you sent me when you had come to meet Caesar in the district, I think, of Trebula. **
4 Then followed that period when I set out on my way to Pompey, ** whether it was a sense of honour that compelled me to do so, or my sense of duty, or if you like, a mere stroke of fortune. What single act of kindness or devotion did you leave undone, either to me in my absence, or to my people who were on the spot? Who was there indeed whom all my people deemed a better friend both to me and to themselves? I came to Brundisium. Do you suppose that I have forgotten the haste in which you winged your way to me from Tarentum, as soon as you heard of it? how you sat with me and talked to me, and encouraged my resolution, crushed as it was by the dread of universal wretchedness. **
5 At last the time came when we began our lives at Rome. In what did our intimacy fall short of perfection? In matters of the highest importance I had the advantage of your advice as to how I should conduct myself towards Caesar, in all other respects of your kindness; apart from Caesar, was there any man, except myself, to whom you paid the compliment of constantly calling upon him and spending many an hour there in most delightful conversation ? It was then too, if you remember, that you urged me to write these philosophical treatises. ** After Caesar’s return, ** what were you more anxious about than that I should be on the most intimate footing with him ? and in that you immediately succeeded.
6 What then is the reason of all this rigmarole, which I have kept up longer than I intended? It is because I was surprised that you, who ought to know all this, should ever have believed that I had been guilty of doing anything that would strike a false note in our friendship. For over and above the facts I have specified, facts that shine in the light of public testimony, I have in my mind many of a more confidential nature, which it is hardly possible for me to put into words. Everything that characterises you is a delight to me, but most of all your extraordinary loyalty as a friend, your judgment, your gravity, and your consistency, as well as your charm, refinement, and literary taste. So now I come back to your grievance.
7 As to your having voted in support of that notorious law, ** in the first place, I did not believe it ; in the next place, if I had believed it, I should never imagine that you had done so without some good reason. While your high position makes all your actions the subject of public observation, the malevolence of the world puts a harsher interpretation upon some of them than is warranted by your conduct. If none of all this reaches your ear, I do not quite know what to say. For myself, if ever I hear anything, I defend you as stoutly as I know you are in the habit of defending me against my detractors. My defence, however, takes two forms; there are some things to which I always give a flat denial, as in the case of this very vote ; there are others, which I should maintain were acts of dutiful devotion and kindliness on your part, such as your undertaking the management of the games. **
8 It must be obvious to so clever a man as yourself, that if Caesar was a king (and that it seems to me he was), two opposite views may be taken of the morality of your attitude, either the one I generally take myself, that your loyalty and kindly feeling in showing your esteem for a friend even after his death is worthy of all praise, or the other, which some people take, that our country’s freedom should be preferred to a friend’s life. Out of all this talk I only wish my own arguments had been reported to you! But as for those two crowning distinctions of yours, who emphasises them more whole-heartedly than I, or more frequently? I mean that you threw all the weight of your influence against beginning a civil war, and afterwards exerted it on the side of moderation in the hour of victory ; and in this I have never found a single man to disagree with me. And that is why I feel grateful to our good friend Trebatius, who gave me a pretext for writing this letter; and if it does not convince you, you will be guilty of deeming me devoid of all loyalty and fine feeling ; and nothing could be a heavier blow to me than that, or less consistent with yourself.
MATIUS TO CICERO, GREETING **
Your letter gave me great pleasure, because I recognised that your opinion of me was what I had hoped and prayed for. And although I was never in doubt as to that opinion, still, as attached the highest possible value to it, I made every effort to maintain it unimpaired. But, conscious as I was of having done nothing that could hurt the feelings of any good citizen, I was the less inclined to believe that you, a man distinguished by so many admirable accomplishments, should have lent a ready ear to any allegation of the kind, especially considering how cordial and uninterrupted has been, and is, my attachment to you. And now that I know that all is as I wished, I shall reply to those charges which you have so often rebutted on my behalf, as was reasonably to be expected in view of your exceptional goodness of heart and the friendship between us.
