The translation is by W.G. Williams (1929). 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 2 3 to C.Memmius ; 4 5 6 6a to Q. Valerius Orca ; 7 to Cluvius ; 8 to M. Rutilius ; 9 to Crassipes ; 10 11 12 13 14 to Brutus ; 15 16 to Caesar ; 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 28a to Servius Sulpicius ; 29 to L. Plancus
← Book 12
M. CICERO TO C. MEMMIUS ** , GREETING
Though I had not quite made up my mind whether I was going to meet you at Athens with a certain feeling of distress or rather with pleasure (since, grieved as I was at the injustice you have suffered, I rejoiced at the philosophical spirit with which you bear it), for all that I should prefer to have seen you. For as far as the distress goes, it is not very much alleviated when you are out of my sight ; whereas whatever pleasure was possible would have been undoubtedly enhanced by my having seen you. I shall not hesitate, therefore, to make every effort to see you, if I can do so with any reasonable convenience. Meanwhile, whatever business can be discussed with you and, as I believe, settled by correspondence, that I will discuss here.
2 And first of all I shall make this request of you - to do nothing for my sake against your will ; but if you perceive that what I ask is of importance to me, while of no great importance from any point of view to yourself, not to grant me even that favour unless you have previously persuaded yourself to do so with your whole heart.
With Patro the Epicurean I am in complete accord, except that I emphatically disagree with him in philosophy. But not only in the early days at Rome, while he showed deference to you too and all your friends, did he cultivate my acquaintance in a special degree, but lately also, when he realised all his wishes in the way of privileges and rewards, he regarded me as practically the leading man among his defenders and friends ; and now again he has been introduced and recommended to me by Phaedrus, of whom, when I was a boy, before I knew Philo, I entertained a high opinion as a philosopher, but afterwards as an honest, amiable, and obliging man.
3 This Patro, then, sent me a letter when I was at Rome, asking me to make his peace with you, and beg of you to yield possession to him of some tumble-down house or other (you know it), which once belonged to Epicurus, but I wrote nothing to you for the simple reason that I did not want your scheme of building to be interfered with by any recommendation of mine. But when he also asked me, on my arrival at Athens, to write to you to the same effect, he had his request granted to him for no other reason than because your friends were unanimously agreed that you had thrown to the winds all that building scheme of yours.
4 If that is so, and it is now of absolutely no importance to you, I should like you, if your feelings have been ever slightly hurt by the wrong-headedness of certain persons (I know that coterie **), to allow yourself to incline towards leniency, whether because of your own exceptional kindliness, or even as a compliment to myself.
For my part, if you ask me what my own opinion is, I fail to see either why he is so obstinately set upon it, or why you are so stoutly opposing him, except, of course, that one could far less easily allow you than him to be so needlessly troubled. **
And yet I am well aware that you know all about Patro's petition and the merits of his case. He avers that he must keep intact his own honour and responsibility, the sanctity of testamentary dispositions, the authority of Epicurus, the solemn injunction of Phaedrus, the residence, the domicile, the very foot prints of the most illustrious men. If we are inclined to find fault with the object of his present efforts, we may as well make mock of the poor fellow's whole life and the principles he follows in philosophy. But, on my oath, since I bear no particular grudge against the great man and those others who are fascinated by such doctrines, I think perhaps that we ought to forgive Patro, if he is so much troubled ; even if he is mistaken in being so, it is a mistake due to lack of sense more than lack of morality.
5 But to waste no more words (I must say it sooner or later), I love Pomponius Atticus as a second brother. He is to me the dearest and most delightful man in the world. Now Atticus - not that he is one of that lot, being a man of most refined erudition in every branch of liberal learning, but he has a great esteem for Patro, and had a great affection for Phaedrus - Atticus, I say, the least self-seeking of men, and the least importunate in making requests, entreats me to do this with as much earnestness as he has ever evinced ; and he has no doubt that I could get you to grant him this favour by a single nod, even if it were still your intention to build. Now, however, if he hears that you have abandoned that intention, and that even so I have failed to get from you what I want, he will not suspect you of shabbiness to me, but me of lack of consideration for him. And that is why I beg of you to write to your friends, saying that with your full consent that decree of the Areopagites, which they themselves call a memoire, ** may be rescinded.
6 But I return to what I said at first. Before persuading yourself to do this at all, I would have you persuade yourself to do it readily, as a kindness to myself. Anyhow, let me tell you this - if you do what I ask, it will give me the greatest pleasure.
CICERO TO MEMMIUS, GREETING
I am on intimate terms with C. Avianius Evander ** himself, who is lodging in your family shrine, ** and very much so with his patron M. Aemilius. I therefore beg of you, with more earnestness than usual, so far as it can be done without inconvenience to yourself, to accommodate him in the matter of his residence. For he has so many commissions on hand for a number of people that it would be a rush for him to have to move to his old quarters on July 1. My modesty prevents me from preferring my request at greater length, and yet I doubt not that, if it makes little or no difference to you, you will be as obliging as I should be, were you to make any request of me. At any rate you will have done me a great favour.
CICERO TO MEMMIUS, GREETING
A. Fufius, ** one of my most intimate friends, shows me the greatest deference and devotion. He is an accomplished man and exceedingly kind-hearted, and in every way worthy of your friendship. I should be glad if you would treat him as you promised to do when we met. That will give me as much pleasure as anything in the world. You will besides bind the man himself to you for ever by the strongest ties of obligation and respect.
M. CICERO TO Q. VALERIUS Q.f. ORCA, LEGATE AND PROCONSUL ** , GREETING
I have the closest possible connexion with the townsmen of Volaterrae. Having received some considerable kindness at my hands, they have proved their gratitude to me in overflowing measure ; for never once have they failed me either in my triumphs or in my troubles. And indeed, had no such relations been in existence between us, nevertheless, in view of my own warm affection for you and my appreciation of your very high esteem for me, I should both advise and exhort you to promote their best interests, especially as their claim to have their rights maintained is practically paramount, first because by the mercy of heaven - they succeeded in escaping the barbarities of the days of Sulla, ** and secondly because my defence of them in my consulship was enthusiastically applauded by the people of Rome.
2 For when the tribunes of the plebs ** proposed a most iniquitous law about their lands, I had no difficulty in persuading the Senate and people of Rome to be willing that those citizens, whom fortune had spared, should retain their rights. This policy of mine was heartily approved in the land-law of his first consulship by C. Caesar, ** who freed the district and town of Volaterrae from any such danger for all time ; so that I have no doubt that one who is seeking to acquire new connexions wishes that the privileges he granted long ago should be preserved. For that reason it is for you, in your wisdom, either to follow the authority of one whose party and authority you have already, with no impairment of your high personal position, followed, or at all events to keep the whole case open for Caesar's decision. Of this, however, you should entertain no doubt - that it should be your desire, by bestowing upon it the highest favour in your power, to attach to yourself for all time a municipality so respectable, so staunch, and so honourable.
3 In what I have written above I have no other object in view than to urge and persuade you. There remains what is concerned with a personal request, so that you may infer that I am not only offering you advice for your own sake, but that I am also making a petition and a request for what I have need of myself. You will do me the greatest possible favour therefore, if it is your pleasure to leave the people of Volaterrae in every respect untouched and their rights undiminished. Their domiciles and abodes, their property and estates, preserved to them by the immortal gods and the most eminent members of our commonwealth - all these I commend to your honesty, sense of justice, and goodness of heart.
