The translation is by W.G. Williams (1927). Click on the L symbols to go to the Latin text of each section. Click on ** to go to the translator's footnotes.
CONTENTS: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 to M. Terentius Varro ; 9 from P. Cornelius Dolabella ; 10 11 12 13 14 to P. Cornelius Dolabella ; 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 to L. Papirius Paetus
← Book 8
CICERO TO M. VARRO **, GREETING
What you were doing and where you were, I gathered from the letter which you sent to Atticus and he read to me; but as to when we were likely to see you, I could get no hint at all from that same letter. I am beginning to hope, however, that your arrival is approaching, and I pray that it may bring me comfort ; and yet so many and so great are the evils that oppress us, that no man who is not an utter fool should hope for any alleviation of them; but even so it may perhaps be that you can give me, or I you, some assistance.
2 For you must know that since I came to the City, I have become reconciled with my old friends, in other words, with my books. And yet it was not because I was a little angry with them that I had put them away, but because they made me a little ashamed of myself. For it seemed to me that when, thanks to my utterly untrustworthy associates, I plunged into the seething cauldron of affairs, I had not quite obeyed their instructions. They forgive me, and invite me back to the old intimacy, and : say that you are wiser than I, because you remained true to it. And therefore, now that I find them appeased, I think I am right in hoping that, if I see you, I shall easily surmount both those difficulties which are urgent and those which threaten us in the future ; so whether it is decided I should join you at your Tusculan or Cuman villa, or (which I should least like) at Rome, provided we are together, I shall assuredly bring it about that that meeting-place will be judged the most convenient possible to each of us.
[2] L { soon after 20 April, 46 }
CICERO TO VARRO, GREETING
Caninius, ** who is as much my friend as yours, came to me very late one evening and told me he was going to you early on the following day ; I told him I had something to give him, and asked him to come and fetch it in the morning. I composed a letter during the night, but he never called upon me again; I concluded that he had forgotten. But I should nevertheless have sent that very letter through my friends had not that same Caninius informed me that you were leaving your Tusculan villa early next day. But, lo and behold, a few days afterwards, when I least expected it, Caninius paid me a sudden visit one morning and told me he was off to see you straight away. Although the letter I have mentioned was now passé, especially in view of the news of such important events received after it was written, yet I did not care to have my midnight labour wasted, and so handed that very letter to Caninius ; but I conversed with him as I would with an erudite man and a sincere friend of yours, and I imagine that he has given you a full report of that conversation.
2 Now I give you the very same advice I give myself - that we should avoid the eyes of men, if we cannot so easily avoid their tongues. For those who are exalted by the victory look upon us as defeated, while those who resent the defeat of our friends are hurt at our remaining alive. You will perhaps ask why, when all this is going on in the City, I am not out of it, just as you are. For I have no doubt that you, a man of keener penetration than myself and others, of course saw everything ; nothing whatever escaped your notice. But who, I ask you, is such an absolute Lynceus ** as not to stumble over or bump his shins against anything anywhere, when all is dark as pitch ?
3 And indeed it has long since occurred to me myself that it would be very nice to leave Rome and go somewhere else so as to escape seeing or hearing what was going on here and what was being said. But I was morbidly self-critical; I thought that whoever met me would, according to his particular bent, suspect, or even if he did not suspect it, would say, "This fellow is either afraid, and for that reason is a runagate, or else has some scheme in his head, and has a ship in readiness." In fine, the man with the least sinister suspicions, and who perhaps knew me best, would suppose that my departure was due to the fact that my eyes could not endure the sight of certain people. Because I suspect all this I still remain at Rome ; and, after all, length of usage has, without my knowing it, rendered my temper callous.
4 I have given you the grounds of my policy. This then is what I think you should do yourself - lie low just where you are until all this rejoicing cools down, and at the same time until we hear after what fashion this business has been settled - for settled I think it has been. Much will depend, however, on the temper of the conqueror, and on the issue of affairs. And yet I know where my conjectures lead me; but all the same I await the result.
