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 to the consuls and senate ; 3 4 to M. (Porcius) Cato ; 5 from M. (Porcius) Cato ; 6 to M. (Porcius) Cato ; 7 to C. Marcellus (cos. 50) ; 8 to C. Marcellus (augur) ; 9 to M. Marcellus (cos. 51) ; 10 11 to C. Marcellus (cos. 50) ; 12 13 to L. (Aemilius) Paullus ; 14 15 16 17 18 to C. Cassius (Longinus) ; 19 from C. Cassius (Longinus) ; 20 21 to C. Trebonius
← Book 14
M. TULLIUS M.f. CICERO, THE PROCONSUL, ** SENDS GREETINGS TO THE CONSULS, PRAETORS, TRIBUNES OF THE PLEBS AND SENATE
If you are well, all is right ; I and the army are well. Although I kept receiving no uncertain intelligence that the Parthians had crossed the Euphrates with practically all their forces, still, because I believed that more definite despatches on these matters could be sent to you by the proconsul Bibulus, I decided that it was not necessary for me to insert in a public despatch what was reported about the province of another. When, however, I was informed on the most trustworthy authority, by envoys, messengers, and letters - whether because of the importance of the matter, or because I had not yet heard of Bibulus' arrival in Syria, or owing to the fact that the conduct of this war was almost as much in my hands as in those of Bibulus - for any one of these reasons I considered it my duty to send you a despatch on what had reached my ears.
2 The envoys of King Antiochus of Commagene ** were the first to report to me that large forces of the Parthians had begun to cross the Euphrates. On receipt of this report, seeing that there were certain persons who did not consider that king altogether to be trusted, I came to the conclusion that I ought to wait for more definite information. On the 19th November, as I was marching my army into Cilicia, on the frontier line between Lycaonia and Cappadocia I received a despatch from Tarcondimotus, ** who is regarded as our most loyal ally beyond Mount Taurus, and the best friend of the Roman people. He reported that Pacorus, ** son of Orodes, king of the Parthians, had crossed the Euphrates with a very strong force of Parthian cavalry, and pitched his camp at Tyba, and that a serious uprising had been stirred up in the province of Syria. On the same day I received a despatch dealing with the same incidents from Iamblichus, ** the leading tribesman of the Arabs, a man who is generally considered to be loyally disposed and friendly to our Republic.
3 On the receipt of this information, although I fully understood that our allies had no firmly established opinions, and were wavering in expectation of a revolution, yet I hoped that those whom I had already approached, and who had had clear proof of my clemency and probity, had now become more friendly to the Roman people ; and that Cilicia, moreover, would be confirmed in its loyalty if allowed to share the fruits of my equitable administration. For that reason, and also with the intention of crushing those of the Cilician people who had taken up arms and of convincing our enemy in Syria that the army of the Roman people, so far from giving way on receiving this intelligence, was actually drawing nearer, I determined to march my army up to Mount Taurus.
4 But if my authority carries any weight with you (especially in those matters which you know by hearsay only, whereas I have almost seen them with my own eyes), I strongly urge and advise you to take precautions for the safety of these provinces, rather later, it is true, than you should have done, but at all events before it is too late. You are well aware how poorly equipped, and how inadequately safeguarded I was when you despatched me to deal with a war that was expected to be on so great a scale ; that responsibility I accepted, not because I was blindly infatuated, but because a sense of honour made me shrink from declining it. For never have I considered any danger so formidable as to desire to shirk it rather than defer to your authority.
5 At this juncture, however, the situation is such that, unless you speedily despatch to these provinces as powerful an army as it is your practice to despatch to deal with a war of the first importance, there is every danger of our being forced to give up these provinces upon which the revenues of the Roman people depend. But you have no justification at all for basing any hopes upon a levy in this province ; there are not many men, and such men as there are scatter at the first approach of danger ; and in Asia that very gallant officer, M. Bibulus, has indicated his opinion of this type of soldier by declining to hold a levy when you gave him permission to do so. In fact, owing to the harshness and injustice of Roman rule, the auxiliaries among our allies are either so feeble that they cannot give us much assistance, or else so estranged from us that it looks as though we ought neither to expect anything of them nor to entrust anything to their keeping. 6 As to the friendliness and the forces, whatever their strength, of King Deiotarus, I regard them as being on our side. Cappadocia is an empty husk. The other kings and autocrats are not quite to be trusted in respect of either resources or friendliness. As to myself, numerically weak as are my military forces, I shall assuredly not be found wanting in courage, and I hope not in strategy either. What will happen nobody can tell. Pray heaven we may be able to take measures for our safety ; for our honour we assuredly shall.
M. TULLIUS M.f. CICERO, THE PROCONSUL, SENDS GREETINGS TO THE CONSULS, PRAETORS, TRIBUNES OF THE PLEBS AND SENATE
If you are well, all is right ; I and the army are well. When I arrived in the province on the last day of July, having failed to arrive earlier on account of the difficulty of travelling both by land and sea, I considered it most consonant with my office and conducive to the public welfare to get ready whatever concerned the army and appertained to military affairs in general. When I had settled all that, more by careful assiduity on my part than with proper means and resources, and when I was almost daily receiving messengers and letters about the war forced upon the province of Syria by the Parthians, I thought it advisable to march my army through Lycaonia, Isauria, and Cappadocia, as I had strong grounds for suspecting that if the Parthians tried to issue out of Syria and burst their way into my province, they would advance through Cappadocia, as offering least resistance.
2 I accordingly marched with my army through that part of Cappadocia which adjoins Cilicia, and pitched my camp near Cybistra, a town at the foot of Mount Taurus, so as to let Artavasdes, the king of Armenia, whatever his attitude of mind might be, know that there was an army of the people of Rome not far from his frontier, and so as to have Deiotarus, ** a most loyal king and the best of friends to our Republic, in close contact with me, so that the Republic might have the assistance of his counsel and resources.
3 Having encamped at this spot, and having despatched my cavalry into Cilicia, in order that the announcement of my arrival to the communities in that district might confirm them all in their loyalty, and also that I myself might have early information as to what was going on m Syria, I thought it incumbent upon me to spend the three days of my stay in that camp in the performance of an important and necessary duty.
4 For since you had intervened with a resolution that I should protect King Ariobarzanes, ** entitled "Eusebes" and "Philorhomaeus", and defend that monarch's personal safety and the stability of his realm, and in short, safeguard both king and kingdom, and since you had added that the security of that king was a matter of grave anxiety to the people and Senate - a decree which had never been passed by our order in reference to any other king - I decided that I was bound to report your pronouncement to the king and promise him my protection and loyalty and devotion, in order that, inasmuch as his personal security and the stability of his kingdom had been entrusted by you to me, he might tell me if he wished to have anything done.
5 When I had explained all this to the king in the presence of my council, at the beginning of his speech in reply he expressed his profound gratitude to you as in duty bound, and then to me also, because he thought it a very high and significant compliment that the Senate and people of Rome should be so keenly interested in his personal security, and that I too should show such assiduity as to make it impossible to doubt either my own sincerity or the weight of your authority. And, indeed, on this first occasion, his conversation with me was such as to convey the impression (and I was much pleased to hear it) that he neither knew of any plots being hatched against either his life or his kingdom, nor even suspected any. When I had congratulated him and assured him that I was glad of it, and had none the less urged him, young man as he was, not to forget the calamity of his father's assassination, ** to be vigilant in self-defence and, according to the advice of the Senate, to take measures for his personal security, he left me and returned to the town of Cybistra.
6 On the following day, however, he visited me in my camp in company with his brother Ariarathes and some elderly men, friends of his father. He was extremely agitated and in tears, as were also his brother and his friends, and fell to imploring the fulfilment of the pledge I had given, and the trust you had imposed upon me. When I wondered what new turn things had taken, he told me "that information of a plot proved beyond doubt had been brought to his ears - information which had been concealed before my arrival because those who might have disclosed it had kept silent about it through fear ; but that now, hoping that I would protect them, several persons had boldly put this knowledge at his disposal, and that among them his brother, who was very fond of him and of a most affectionate disposition, told him (and the brother repeated the words m my hearing) that he had been worked upon to aim at the throne ; that as long as his brother was alive he could not have entertained the suggestion ; and that anyhow he had not until then given publicity to the matter because he dreaded the danger."