4 Were circumstances to offer me at the present moment the power, on the scale of my former resources, to protect the people of Volaterrae to the same extent as I have always defended my own people, there is no act of devotion, no strenuous effort, I should omit, whereby I might be of service to them. But since I am confident that I have no less influence with you at the present moment than I have always had with everybody, I beg of you in the name of our very close connexion and our mutual goodwill, so evenly balanced between us, to serve the people of Volaterrae in such a way as to give them the impression that, as if by some divine providence, the man who has been put at the head of the commission on which you are now engaged is the very man of all others with whom I, their unfailing defender, could exercise the greatest possible influence.
CICERO TO Q. VALERIUS, LEGATE AND PROCONSUL, GREETING
I have no objection to any number of people being aware of the close relationship between us ; and yet I would not for that reason (and you can best appreciate what I say) hinder you from being able to conduct the business you have undertaken with your usual probity and thoroughness, and to the satisfaction of Caesar, who has entrusted you with a commission as important as it is difficult ; for though I am besieged by petitions from a host of men because they confidently rely upon your goodwill towards me, I am not so inconsiderate as to embarrass you in the performance of your duty by any self-seeking on my own account.
2 I have been on very intimate terms with C. Curtius ** from the days of our youth. Not only did I resent his most unjust degradation in Sulla's time, but when it appeared that those who had suffered similar wrong, though they had lost all their fortunes, were yet permitted by universal consent to return to their country, I have assisted in his rehabilitation.
Now Curtius has a holding in the territory of Volaterrae into which, just as though he had been shipwrecked, he had collected all that was left to him. But just at this moment Caesar has chosen him to be a member of the Senate - a rank, which, if he loses that holding of his, he cannot easily maintain. Now it is very hard upon him that, though he has been raised higher as regards rank, he should be in a lower position as regards means ; and it is shockingly inconsistent that the very man who is a senator by Caesar's favour should be ejected from land that is being distributed by Caesar's order.
3 But I am less inclined to write at any length on the equity of the case, for fear it should be thought that what strengthened my hands in pleading with you was not so much my personal influence as the justice of my plea. I therefore beg you, with more than usual urgency, to regard C. Curtius 's affair as my own ; and in whatever you do for my sake, although you may have done it for C. Curtius 's sake, to believe that any favour he obtains through me is a favour conferred upon me by yourself. This I beg of you again and again in all earnestness to do.
M. CICERO TO Q. VALERIUS Q.f. ORCA, PROCONSUL, GREETING **
If you are well, all is right ; I am well. I believe it is within your recollection that I said something to you in the presence of P. Cuspius, ** as I was escorting you when in your official uniform, ** and that afterwards also I pleaded with you at greater length, to reckon among my own connexions any whom I might recommend to you as being his. That, consistently with your sincere affection for me and the respect you have invariably shown me, you very handsomely and courteously undertook to do for me.
2 Now Cuspius, a man most ready to help all those associated with him, shows an amazingly benevolent interest in certain persons within your province, because he has twice been in Africa, presiding over the highly important negotiations of his society. And so I am in the habit of supporting, with such resources and influence as I can, this readiness to help which he displays towards them. I therefore thought it incumbent upon me to explain to you in this letter the reason why I recommend all the friends of Cuspius. In future letters I shall do no more than append the mark agreed upon between you and me, and indicate at the same time that it is one of Cuspius's friends. **
3 But as for the recommendation I have been willing to sign in this letter, I would have you know that it is more important than any ; for Cuspius has urged me with exceptional earnestness to recommend to you with the utmost possible particularity one L. Julius.
I hardly think I can satisfy his eagerness by using such words as I usually do, even when dealing with anything most impressively. He insists upon something out of the common, and imagines that I possess a certain artistry in that style. Well, I have promised him to fetch up from the depths of my art a style of recommendation that will amaze him. Being unable to reach that standard, I should be glad if you would so act as to give him the impression that the effect of my style of letter has been something beyond all belief.
4 This you will do if you exhibit every form of generosity which your kindness of heart and your official opportunities can suggest, not only in deed but also in word, and, let me add, even in look. How important these things are in a province, I only wish you knew by experience - I have an inkling, however, that you soon will. **
As to the subject of my recommendation himself, I believe him to be thoroughly worthy of your friendship, not only because Cuspius tells me so (though that ought to be enough), but also because I know Cuspius 's shrewdness in estimating men and choosing has friends.
5 What effect this letter has produced I shall be able to judge at an early date, and I feel sure I shall have to thank you. For my part, I shall attend with zeal and assiduity to whatever I think that you desire, or that affects your interests. Mind you keep well.
M. CICERO TO Q. VALERIUS Q.f. ORCA, PROCONSUL, GREETING
P. Cornelius, who delivers this letter to you, has been recommended to me by P. Cuspius ; and how much it is my desire, as it is my duty, to do for his sake, I am sure you have easily recognised from what I have said. I earnestly beg of you to see to it that the thanks I receive from Cuspius as a result of this recommendation may be as cordial, as prompt, and as frequent as possible.
CICERO TO CLUVIUS, ** GREETING
When on setting out for Gaul, in accordance with our intimacy and your extreme courtesy towards myself, you visited me at my house, I spoke to you about the land in Gaul which paid rent to the municipality of Atella, ** and I showed you how greatly distressed I was on that municipality's account. Since your departure, however, when a question arose of vital importance to that municipality, most honourable as it is and very closely connected with myself- a question too of the performance of my own duty in the highest sense, - I thought it incumbent on me, considering your extraordinary kindness to me, to write to you with greater particularity - although of course I am fully aware of your circumstances, and how far your powers extend, and distinctly understand that what Caesar has assigned to you is not so much judicial discretion, as the transaction of a definite business. For that reason I confine myself to asking you to do what I believe you have both the power and the will to do, for my sake.
2 And first of all I would have you bear in mind - and it is the fact - that the rent in question comprises the whole wealth of the municipality, and moreover, that as things now are, this same municipality is oppressed with very heavy burdens and involved in very serious difficulties. Although it would appear that such evils are shared with many others, still you must accept my assurance that the disasters suffered by this municipality are exceptional : and the reason I do not specify them is my fear lest by lamenting the misfortunes of those personally connected with me I should offend people I do not wish to offend. **
3 It follows that unless I had strong hopes of our establishing the cause of the municipality with C. Caesar, there was no reason why I should make any such urgent request of you at the present time. But because I feel sure and have convinced myself that he will give full consideration to the fair claims of the municipality and the justice of its plea, and also to its friendliness towards himself, for that reason, I say, I have not hesitated to urge you to keep this case open for his decision.
4 But although, even if I had never heard of your doing anything of the kind, I should none the less make this request of you, still my hope of obtaining it has been strengthened since I was told that you had granted the same request to the inhabitants of Regium ** ; and although they are attached to you by a certain connexion, yet I am impelled by your affection for me to hope that you will grant those connected with me the same favour as you have granted to those connected with yourself, especially as I am pleading for these people exclusively, whereas I have several others connected with me, who are in a similar sad plight. Now, although I credit you with believing that I am not doing this without good reason, and not pressing you under the influence of some paltry spirit of self-seeking, nevertheless I should like you to believe me when I declare that there is no municipality to which I am more deeply indebted ; that there has never been a time either in the days of my triumph or of my trouble when the devotion shown to me by this municipality did not stand out as something wholly out of the common.