5 I really do not like your coming to Baiae, unless it is after this tittle-tattle has talked itself hoarse ; for it will be more creditable to us, even when we have left Rome, to be thought to have visited those districts to indulge in sorrow rather than in sea-bathing. ** But you can judge of all this better than I; only let us be fixed in this determination - to live together amid those studies of ours in which we previously sought nothing but delight, but now seek our salvation also ; and, if anyone desires to employ us, not merely as master-builders, but even as masons, to build up the Republic, not to hang back, but rather to hasten forward with alacrity ; if nobody avails himself of our services, at any rate to write and read "Political Constitutions" ; and if we fail to do so in the Senate-house and the forum, at all events strenuously to support the State, as the greatest ancient philosophers have done, in literature and in books, and to investigate ethics and laws. These are my opinions. As for yourself, I shall be very grateful if you will write and tell me what you intend to do, and what your views are.
[3] L { shortly before 20 April, 46 }
CICERO TO VARRO, GREETING
Although I do not know what to write, still it is impossible for me to put nothing in Caninius's hand when he is going to you. What then had I best write? Well, what I think is your wish - that I shall come and see you quite soon. And yet consider, I beg you, whether it is quite the right thing for us to be in the place you indicate ** while this awful conflagration of the State is still raging. We shall give food for gossip to those who do not know that, wherever we are, we keep to the same style of living and the same fare. ** What does it matter? Whatever we do, we shall become the subject of gossip. ** We ought, I suppose, to take vast pains lest, when all the world is wallowing in every kind of crime and immorality, our taking a holiday together or in each other's society ** should provoke a scandal.
2 However, I for my part shall disregard these barbarians, who know no better, ** and follow your lead. For although all is misery here, and worse misery there cannot be, still somehow or other our literary pursuits seem to bear a richer harvest than they bore of old, whether it is because now there is nothing else to which we can quietly settle down, or because the severity of the disease forces upon us the need for medicine, and that medicine now reveals itself, though we perceived not its virtue when we were well.
But why do I preach these doctrines now, and to you too, at whose home they are born - sending "an owl to Athens?" ** For no reason, of course, but to make you write something in reply, and look forward to my coming ; and that I am sure you will do.
CICERO TO VARRO, GREETING
About things possible you must know that I judge according to Diodorus. ** And therefore if you are about to come, you must know that your coming is necessary; if you are not, then your coming is impossible. Now then consider which judgment gives you the greater pleasure, that of Chrysippus ** or this one, which was too much for the digestion of our teacher Diodotus. ** But of these matters too we shall talk when we are at leisure; for this also is possible according to Chrysippus. I am obliged to you about Cocceius; for I had given that commission to Atticus also. If you fail to come to me, I shall hasten to you. If you have a garden in your library, we shall have all we want. **
CICERO TO VARRO, GREETING **
Certainly, I think the 5th of June will be high time ** on account not only of the constitutional crisis but of the season of the year. I therefore approve your choice of date, and shall accordingly keep to the same myself.
2 As to the course we adopted, ** I should not have thought that we ought to regret it, even if those who did not adopt it had now no reason to regret their decision. ** For we followed the lead, not of hope, but of a sense of duty ; on the other hand, what we turned our backs on was not duty, but a hopeless cause. We, therefore, had a quicker sense of honour than those who never stirred from home, and were less infatuated than those who never returned home when all their resources were exhausted. But there is nothing I resent so much as the harsh criticism of those who did nothing at all; and however the matter stands, I venerate more those who fell in the war than I care for those still with us, who are dissatisfied with us for presuming to live.
3 If I have time to come to your Tusculan villa before the 5th, I shall see you there; failing that, I shall follow you to your Cuman villa, and give you notice beforehand, so that a bath may be ready waiting.
[6] L { latter half of June, 46 }
CICERO TO VARRO, GREETING
Our friend Caninius gave me your message, reminding me to write and tell you if there were any- thing which I considered you ought to know. Well then, his arrival - I mean Caesar's - is being eagerly awaited, and of that you are well aware yourself. However on his writing, as I believe, that he would come to his villa at Alsium, ** his friends wrote and told him not to do so; many people there would, they said, be an annoyance to him, and he to many ; it looked as if it might be more convenient for him to land at Ostia. I do not see myself what difference it makes. And yet Hirtius told me that he himself and Balbus and Oppius had all three written to him to do so - men who are, as I am well assured, devoted to you.
2 I wished you to be informed of this in order that you might know where to prepare quarters for yourself, or rather that you might do so in both places; for it is uncertain what he will do ; and incidentally I have clearly shown you that I am on intimate terms with those men and share their counsels ; and I see no reason why I should be indisposed to do so. For to bear what must be borne is not at all the same thing as to approve what must not be approved. Though indeed, what I should "not approve" I don't now know, except the first beginnings of the business ; for they depended on voluntary choice ** I saw - you, of course, were abroad - that while our friends desired war, Caesar did not so much desire it as not dread it. Consequently those first beginnings were matter for deliberation, whereas what followed was inevitable - inevitable too the victory of one side or the other.