2 I am well aware of the obloquy people have heaped upon me since the death of Caesar. They put it down to my discredit that I am sorely grieved at the death of a very intimate friend, and resent the fall of one I loved ; for they declare that patriotism must come before friendship, just as if they have already demonstrated that his death has been of benefit to the State. But I shall use no ingenious arguments ; I frankly confess I have not reached their high level of philosophy. For neither was I a follower of Caesar in our civil dissensions, though at the same time I did not abandon a friend, however much I was offended by his action; nor did I ever give my approval to the civil war, or even to the cause of the quarrel, which I was most anxious to see stifled at its very birth. It follows that in the triumph of my personal friend I was not fascinated by the sweets of either promotion or pecuniary profit - prizes of which the others, though they had less influence with him than I had, availed themselves with unrestrained avidity. I may also add that my own private estate was diminished by that very law of Caesar, ** thanks to which the majority of those, who are now exulting over Caesar’s death, were enabled to remain in the State. I strove that mercy should be shown to our defeated fellow-citizens as earnestly as I strove for my own life.
3 Is it possible then that I, who desired the security, of all, should feel no resentment at the fall of him from whom that boon was obtained, especially when the very same men were responsible at once for his unpopularity and his death? "You will smart for it then," they say, "since you dare to condemn what we have done." What unheard of insolence, that some men may boast of a crime, which others may not even deplore without being punished for it! Why, even slaves have always had this much freedom, that their fears, their joys, and their sorrows were subject to their own control, and not that of another ; and now even those privileges they are trying to wrest from us by intimidation - that at any rate is what your "champions of liberty" are perpetually saying.
4 But they are beating the air, and for this reason - there is no peril, the apprehension of which will ever induce me to desert the cause of duty or humanity ; for never have I thought that an honourable death should be shirked, often that it should be even welcomed. But why this indignation against me, if my only wish is that they should regret what they have done? My desire is that all the world should feel the bitterness of Caesar’s death. Ah but, as a loyal citizen, it is my duty to desire the safety of the constitution! Well, unless my past life, as well as my hopes for the future, prove without a word of mine that such is my earnest wish, I make no claim to demonstrate it by speechifying.
5 For that reason I beg of you with special earnestness to attach more weight to facts than to words, and if you feel that true expediency lies in right conduct, to take my word for it that to hold any communion with the lawless is impossible. Am I then, in the evening of my life, to effect a radical change in the principles I maintained in the heyday of my youth, when even a serious error might have been excused, and with my own hands unweave the texture of my life? That I will not do, nor on the other hand make the mistake of doing anything to cause offence, except being pained at the grievous fall of one who was very closely bound to me, and a most illustrious man. But even if I were otherwise minded, I should never disavow my own actions, and thereby get the reputation of being a rogue in wrongdoing, and a coward and hypocrite in concealing it.
6 Ah, but I undertook the management of the games celebrated by the young Caesar, in honour of the elder Caesar’s victory! Well, that is a matter of private obligation, and has nothing to do with the constitution of the Republic; anyhow it was a duty I was bound to perform as a tribute to the memory and eminence of one very dear to me, even though he was dead, and a favour I could not refuse, when he claimed it, to a youth of such brilliant promise and so entirely worthy of his namesake.
7 I have also often visited the house of Antony, the consul, to pay my respects to him; but you will find that those very men, who consider me lacking in patriotism, are constantly going to him in crowds, with the intention of asking him for something, or of carrying something away with them. But what arrogance is this, that whereas Caesar never put any restriction upon my associating with whomsoever I pleased, yes, even those for whom he had no liking himself, those who have robbed me of my friend should endeavour, by calumniating me, to prevent my choosing my own friends !
8 However, I am not afraid either that the sober self-restraint of my life will fail, as time goes on, to triumph over the mendacity of gossip, or that even those who do not love me for my constancy to Caesar, will not prefer to have friends like me rather than like themselves. .
If my prayers are granted me, I shall pass what remains to me of life in retirement at Rhodes; if any accident intervenes to prevent it, I shall live at Rome, but only as one whose lifelong desire is to maintain the right.