When he had thus spoken I advised the king to take every precaution for his own preservation, and I urged his friends, men who had won the considered approbation of his father and grandfather, to protect their king's life with all care and vigilance, warned as they had been by the very tragic fall of his father.
7 When the king demanded of me some cavalry and cohorts out of my army, although I had no doubt that according to your decree of the Senate I not only had the power to give him them, but that it was even my duty to do so, yet, since the public interests, in view of daily messages from Syria, demanded that I should bring my army as soon as possible into the territory of Cilicia, and as it seemed to me that the king, now that the plot had been revealed, stood in no need of an army of Roman people, but could defend himself with his own resources, I urged him to learn to play the part of king by first of all ensuring the preservation of his own life ; to exercise his royal rights upon those by whom he was now convinced that the plot against him had been concocted ; to punish those whom it was essential to punish, and relieve the fears of the rest ; to take advantage of the protection of my army to intimidate those who were to blame rather than to foster strife ; assuring him at the same time that all his subjects, on ascertaining the decree of the Senate, would understand that according to your resolution I should be there, if the need arose, to protect the king.
8 Having encouraged him so far, I struck camp from there, and began my march into Cilicia, leaving Cappadocia with this impression upon my mind, that thanks to your policy, by a wonderful and almost providential accident, a king upon whom you had spontaneously and in the most complimentary manner conferred that title, a king whom you had entrusted to my protection, a king whose personal safety you had declared by your decree to be a source of serious anxiety to yourselves, has been delivered from an imminent conspiracy by my arrival on the scene. This much I thought it not irrelevant for me to write to you, so that you might gather from what has nearly happened that you had provided long before against its happening ; and I have all the more pleasure in informing you, because I believe I have discerned in King Ariobarzanes such evidence of moral worth, capacity, good faith and friendly feeling for you, as to make it seem that you have good reason for having bestowed so much care and attention upon his welfare.
M. CICERO TO M. CATO, GREETING **
Ambassadors sent to me by Antiochus of Commagene having arrived at my camp near Iconium on the 30th August, and having reported to me that the son of the king of the Parthians, whom the sister of the king of the Armenians had married, had reached the banks of the Euphrates with very large Parthian forces and a large army of many other nations besides, and that it was said that the Armenian king intended making an attack upon Cappadocia, I thought that, considering our intimate connexion, it was incumbent upon me to send you this letter.
2 I sent no public despatch for two reasons, because the ambassadors told me that the Commagenian himself had immediately sent messengers with a despatch to the Senate, and because I thought that the proconsul, M. Bibulus, who had set out from Ephesus to Syria by sea about the 13th of August, having found the winds in his favour, had already arrived in his province, and I supposed that his despatches would convey more definite information on all points to the Senate. For myself, in view of the present situation, and the gravity of the war, my chief concern is to secure by my leniency and moderation and by the fidehty of the allies what I am scarcely strong enough to secure with the forces at my disposal. I would have you, on your part, show your regard for me and defend me, as you have always done, in my absence.
M. CICERO, IMPERATOR, TO M. CATO, GREETING
Your supreme influence and my own unwavering opinion of your exceptional merit have given me the impression that it is greatly to my interest not only that you should be aware of my past achievements, but also that you should not be ignorant of the fair dealing and moderation that have characterised my protection of our allies and my administration of this province. For if these facts were brought to your knowledge, I thought I should find it easier to win your approbation of what I proposed to do.
2 When I entered my province on the last day of July and saw that the season of the year necessitated my joining the army without delay, I spent two days at Laodicea, then four days at Apamea, three days at Synnada and as many at Philomelium. ** Having held important assizes at all those towns, I succeeded in delivering a large number of communities from very harsh taxation, exorbitant interest, and fraudulent debt-claims. And finding that, prior to my arrival, the army had been scattered by what I may almost call a mutiny and that five cohorts, without a legate, without a military tribune, and (would you believe it ?) without even a single centurion, had bivouacked at Philomelium, while the rest of the army was in Lycaonia, I ordered my legate, M. Anneius, to bring those five cohorts to join the rest of the army, and after concentrating the army in one spot, to pitch his camp at Iconium in Lycaonia.
3 When he had punctiliously earned out that order, I myself arrived at the camp on Aug. 24th, having meanwhile, according to the decree of the Senate, got together during the preceding days a trustworthy body of reserves, a quite adequate corps of cavalry, and volunteer auxiliaries from the free peoples and the allied kings. Meantime, when, after reviewing the army, I had begun my march into Cilicia, on Aug. 28th some envoys sent to me by the king of Commagene reported, in a terrible state of agitation, but not without some truth, that the Parthians had crossed over into Syria.
4 On hearing this I was greatly disturbed about Syria as well as about my province, and in short about the rest of Asia ; so I thought it necessary to march my army through that district of Cappadocia which touches on Cilicia ; for had I once descended into Cilicia, it is true that I should easily have held Cilicia itself, because of the natural advantage of Mt. Amanus - for there are two approaches to Cilicia from Syria, either of which is so narrow that it can be closed by quite a small garrison, and Cilicia is the best possible fortification against Syria - but on the other hand, I was concerned about Cappadocia, which lies open to Syria and has on its frontiers kings who, though they are secretly on friendly terms with us, yet do not dare to show overt hostility to the Parthians. I therefore encamped in the extreme south of Cappadocia, not far from Mt. Taurus, at the town of Cybistra, so as to protect Cilicia, and at the same time, by holding Cappadocia, to check any fresh designs on the part of the border tribes.
5 Meanwhile, amid all this commotion and excited anticipation of a very serious war, King Deiotarus, to whose merits I and you and the Senate have always, and not without reason, paid the fullest tribute, a man remarkable for his friendliness and fidelity to the people of Rome, as well as for his conspicuous gallantry and sagacity - Deiotarus, I say, sent me an embassy to the effect that he would join me in my camp with all his forces. Profoundly moved by his devotion and courtesy, I expressed my gratitude to him by letter and urged him to hasten the fulfilment of his offer.
6 When, however, my plan of campaign compelled me to stay for five days near Cybistra, I delivered King Ariobarzanes, whose safety had been entrusted to me by the Senate at your instance, from an imminent plot of which he was not aware, and I not only saved his life, but also took pains to establish his authority as king. Metras and that very Athenaeus whom you yourself had particularly commended to me, punished with banishment as they both had been by the ruthless hostility of Athenais, ** were established by me in a position of the highest influence and favour with the king. And seeing that a serious war was being stirred up in Cappadocia in the event of the priest, ** a young man well equipped with horse and foot and funds, defending himself with arms (and he was thought likely to do so), without compromising those who were bent upon a revolution, I contrived that the priest should leave the kingdom, and that the king without riot and without recourse to arms, and with the full authority of the court safeguarded, should remain in dignified possession of his kingdom.
7 Meanwhile I was informed by written and oral messages from many quarters that strong forces of Parthians and Arabs had approached the town of Antioch, and that a large body of their cavalry which had crossed over into Cilicia had been cut to pieces by some squadrons of my horse and a praetorian cohort which was on garrison duty at Epiphanea. ** Seeing therefore that the Parthian forces having been headed off from Cappadocia were not far from the frontiers of Cilicia, I marched my army, covering as much ground as I could by forced marches, to Amanus. When I got there I received the intelligence that the enemy had retired from Antioch, and that Bibulus was there ; so I informed Deiotarus, who was by this time hurrying to join me with a large and strong body of horse and foot and all his available forces, that I did not think there was any reason why he should absent himself from his kingdom, and that if perchance anything fresh occurred, I would immediately communicate with him by letter and messengers.