3 I know you were always at one with me in grieving when we saw not only that overwhelming disaster, the destruction of one army or the other and its commander, but also saw that the climax of all disasters was victory in civil war - a victory which I indeed dreaded even if won by those whom we had joined. For they were bloodthirsty in their threats even against those who remained inactive, and both your sentiments and my speeches were abhorrent to them. At the present moment, indeed, had our friends been victorious, there would have been no curb upon their rage. For they were already very angry with us, as though we had decided upon any course in view of our own safety which we had not approved in their case also, or as though it were more expedient for the State that they should seek the protection and help even of brute beasts, ** rather than either die outright, or else remain alive, if not with the best of hopes, at any rate with some.
4 But, you say, the Republic we live in is in a state of chaos. Of course it is. But let those look to that who have provided themselves with no resources against any vicissitudes of existence. And indeed it was to arrive at just this point that my earlier remarks have run on further than I intended. The fact is that while I have ever deemed you a great man, because amid these tempests you are almost alone in having reached port, and are reaping the priceless harvest of erudition in considering theories and dealing with themes of which the constant handling, delightful as it is, cannot but be preferred to all the engagements ** and amusements of those others - so now I regard these Tusculan days of yours as the very model of what life should be, and I should willingly surrender all I have to all the world, to be allowed to live as you do, uninterrupted by any violence.
5 And that life I too imitate, so far as I can, and am more than willing to seek repose in our common studies. For who would refuse us the boon of returning, since our country either cannot or will not avail herself of our services, to that manner of life which many learned men - perhaps wrongly, but many anyhow - have considered preferable even to the interests of the State ? If such studies then, in the opinion of distinguished men, can offer a sort of holiday from public duties, why should we, now that the State permits it, fail to make full use of them?
6 But I am exceeding Caninius's instructions ; for he only asked me to write anything I knew, but you didn't ; whereas I am telling you things you know better than I myself do, who am telling you. I shall therefore do just what I have been asked to do - not to leave you in ignorance of anything that bears upon this crisis, which I have been told it is to your interest to know.
CICERO TO VARRO, GREETING
I was dining with Seius when a letter from you was delivered to each of us. I certainly think it is high time. ** For as to my former tricky conduct, ** I will now disclose my roguery. I wanted you to be somewhere near in case there was any happy chance of salvation - "two heads" you know. ** Now, since all is over and done, we must not hesitate to go over " horse and foot." For when I heard about L. Caesar ** the younger, I said to myself, "What will he do to me, his father?" ** So I never cease dining with those who have now the upper hand. What am I to do? One must move with the times.
2 But away with all jests, especially as we have nothing to laugh at:
Africa, country of dread, is aquake with heart-crushing commotion, **
so there is every possible "objectionable" ** factor for me to fear. But as to your question, "When, by what road, and whither?" ** - well, so far I know nothing. As for your own idea about Baiae, some are inclined to think that he is coming through Sardinia **; for that estate of his he has up to now never inspected ; it is the very worst he possesses, and yet he does not despise it. Myself, I am far more inclined to think he will come through Sicily to Velia; we shall soon know; for Dolabella is coming home, and I suppose he will act as my school-master ;
Pupils full oft are better than their teachers. **
But, anyhow, if I know what you have decided to do, I shall adapt my policy to yours in preference to any other. And that is why I eagerly await a letter from you.
CICERO TO VARRO, GREETING **
Although to demand a gift, ** whatever hopes of it have been held out by anybody, is not usual even with the people, unless they are wildly excited, none the less the eager expectation of what you promised ** moves me to address you a reminder, certainly not a demand. But I have despatched to you a quartette of "reminders," ** not over-burdened with modesty ; for of course you know the effrontety of this somewhat juvenile Academy. ** It was from the midst of that Academy that I routed them out and sent them; and now I am afraid they may perhaps make a demand of you, whereas my instructions were merely to make a request, Anyhow I have been anxiously expecting this long time, and holding myself in, so as to avoid writing anything to you myself, until I received something ** from you, in order to return your gift with as like a gift as possible. But seeing that you were unduly slow in writing, in other words (for so I interpret it) unduly painstaking, I could not be held back any longer from making clear to you, in such form of communication ** as I could, the union of study and affection that binds us together.