5 And therefore, in view of our very intimate attachment and your affection for me, as unfailing as it is remarkable, I entreat and beseech you with more than usual urgency (since you must see that the fortunes of a municipality most closely bound to me by the ties of friendship, mutual services, and goodwill, are at stake), to grant me a favour which will amount to this - I mean that, if we obtain what we hope for from Caesar, we should believe that we have secured it only by your kindness ; if we do not, then at any rate that we should have instead of that the conviction that you did your utmost to help us to succeed. **
Not only will you have given me the greatest possible pleasure by so doing, but by an inestimable service you will have laid under an everlasting obligation to yourself and yours men of excellent character, and thoroughly honourable gentlemen, who are at the same time full of gratitude, and most worthy of being connected with you.
M. CICERO TO M. RUTILIUS ** , GREETING
Knowing in my heart how highly I valued you, and having learnt by experience your friendly feeling for me, I have not hesitated to ask that of you which it was my duty to ask. How highly I value P. Sestius ** is best known to myself ; how highly I ought to do so is known both to you and to the world in general. Having been informed by others that you were my very devoted friend, he begged of me to write to you with the utmost particularity about the affair of C Albinius the senator, whose daughter is the mother of L. Sestius, an admirable young man, son of P. Sestius. My purpose in writing you this letter was to convince you that not only is it right and proper that I should feel anxious on behalf of P. Sestius, but that he also should feel so on behalf of Albinius.
2 Now the circumstances are these : C. Albinius has received certain estates from M. Laberius at a valuation ** - estates which Laberius had purchased from Caesar out of the property of one Plotius. If I were to tell you that the dispersal ** of such properties is not to the public interest, you would think that I am not so much asking a favour of you, as proffering you instruction. At all events, seeing that Caesar desires the ratification of Sulla's sales and assignments, ** so that his own may be regarded as more secure, if those very estates which Caesar himself has sold are dispersed, what possible right of property, I ask you, can his sales carry ? But you, with your usual penetration, will consider the matter in all its bearings.
3 I ask you frankly - and I could not do so with more earnestness, in a more righteous cause, or more from my heart - to spare Albinius, and have nothing to do with the estate of Laberius. You will give me not only much pleasure, but also, in a sense, something to boast about, if it turns out that it was I who enabled P. Sestius to satisfy the claims of one so closely connected with him, as I owe him more than any other man alive. This I beg of you again and again to do. You can grant me no greater favour, and you will find that I appreciate it most highly.
CICERO TO CRASSIPES ** , GREETING
Although when I met you I recommended to you as particularly as I could the Bithynian company, ** and understood that not only because of my recommendation, but also because that was your own inclination, you were anxious to accommodate that company in any way you could, still when those whose interests are in question thought it of paramount importance to them that I should make it plain to you by letter also how I felt towards them, I have not hesitated to write to you as I do.
2 I would have you believe that while it has always been the greatest pleasure to me to make much of the order of publicani as a whole, and, considering the great services that order has rendered me, it has been my duty to do so, I am in a special sense a friend to this Bithynian company - a company which by the very fact of its connexions with the order in general, and owing to the class of men of whom it is composed, made up as it is of members of all the other companies, constitutes a most important factor in the State ; and, as it happens, a large proportion of it are on very intimate terms with myself, especially the man who at this moment occupies the position of its chief, namely P. Rutilius, son of Publius of the Menenian tribe, who is director ** of that company.
3 Such being the case, I entreat you with more than usual urgency to support with every kindness and all your generosity Cn. Pupius, who is in the company's employ, and to see to it that his services (you will find it easy to do so) are as acceptable as possible to the partners, and to show your desire (and how much it is in the power of a quaestor to effect in that connexion, I am well aware) that the property and interests of those partners should prove to have been protected and enhanced as far as possible by your efforts.
Not only will you greatly oblige me by so doing, but I also promise you and pledge myself as a result of my own experience, that, if you oblige them, you will find the Bithynian partners neither forgetful nor ungrateful.
CICERO TO BRUTUS ** , GREETING
When your quaestor, M. Varro, ** was setting out to join you, I did not think he required a recommendation. I considered him sufficiently recommended by the practice of our ancestors, which assumed that a quaestor's connexion with his chief closely approximated to that of a son to his father. But since he had convinced himself that a carefully written letter from me would carry the greatest weight with you and pressed me to write with the utmost particularity, I thought it better to do what my friend imagined to be of so much importance to him.
2 To prove to you therefore that it is my duty to do this, from the moment M. Terentius entered the forum ** he devoted himself to winning my friendship ; afterwards, when he had established himself, I found two additional reasons for feeling more warmly disposed towards him ; one was that he took up the same pursuit as myself - that which even now gives me most delight - and that with ability, as you know, and with considerable industry ; the other was that at an early stage he attached himself to the companies which manage State-contracts, and I only wish he hadn't ; for he suffered very heavy losses Be that as it may, his sharing my interest in an order I so highly esteemed tended to strengthen our friendship. Subsequently, after practising as a barrister on both benches ** with admirable honesty and distinction, just before this transformation of public affairs ** he became a candidate for public office, which he regarded as the most honourable fruit of his labours.
3 Moreover, at this crisis he has travelled from Brundisium with my letter and messages for Caesar ; and in that I have had clear proof of his devotion in undertaking the business at all, and of his trustworthiness in carrying it through and reporting to me. It seems to me that, though I had intended dwelling separately on his integrity and character, if I should have fully explained to you why I was so greatly drawn to him, by giving that very explanation I should have dwelt enough upon his integrity also ; but for all that I promise and pledge my word in a separate statement that he will be a source of both pleasure and profit to you. You will find him an unassuming and modest fellow, far removed from any thought of self-seeking, and I may add, hard-working and extremely industrious.
4 Although it is no business of mine to make professions which you can verify for yourself when you have got to know him well, still in forming any new connexions it is important to consider the details of the first approach, and the value of the recommendation that throws open, so to speak, the door of friendship. That is what I wished to effect by this letter, though indeed the bond of quaestorship should have had that effect of itself. Anyhow the latter consideration will be no whit weakened by the former. Therefore, if you value me as highly as Varro supposes, and I feel that you do, pray see to it that I have the earliest possible intelligence that this recommendation of mine has proved of as much advantage to him as he himself has hoped, and I have never doubted.
CICERO TO BRUTUS, GREETING
I have always noticed that you take the greatest pains to be informed of anything that concerns my interests, and I have therefore no doubt that you are aware not only to what municipality I belong, but also how conscientiously it is my habit to support my fellow-citizens, the inhabitants of Arpinum. Now it is a fact that all their income and all the means at their disposal for the maintenance of public worship and the repairs of their sacred edifices and public buildings consist in the rents they receive from their estates in the province of Gaul. ** To visit those estates, to call in the moneys still owed by the tenants, and to investigate and arrange for the management of the whole business, we have sent a commission of Roman knights - Q. Fufidius the younger, M. Faucius the younger, and Q. Mamercus the younger.
2 In view of our close intimacy, I appeal to you with more than ordinary urgency to charge yourself with the matter, and to do your utmost to see that the business of our town, so far as you yourself are concerned, is managed as happily, and settled as speedily, as possible, and to treat the gentlemen themselves, whose names I have given you, as indeed you naturally - would, with all possible courtesy and generosity.
3 You will find that you have added some men of excellent character to the list of your intimate friends, and that by your kindness you have laid under obligation a most grateful municipality, while the gratitude I shall owe you will be even greater, since not only have I always made a practice of protecting the interests of my fellow-townsmen, but this year they claim in a special degree my attention and services. The fact is that this year, with a view to putting the municipality on a sound basis, I have recommended for election my son, and also my brother's son, and M. Caesius, ** a very intimate friend of mine, as aediles - for aediles are the magistrates, and no others, whom it is customary to elect ** in our municipality. Now you will have done due honour to them and to myself in particular, if it turns out that the public business of the township has been, thanks to your zealous assiduity, well managed. And this is what I earnestly and again and again beg of you to do.