I heartily thank our friend Trebatius for having disclosed your frank and friendly feelings towards me, and also for having made it my duty with more reason than ever to respect and revere one whom it has ever been my pleasure to regard as a friend. A hearty farewell to you, and pray maintain your esteem for me.
CICERO TO OPPIUS, ** GREETING
When I was in doubt, as our friend Atticus knows, as to the whole policy of my departure, since many arguments for and against it kept occurring to me, a great weight was thrown into the balance to settle my doubt - I mean your judgment and advice. For not only did you give me your candid opinion by letter, but Atticus also reported to me your very words. I have always thought that your shrewdness in arriving at a decision is as consummate as your sincerity in communicating it; and of that I had a convincing experience, when at the outbreak of the civil war I consulted you by letter as to what you deemed it my duty to do - to join Pompey, or stay in Italy. Your recommendation was that I should consider my political position ** ; and that gave me a clue to what you really felt, and I admired both your sincerity and your conscientiousness in giving me that advice, because, although you thought your greatest friend ** preferred another course, my duty stood higher in your estimation than your friend’s preference.
2 Myself, I was drawn to you even before those days, and always felt that you were drawn to me. Not only do I remember that, when I was far away and in the midst of great dangers, both I myself, absent as I was, and my people, who were on the spot, had the benefit of your courteous care and protection, but since my return also we have the testimony of all who make a practice of noting such things, on what intimate terms you have been with me, and what I have both felt and openly expressed about you. But the most impressive proof you gave of what you thought of my honesty and consistency was when, after the death of Caesar, you devoted yourself unreservedly to making a friend of me. And if ever I fail to justify your opinion of me by being the best of friends to you and rendering you every possible service, I shall deem myself devoid of humanity.
3 You, my dear Oppius, will, I know, maintain your affection for me (though I write thus more from force of habit than because I think you need reminding), and keep an eye on my interests in all respects, and if you do not know what they are, I have instructed Atticus to tell you. In any case, as soon as I find a moment’s leisure, you may expect a fuller letter from myself. Do your best to keep well; nothing you can do will give me greater pleasure than that.
1. Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus (the additional cognomen was due to his adoption by A. Postumius Albinus, consul in 99 B.C.) was appointed commander of the fleet by Caesar in 56, and in that capacity was successful against the Veneti. In 52 he served under Caesar in Gaul, and did good service against Vercingetorix. Returning to Rome in 50 he married Paulla Valeria (viii. 7.2). In 49 he commanded the fleet which effected the surrender of Massilia. In 48 Caesar appointed him governor of Transalpine Gaul, where he put down a revolt of the Bellovaci. Caesar promised him the praetorship for 44, to be followed by the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul, and the consulship, with Plancus, in 42. Favoured as he had been by Caesar, prompted probably by jealousy of Antony and Octavian, he helped the conspirators on the Ides of March by engaging Antony in talk during the perpetration of the murder. After that event Decimus, being in command of a considerable military force, had he possessed courage and initiative, might have played a conspicuous part in subsequent politics. But this letter (written, as O. E. Schmidt proves, on March 17th, before the meeting of the Senate on that day in the temple of Tellus, at which an amnesty was granted to the tyrannicides, and after a conference held by Antony and his party on the 16th had been reported to him by Hirtius, who was present) proves him to have been faint-hearted and downcast at the first show of opposition on the part of Antony. Shortly afterwards he left for his province, Cisalpine Gaul, and then, on the strength of some successful raids upon Alpine tribes in the summer of 44, he wrote to Cicero asking him to support his appeal for a triumph. Meanwhile Antony had had Cisalpine Gaul transferred to himself, and in 43 began to lay siege to Mutina.
2. Libera legatio was an unofficial embassy, enabling a Senator to leave Rome on his own private affairs at the expense of the State.
3. Sextus Pompeius was now among the Lacetani at the foot of the Pyrenees, standing out against Asinius Pollio.
4. Caecilius Bassus had intrigued against Sextus Julius Caesar, who had been appointed Governor of Syria by his relative C. Julius Caesar in 46. A meeting ensued, with the result that Bassus got command of the troops, and was now holding his own against an army sent by C. Julius Caesar.