I have therefore composed a conversation we had together at my Cuman villa, when Pomponius was with us. ** I have given you the part of Antiochus, which, I think I understood you to approve ; for myself I have assumed the part of Philo. **
It is very likely, I imagine, that when you have read it, you will be surprised at our having expressed ourselves in that conversation as we have never yet expressed ourselves ; but you know the custom in dialogues.
2 Later on, however, my dear Varro, we shall have full many a conversation, if it so please you, with one another, and about ourselves too ; possibly we may have long to wait; but let the fortune of the Republic bear the responsibility for all that is past ; the present it lies with us to. ensure." And how I wish we were able to prosecute these common studies of ours in tranquil times and under some established form of constitution - not satisfactory, it may be, but at any rate definitely assured. Though even in that case there would be certain other considerations as well to provide us with responsibilities and occupations not without honour. But as it is, what reason have we for wanting to live at all, unless we have these studies? For myself, even with them, I hardly want to live; if I am robbed of them, then not even hardly. But enough of this till we meet, and then we can converse more frequently.
I am anxious that your change of residence and new purchase ** should turn out happily, and I approve your decision in the matter. Mind you keep well.
DOLABELLA ** TO CICERO, GREETING **
If you are well, I am glad; ** I am well, and our dear Tullia very well indeed Terentia has been indisposed, but I am assured beyond doubt that she has now quite recovered. In other respects everything is quite all right at your house. **
Although there has never been a time when I could reasonably have caused you to suspect that it was not so much in your own interests as in those of our party that I urged you either to join Caesar and the rest of us, or at any rate to return to a life of leisure, still at this moment in particular, when the scales have inclined towards our victory, there is not even a possibility of my incurring any imputation other, of course, than that of giving you, as I believe, such advice as I could not, as a dutiful son-in-law, leave unspoken.
You will yourself, I am sure, my dear Cicero, receive the following suggestions, whether they meet with your approval or not, in such a spirit as to believe them to have been conceived and written with the best intentions in the world, and most profound devotion to yourself.
2 You observe that neither by the glamour of his name and achievements, nor by his patronage of various kings and peoples, which he used frequently to boast about, ** has Cn. Pompeius been protected, and that even that boon which any man of the lowest rank can claim - the possibility of escape without dishonour - cannot be granted to him, expelled as he is from Italy, both the Spains lost, his army of veterans captured, and finally himself now beleaguered - a thing that has never happened before, I believe, to any general of ours. Concentrate your mind therefore with your usual sagacity upon the question " What can either he or you have to hope for?" . It is thus that you will most easily make the decision which will be to your greatest advantage. Now I have this request to make of you, that if he has by now succeeded in avoiding this danger and hiding himself away in his fleet, you should consult your own interests, and at last be a friend to yourself rather than to the first-comer. You have already satisfied the claims of duty or intimate friendship - call it what you will - and also the claims of your party, and of that form of constitution which had your approval.
3 It only remains for us to take our stand there, where the new constitution now is, rather than pursue the old, and find ourselves with none. Therefore, my dearest Cicero, should it happen that Pompey is driven from these places also, and again forced to seek other quarters, I should be glad if you would betake yourself either to Athens or to any other tranquil state you please. If you intend to do so, I should like you to write to me, so that if it is anywise possible, I may wing my way to you.
As to anything which affects your position that will have to be obtained from our Commander-in-Chief, such is Caesar's kindness that your easiest course will be to obtain it from him yourself; and, after all my own entreaties, I fancy, will have no small influence with him. You too, on your part, honourable and courteous as you are, will see that the letter-carrier I have sent to you may be enabled to return to me, and that he brings me back a letter from you.
M. CICERO TO P. DOLABELLA, GREETING
I had not the courage to give our friend Salvius ** nothing in the way of a letter to you; and, upon my word, I did not know what to write, except that I am amazingly fond of you; and of that, even without my writing anything, I am quite sure that you have no doubt. On the whole I have more reason to expect a letter from you than you from me. For there is nothing going on at Rome which I think you would care to know - unless indeed you would like to know that I am acting as arbitrator between our friend Nicias ** and Vidius. The latter brings forward, I take it, a record in two little lines ** of money advanced to Nicias ; and Nicias, a regular Aristarchus, obelizes them, ** while I, like an ancient critic, have to decide whether they are the poet's lines, or interpolations.