CICERO TO BRUTUS, GREETING
In another letter I commended to you as earnestly as I could the representatives of the Arpinates in general ; in this I commend with even greater earnestness Q. Fufidius, to whom I am bound by all sorts of ties, in particular, not so as to detract in any way from my former recommendation, but so as to add this to it. He is the stepson of M. Caesius, my most intimate and familiar friend, and he was with me in Cilicia as military tribune ; and he so conducted himself in that capacity as to make me feel that I had received a kindness from him rather than conferred one.
2 He is, moreover - and this carries great weight with you - no enemy to our favourite pursuits. And that is why I would have you welcome him as handsomely as possibly, and do all you can to ensure the utmost possible success of his efforts on that commission which he has undertaken, to the detriment of his own convenience, in deference to my authority. It is his desire - and it is the natural characteristic of all good men - to win the highest possible credit, not only for me, who pressed this service upon him, but from the municipality also ; and he will succeed in doing so, if, thanks to this recommendation of mine, he enlists your enthusiastic support.
CICERO TO BRUTUS, GREETING
L. Castronius Paetus, by far the most important member of the municipality of Luca, ** is an honourable, sterling, and most obliging man, a thoroughly good fellow, and graced not only with all the virtues, but also, if that has anything to do with the matter, with a handsome fortune. Besides he is on very familiar terms with me, so much so indeed that there is no member of my order to whom he pays more particular attention. I therefore commend him to you as being both my friend and worthy of your friendship ; and whatever you do to oblige him will assuredly give pleasure to yourself, and in any case be a favour to me.
CICERO TO BRUTUS, GREETING
I am on the most intimate terms with L. Titius Strabo, an eminently honourable and distinguished Roman knight. There is no bond of the closest relationship that does not subsist between us. A sum of money is owing to him in your province from P. Cornelius. The praetor urbanus Volcatius ** has passed on the case for trial in Gaul.
2 I beg of you all the more earnestly than if the case were my own, in proportion as it is more a point of honour to take pains in the matter of one's friends' money than one's own, to see to it that the business is carried through. Take it on your own shoulders, settle it, and do what you can consistently with what you deem right and proper, to ensure that Strabo's freedman, who has been dispatched for the purpose, may conclude the business on the most favourable terms possible, and get at the money. Not only will that give me the greatest pleasure, but you yourself too will find L. Titius fully worthy of your friendship. That you should interest yourself in this matter, as you generally do in everything you know to be my wish, I earnestly beg of you again and again.
CICERO TO CAESAR, IMPERATOR , GREETING **
I most particularly commend to you Praecilius, the son of a very excellent gentleman who is your close, and my own very intimate, friend. I am amazingly fond of the young man himself on account of his sobriety of conduct, his refinement, and his remarkably affectionate feeling for myself ; and his father too, as practical experience has taught me and convinced me beyond all doubt, was always my very sincere friend. Why, he was the man who more than anybody used to scoff at and scold me because I did not attach myself to you, especially when you invited me to do so in the most complimentary terms:
But with his words never swayed he the heart that beats in my bosom. **
For I heard our chieftains crying aloud :
"Stand thou undaunted, that men e'en in ages to come may extol thee." **
So spake he, but the other a black cloud of anguish enveloped. **
2 But still those same men offer me comfort, and even now they would set on fire a poor fellow already scorched with the flames of a futile ambition ; and this is the sort of thing they say ;
Not without effort of mine, and not without fame, would I perish.
But having done such a deed as will ring through the ages for ever. **
But they have less effect upon me now, as you see ; and so I turn from the grandiloquence of Homer, and betake myself to the practical precepts of Euripides :
The sage, no sage for his own ends, I loathe, **
a verse that Praecilius senior enthusiastically applauds, and declares that a man may be able "to see before as well as behind" ** and yet nevertheless
Ever to prove himself best, and unrivalled to stand above others. **
3 But to return the point with which I began : you will oblige me very greatly if you extend to this young man the courtesy you possess in so remarkable a degree, and to add to what I imagine you would like to do for the sake of the Praecilii themselves the further weight of my recommendation.
I have adopted a new style of letter in writing to you, so that you may understand that this is no stereotyped recommendation.
CICERO TO CAESAR, GREETING
Out of all our nobility the young man for whom I have the highest regard is P. Crassus ** ; and while I had entertained great hopes of him from his earliest years, I began to have quite a brilliant impression of him when the highly favourable opinions you had formed of him became known to me. His freedman Apollonius I used to esteem highly and think well of, even when Crassus was alive ; for he was devoted to Crassus, and adapted himself extremely well to his highest pursuits, and was therefore much beloved by him.
2 After Crassus 's death, however, he struck me as being all the more worthy of admittance into my confidence and friendship, inasmuch as he considered it incumbent upon him to pay respect and attention to those whom Crassus had been fond of, and who had won his affection. And so he joined me in Cilicia, and his loyalty and sagacity were of material service to me in many respects, and he never failed you, I imagine, in the Alexandrine war, so far as his zeal and fidelity enabled him to do so.
3 And, since he hoped that you thought so too, he set out to join you in Spain, mainly, it is true, by your advice, but partly also at my instance. A recommendation, however, I did not promise him - not that I supposed it would carry no weight with you, but it seemed to me that he stood in need of no recommendation at all, seeing that he had been with you during the war, and (since you could never forget Crassus) was numbered among your intimates ; and besides, if he desired to avail himself of recommendations, I saw that there were others too through whom he could get what he wanted. This testimony to my opinion of him, which he himself values highly, and which I know by experience carries weight with you, I have gladly given him.
4 Well then, I have found him to be a man of learning and devoted to the most intellectual pursuits, and that from a boy. For he was constantly at my house from his boyhood in the company of Diodotus the Stoic, in my judgment the most erudite of men. At the present moment, however, fired with enthusiastic admiration of your exploits, he desires to record them in the Greek language. I think he is competent to do so, he has great ability, he has had experience, he has been engaged for some time past in that kind of literary effort, and his eagerness to do justice to the immortal glory of your achievements is quite amazing.
Here then is the considered expression of my opinion ; but such is your extraordinary penetration that you will far more easily decide the matter on your own account. And here am I, after all, doing what I said I would not do, in recommending him to you !
Whatever favour you do him will be a more than ordinary gratification to myself.
CICERO TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS ** , GREETING
I have many strong reasons for my regard for Manius Curius ** who has a banking business at Patrae. A friendship of very long standing subsists between us, which began when he first entered the forum, and at Patrae not only on several previous occasions, but also very lately, during this most lamentable war, his house has been unreservedly thrown open to me ; had there been need, I should have used it as my own. The strongest tie that binds us however is one that I may almost call a more sacred relationship - the fact that he is a most intimate friend of my dear Atticus, whom he respects and esteems more than anybody else in the world.
2 If you happen to have made his acquaintance already, I expect I am too late in doing what I do ; for such is his courtesy and civility, that I expect he has already been his own recommendation to you. But even if this be so, I earnestly beg you, that, whatever goodwill you have shown him before the receipt of this letter, my recommendation, now that you have received it, may as far as possible enhance it.