5. About April 25 Antony had gone on a journey into Italy in order to summon veterans to Rome for June 1.
6. This edict dismissed from the municipalities the bodyguards Brutus and Cassius had enlisted to protect them on their return to Rome. "Brutus, though praetor of the City, was without a city; and though all Italy was prepared to defend him, preferred to rely on the moral support of honourable men, while he was away from Rome, than on p physical force, if he were there." This is the purport of Phil. x. 7.
7. The altar, or column, raised in the Forum, inscribed with the words 'Caesari parenti patriae.' During Antony’s absence in Italy this altar had been overthrown by Dolabella, who punished those who had raised it by throwing some from the Tarpeian rock and crucifying others - an exploit loudly applauded by Cicero.
8. A reference to the proposed land-law of Lucius Antonius, assigning land to the veterans.
9. I have followed Jeans in adopting a form of address better suited to the spirit of the letter than "If you are well, all is right."
10. The concession applied for by Brutus and Cassius was not that they should be allowed to absent themselves from Rome, but that they should be relieved of the commission, imposed rather than conferred upon them by Antony, to supply the City with corn - a commission they resented as tantamount to an insult. But instead of writing in the first instance to the consuls, they had made their request in a published document (edictum), which had provoked a contumelious refusal from Antony, to which this letter is a reply.
11. Antony seems to have heard rumours that Brutus and Cassius had been acting as he alleges (tampering with the Syrian and Macedonian legions, etc.) and had protested, though he denied having done so.
12. They lived in the modern Piedmont and Savoy.
13. Or, possibly, "my intention," I.e. to attach them to his cause.
14. Probably the P. Rutilius Lupus who was tribune of the plebs in 56, and proposed that Ptolemy Auletes should be restored by Pompey (i. 1. 3).
15. Cicero wrote this letter about Dec. 11th, and the subsequent course of events was probably, according to Tyrrell, as follows: Dec. 18 (evening). Lupus returns from Mutina to Rome. Dec. 19. He has conference with Cicero and others. Dec. 19. Cicero writes xi. 7. Dec. 20. Meeting of the Senate in which Cicero delivers Phil. iii. Dec. 20 (evening). Cicero writes xi. 6.
16. i.e., your attitude towards the Republic.
17. i.e., the assassination of Caesar.
18. i.e, after leaving Mutina. He arrived in Rome on Dec. 18.
19. i.e., 'se provinciam Galliam retenturum in Senatus populique Romani potestate' ("that he would not let the province of Gaul pass out of the power of the Senate and people of Rome"), Phil. iii. 8. The date referred to is of course Dec. 20th. The substance of Cicero’s speech on that day ("what I proposed, etc." infra) is to be found in Phil. iii. and iv.
20. This letter chronologically precedes letter 6.
21. Probably the father-in-law of Sextus Pompeius who commanded the fleet in the Civil War.
22. Servius Sulpicius Galba, great-grandfather of the emperor; it was he who sent Cicero an account of the battle of Forum Gallorum (x. 30).
23. Probably the son of the M. Seius mentioned in ix. 7. 1.
24. A friend, and perhaps a legatus of D. Brutus.
25. Octavius was not more than eighteen at this time; the "public responsibility" was his definite defiance of Antony, including his enlistment of the men mentioned below, the veterans of Julius Caesar, whom he won over first at Calatia and Casilinum (Vell. ii. 61).
26. Or "Paulla" (viii. 7. 2). For the double form cf. Claudius and Clodius, 'plaustrum' and 'plostrum'.
27. The three envoys sent by the Senate on Jan. 5 to treat with Antony before Mutina: they were Servius Sulpicius, L. Piso, and L. Philippus. Servius Sulpicius (the writer of the letter of condolence to Cicero on the death of Tullia, iv. 5) died before they reached Antony, and the other two failed lamentably in their mission.