2 Here I imagine you remarking "Have you then forgotten those marvellous mushrooms we enjoyed at Nicias's table? and those enormous prawns, together with the witty conversation that promotes digestion ?" What do you mean? Do you suppose that my old austerity has been so thoroughly shaken out of me that no remains of my former impressive mien are to be seen even in court ? But in any case I shall see to it that our most charming confrère is decently white-washed; and I shall not be so foolish as to give you the opportunity of reinstating him after I have condemned him, so that Bursa Plancus may have someone to teach him his letters. **
3 But what am I doing? Since I do not know definitely whether you are in a tranquil state of mind, or, as often happens in time of war, are engaged in some rather more than usually anxious case or transaction, I am drifting on too far. So when I am absolutely assured that you are ready for a good laugh, I shall write to you at greater length. Still I must tell you this much, that the people were extremely excited about the death of P. Sulla, ** until they knew it for a fact. Now they have ceased to inquire how he came to die. They think it enough that they know what they do know. ** For myself anyhow I take it philosophically ; my only fear is that Caesar's auctions will have fallen flat.
CICERO TO DOLABELLA, GREETING
I could wish that your missing a letter from me were due to my own death rather than to the calamity ** which has crushed me with its overwhelming weight - a calamity I should bear more calmly, if I had you here ; for your wise words, and your exceptional affection for me too, would go far to alleviate my sorrow. But since I am going to see you, as I suppose, before long, you will find me in such a state of mind that I may easily derive much benefit from your company; not that I am so broken as either to have forgotten that I am but a mortal, or to think it right to bow beneath the blows of Fortune; but anyhow I have been robbed of every particle of that attractive vivacity of mine which used to delight you more than anybody else. For all that, you will discover my strength of mind and resolution (if I ever possessed those virtues) to be just the same as when you left me.
2 You write that you are taking up the cudgels on my behalf ; ** well, I am not so anxious that my traducers should be confuted by you, as I am desirous that it should be understood - and surely it is understood - that you continue to love me. I beg you again and again to do so, and to pardon so brief a letter ; for not only shall we meet, I fancy, very soon, but I am not yet sufficiently recovered to write letters.
[12] L { about 17 December, 45 }
CICERO TO DOLABELLA, GREETING
I congratulate our dear Baiae, if it be true, as you write, that it has suddenly become salubrious ; unless of course it is fond of you, and flatters you, and just so long as you are present, has forgotten its former tricks ; and indeed if that be the case, I am hardly surprised at all that heaven and earth should desist from their usual violent behaviour in consideration of your convenience.
2 My little speech in defence of Deiotarus, ** which you ask for, I have with me, though I did not think I had; so I am sending it to you, and I should like you to remember as you read it that it is a meagre and poverty-stricken case, and not much worth writing out. But I wanted to send my old host and friend a little present - something lightly woven of rough yarn, ** such as his own gifts often are. I could wish you to be of a wise and gallant spirit, so that your restrained and dignified demeanour may discredit the wrongdoing of others.
CICERO TO DOLABELLA, GREETING
C. Subernius of Cales is not only my friend but also very closely connected with my very intimate friend Lepta. ** In order to avoid the war, he had proceeded with M. Varro, before it broke out, to Spain, so as to be in a province in which none of us had supposed that there would be any war after the defeat of Afranius, ** and there he found himself encompassed by those very evils he had striven so anxiously to avoid. For he was overcome by the sudden outbreak of a war, which, having been set in motion by Scapula, was so energetically promoted by Pompey that there was no way in which he could escape from the misery of it.
2 Practically the same is the case of M. Planius Heres, who is also of Cales, and on very intimate terms with our friend Lepta. These two persons then I commend to your care, and I could not possibly commend them with greater solicitude, enthusiasm, or anxiety. I am interested in them for themselves, and profoundly influenced in the matter by the claims not only of friendship, but of humanity also. Since Lepta, however, is in such distress that his fortunes, it seems, are imperilled, I cannot help being very nearly as much distressed as he is, or even quite as much. And for that reason, although I have had frequent experience of the sincerity of your affection, still I would have you assure yourself that I shall base my estimate of it upon this affair more than any other.