3 If, however, his bashfulness has prevented his obtruding himself upon you, or if you are not sufficiently acquainted with him, or if there be any reason for his requiring some stronger recommendation, well, then, I hereby recommend him to you so emphatically that I could not possibly recommend any man with greater enthusiasm or for sounder reasons ; and I shall do what those do who submit their recommendations conscientiously and disinterestedly, that is to say, I shall pledge my word to you, or rather give you my promise and solemn undertaking, that such is M'. Curius's character, such his integrity and his kindliness combined, that if you make his acquaintance, you will assuredly deem him worthy both of your friendship and of so elaborate a recommendation. At any rate you will have done me a great favour if I have reason to know that this letter has carried as much weight with you as I felt sure it would when I wrote it.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
Never shall I admit that that most charming and courteous letter you wrote to him gave our friend Atticus, who, I could see, was in an ecstasy of delight, more pleasure than it gave myself. For though the pleasure it gave ms was about equally divided between us, it was I who felt the greater admiration, seeing that you, who, had you been requested or at any rate advised to do so, would have couched your reply to Atticus in handsome terms (and, of course, I had never any doubt that it would have proved so), actually wrote to him spontaneously, and laid at his feet all your abounding goodwill through the medium of a letter. And in this connexion not only ought I to refrain from requesting you to write all the more cordially because I too am interested (for nothing that can be done would exceed the overflowing measure of your promises), but even from thanking you for what you had done both in Atticus 's own interest, and of your own free will.
2 This much, however, I will say, that what you have done is most gratifying to me. For such an opinion on your part of a man who stands alone in my affection cannot but give me the highest degree of pleasure ; and that being so, I cannot help but be grateful. But anyhow, since our attachment is so close, that I am privileged even to blunder in a letter to you, I shall do both of the things I declared I ought not to do. Firstly, I would have you make such an addition to what you have already shown you are about to do for Atticus's sake as it is possible, in view of our mutual affection, to make ; and secondly, though a moment ago I was afraid to thank you, I now do so in specific terms, and I would impress this upon you - that by whatever kind offices you put Atticus under an obligation in dealing with affairs in Epirus and elsewhere, for those same services shall I be beholden to you myself.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
Between myself and Lyso of Patrae ** are long standing ties of hospitality, ** and such ties should, I think, be religiously fostered. This is of course the case with several others, but never have I been so intimate with any other friend of that type ; and so much has that intimacy been increased, not only by many services on his part, but also by our daily intercourse, that we are on the most intimate terms in the world. When he stayed a year at Rome, which practically meant living at my house, although we were in great hopes that, in view of my letter of recommendation, you would be most assiduous in doing what, as a matter of fact, you did - I mean in protecting his estate and possessions - for all that, seeing that one man ** was all-powerful, and that Lyso had been on our side and under our aegis, we were in daily dread of something happening. His own distinction, however, and the hearty support of myself and his other friends of that type have ended in our obtaining from Caesar all we wanted, as indeed you will infer from Caesar's letter to you.
2 In this letter not only do I make no abatement in the strength of my recommendation to you, as if I had now got all I wanted, but I press you all the more earnestly to admit Lyso into your confidence and intimacy. When his fortunes were in the balance, I felt a little timid in pleading with you, fearing something so serious might happen that not even you could rectify it ; but now that his civil status is assured, I beg of you in all earnestness and solicitude to carry out all my requests. To avoid a detailed list of them, I commend to you his whole family, including his young son, whom my client C. Maenius Gemellus, when in the dark days of his exile he was made a citizen of Patrae, adopted according to the laws of that town ; I ask you to maintain the rights of his cause in respect of that inheritance.
3 The main point is that you should admit Lyso, whom I have found to be a most excellent and grateful person, to your close intimacy. If you do so, I have no doubt that, in making much of him and afterwards recommending him to others, you will arrive at the same opinion and conceive the same goodwill towards him as I do. But intensely anxious as I am that this should be done, I am at the same time afraid lest if it appears that in some particular respect you have failed to display a superabundance of energy on his behalf, he may suspect me of not having written warmly enough, and not you of having forgotten me. For he must have been able to discover how highly you esteem me, not only from my daily talks, but also from your letters.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
I am on very familiar terms with the physician Asclapo of Patrae, and not only has my intercourse with him been a pleasure to me, but also his skill, which I have tested in the illnesses of my household ; at those times he gave me every satisfaction by his medical knowledge, as well as by his trustworthiness and goodness of heart. I therefore recommend him to you, and I beg of you to do what you can to convince him that I have taken special care in writing about him, and that my recommendation has been of substantial service to him. It will be a great gratification to me.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
M. Aemilius Avianius ** has always regarded me with respect and esteem from his earliest youth. He is a good, and at the same time an exceedingly courteous man, and in the performance of every kind of duty worthy of esteem. If I thought he was at Sicyon ** and were not informed that he is still staying at Cibyra, ** where I left him, there would have been no necessity for my writing to you about him at any greater length. For I feel sure that he would succeed by his own character and culture, unaided by anybody's recommendation, in winning your esteem no less than mine, and that of all his other intimate friends.
2 But, believing him to be away, I commend to you with more than customary earnestness his family (they live in Sicyon) and his private property, and particularly Gaius Avianius Hammonius, his freedman, whom I also commend to you on his own account. For not only has he won my approval by his remarkable sense of duty and loyalty to his patron, but he has also conferred great obligations upon myself, and in the days of my greatest trouble he stood by me as faithfully and affectionately as though it were I who had manumitted him. I therefore beg of you to give that Hammonius not only your support in his patron's business, as being the agent of the man I am recommending to you, but also your regard on his own account, and put him on the list of your friends. You will find him a modest and obliging person, and worthy of your regard.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
T. Manlius, who has a banking business at Thespiae, is a man I am extremely fond of ; for he has always cultivated my acquaintance and shown me very marked respect ; and he is no enemy to our literary pursuits. I should add that Varro Murena ** cordially wishes him well in every respect ; and Varro, although he had every confidence in the letter he wrote commending Manlius to you, thought none the less that something further would be gained by a recommendation from myself ; and not only my intimacy with Manlius, but my anxiety on behalf of Varro, has stimulated me to write to you with the utmost earnestness.
2 You will oblige me very greatly then if you attach to this recommendation the highest possible importance, in other words, if you promote the interests and honour of T. Manlius as much as possible in whatever respect you can do so consistently with what is honourable and with your own high position ; and, moreover, judging by the man's own very grateful and courteous character, I assure you that you will reap the reward you usually expect for services done to men of merit.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
I am on very intimate terms with your friend and fellow-tribesman, L. Cossinius ; for not only is there an acquaintance of long standing between us to start with, but the bond that binds me to Cossinius has been strengthened by our friend Atticus. Consequently Cossinius's whole family is fond of me, and especially his freedman, L. Cossinius Anchialus, a man very highly thought of by his patron and his patron's friends, of whom l am one. 2 So warmly do I commend him to you that if he were my own freedman and stood in the same relation to me as he does to his patron, I could not commend him more enthusiastically. You will therefore do me a great favour if you admit him into your friendship, and, if he needs it in any way, give him such assistance as you can without inconvenience to yourself. That will be both gratifying to me and subsequently a pleasure to yourself ; for you will find him a man of the highest integrity, most courteous too, and most respectful.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
I previously derived pleasure from an act of kindness on my part, when I remembered how warmly I had recommended to you my host and guest and intimate friend Lyso, ** and now that I have gathered from his letter that he had been falsely suspected by you, I rejoiced exceedingly that my recommendation of him had been so warmly worded. He told me in his letter that my recommendation had been of the greatest assistance to him, because (as he says) a report had reached your ears that he had been in the habit of speaking about you at Rome to the prejudice of your high position
2 Now although he writes that, as might have been expected from your good nature and kindliness, he has cleared himself in your eyes, still in the first place, I express my gratitude to you that my letter has phad such influence with you that on perusing it you put away from you all the feeling of offence caused by the suspicion you entertained of Lyso ; and secondly I would have you believe me when I assert that I am writing this not more on Lyso's than on every other man's behalf - that there is no man alive who has ever mentioned your name without praising you up to the skies. As for Lyso, when he was in my company almost every day and lived with me, he used to praise in my presence your every word and deed - not only because it was a pleasure to me to listen, but because it was an even greater pleasure to him to say so.