8 Having arrived with the intention of coming to the aid of each of the two provinces, should circumstances necessitate it, I then proceeded to perform a task which I had some time previously decided was of paramount importance to both provinces - the pacification of Amanus and the dislodging from that mountain of a perpetual foe. Having made a feint of leaving that mount, and directing my attention to other parts of Cilicia, when I was one day's march from Amanus and had pitched my camp near Epiphanea on the 12th of October, as the evening was drawing in, with a lightly equipped army I covered so much ground by a night march that, as the dawn was breaking on the 13th, I was making my way up Amanus. When I had duly disposed my cohorts and auxiliaries, some being commanded by my brother Quintus, my legate, and myself, others by C. Pomptinus, and the rest by M. Anneius and L. Tullius, all three my legates, we surprised and crushed the greater number of them, who were killed or captured, being cut off from flight. Erana, moreover, which was not so much a village as a city in size, and the capital of Amanus, and also Sepyra and Commoris, though the inhabitants offered a stout and prolonged resistance from before dawn to four in the afternoon (Pomptinus occupying that part of Amanus), after a large number of the enemy had fallen, were taken by us ; and we carried by assault and set fire to several fortresses.
9 Having thus completed these operations, we stayed in camp for four days near the Altars of Alexander, ** and all that time we spent in effacing the last traces of Amanus, and ravaging the lands on that part of the mountain which is included in my province.
10 When this was finished I marched my army off to Pindenissus, ** a town of the Eleutherocilices ; and because the town was on a very elevated and strongly fortified site, and was inhabited by men who had never submitted even to the kings, and not only harboured fugitives but were also looking forward with the utmost eagerness to the coming of the Parthians, I considered it of importance to the prestige of the Empire that I should put a stop to their audacity ; and this would make it all the easier to break the spirit of all the other tribes who showed hostility to our rule.
I surrounded the town with a stockade and trench ; I fenced it in with six forts and extensive encampments ; I attacked it with earthworks, mantlets, and towers, and by means of a large number of catapults and a strong force of bowmen, with no little personal exertion, without causing any trouble or expense to our allies, I completed the operation in fifty-seven days, so that when every quarter of the city had been either dismantled or burnt, they were driven to extremities and surrendered to me unconditionally. Their next neighbours were the inhabitants of Tebara, as ruffianly and daring as themselves ; from these, on the capture of Pindenissus, I received hostages, and then I dismissed my troops to their winter quarters. I put my brother Quintus in command, to arrange that the army should be stationed in villages that had either been taken or not completely quelled.
11 And now I would have you assure yourself, that, should these matters be brought before the Senate, I shall consider myself the recipient of the highest possible encomium if any honour offered me meets with the approval of your vote. And as regards that, although in connexion with such matters I am well aware that even men of the greatest weight often both make and have to listen to requests, still I think that what I ought to do in your case is merely to remind you rather than address you a request For you are the man who has so repeatedly complimented me in recording your vote, ** who, in conversation, in public commendation, in the very high eulogies spoken in the Senate and in public meetings, has extolled me to the skies ; you are he, the weight of whose words I have ever so respected as to feel that a single word of yours, if spoken in my praise, fulfilled all my aspirations. It was you, yes, you who, when declining to vote for a supplicatio in honour of a certain most illustrious and excellent person, declared, I remember, that you would vote for it, if only the motion were confined to what that person had done in the city in the days of his consulship. ** It was you also who voted for a supplicatio in my honour when a mere civilian, not, as in many cases "for sound administration of the Republic," but, as in no other single case, "for having preserved the Republic."
12 I pass over the fact that you not only faced the unpopularity, the perils, and the brunt of the storms that broke upon me, but were also perfectly ready to go even further, much further, in facing them, had I permitted it ; the fact, in short, that you regarded my enemy ** as an enemy to yourself, and that, by pleading the cause of Milo in the Senate, you showed your approval of even that enemy's death, so that I could easily recognise your high appreciation of me. What I have done on my side however - and I do not classify it under the head of favours conferred, but under that of true testimony and deliberate opinion - amounts to this, that in my admiration of your outstanding merits (and who does not admire them ?) I have not been silent, but in all my speeches, both in the Senate and at the bar, in all my writings, Greek or Latin, in short, in all my various literary works, I have ranked you not only above all whom I ever met, but above all of whom I ever heard.
13 You will perhaps ask why it is that I so highly prize this undefinable something in the way of congratulation and honour that I look for from the Senate. Well, I shall now talk to you in a familiar way, as befits our common tastes, our mutual good offices, our sincere friendship, and also the close intimacy of our fathers.
If ever there was a man who by natural disposition, and even more, as I seem to feel, by reasoned judgment and education, stood aloof from empty plaudits and vulgar talk, that man is assuredly myself. Witness my consulship, in the course of which, as in the rest of my life, I admit that I eagerly pursued whatever might be a source of true glory ; glory , in and for itself, I have never thought worth the seeking. So I shut my eyes to the lure of a province with all its official appanages, and, by so doing, to the certain hope of a triumph. And finally, as to the priesthood, ** although I might have obtained it without much difficulty (and that I believe is your opinion also), I never applied for it. And yet, for all that, after the injustice I had suffered ** - an injustice which you always refer to as a degradation to the State, though not only no degradation, but even an honour, to myself - I was anxious that there should follow decisions of the Senate and Roman people regarding myself of the most distinguished character. And so I subsequently set my heart on what I had previously regarded with indifference - my election as augur ; and furthermore, as to the honour ** usually conferred by the Senate for services in the field, though I never troubled about it in the old days, I now think I should make an effort to secure it.
14 Mingled with this aspiration of mine is a sort of intense longing to heal the wound I suffered in the injustice done me ; and I earnestly beg of you (as a moment ago I declared I never would) to give it your countenance and support, but only if you think that whatever this achievement of mine may have been, it was not meagre and contemptible, but such in quality and extent that many, whose exploits were by no means comparable with mine, have obtained the highest honours from the Senate. This too I seem to have noticed (and you know how attentively I listen to you), that in the award or non-award of honours, it is not the achievements themselves that it is your practice to keep before your eyes so much as the character, principles, and everyday life of the commanders. And if you consider my case in like manner, you will find that, weak as my army was, I found my strongest safeguard against the threat of a most serious war in my fair-dealing and moderation. With these forces to aid me, I succeeded, where no legions could have enabled me to succeed, in converting the most disaffected allies into the most devoted, the most disloyal into the most trustworthy, and in bringing back hearts that wavered in anticipation of a change of rule into a feeling of friendliness for the old regime.
15 But this is too much about myself, especially in writing to you, the one and only man who gives ear to the complaints of all our allies ; you will learn all about it from those who attribute their restoration to life to my administration. And not only will everybody almost with one consent make such remarks about me in your hearing as are all I could pray for, but also two of your largest client-communities, the island of Cyprus and the kingdom of Cappadocia, will speak to you about me ; and so too, I fancy, will King Deiotarus, who is more attached to you than to any man alive.
And if all this is something of greater importance, ** and if throughout the ages fewer men have been found who could conquer their own desires than could conquer the enemy's forces, you are surely bound, when you have added these rarer and more difficult forms of moral excellence to success on the field, to regard that very success itself as being enhanced in distinction and consequence.
16 My last resource is this - to send you, as if distrusting my own appeal, a representative to plead for me - none other than philosophy, than which nothing in life has ever been more precious to myself, no greater boon ever bestowed by the gods upon mankind. That partnership then which we share in our pursuits and attainments, to which we have so strictly bound and devoted ourselves from boyhood that we stand practically alone in having introduced that true philosophy of the ancients, regarded by some as the hobby of the leisured and indolent, into the forum, into political life, yes, almost into the field of battle itself - that partnership, I say, now pleads with you the cause of my renown, and it is, to me, unthinkable that the plea should not be accepted by a Cato. I would, therefore, have you assure yourself of this, that if in consequence of my despatch that honour is conferred upon me by your vote, I shall consider it is due to your influence combined with your goodwill that I have been blessed with the attainment of my heart's desire. Farewell.