3 I therefore beg of you or, if you permit it, implore you to secure immunity for these unhappy men whose misfortune ** is due to ill-luck, which no man can elude, rather than to any fault of their own; and not to object to my bestowing, through your hands, this much of a boon, not only upon these friends of mine themselves, but also upon the municipium of Cales, to which I am closely bound, and thirdly upon Lepta, whom I esteem more highly than anybody.
4 I do not, it is true, consider what I am about to say particularly relevant to the matter, but still there is no harm in saying it - the property of one of them is exceedingly limited, that of the other hardly what a knight should have. ** And therefore, seeing that Caesar with characteristic generosity has granted these men their lives, and they have nothing much besides of which they can be deprived, well then, if you love me as much as I am sure you do, clinch the business of these poor fellows' return, the only obstacle to which is the length of the journey ; and that they do not shrink from, so that they may both live with their own folks and die at home.
To struggle and strive to this end, or rather to carry the matter through (for of your ability to do so I have no manner of doubt) - that is what I earnestly beg of you again and again to do.
CICERO TO HIS DOLABELLA, CONSUL, GREETING
Though I am well content, my dear Dolabella, with the glory ** you have won, and though the happiness» and pleasure I have derived from it is amply sufficient, still I cannot but admit that my greatest and crowning joy is that popular opinion writes me down a partner in your praises. I have met nobody (and I meet ever so many people every day, for numbers of our most loyal citizens visit these parts for their health's sake, not to mention crowds of my intimate friends from the country towns), I have met none, I say, who, after praising you up to the skies in the most handsome terms, do not go on without a pause to express their warmest gratitude to myself, declaring that they have no doubt that it is 'because you comply with my instructions and advice that you are proving yourself so excellent a citizen and so incomparable a consul.
2 Now although I might answer them with perfect truth that whatever you do is done according to your own judgment and on your own initiative, and that you stand in need of no man's advice, still I neither agree absolutely with their assumption, lest I should depreciate your credit, should it appear to be wholly due to my advice, nor do I emphatically deny it ; for I am more greedy of glory than is even reasonable.
And after all, what was no discredit to that king of kings, Agamemnon himself - the having some Nestor at hand when he formed his plans - is not inconsistent with your own dignity, while to me it is something to boast about that you, a pupil, so to speak, of my own training, should win such fame as consul while still a youth. **
3Why, L. Caesar himself, ** when I visited him in his illness at Naples, overpowered as he was with pain in every limb, nevertheless, before he had well greeted me, exclaimed "O my dear Cicero, I congratulate you on your influence with Dolabella; : if I only had as much with my sister's son, we might now have been safe. As for your Dolabella, I both congratulate and thank him; indeed, since your year, he is the only man whom we can truly describe as a consul." After that he spoke much of your exploit and achievement, saying that it was the most splendid and the most brilliant act ever performed, and the most beneficial to the commonwealth. And that is the one expression on the lips of all.
4 I beg of you, however, to allow me to enter upon this spurious inheritance, if I may so call it, of glory that belongs to another, and suffer me to be taken into some sort of a partnership in your renown. And yet, my dear Dolabella (my last words were spoken in jest), I would more gladly transfer to you all my renown - so but I have any - rather than draw from you any portion of yours. For not only have I always regarded you as highly as you have yourself been able to realize, but my affection has been so intensified by what you have recently done, that there can have been no warmer ardour in the history of love. Take my word for it, there is nothing fairer, nothing more beautiful, nothing more lovable, than courageous action.
5 Take M. Brutus ; I have always loved him, as you are aware, for his distinguished genius, his fascinating manners, his outstanding integrity and firmness of character ; on the Ides of March, however, so much was added to my love as to make me wonder that any room for increase had been found in what I had long regarded as full even to overflowing. Who in the world would have thought that any addition was possible to the love I bore you? Well, so great has been the addition that I seem to love you now for the first time, and to have only liked you before.
6 What reason is there then for my exhorting you to obey the dictates of your high position and reputation? Am I, after the usual fashion of those who exhort others, to set before you illustrious examples ? I find no more illustrious example than yourself. It lies with you to imitate yourself, and be your own rival. So splendid have been your achievements already, that you have not even the right to fall short of your own standard.
7Since that is so, exhortation is unnecessary ; it is more an opportunity for congratulation. It has been your happy lot (and I fancy it is quite unparalleled) to find the exceptionally rigorous enforcement of your punitive measures, so far from being abhorred, to be even popular, and warmly welcomed by all good citizens and the lowest of the mob alike. Now had it been by some stroke of good luck that you were so fortunate, I should be congratulating you on your felicity only ; but no, it is the outcome of a great spirit, combined with great ability and shrewdness; for I have read your address; it is the cleverest thing that ever was. So gradually did you feel your way, now in approaching your case, and again in withdrawing from it, that, as is universally admitted, the psychological moment for taking punitive measures was presented to you by the very facts themselves.