3 For that reason, although he is being so treated by you that he no longer desires any recommendation of mine, and imagines that my single letter has enabled him to get all he wants, yet I beg of you with more than usual earnestness to show your appreciation of him by your kind services and generosity. I should write and tell you what sort of a man he is, as I did in previous letters, were I not convinced that he is by this time sufficiently well known to you on his own account.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
Hegesaretus ** of Larissa, whom I honoured with some considerable kindnesses during my consulship, has proved himself neither forgetful nor ungrateful, and has subsequently paid me marked attention. I strongly recommend him to you as being a guest and friend of mine with whom I am familiar, a grateful fellow of excellent character, the chief man of his State, and altogether worthy of your intimacy. You will do me a great favour if you make a point of giving him reason to know that this recommendation of mine has had great weight with you..
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
The explanation of my close connexion with L. Mescinius ** is that he was my quaestor. But that reason for intimacy, strong as I have always, in accordance with ancestral tradition, held it to be, he has further justified by his own merits and courtesy. It follows that there is no one with whom I am on more intimate terms, or with more pleasure. Now although he appeared to be confident that you would willingly do what you could for him, without compromising yourself, for his own sake, at the same time he hoped that a letter from me too would have great weight with you. Not only did he think so himself, but he had also (such is the intimacy of our intercourse) often heard me say how delightful and how close is my connexion with you.
2 I therefore entreat you with all that earnestness, believe me, with which I am bound to entreat you on behalf of one so closely connected and intimate with me, to facilitate and expedite the business affairs he has in Achaia (arising from the fact that he is heir to his cousin M. Mindius, who was a banker at Elis) by means not only of your lawful powers but also of your weighty influence and advice. For my instructions to those to whom I entrusted those business affairs were as follows : "that in anything brought forward as admitting of any dispute they should employ you to arbitrate, and (so far as it could be done without inconveniencing you) to settle the case once for all." This I press you again and again to undertake to do in the interests of my honour.
3 This too is another great favour you will do me, if you do not consider it incompatible with your position - that if any of those concerned are so obstinately intractable as to having the matter settled without a trial, you should refer them, since a senator is involved in the case, to Rome. ** And to enable you to do so with the less hesitation, I have in my hands a despatch to you from the consul M. Lepidus, ** not such as to lay any injunction upon you (that, I consider, would be inconsistent with your position) but which conveys in a sort of way what may be called a recommendation.
4 I should go on to tell you how sound an investment you would be likely to make in doing Mescinius this favour, were not I sure that you are aware of it, and were it not that this request of mine is really a selfish one ; for I would have you believe that I am no less anxious about his interests than he is himself. But while I desire that he should come by his own with the least possible difficulty, I am also anxious to give him the impression that this recommendation of mine has not been the most negligible factor in his success.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
It is excusable to use exactly the same terms over and over again in sending you letters of this kind, thanking you for so punctiliously attending to my recommendations ; I have done so in other cases, and shall do so, I foresee, ever so often ; but for all that I shall make every effort to do in my letters what you lawyers habitually do in your formulae, and that is, "to put the same case in a different way." **
2 Well then, C. Avianius, I mean Hammonius, ** has in a letter to me expressed himself amazingly grateful, in his own name as well as in that of his patron Aemilius Avianius, saying that neither he, who was on the spot, nor the personal affairs of his patron, who was away, could possibly have been dealt with either more generously or with more distinguished consideration. This is a joy to me, in view of the interests of those whom I had been induced by the closest bonds of familiarity and fellowship to commend to you, because M. Aemilius stands alone among all my most intimate associates as my closest friend and most beholden to me for considerable kindnesses, and perhaps the most grateful of those who, I suppose, owe me something ; but it is a far greater joy to me that you are so well disposed towards me as to be of more service to my friends than perhaps I should be myself, were I on the spot, because, I imagine, I should be in greater doubt as to what I should do in their interests, than you as to what you should do in mine. 3 Of this, however, I have no doubt - that you believe me to be grateful ; and I beg of you to regard them too as not ungrateful ; that such is the case I promise and assure you. I would therefore have you do your best, so far as you conveniently can, to enable them to conclude whatever business they have on hand while you are governor of Achaia.
4 I am living on delightful and most sociable terms with your son Servius, whose ability and incomparable application, not to mention his excellent character and integrity, are a source of extreme pleasure to me.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
Although it is always a pleasure to me to make a request of you, if any of my friends want anything, it is a far greater pleasure to thank you when you have done something on my recommendation, and you are always doing so. For you could not believe how cordially they all thank me, yes, even those I have only moderately recommended ; and this is gratifying to me in every case, but most gratifying of all in the case of L. Mescinius ; for this is what he told me in conversation - that as soon as ever you read my letter you promised his agents all they wanted, but that in number and importance your deeds went far beyond your words. I would therefore have you believe (and I think I ought to say so again and again) that what you have done has been a great gratification to me.
2 And I rejoice at this all the more heartily because I foresee that you wall get a great deal of enjoyment out of Mescinius himself ; you will find in him a man of virtue and integrity, most willing to serve you and most respectful, and at the same time devoted to those literary pursuits which were formerly my amusement, but are now my very life. For the future I would have you even increase your favours to him in any way that is worthy of you. Two requests indeed I make of you specifically : first, that if any security has to be given "against any further claims on that score," you should see to it that I am held responsible for that security ; secondly, since his inheritance practically consists of property fraudulently appropriated by Oppia, who was the wife of Mindius, you should come to his assistance, and take steps to ensure that lady's safe-conduct to Rome. If she once realises that it will be so, it is my opinion that the business will be settled ; and that is the object I earnestly beg of you again and again to enable us to attain.
3 What I wrote above I take upon myself to guarantee - that in what you have done and will do for Mescinius you will make so profitable an investment as to compel your independent conviction that the recipient of your favours is a very grateful and a very charming man. I would add this also as a sort of corollary to what you have done for me.
CICERO TO SERVIUS, GREETING
I do not suppose that the Lacedaemonians are in any doubt as to their having been already sufficiently recommended to your sense of loyalty and justice by their own high claims and those of their ancestors, nor have I myself, because I know you so very well, ever doubted that you were thoroughly acquainted with the rights and deserts of peoples. And so, when asked by Philippus, the Lacedaemonian, to recommend that state to you, although I remembered that I was under every obligation to that state, yet I replied that the Lacedaemonians stood in no need of any recommendation with you.
2 I would therefore have you believe that I consider all the states of Achaia, in view of the disturbed state of the times, happy in having you for their governor, and I have, moreover, convinced myself that you, because you are better acquainted than any living man, not only with our own history, hut also with the whole history of Greece, are now, and ever will be, of your own choice a friend to Lacedaemonians. For that reason I merely beg of you, when you do for the Lacedaemonians all that your conscience, dignity, and sense of justice shall demand, to convey to them, if you please, the impression that it is by no means disagreeable to you to feel that what you do will be gratifying also to myself. Indeed, it touches my sense of duty that they should be made to believe that I charge myself with their interests. This I earnestly beg of you again and again to do.