28. Cicero thought very highly of Octavian at this time.
29. Pansa had died early on April 23, in Bononia.
30. Hirtius and Pansa, both of whom had fallen.
31. For Ventidius Bassus see note on x. 18. 3. He was now bringing three legions to Antony from Picenum.
32. A town on the Aemilian Road, between Mutina and Parma, probably built by M. Aemilius Lepidus, consul in 187, who made the road ; it is the modern Reggio.
34. Men who habitually maligned D. Brutus, whom Cicero in letter 14. 2 calls Brutus’s 'obtrectatores'.
35. Vada Sabatia, about 30 miles west of Genoa, on the coast.
36. i.e., 40,000,000 sesterces (sestertii).
37. Varro was not proverbially wealthy; Orelli therefore suggests that the reference may be to some wealthy character in one of Varro’s Satires, now lost.
38. About 34 miles north of Genoa.
39. The Statiellenses lived a little to the north-west of Genoa. Their chief town, Aquae Statiellorum, is still called Acqui.
41. See note on letter 10. 3.
42. Pollenza, about 45 miles north-west of Vada.
43. Tribune of the plebs in 48 and 47, an ardent supporter of Antony.
44. It is now generally agreed that, as far as concerns Cicero, this is the end of the letter, and that what follows is the end of another letter addressed by Brutus and Plancus to the Senate and magistrates from Cularo, about June 11. This view is corroborated by the consistent use of the plural - nos, nobis, nostro. The words omitted before 'in spem venerant' were undoubtedly 'Antonius et Lepidus.'
45. These words, found in the Index to M, are all that remain of this letter, which probably described Antony’s brutal treatment of the inhabitants a few days previously. Cf. 'Parmam direptam', x. 33. 4 ad fin.
46. This letter is evidently an answer to letters xi. 19, and x. 34,
47. A committee of ten to investigate the acts of Antony during his consulship, and particularly his use of Caesar’s memoranda.
48. Cf. xi. 19. 1.
49. "The republicans had appealed for aid to their officers commanding in Africa and Macedonia, and two African legions came to Rome, but subsequently went over to Octavian. M. Brutus, who disapproved of Cicero’s alliance with Octavian, was also biased by his connexion with Lepidus (who had married his sister), so he turned a deaf ear to Cicero’s advice and entreaties." W. W. How, Introd. v. § 17.
50. The defeat of Antony at Forum Gallorum on April 15th, and subsequently.
51. L. Aelius Lamia vigorously defended Cicero in 58, and was therefore illegally banished from the City by the consuls Gabinius and Piso. In 54 he had returned to the Senate. In 48 he acted as mediator between Cicero and Antony, and in 45 was aedile. He is again mentioned in xii. 29. 2 and 3.
52. Each turma of cavalry had six officers in command - 3 decuriones and 3 optiones (adjutants); these were the VI viri equitum Romanorum. The first decurio of the first turma was called princeps equitum Romanorum (or equestris).
53. Relegatio did not involve, as exsilium did, the loss of civil status.
54. This letter so closely resembles the preceding one (16) that it might be a duplicate of it ('binae eodem exemplo'), duplicates being often sent to increase the chances of delivery; or it may be that this was written first and 16 later, with special reference to Lupus.
55. See note on x.30, regarding Galba ; Volumnius was his legatus.
56. See xiv. 2. These legions refused absolutely to serve under any of Caesar’s murderers.
57. Drusus, father of Livia Drusilla, wife of Augustus; Paullus, consul in 50.
58. Inhabitants of Vicentia, now Vicenza. M. and D. Brutus were probably their patroni.
59. Probably freedmen, who claimed their rights as such; but Brutus hastily terms them "born slaves."
60. Chief town of the Libici in Cisalpine Gaul.
61. There is a play on the two meanings of 'tollere', "to raise aloft" and "to do away with, remove by death." I have to thank Dr. Page for "immortalised," which is better than
62. Apparently the Martian and Fourth legions which had deserted from Antony, and the two veteran legions which Octavius himself had raised.