8 You have then delivered the city from peril and the State from apprehension, and have not only contributed most handsomely to our welfare in the present, but have set a precedent for the future. After this you are bound to see that the constitution depends upon you, and that it is incumbent upon you not only to protect, but to bestow honours upon the men who have initiated an era of liberty.
But more of all this when we meet, which I hope will be at an early date. As for yourself, now that you are the preserver of the Republic and of us all, be sure, my dear Dolabella, that you take every possible precaution to protect your own life. **
CICERO TO PAETUS, ** GREETING
There are two letters of yours which I shall answer - one which I received four days ago from Zethus, the other which was brought me by your letter-carrier Phileros. ** The former of your letters gave me to understand that you were very grateful for my anxiety about your health, - an anxiety I am glad you now thoroughly appreciate. But, believe me, no letter could have given you a perfectly true appreciation of it. For though I am aware that I am courted and made much of by quite a number of people (I cannot deny it), not one of them all has a greater attraction for me than yourself. For your loving me, and having done so for many years past and uninterruptedly, is indeed a great, and perhaps the greatest possible, compliment, but there are many others who do the same; whereas your being yourself so lovable, so charming, and in every respect so delightful - that is something exclusively your own.
2 Besides, there is your wit, not Attic, but more pungent than that of Attic writers - the good old city wit of Rome. Now for me (you may think what you please of it) humour, and most of all the home-grown kind, has a wonderful fascination, especially when I see that it was overlaid with the coarseness first of Latium, at the time when provincialism poured like a stream into our city, and now with that of trousered and Transalpine clans, ** so that not a trace of the fine old style of pleasantry is to be seen. ** And so, whenever I meet you, I seem in very truth to meet all the Granii, ** all the Lucilii, ** yes, and the Crassi too and the Laelii. ** May I die if I can find a single soul left, except yourself, in whom I can recognise any resemblance to the ancient and indigenous jocularity. When to these flashes of wit is added the sincere affection you have for me, do you wonder that I was so frightened to death at your being so prostrated by ill-health ?
3 As to your apology in your second letter to the effect that you did not oppose my purchasing a house at Naples, but only suggested caution, you put it very nicely, and that is just how I took it; at the same time I understood, what I also understand from your last letter, that in your opinion I have no right to do what I thought I might do, that is, to abandon politics here, not indeed altogether, but to a great extent. You quote Catulus ** against me, and all those times. I fail to see the analogy. Why, I myself had no inclination in those days to withdraw for any length of time from the guardianship of the Republic ; for I was seated on the poop, and held the tiller, but now there is hardly room for me where the bilge-water is. **
4 Do you really think that there will be fewer decrees of the Senate, if I am at Naples? Here am I at Rome and in constant attendance at the forum, and all the while decrees of the Senate are being drafted at the house of my dear friend who dotes upon you. ** Indeed, whenever it occurs to him, my name is put down as a witness to the drafting, and I am informed that some decree of the Senate alleged to have been passed in accordance with my vote has found its way to Armenia and Syria, before the matter has ever been mentioned at all. And pray don't think that this is merely a joke on my part; I would have you know that I have ere now received letters from kings in the uttermost parts of the world, in which they thank me for having given them by my vote the title of king, I being in ignorance not only of their having been so entitled, but of their ever having been born.
5 What of it then? Of course as long as our friend, this "Minister of Morals," ** is here, I shall follow your advice, but when he is away, then hie for your mushrooms! ** If I have a house there, I shall make the sumptuary law's allowance for one day last me for ten. But if I fail to find one to suit me, I have decided to quarter myself upon you; I am sure I could do nothing that would give you greater pleasure. I am now beginning to despair of Sulla's house, ** as I told you in my last; still I have not quite abandoned the idea. I should like you, as you suggest in your letter, to take the builders with you and inspect it. If there is no fault to be found with the walls or the roof, everything else will meet with my approval.