M. CICERO TO L. PLANCUS ** , GREETING
I have no doubt you are aware that among the intimate friends bequeathed to you by your father, I am quite the most closely attached to you, not only on such grounds as give the appearance of close attachment, but on those also which are established by familiarity and intercourse ; and my intercourse with your father was, as you are aware, in the fullest sense as agreeable as it was close. That was the origin of my affection for you. which has enhanced this hereditary association, and all the more so because I realised that as soon as your years enabled you to form an estimate as to the regard in which you should hold each of your acquaintances, it was I who began to be the special object of your respect, esteem, and affection Then there was added the bond (no slight one), not only of common pursuits - a bond which carries weight of itself - but also of such pursuits and accomplishments as firmly unite men of identical tastes in what becomes intimacy as well.
2 You are curious to know, I am sure, what is the drift of a preamble that stretches so far back. Well then, let me immediately assure you that I have not entered into this recapitulation of facts without good and sufficient reason. I am on very intimate terms with C. Ateius Capito. ** The vicissitudes of my fortunes are familiar to you. In every phase of my career, whether distinguished or distressful, C. Capito has ever been at hand to help me with his courage, energy, influence, popularity, and even his purse, and to obey the call of every crisis in my fortunes.
3 He had a relative, one T. Antistius ; and when this man was holding Macedonia as quaestor according to lot, and had not yet been succeeded, Pompey arrived in that province with an army. Antistius could do nothing. Had he been able to do so, nothing would have been more to his advantage than to return to Capito, whom he loved as a father, especially as he knew how highly Capito was, and always had been, esteemed by Caesar. But, taken by surprise as he was, he only engaged in such business as he could not possible evade.
4 When silver was being stamped at Apollonia, I cannot say that he presided over the business, nor can I deny that he was on the spot, but it could only have been for two (or was it three ?) months. After that he absented himself from the camp, and ran away from all business. I would have you take my word for this as being that of a witness, since, seeing how despondent I was during that war, he used to talk everything over with me. So he hid himself away in the heart of Macedonia, as far from the camp as he possibly could, so as to avoid not only taking a leading part in any transaction, but even taking any part in it at all. After the battle ** he retired into Bithynia, where he joined an intimate friend of his, one A. Plautius. When Caesar saw him there, he said nothing harsh, nothing bitter, but simply ordered him to Rome. Immediately after that Antistius contracted an illness from which he never recovered. He was a sick man when he reached Corcyra, and there he died. By a will which he had made at Rome in the consulship of Paullus and Marcellus, ** Capito was made heir to five-sixths of his estate ; those who came in for one-sixth are men whose share can be confiscated without a word of complaint from anybody ; it amounts to 3,000,000 sestertii. ** But that is for Caesar to see to.
5 Now I ask you, my dear Plancus, in the name of our hereditary connexion, our mutual affection, our common pursuits, and the close resemblance of our whole lives throughout their course (and I could not make this request with more solicitude and earnestness than I do), to account the matter mine, to spare no effort, no endeavour, and so to bring it about that through my recommendation, your own assiduity, and the kindness of Caesar, Capito may make good his claim to his relative's legacy. If I prevail upon you to do this, I shall consider that you have bestowed upon me unasked all the favours I might have prevailed upon you to grant me, had I but sought them, in this, the zenith of your popularity and power.
6 I hope that this fact will be of assistance to you - a fact of which Caesar himself can best judge - that Capito has consistently respected and esteemed Caesar. But Caesar himself can testify to this ; I know what a memory he has. I have therefore no instructions to give you ; but in speaking to Caesar on Capito's behalf you must limit what you take upon yourself to say to what you perceive to be within Caesar's own recollection.
7 For my own part, I shall just lay before you what I have been able to prove by personal experience ; the significance of it you will see for yourself. What side and what cause I have always championed in politics, what individuals and what orders ** in the State have enabled me to hold my ground, and by whom I have been protected - all that you know perfectly well. Now I would have you take my word for this - that if in this very war I did anything in the slightest degree offensive to Caesar (and I was aware that Caesar himself knew that I did so with the utmost reluctance), that I did by the advice and at the urgent instance of others ; but in so far as I showed more moderation and self-restraint than anybody else on that side, I did so mainly at the instance of Capito ; and had the others with whom I was closely associated been like him, I should perhaps have benefited the commonwealth to some extent, and should at any rate have benefited myself very greatly.
8 If you succeed in doing what I ask, my dear Plancus, you will confirm my anticipations of your kindly feeling for myself, and also bind Capito, that most grateful, obliging, and excellent of men, in the bonds of friendship to yourself by your own signal good service.
1. Gaius Memmius was of plebeian family, though that family traced its origin to Trojan times and stamped the head of Romulus on their coins. As he served as quaestor in Spain during the war with Sertorius both before and after 77 B.C., he must have been born before 104. In 66 he opposed the triumph of L. Lucullus, and as praetor in 58 he strenuously resisted Caesar's laws. In 57 he was propraetor of Bithynia, where he won the title of Imperator but failed, according to Catullus (x. 9-13, and xxviii.), to promote the pecuniary interests of his staif, of whom Catullus was one. In 54 he sought the Consulship, and was even supported by Caesar, whose favour he again lost by disclosing some scandal in the election, and was himself accused of bribery. To save himself he accused of bribery Metellus Scipio, father-in-law of Pompey, but was forced to drop the accusation, and went into exile at Athens. Here, by a decree of the Areopagus, he obtained possession of a ruinous house, once Epicurus's, intending to pull it down and build on the site, but subsequently abandoned that intention. The Epicureans at Athens wished to get the house back, but Memmius refused to give it up, and quarrelled about it with Patro, the head of the Epicurean Society. When Cicero visited Athens on his way to Cilicia, Patro begged him to get the house from Memmius, who had now gone to Mitylene. Hence this letter, written, as Cicero tells Atticus, with care {'accurate'}. But Memmius's chief claim to distinction is that it was to him that Lucretius addressed his great poem De Rerum Natura. Munro remarks that on all the coins of the Memmii we find Venus crowned by Love, and this gives special point to Lucr. i. 26-27 : 'Memmiadae nostro, quem tu, dea, tempore in omni / omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus'.
2. Probably a clique of Epicurean extremists.
3. i.e., Memmius is too important a person to be troubled with such trifles.
4. hypomnēmatismos was the recognised term for a decree of the Areopagus, which in the time of Cicero was the chief administrative body in Athens.
5. A freedman of M. Aemilius Avianius (xiii. 27). He was a distinguished sculptor, and Cicero had dealings with him (vii. 23. 1).
6. Avianius was permitted by Memmius to work in the shrine in which the Memmii celebrated their sacra gentilicia.
7. Nothing more is known of this man.
8. Orca had been praetor in 57, and supported the recall of Cicero. In 56 he was governor of Africa (xiii. 6a. 2). He was now one of the Land Commissioners for carrying out Caesar's allotments of land to his veterans. This and the following letter show the difficulties which confronted the Commissioners.
9. Volaterrae, in Etruria, was besieged and captured by Sulla for having given shelter to some of those who had been proscribed. Sulla declared their lands confiscated and their Roman citizenship annulled, but the Roifian courts refused to recognise the deprivation of citizenship, and the lands were never confiscated. - Watson and Tyrrell.