M. CATO TO M. CICERO, IMPERATOR, GREETING **
It is a pleasure to me to do what both the public interests and our friendship prompt me to do - to rejoice, I mean, that the courage, integrity, and energy you have already evinced as a civilian in the gravest crisis of your career at home are now being applied with equal assiduity to your military command abroad. What therefore I could conscientiously do, that I did ; that is to say, I extolled by speech and vote the integrity and judgment you have shown in protecting a province, in saving the kingdom and person of King Ariobarzanes, and in winning back the hearts of our allies to an enthusiastic acceptance of our rule.
2 As to the supplicatio having been decreed, if, in a matter wherein the interests of the State were secured not in any degree by chance, but by your own consummate statesmanship and self-restraint, you yourself prefer that we should render thanks to the immortal gods, rather than credit you with that success - well then I am glad of it. But if you imagine that a supplicatio is a sure earnest of a triumph, and if that be your reason for wishing good luck to get all the praise rather than yourself, ** let me tell you that a triumph does not invariably follow a supplicatio, and that it is a much more splendid thing than any triumph to have the deliberate declaration of the Senate that the retention and preservation of the province was due to the gentle rule and probity of its commander, rather than to military force or the favour of heaven ; and that was my conviction when I recorded my vote.
3 Now my reason for having written to you at such length in defiance of my usual practice is to induce you to believe (and I am most anxious you should) that I am making every effort to convince you of two facts - that I gave my support to that course which I considered most effectively conducive to your honour, and that at the same time I rejoice at the adoption of the course you personally preferred.
Farewell, and maintain your esteem for me, and, following the path upon which you have entered, assure to the allies and the Republic the continuance of your strict devotion to duty.
M. CICERO TO M. CATO, GREETING
"Right glad am I to win the praise," as Hector says, if I am not mistaken, in Naevius, "of one so praised as thou, my sire" ; for that is undoubtedly pleasant praise which comes from those who have themselves lived in an atmosphere of praise. Yes, I assure you, whether because of your letter of congratulation, or the testimony of your expression of opinion in the Senate, I feel there is nothing left for me to attain And what is at once most complimentary and most gratifying to me is, that you cheerfully conceded to friendship what you unhesitatingly conceded to truth. And if, I don't say everybody, but even a fair number of folk were Catos in our state, in which the epiphany of a single Cato is a miracle, what triumphal car or what laurel wreath could I compare with a panegyric from you ? For whether I regard my own feelings or the conspicuous sincerity and penetration of your judgment, there can be no higher panegyric than that speech of yours, a full copy of which has been sent to me by my friends.
2 Now the reason of my aspiration ** (I shall not call it a passionate desire) I have explained to you in a former letter ; and although it has struck you as being hardly strong enough, it still has this much justification, that while it seems that the honour is not one to be greedily coveted, yet, if bestowed by the Senate, one that should by no means be treated with contempt. I hope, however, that in consideration of the labours I have undertaken in the public interests, that order will not deem me unworthy of such an honour, especially as its bestowal would be according to custom. If it so turns out, all I ask you to do is (to quote your very friendly words), since you have paid me what you consider the highest possible compliment by the opinion you expressed, that you should feel glad if what I have preferred comes to pass. That you have so acted, so felt, and so written, is evident to me, and the very fact of your being party to the drafting of the decree, clearly proves that the great honour done me by the supplicatio was a pleasure to you. For I am well aware that such decrees of the Senate are usually drafted by the greatest friends of the recipient of the honour. I shall see you, I hope, at an early date, and I pray that the political situation may then be better than I fear it will be.
M. CICERO, PROCONSUL, TO C. MARCELLUS, CONSUL ELECT, ** GREETING
I was extremely delighted to hear that you had been made consul, and I pray that heaven may prosper your office, and that you may administer it in accordance with your own and your father's honourable position. For not only have I always loved and esteemed you, but I have also found you sincerely devoted to myself through all the vicissitudes of my fortunes. Moreover, because of the repeated good services of your father, when he either defended me in the days of my gloom or honoured me in the days of my glory, I am, and I am bound to be, heart and soul at the disposal of all of you, especially as I am fully conscious of the energetic support (more than should have been demanded of any woman) given to my welfare and position by that most sterling and excellent lady, your mother. And that is my justification for entreating you with special earnestness to show your esteem for me by defending me in my absence.
M. CICERO, PROCONSUL, TO C. MARCELLUS, ** HIS BROTHER AUGUR, GREETING
That your son Marcellus has been made consul, and that you have felt that thrill of joy for which you most devoutly prayed, is an inexpressible pleasure to me, and that not only on his own account, but because I consider that you also richly deserve all that the happiest fortune can bestow. For I have had convincing proof of your incomparable goodness of heart towards me whether in my troubles or in my triumphs, in short I have found your whole family most enthusiastic and eager in their support of my civil standing or official distinction (call it which you will). For that reason you will do me a kindness if you pass on my congratulations to that most sterling and excellent lady, your wife Junia. I beg of you to do what you always have done - to show your regard for me and defend me in my absence.
M. CICERO, PROCONSUL, TO M. MARCELLUS, ** CONSUL, GREETING
I am highly delighted that by the election of Gaius Marcellus to the consulship you have gathered the fruit of your affection for your family, of your devotion to the commonwealth, and of your own most illustrious and admirable consulship. I have no doubt as to the sentiments of those on the spot, when I myself, far away as I am, and despatched by yourself to the ends of the earth, am extolling you, I vow, up to the skies, and my praises are as sincere as they are well deserved. For while I have had a particular affection for you from my boyhood, and you have ever desired, and indeed deemed me to possess the widest influence in every direction, my affection for you has been greatly deepened and enhanced by this achievement of yours, or shall I call it this pronouncement of the Roman people in your favour ? And I feel a thrill of pure delight when I am told by people of uncommon shrewdness and men of the highest character that in every word and deed, pursuit and principle, I am like you, or you are like me (whichever you prefer).
2 If, however, you add to the brilliant achievements of your consulship by contriving either that somebody may succeed me at the earliest possible date, or that no addition is made to the time you definitely fixed for me both by a decree of the Senate and by the law, ** - well, then I shall consider that there is nothing you have not enabled me to secure. Take care of your health, and show your regard for me and defend me in my absence.
3 As for the reports I have received about the Parthians, I thought that I ought not even now to make them the subject of a public despatch, and that is the reason why in spite of our intimacy I did not wish to write to you, lest, when I had written to a consul, it might be supposed that I had written officially.
M. CICERO, IMPERATOR, TO C. MARCELLUS C.f., CONSUL, GREETING
Since, as I have most earnestly desired, it has so happened that the devotion of all the Marcelli, and Marcellini ** too (for the kindly feeling your family and those of your name have ever shown me is something amazing) - since, as I say, it has so happened that the devotion you have all felt can find its full expression in your consulship because with that particular consulship my achievements and such praise and honour as attach to them coincide ** - for that reason I beg of you (and it is a thing most easily done, for the Senate, I am confident, is not likely to reject it) to see that after the reading of my despatch, the decree of the Senate should be drafted in the most complimentary terms possible.
2 Had I less to do with you than with all your folk, I should commission those to present my case to you, whom you know to be particularly attached to me. Your father's services to me are magnificent, and no man can be said to be a more friendly supporter of my welfare or my public position. How highly your brother values and has always valued me, there is no man living, I believe, who does not know. In fine your whole family has never ceased to honour me with the highest favours of every kind ; nor have you yourself yielded place to any of your family in affection for me. And that is why I beg of you with no ordinary earnestness to wish me the highest possible honour as far as you are yourself concerned, and to consider that my reputation, both in the voting for a supplicatio and in all other matters, needs no further recommendation in your eyes.