63. A town in Cisalpine Gaul, on the Duria, in the territory of the Salassi, now Ivrea.
64. This letter is a reply to the preceding one.
65. See the preceding letter, § 1 and 3.
66. Cicero plays, somewhat heavily, on the double entente in 'res novae' (revolution) and 'res' (private property). The 'res recens' is the savoury bit of gossip about the dissatisfaction of the veterans, and 'nova' is suggestive of revolution.
67. This Appius Claudius was the son of Gaius Clodius, governor of Asia in 55-54. The latter, on his return from Asia, had been condemned for extortion, but reinstated in his civil rights by Antony. His son, this Appius Claudius, vigorously prosecuted Milo, but Cicero, as his letter proves, bears him no grudge for that reason, and even exerts his influence on his behalf.
68. See note on xi. 20.
69. i.e., "if you defy them, and go your own way." Cf. Seneca, Tranquill. an. xv. 1, and Aesch. P.V. 1009.
70. M. Brutus was still in Macedonia, and disinclined to return to Italy. Cf. note on letter 14 § 2.
71. Manutius thinks he must be referring to the intrigues to secure the consulship for Octavian.
72. This letter, written while on the march to join Plancus, shows how perturbed D. Brutus was at hearing of the junction of Antony and Lepidus. It is the last letter that he wrote to Cicero.
73. No considerable force appears to have been stationed in Sardinia, but there must have been a small garrison there, and every available man was needed. Mendelssohn, however, suspects corruption in the text.
74. C. Matius was born about 84 and died about 4 B.c. Little is known of him beyond what we can gather from this and the next letter. That Cicero thought him a most charming and erudite man is evident from his letter to their common friend Trebatius (vii. 15. 2). In March 49 Matius and Trebatius wrote Cicero a joint letter on the movements of Caesar. In his later years Matius composed a treatise on gastronomy. Prof. Palmer identifies him with the Catius of Hor. Sat. ii. 4. In this letter Cicero has a double complaint to make of Matius, (i.) that he voted for the law about the provinces (see note on § 7), and (ii.) that he took charge of the games celebrated by Octavian in honour of the dead Caesar.
75. Where Matius served and became acquainted with Trebatius.
76. The date of this visit was March 19, 49 B.C.
77. A little north of Capua.
78. In 46. See vii. 3.1.
79. The Academica, De finibus, and perhaps the Tusc. Disp. - Tyrrell.
80. i.e., from Spain in 45.
81. There is some doubt as to what law is meant ; it was most probably that which gave Antony Gallia Cisalpina and the Macedonian legions, and perhaps part of Gallia Transalpina, in place of Macedonia, which was transferred to M. Brutus, but without an army. This law gave Antony so strong a military position that it provoked the fierce opposition of the constitutionalists, who regarded with suspicion anyone who supported it in the Senate. Matius must have voted for it in the interests of order, and in the circumstances he was right in doing so.
82. The Ludi Victoriae Caesaris or Veneris Genetricis, vowed by Caesar at Pharsalia.
83. In this remarkable letter, a literary and historical κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί, Matius reveals himself as a man of broad-minded charity, outstanding courage, and unswerving fidelity in friendship - an example of Roman humanitas, virtus, and constantia.
84. Caesar's financial law of 49 B.C. provided for the payment of loans by the transference of property at a valuation (see note on ix. 16. § 7), that of 47 remitted certain proportions of house and land rent in Rome and Italy. Matius, being an investor rather than a borrower, must have lost by both laws, to either of which he may be here referring.
85. Gaius Oppius, a Roman knight, may be called the "junior partner" of L. Cornelius Balbus, the Spaniard. He was also, as Balbus was, an intimate friend of C. Julius Caesar, whose life he is said to have written, and also the lives of Scipio Africanus, Marius, Cassius, and Pompey. It was believed in the second century that he had co-operated with Hirtius in writing treatises on the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish wars. This may be true as regards the Alexandrian wars, but the books on the two other wars were written by men of inferior literary powers, actually engaged in those campaigns.
86. It is evident from the end of § 1 that Oppius thought that Cicero’s best policy was to join Pompey.
87. C. Julius Caesar.
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