10. Rullus and Flavius.
11. Caesar would favour the Volaterrans as representing the proscribed Marians.
12. Nothing more is known of this C. Curtins.
13. Chronologically, this letter precedes letters 4 and 5, in which Cicero drops the formal opening (S.V.B.E.) which he uses here.
14. Only mentioned in this letter and in xvi. 17. 2.
15. It was customary for a magistrate to wear his paludamentum (general's cloak) when proceeding to his province. Cf. xv, 17. 3. - Tyrrell.
16. See Preliminary Note to this letter.
17. Sc. 'te mox experturum esse.'
18. Not the banker at Puteoli, who died earlier in this year {Att. xiii. 46), but probably the Cluvius who was Caesar's praefectus fabrum in Spain in the early part of this year.
19. Atella was in Campania, between Naples and Capua. It was there that the fabulae Atellanae (popular farces or Harlequinades) were first produced. Another instance of a Latin municipality owning property in a distant land is Arpinum, which held land in Gaul (xiii. 11. 1).
20. Tyrrell thinks these must be the partisans of Caesar, who seem to have acted harshly.
21. Regium Lepidi, a Roman colony on the Via Aemilia, between Mutina and Parma.
22. In other words, "if we obtain what hope for from Caesar, we shall give you all the credit ; if not, we shall have instead the pleasure of knowing that you did your best, i.e., we shall be indebted to you in either case."
23. There is no other reference in these letters to this Rutilius.
24. Quaestor in 63, and tribune of the plebs in 57, when he strongly supported Cicero's recall ; in 56 he was accused of vis on account of the violence with which he had opposed P. Clodius in the preceding year, but was defended by Cicero (Pro Sestio) and acquitted. His son L. Sestius is the 'O beate Sesti' in Horace's ode, i. 4.
25. For 'aestimatio' see note to ix. 16. 7.
26. 'Dividere' here, and below, = 'divendere', "to disperse by selling piecemeal," when the original ownership would disappear.
27. i.e., sales and allotments of property confiscated in connexion with proscriptions of Sulla. If not "ratified," Caesar's title to his own estates would be invalidated, and he would have no power to sell them.
28. The second husband of Tullia, whom he married in 56, and divorced about 53.
29. The companies {societates} of publicani undertook State contracts for roads, buildings, etc., but especially for the collection of taxes. Each societas generally confined its operations to a single province, or to a particular tax ( decuma, scriptura, portoria, etc.), though one societas might farm several taxes. Cicero's staunch support of the equites was one of the main features of his political life, and the publicani were drawn from the equites.
30. The bidding for the contract and the furnishing of security, etc., were carried out by a manceps at Rome, but the management was entrusted to an annually elected local director (magister), who had charge of the accounts and correspondence See note on letter 65 § 1.
31. M. Brutus was now governor of Cisalpine Gaul, as will appear from the next letter, § 1.
32. Not the great Varro, but a man known as M. Terentius Varro Gibba. As tribune of the plebs in 43, when the great Varro was proscribed he was much laughed at for publishing a notice declaring that he was not that Varro but another (Dio Cassius, xlvii. 11.3).
33. i.e., began to practise in the law-courts.
34. Either as barrister and juryman, or as counsel for the defence and for the prosecution.
35. Brought about by Caesar's victory over the Pompeian army at Thapsus.
36. See note on letter 7 § 1 above.
37. Cf. § 1 in the next letter.
38. Three aediles, one of whom apparently administered the finances (cf. Att, xv. 15. I), were the only regular magistrates at Arpinum. (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, x. 5679 and 5682, quoted by How.)
39. In Etruria.
40. L. Volcatius Tullus, who became consul in 33. This year he was praetor at Rome.
41. This letter was written within two months after Tullia's death, and Tyrrell and Purser remark that "it has a strained and unnatural tone of gaiety."
42. Homer, Od. vii. 258.
43. Homer, Od. i. 302.
44. Homer, Od. xxiv. 315. The chieftains cried aloud to Cicero to be brave, but a cloud of woe enveloped him — his remorse for having ever opposed Caesar.
45. Homer. Il. xxii. 304-5.
46. Eur. Frag. 905, ed, Nauck, p. 652.
47. Homer, Il, i. 343 ; Od, xxiv. 452.
48. Homer. Il, vi. 208 ; xi. 784. Praecilius seems to have meant that a man may be a "sage," and yet attain pre-eminence in practical life.
49. Son of the triumvir. He served with distinction as a legatus of Caesar in Gaul. He fell with his father at the battle of Carrhae. Cicero eulogised him in Brut, 282. Cf. Fam, v. 8. 4. His widow Cornelia afterwards became the wife of Pompey.
50. For an account of this eminent jurist and friend of Cicero see note on iv. 1. 1. Sulpicius had recently been appointed Proconsul of Achaia by Caesar, cf. iv. 3.
51. vii. 38 is a letter from Cicero to him, and vii. 29 one from him to Cicero.
52. Though Cicero speaks somewhat slightingly of Lyso elsewhere (xvi. 4, 2), he seems to have had a very high regard for him ; and Lyso himself seems to have been something more than the ordinary ‘‘hotel proprietor" which Tyriell and Mahaffy assume him to have been.
53. 'Hospes', like the Greek xenos, originally meant a stranger ; then it became used for a guest, and finally also for a host, and which of those two meanings it bears can only be inferred from its context. 'Hospitium' {xenia} is the relationship between host and guest, for which we have no one word in English, and which we have to render by some such paraphrase as "the ties of hospitality" or "friendship based on mutual entertainment."
54. The reference of course is to Caesar.
55. He was a patron of the sculptor C. Avianius Evander mentioned in xiii. 2, and of the C. Avianius Hammonius mentioned in § 2 below. Freedmen generally adopted the praenomen and nomen of their patron in addition to their own, as did foreigners also when made citizens of Rome through the influence of some great Roman.
56. Situated on the river Asopus in the N.E. of the Peloponnese.
57. In Phrygia ; Cicero left him there when returning home from Cilicia.
58. A. Terentius Varro Murena, son of L. Licinius, was adopted by A. Terentius Varro. A partisan of Pompey, he was pardoned by Caesar. In 22 he conspired against Augustus with Fannius Caepio, and put to death. Dio Cassius (liv, iii. 4) describes him as being offensively and violently outspoken, and Horace appropriately addressed to him his ode on "the golden mean" (Od. ii. 10). By his adoption he became brother to Terentia, wife of Maecenas, and also to Proculeius (Hor. Od. ii. 2. 5).
59. See xiii. 19.
60. Probably the head of the Pompeian faction in Thessaly.
62. L. Mescinius Rufus, one of Cicero's quaestors in Cilicia.
63. If a Roman citizen, especially a senator, complained against a subject or subject community, the governor could order the latter to appear either personally or by counsel (ecdici) at Rome. The transference of the case to Rome, which entailed much expense, was a hardship to the provincials, who generally preferred to compromise.
64. Caesar and Lepidus were consuls in 46.
65. A formula used by lawyers, 'cum ostenderent eiusdem rei consequendae vias complures esse', "when they indicated that there were several ways of obtaining the same result." - Brissonius, quoted by Tyrrell.
66. This cognomen is added to distinguish him from the more celebrated C. Avianius Evander. See xiii, 21. 2.
67. Plancus (for whom see note on x. 1) was now serving with Caesar in Africa.
68. Notorious for having published prodigies of ill omen when Crassus was setting out for Syria ; he was always an opponent of the Triumvirs.
69. Of Pharsalia in 48 B.C.
70. i.e., in 50 B.C.
71. 3000 sestertla.
72. i.e., the senatorial and the equestrian.
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