M. CICERO, IMPERATOR, TO C. MARCELLUS, CONSUL, GREETING
Although the facts spoke for themselves, none the less from the letters of every one of my friends I have learned fully how much pains you took about the honour done me, and how, in conferring as consul this distinction and eminence upon me, you showed yourself to be just the same as, in common with your parents and all your family, you always have been. Consequently there is no service so great that I do not owe you as a debt, and that I am not ready to discharge with as much devotion as pleasure.
2 For it matters greatly to whom one is indebted ; but there is nobody to whom I had rather be indebted than to you, to whom I had not only been previously united by identity of tastes and your own and your father's services to me, but there exists besides what is in my opinion the strongest bond of all - the fact that your past and present administration of the Republic (to me the most precious thing in the world) has been and is such that I do not shrink from taking upon myself alone the full amount of the debt owed you by all good citizens put together. I may therefore hope that things will result as you deserve, and as I am confident they will.
For myself, unless I am delayed on my voyage, which exactly coincides with the Etesian winds, ** I shall see you, I hope, at an early date.
M. CICERO, PROCONSUL, TO L. PAULLUS, CONSUL ELECT, GREETING
Although I never had any doubt that the people of Rome, in consideration of your magnificent services to the Republic, and the highly influential position of your family, would elect you consul with the greatest enthusiasm and unanimity of voting, I had yet a thrill of inconceivable joy when the news reached me ; and I pray the gods to prosper your high office, and that you may administer it m a manner befitting your own and your ancestors' position.
2 And would that I had been able to be on the spot and see that eagerly desired day, and in return for all your splendid devotion and kindness to me to render you my aid and active support ! But since that opportunity has been snatched from me by the unexpected and unforeseen incident of my provincial appointment, nevertheless, so that I may have the chance of seeing you a consul administering the Republic as befits your position, I earnestly beg of you to make every effort to prevent my suffering any injustice, or any extension of time being added to my year's term of office. If you do that, an overwhelming addition will be made to all your previous services to me.
M. CICERO, IMPERATOR, TO L. PAULLUS, CONSUL, GREETING
It has been my most earnest desire to be with you in Rome for many reasons, but particularly in order that you might have clear proof both in your candidature and in the administration of your consulship of that devotion which I owed you. And as to your candidature, the result to my mind was always perfectly clear ; but all the same I wished to give you my utmost assistance. In your consulship, on the other hand, I am, of course, anxious that you should have less trouble than I, but I am quite perturbed that, whereas I, as consul, had clear proof of your devotion when a young man, you can have no clear proof of that on my part, at my time of life.
2 But I suppose by some mysterious fate it has so happened that, while you are always given the opportunity of enhancing my honour, I have nothing to fall back upon by way of requiting you except the desire to do so. You added distinction to my consulship, you added distinction to my recall. My present period of active service has happened to coincide with the very year of your consulship. And so, although it would seem to be demanded both by your most exalted and eminent position and by my own high office and high reputation that I should earnestly importune you with no economy of words to ensure that the decree of the Senate concerning my achievements should be couched in the most complimentary terms possible, yet I do not venture to lay undue stress upon my petition to you, lest I should either appear to have forgotten your habitual and uninterrupted kindness to me, or to imagine that you have forgotten it.
3 I shall therefore do as I believe you would have me do, and use but few words in making a request of one who, as all the nations of the world are aware, has deserved extremely well of me. Were there other consuls, you are the first man, Paullus, to whom I should send, requesting you to enlist their warmest friendship on my side. As it is, seeing that you possess the highest power and influence, and that our close connexion is known to all men, I ask you in all earnestness to ensure that the decree concerning my achievements is couched in the most complimentary terms possible, yes, and as speedily as possible too. That those services are deserving of honour and congratulation you will discover from the despatch I sent in my public capacity to yourself and your colleague and the Senate ; and I should be glad if you would undertake to look after all my other interests, and most especially my reputation, and particularly to see to it, as I asked you to do in a former letter also, that there is no extension of my term of office.
I am anxious to see you while you are consul, and during your consulship to secure all I hope for, not only here but at home.
M. CICERO, IMPERATOR, TO C. CASSIUS, PROQUAESTOR, ** GREETING
By your recommendation you present M. Fadius ** to me as a friend ; well, I gain nothing by that. As a matter of fact he has been for many years entirely at my disposal, and I have liked him for his extreme kindness and the respect he shows me. But for all that the discovery that you are extraordinarily fond of him has made me much more of a friend to him. And so, although your letter has had its effect, yet what recommends him a great deal more is that I have come fully to see and understand his kindly feelings for yourself.
2 But in the matter of Fadius I will do what you ask with hearty goodwill ; as for yourself, I only wish for many reasons that you had been able to meet me, in the first place so that I might see you after so long an interval - you whom I have for long past valued so highly ; secondly, that I might congratulate you ** in person as I have done by letter ; furthermore, that we might share our views about whatever matters we wished, you about your affairs, I about mine ; and lastly, that our friendship which has been fostered on either side by the most notable good services, but has had its continuity broken by long periods of interruption, might be more effectually strengthened.
3 Since that has not come to pass, we will avail ourselves of the boon of letters, and so secure almost the same objects in our separation as if we were together. That one preeminent gratification, doubtless, which consists in seeing you, cannot be enjoyed by letter ; the other, which consists m congratulating you, is less satisfying, it is true, than if I were to do so With my eyes upon your face ; still I have done so before, and I do so now, and congratulate you not only on the magnificence of your achievements, but also on their being so opportune in point of time, since on your departure from your province you had the honourable escort of its praise, as unqualified as its gratitude.
4 There is a third course - to carry out by correspondence the consultations we should have held on our respective affairs if we had met. For every other reason also I am emphatically of opinion that you should hasten to Rome. For the situation I left behind me was one of complete calm as regards yourself, and thanks to your recent victory ** (and a glorious one il was), I can see that your arrival will be a memorable event. But supposing your relatives have any burdens ** to bear, if they are only such as you can shoulder, hurry home ; it will be the most splendid and glorious thing you can do. But if those burdens are too heavy for you, pause to think, lest your arrival may happen at a most untoward moment. On this point the whole decision lies with you, for you alone know what your shoulders can bear. If you have the strength, it is a praise worthy and popular thing to do ; if you absolutely lack that strength, you will find it easier to stand people's gossip if you stay away.
5 Now as to myself, I make the same request of you in this letter as I did in a previous one - that you should strain every nerve to prevent any prolongation of my term of office as governor of the province - a term which both the Senate and the people decreed should be for one year only. I urge this upon you so strongly that I feel all my prospects depend upon it. You have our friend Paullus on your side, a warm friend of mine, and there is Curio, and Furnius too. I pray you to make every effort just as though all I have were staked upon it.
6 My last point bears upon what I have already put before you ; it is the strengthening of our friendship, as to which there is no need of further words. You, when a boy, sought me out, while I felt that you would always be a source of distinction to me. You were also a protection to me in the days of my deepest gloom. There came too, after your departure, my intimacy with your relative Brutus, ** and it was of the closest. It is therefore in the ability and energy of you two that I have stored up for myself an unlimited fund of delight and distinction. I ask you in all earnestness to confirm that impression by your devotion to me, and to send me a letter not only immediately, but, on your arrival at Rome, as often as possible.
M. CICERO TO C. CASSIUS, GREETING
Although both of us in our hope of peace and loathIng for civil bloodshed wished to have nothing to do with the obstinate prosecution of war, still, since I seem to have taken the lead in that policy, I am perhaps more bound to justify it to you, than to expect such justification from you. And yet, as I frequently remind myself, my observations to you and yours to me in our friendly talks led us both to this conclusion - we thought it right and proper that, if not the whole quarrel, at any rate our judgment of it, should be determined by the issue of a single battle. And not a soul has ever rightly found fault with this opinion of ours, except those who think it better that the commonwealth should be utterly destroyed than survive in an impaired and enfeebled condition. I, on the contrary, pictured to myself no hope of course in its destruction, much in any remnants that were left.
2 But the events which followed were such that it is more of a surprise that they could have happened at all, than that we should not have seen them coming and have failed, being but human, to prognosticate them. For my part I confess that what I conjectured was this - I thought that after the great battle, fraught as it were with the issues of fate, had been fought, the victors would desire measures to be taken in the interests of the community, and the vanquished in their own ; ** but I held that both the former and the latter depended upon the promptitude with which the victor acted. Had he shown that promptitude, Africa would have experienced the same leniency as was witnessed by Asia, yes, and by Achaia too, you yourself, as I take it, being their emissary and intercessor. ** But those days of vital importance, especially in civil wars, having been wasted, the year that intervened tempted some to hope for victory, others to think lightly of defeat itself. And the blame for all these evils is on the shoulders of fortune. For who would imagine that the war would be protracted or cause so long a delay as that caused by the Alexandrian war, ** or that this Pharnaces, ** whoever he may be, would intimidate Asia ?
3 You and I, however, though our policy was identical, have found a difference in our fortunes ; for while you took a line which enabled you to share his counsels, and so being able to foresee (and that is a potent alleviation of anxiety) what was going to happen, I, who hastened to meet Caesar in Italy (for that is what I supposed) and "to spur the willing horse," as the adage has it, when, after sparing so many of our most distinguished men, he was actually returning to the ways of peace, I on the contrary, both am and have been kept utterly apart from him. I spend my life, moreover, amid the groans of Italy, and the piteous lamentations of the city ; and we might perhaps have done something to alleviate them, I in my way, you in yours, everybody in his own, if only the man m authority had been there.
4 I should like you, therefore, consistently with your unfailing kindness to me, to write and tell me what your impressions and your feelings are, what you think we should wait for, and what you think we should do. I shall greatly value a letter from you ; and how I wish I had followed the advice contained in that first letter ** you sent me from Luceria ! I should then have retained my position without any friction at all. Farewell.
M. CICERO TO C. CASSIUS, GREETING
I expect you must be just a little ashamed of yourself now that this is the third letter that has caught you before you have sent me a single leaf or even a line. ** But i am not pressing you, for I shall look forward to, or rather insist upon, a longer letter. As for myself, if I always had somebody to trust with them, I should send you as many as three an hour. For it somehow happens, that whenever I write anything to you, you seem to be at my very elbow ; and that, not by way of " visions of images f as your new friends ** term them, who believe that even "mental visions" are conjured up by what Catius calls "spectres" (for let me remind you that Catius the Insubrian, an Epicurean, who died lately, gives the name of " spectres " to what the famous Gargettian, ** and long before that Democritus, called "images").
2 But, even supposing that the eye can be struck by these "spectres" because they run up against it quite of their own accord, how the mind can be so struck is more than I can see. It will be your duty to explain to me, when you arrive here safe and sound, whether the "spectre" of you is at my command to run up against me as soon as the whim has taken me to think about you - and not only about you, who always occupy my inmost heart, but suppose I begin thinking about the Isle of Britain, will the "image" of that wing its way to my consciousness ? **
3 But of this later on. I am only sounding you now to see in what spirit you take it. For if you are angry and annoyed, I shall have more to say, and shall insist upon your being reinstated in that school of philosophy, out of which you have been ousted "by violence and an armed force." ** In this interdict of the praetor ** the words "within this year" are not usually added ; so even if it is now two or three years since, bewitched by the blandishments of Pleasure, ** you sent a notice of divorce to Virtue, I am free to act as I like. And yet to whom am I talking ? To you, the most gallant gentleman in the world, who, ever since you set foot in the forum, have done nothing but what bears every mark of the most impressive distinction. Why, in that very school you have selected I apprehend there is more vitality than I should have supposed, if only because it has your approval. "How did the whole subject occur to you ?" you will say. Because I had nothing else to write. About politics I can write nothing , for I do not care to write what I feel.
M. CICERO TO C. CASSIUS, GREETING
The letter-carriers you employ are behaving preposterously - not that they are lacking in civility to me, but, all the same, when they leave me they importune me for a letter, but when they come to me they bring no letter with them. And even so they would cause me less inconvenience if they would only allow me some reasonable time for writing ; but they come ready dressed for travelling, ** and tell me that their mates are waiting for them at the gate. You will therefore forgive me ; this is now the second short note you will have, but you may live in hopes of omnia de omnibus rebus. And yet why am I excusing myself to you, when your men come to me empty-handed, and return to you with letters ?
2 Here (I'll send you something of a letter after all) we have on our hands the death of P. Sulla senior ** ; some say it was brigands, others indigestion. The people don't care a straw, since there is no doubt as to his cremation. ** You, with your usual philosophy, will bear this with resignation. And yet we have lost a figure-head in the city. People think that Caesar will be annoyed because he apprehends a "slump" in his sales. Mindius the victualler and Attius the paint-seller are highly delighted at having dropped a rival bidder. **
3 There is no news about Spain, but it is very eagerly awaited. There are rather depressing rumours, but they are unauthenticated. Our friend Pansa set out in military uniform on December the 29th, so that even the man in the street might grasp the fact which you had lately begun to question - that "the good must be chosen for its own sake." ** For because he relieved many of their afflictions, and because he proved his humanity amid all these disasters, he was escorted on his way by a marvellous manifestation of kindly feeling on the part of honest men. 4 As to your having stayed at Brundisium until now, I strongly approve of it and am glad of it ; and, upon my word, I think you will act wisely if you "shun vain pursuits." ** Certainly to me who love you, it will be a gratification, and for the future when you send home a budget of letters, remember me, and I'll bless you. For my own part I shall never allow anybody, if I know it, to go to you without a letter from me.
M. CICERO TO C. CASSIUS, GREETING
My letter would have been longer had not I been asked for it at the very moment when a post to you was starting ; longer too, had it contained some amount of persiflage - as for speaking seriously, we can hardly do so without risk. "Well then," you say, "we can have a laugh." No, I positively assure you, not very easily. And yet, that is the one and only thing we have to distract us from our troubles "How about our philosophy then ? " you will say. Well, yours is one of pleasure, but mine troubles me, because I am ashamed of being a slave. So I pretend to busy myself with other things, ** to prevent Plato's emphatic reproach from ringing in my ears. **
2 There is nothing certain so far about Spain, indeed no news at all. Your absence troubles me for my own sake, but I am very glad of it for yours. But there goes your importunate letter-carrier. Fare you well then, and continue to love me as you have from a boy.
C. CASSIUS TO M. CICERO, GREETING
If you are well, all is right. I assure you that on this tour of mine there is nothing that gives me more pleasure to do than to write to you ; for I seem to be talking and joking with you face to face. And yet that does not come to pass because of your "Catian spectres" ** ; and, by way of retaliation for that, in my next letter I shall let loose upon you such a rabble of Stoic boors that you will proclaim Catius a true-born Athenian. **
2 I am glad that our friend Pansa was sped on his way by universal goodwill when he left the city in military uniform, ** and that not only on my own account, but also, most assuredly, on that of all our friends. For I hope that men generally will come to understand how much all the world hates cruelty , and how much it loves integrity and clemency, and that the blessings most eagerly sought and coveted by the bad ultimately find their way to the good. For it is hard to convince men that "the good is to be chosen for its own sake" ; but that "pleasure" and "tranquillity of mind" is acquired by virtue, justice, and "the good," is both true and demonstrable. Why, Epicurus himself, from whom all the Catiuses and Amafiniuses ** in the world, incompetent translators of terms as they are, derive their origin, lays it down that "to live a life of pleasure is impossible without living a life of virtue and justice."
3 Consequently Pansa, who follows "pleasure ," keeps his hold on virtue, and those also whom you call "pleasure-lovers" are "lovers of what is good" and "lovers of justice," and cultivate and keep all the virtues. And so Sulla, whose judgment we ought to accept, when he saw that the philosophers were at sixes and sevens, did not investigate the nature of "the good," but bought up all the goods there were ; ** and I frankly confess that I bore his death without flinching. Caesar, however, will not let us feel his loss too long ; for he has a lot of condemned men to restore to us in his stead, nor will he himself feel the lack of someone to bid at his auctions when once he has cast his eye on Sulla junior.
4 And now to return to politics ; please write back and tell me what is being done in the two Spains. May I die if I am not full of anxiety, and I would sooner have the old and lenient master, than make trial of a new and cruel one. You know what an idiot Gnaeus ** is ; you know how he deems cruelty a virtue ; you know how he thinks that we have always scoffed at him. I fear that in his boorish way he will be inclined to reply by wiping our turned-up noses with the sword. Write back as you love me, and tell me what is doing. Ah ! how I should like to know whether you read all this with an anxious mind or a mind at ease ! For I should know at the same time what it is my duty to do. Not to be too long-winded, I bid you farewell. Continue to love me as you do. If Caesar has conquered, look out for my speedy arrival.
M. CICERO TO C. TREBONIUS, ** GREETING
I have entrusted my Orator (for I have so entitled it) to your servant Sabinus. Considering the man's nationality, I could not help thinking that I was right in doing so ; unless, of course, he too has availed himself of the licence given to candidates, and suddenly seized upon this particular surname ** ; and yet his modest expression of face and the calmness of his speech seems to have something derived from Cures ** in it. But enough about Sabinus.
2 You, however, my dear Trebonius, since your departure added no little fuel to the fire of my affection for you, to enable me the more easily to endure the intense ardency of my longing for you, be sure youplyme with a rapid succession of letters, on the understanding that I shall do likewise. And yet there are two reasons why you should perform that duty with more regularity than I - firstly because in olden days it was the custom for those who were at Rome to write about the Republic to their friends in the provinces ; now it is for you to write to us, for the Republic is where you are. ** Secondly, because while I can do you many other services in your absence, I fail to see how you can serve me in any other way than by writing letters.
3 But on all other matters you will write to me later. Just now what I am anxious to know before anything else is what sort of a journey you are having ; where it was you saw our friend Brutus, ** and how long you were with him ; after that, when you have got further on your journey, write about military affairs, and indeed about the whole business, so that we can have some idea as to where we stand. I shall regard my knowledge of affairs as being in exact proportion to the information I have got from your letters.
Take care of your health, and continue to love me, as you do, with a love beyond compare.
M. CICERO TO C. TREBONIUS, GREETING
I read your letter with pleasure, and your book ** with extreme pleasure ; and yet amid all that pleasure it caused me a pang of sorrow, that when you had intensified my desire to tighten the bonds of our intimacy - to our affection, of course, no addition was possible - at that very moment you depart from me and plunge me into so deep a regret as to leave me but one single consolation - the thought that our yearning for one another in our separation may be assuaged by long and frequent letters. And that I can guarantee not only as from me to you, but also as from you to me. For you have left no shadow of doubt in my mind as to your affection for me.
2 For to omit what the whole state can testify to your having done, when you shared my enmities with me, when you defended me in your public addresses, when as quaestor, ** in my own, as well as the public interests, you sided with the consuls, when as quaestor again you refused to obey the tribune of the plebs, especially when your own colleague obeyed him - to forget all these more recent services (which I shall ever remember), what solicitude you showed for me in the war, what ecstasy in my recall, what anxiety, what grief, when my own anxieties and griefs reached your ears ! - and finally the fact that you would have come to me in Brundisium, had you not been suddenly sent to Spain ; - to omit all those services then, which I am bound to value as highly as I value my own life and welfare, here is this book you have sent me ; what a revelation it is of your affection for me ! First, because whatever I have said seems brilliant to you (not so perhaps to anybody else), and secondly, because those mots of mine, be they brilliant or be they not, become perfectly beautiful when you are the teller. Why, even before my name is reached, people have hardly a laugh left in them.
3 But if this compilation proves (and it must have been so) that you had been thinking of nothing else but of me, and me alone, for so long, I should indeed have a heart of stone if I did not love you. Seeing, however, that unless your affection sprang from the heart you could never have thought out what you have elaborated in writing, I cannot conceive anybody's loving himself more than you love me. And would that I could reciprocate that love in every other direction ! At any rate, as far as my love goes, I shall do so ; and after all I am confident that you will find that enough of itself.
4 And now I come to your letter, in which you express yourself with exuberance and charm ; but there is no reason why I should write much in reply. In the first place, when I sent that letter to Calvus, ** I had no idea that it would get abroad any more than the one you are now reading. You see, I have one way of writing what I think will be read by those only to whom I address my letter, and another way of writing what I think will be read by many. In the next place I eulogised his genius in terms of higher praise than you think could have been done with truth. To begin with, it was because I really thought so ; he was a man of keen mental activity ** ; he pursued a certain definite style, and although in that he committed an error of judgment - and yet judgment was his strong point - he none the less did capture the style of his choice. He was a man of wide and abstruse reading, but he lacked force That is therefore what I pressed him to acquire. Now in rousing and stimulating a man's energies there is nothing more efficacious than to praise him while you urge him on. So there you have my judgment of Calvus, and my object in expressing it - my object was that I praised him with a view to encouraging him ; my judgment, that I had an exceedingly high opinion of his natural abilities.
5 It only remains for me to speed your departure with my love, to look forward to your return with hope, to cherish your memory in your absence, and to alleviate our mutual yearnings as long as they last by the interchange of letters. On your part I should like you constantly to call to mind your acts of devotion and service to me ; and though it is open to you (it would be a crime in me) to forget them, you will have reason not only to regard me as an honest man, but also to conclude that my affection for you is of the strongest.
1. Cicero was now proconsul of Cilicia. and Bibulus of Syria.
2. The most north-easterly district of Syria.
3. This king, established on his throne by Pompey in 64, reigned in Mount Amanus. He fought on the side of Pompey at Pharsalia, and though pardoned by Caesar in 42, fought for Cassius, and died at Actium, fighting for Antony, in 31.
4. A doughty warrior who gave much trouble to Rome in the East ; cf. Hor. Od. iii. 6. 9.
5. Son of Sampsiceramus, with whom he shared the dynasty of Emesa and Arethusa. He was put to death by Antony just before the battle of Actlum.
6. A staunch ally of Rome in the Mithridatic wars, he was rewarded with the title of king, and the addition to his dominions of Armenia Minor. He fought for Pompey at Pharsalia, and was deprived by Caesar of part of his dominions, but allowed to retain his regal title. Accused in 45 by his grandson Castor of having plotted against Caesar's life in Galatia, he was defended by Cicero in his speech Pro Rege Deiotaro. He died at a great age in 42.
7. Ariobarzanes III., who sided with Pompey against Caesar, but was generously treated by the latter, and opposed the Liberators, but was put to death by Cassius. The titles of Eusebes, "the Dutiful," and Philorhomaeus, "the Lover of Rome," must have been given him by the Pompeian party.
8. Ariobarzanes II. had fallen a victim to a conspiracy shortly before Cicero arrived in the East.
9. Cato had returned from Cyprus in 56, and was now in Rome.
10. Laodicea was on the coast of Syria, about 50 miles south of Antioch ; Apamea on the banks of the Maeander in Phrygia ; Synnada in the north of Phrygia Salutaris ; and Philomelium in Phrygia Parorius, on the borders of Lycaonia and Pisidia, also mentioned in iii. 8. 5. 6.
11. The queen-mother, daughter of Mithridates the Great.
12. The chief priest of the temple of Comana, said to have been dedicated by Orestes to Artemis Taurica. The priest's authority in Cappadocia was second only to that of the king.
13. On the S.E. border of Cilicia, probably so called after its restoration by Antiochus Epiphanes.
14. Near Issus, in the S.E. extremity of Cilicia. See ii. 10. 3.
15. Pindenissus was a town on a spur of Mt. Amanus.
16. Distinguished senators "recorded their votes" by making a speech, as opposed to those 'qui pedibus in sententiam ibant.'
17. The consul referred to is no doubt Lentulus Spinther, whose application for a supplicatio was opposed by Cato, who said he would support it if it were on the grounds of Lentulus's services to the State in advocating Cicero's recall as consul in 57.
18. Clodius.
19. i.e., the augurate. Cicero might have accepted the augurate in 59 had it been offered him, but he did not ask for it. He was elected augur in 53, in the place of Crassus, killed at Carrhae.
20. His banishment in 58.
21. i.e., a triumph.
22. He refers to his success in winning over the province by his wisdom and moderation, which he says is something greater than mere military success, but which, if combined with military success, should so enhance the value of that success as to make it worthy of a triumph.
23. This letter is an answer to the last. Cato voted against the motion for a supplicatio in Cicero's honour, though he proposed a complimentary vote, and here gives his reasons for doing so.
24. This is surely the bitterest sarcasm, which Cicero either does not see, or wisely ignores, Cato plainly insinuates that Cicero, while posing as a pious man, profoundly grateful to the gods (for 'casus' here is synonymous with 'di immortales' above), has his eye all the time on the triumph that he thinks will follow, i.e., on his own personal advancement, and nothing else.
25. i.e., to a triumph. Cf. letter 4 § 14 above.
26. Consul in 50 with Lucius Paulus. For the three Marcelli, see note on iv, 7. 6.
27. Father of the C. Marcellus addressed in the preceding letter.
28. Marcus Marcellus, consul in 51 with Servius Sulpicius Rufus ; he was cousin, not brother, to C. Marcellus, consul designate for the succeeding year (50).
29. According to one of the provisions of the Lex Pompeia de Provinciis, the consuls were empowered to bring before the people a lex de Imperio in the case of each governor, determining the length of his tenure of office, etc.
30. The Marcellini were a branch of the Marcellus family.
31. What he means is, to put it shortly, that his being made consul gives C. Marcellus an opportunity of making good all that this devotion of his family to Cicero deserved. Dr. Page remarks that in these unblushing requests Cicero always veils himself in obscurity, and that this long sentence is deliberately embarrassed.
32. Winds that blow from the N.W. for forty days in the Levant.
33. Cassius had been quaestor to Crassus, after whose death he commanded what remained of the Roman army m Syria as proquaestor propraetore. Proquaestor was the title of the quaestor of the previous year who retained his position between the expiration of his own term of office and the arrival of the new quaestor. Again, if the governor left his province, he usually delegated his powers to the quaestor, who was then entitled quaestor (or as here, proquaestor) propraetore. He defeated the Parthians under Pacorus before Antioch (ii. 10. 9) this year (51).
34. M. Fadius Gallus, to whom Cicero addressed letters 23-26 in Bk. VII.
35. On his victory over Pacorus (see note at start of this letter).
36. See note on letter 14 above.
37. Prosecutions of his friends for extortion and other offences, especially of his brother, Q. Cassius, who had been quaestor to Pompey.
38. Cassius had married Brutus's sister.
39. The former by offering easy terms, the latter by laying down their arms. - Watson. The "great battle" is that of Pharsalia in 48.
40. This refers to the Pompeian refugees in those countries, many of whom had been forgiven by Caesar,
41. This refers to Caesar's long and doubtful struggle, in the autumn of 48, with Arsinoe, younger sister of Ptolemy, who was supported by the people of Alexandria.
42. Pharnaces, king of Pontus, was defeated by Caesar at Zela in August, 47, when the latter sent his famous despatch 'Veni vidi vici.'
43. Written probably from the headquarters of Pompey at Luceria in Apulia before he crossed over to Greece, in which Cassius advised Cicero not to leave Italy.
44. Literally "a letter of the alphabet."
45. The Epicureans, whom Cassius had recently joined.
46. Epicurus, who belonged to the deme of Gargettus, near Athens.
47. The Epicureans accounted for sight by supposing that all bodies were continually giving off films or images (eidōla), which impinged upon the eye, and that produced a "vision" (phantasia), which in its turn struck the mind, and became a "mental vision" (dianoētikē phantasia). Cicero cannot understand how this second effect is produced, or why, directly he chooses to think of Cassius, the eidōla should "run up against him."
48. "Cicero represents Cassius as having been ousted from the Stoic philosophy by the arms of Caesar, and having embraced the Epicurean tenets of the latter." Tyrrell.
49. From which the previous words are quoted.
50. The summum bonum of the Epicureans.
51. Literally "with their travelling caps on."
52. Nephew of the Dictator. He was accused in 62 of being privy to Catiline's conspiracies, but was defended by Cicero and Hortensius and acquitted. He did a large business in buying up the confiscated goods of Caesar's enemies, and Cicero always speaks of him in his letters with contempt. He must, however, have been an officer of some distinction, as he was in joint command with Caesar himself of the right wing at Pharsalia.
53. Or "that he has passed through the fire," an allusion perhaps to his having been "singed" (cf. 'ambustus') in the law-courts.
54. They also were bidders at the auctions of proscribed goods.
55. Cassius had lately turned Epicurean (see the preceding letter) and therefore repudiated the Stoic dogma here quoted.
56. Such as attempting to restore the free state. But Cassius was not the man to take Cicero's advice.
57. Or, as the phrase came to mean, "to be careless and indifferent." Cicero is referring to his teaching rhetoric and declamation to Hirtius and Dolabella, and his other diversions in 46.
58. Plato, Rep, iii. 387 b of false teaching which must not be listened to by boys and men "who must be free, fearing slavery rather than death."
59. See 16 ยง 1 above.
60. "a man of education and culture," and not such a boor after all as many of your Stoic friends, indifferent translator of Greek as he may be (and this Cassius admits at the end of § 2). 'Pro quo' refers to Cicero's special piece of information in letter 16. 1, that Catius called eidōla 'spectra'. Cassius affects to resent Cicero's sneer, and threatens to overwhelm him with a crowd of Stoic boors, which will make Catius, poor Grecian as he is, seem a very angel of light.
61. See letter 17 § 3. Pansa appears to have made a journey to Caesar in Spain, to which both passages refer. He returned, however, to Rome before he took up the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul in March, 45.
62. C. Amafinius's books on Epicureanism had a great vogue, though written in an uncouth style.
63. See note on letter 17 § 2 above.
64. Pompey's son.
65. C. Trebonius, who in 55 proposed the law giving to Pompey the government of Spain, and to Crassus that of Syria, for five years.
66. It appears that Ventidius Bassus (see note on x. 18. 3 ) was about this time canvassing for the quaestorship, and falsely assumed the name of Sabinus, and it is to this that Cicero here refers.
67. An ancient town of the Sabines, the birthplace of T. Tatius and Numa Pompilius (Livy, 1 . 13).
68. In the person of Caesar, now in Spain. This establishes the date of this letter.
69. This probably refers to his meeting with Brutus in Cisalpine Gaul in 46. .
70. A collection Trebonius had made and sent to Cicero of Ciceroniana, which elicited this letter of thanks.
71. "Trebonius, as quaestor in 60, had vigorously supported the consuls, Afranius and Metellus Celer, in opposing the tribune, C. Herennius, who brought forward a law in favour of the transference of Clodius to the plebeians. Who Trebonius's colleague was is not certainly known." Tyrrell.
72. C. Licinius Macer Calvus, a distinguished orator and poet. His most famous case was that against Vatinius, when the latter was defended by Cicero in 54. Calvus was then only 27 years of age. His poems were classed by the ancients with those of Catullus. He was so short in stature that Catullus (liii. 6 ) says he heard him called 'Salaputium disertum', "the eloquent Tom Thumb." Calvus himself had no high opinion of Cicero, whom he thought 'solutus et enervis', "sloppy and flabby," just as Cicero says of him here that "he lacked force."
73. I have adopted Dr. J. S. Reid's admirable rendering of 'acute movebatur'.
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