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING
I was delighted with your letter, in which I loved most of all the love that prompted you to write because you feared that Silius ** had caused me no little anxiety by his message, about which you had yourself written to me before - twice indeed in identical terms, ** so that I could easily see that you were much troubled ; yes, and I too had taken pains with my reply to you, so that I might, seeing how the matter stands, considering the circumstances and the time, free you from your anxiety, or at any rate alleviate it.
2 But since your last letter also shows what anxiety the matter is causing you, let me assure you, my dear Paetus, of this - that whatever could have been done by strategy (for it is no longer enough to fight with sound judgment; one has to think out some sort of stratagem), but anyhow whatever could have been worked out or accomplished in the way of winning or harvesting a store of goodwill among your friends, all that I have by my most devoted efforts achieved, and, as I take it, to some purpose. For such is the regard, such the deference shown me by all Caesar's favourites, that I believe I hold their affection. For though it is not easy to discriminate between true and false affection, unless some such crisis occurs as may enable the sincerity of a friendship to be tested by some special danger, just as gold is tested by fire, yet there are all the ordinary indications of goodwill; but I employ one particular proof to convince me of the heartfelt reality of their affection - the fact that not only my own circumstances but theirs also are such to afford no reason for pretence.
3 To speak, however, of him who has all the power in his hands, I see nothing to fear there, except that when once a departure has been made from law and order, one can be positive of nothing; and as to what shape any policy may assume in a future which depends upon the wish, not to say the whim, of another, nothing can be guaranteed. Anyhow his own personal feelings have not been hurt in any respect by me; indeed, in that particular regard I have exercised the utmost self-restraint ; for just as formerly I used to think that I, by whose exertions freedom still existed in the State, had the right to speak freely, so, now that that freedom has been lost, I do not think I have any right to say a single word unduly contravening either his or his favourites' wishes. If, however, I desired to escape the odium incurred by certain clever or brilliant mots of mine, I should have to renounce my reputation as a wit; and that I should have no objection to doing, if I could.
4 But, after all, Caesar himself is gifted with an extremely acute faculty of discernment ; and just as your cousin Servius, ** whom I consider to have been a most distinguished man of letters, could have said without hesitation "Plautus never wrote this verse, but he did write this," because he had acquired a critical ear by noting the different styles of poets and constantly perusing them, in the same way I am told that Caesar, now that he has completed his volumes of bons mots, if anything is put before him as being mine when it is not, habitually rejects it; and now he does so more than ever, since his intimates spend all] their time with me, I may say, everyday. Now in the course of desultory conversation many a casual remark is made which possibly at the moment I made it strikes them as lacking neither literary polish nor pungency. These remarks are reported to him with any other news of the day, for such were his own instructions. The result is that if anything over and above that reaches his ears about me, he does not think it worth listening to. Your Oenomaus ** therefore does not apply to me, though you quoted Accius's lines appositely enough.
5 But what is this envy? Or in what respect can I now be the object of envy at all? Yet suppose I were so in every respect. I observe that.in the opinion of those philosophers who alone appear to me to grasp the true meaning of virtue, it is not the part of a wise man to guarantee anything whatever, except as regards wrongdoing ; and of that I fancy I an innocent in a double sense, firstly, because my convictions were perfectly correct, and secondly, because, when I saw that we were not sufficiently supported to maintain them, I did not think we should continue to contend with those who are more powerful. As regards the duty of a good citizen therefore I certainly deserve no censure. It remains for me to say or do nothing foolish or rash against those in power ; that also I deem to be the part of a wise man. As to anything else, however - what so and so says I said, or how Caesar takes it, or how far those are honest in their association with me, who are so assiduous in showing me courtesy and attention - of all that I can give no certain assurance. 6 So it comes about that I comfort myself with the consciousness of my earlier aspirations, and the thought of my self-restraint at the present time; and I apply Accius's well-known simile ** no longer to jealousy, but transfer its application to fortune, which, fickle and frail as it is, ought, I feel sure, to be broken by a sturdy and staunch spirit even as a wave is by a rock. For, seeing that the annals of the Greek abound in examples of how the wisest of men tolerated tyrannies either at Athens or at Syracuse, ** when they themselves enjoyed a certain measure of liberty, while their countries were in a state of slavery, why should I not assume that I can maintain my position without hurting any man's feelings, or impairing my own dignity ?
7 And now I come to your jocularities, since you now, following the lead of Accius's Oenomaus, have staged not, as he used formerly to do, an Atellan ** play, but, after the modern fashion, a farce. What is this pilot-fish you prate to me about, and this tunny, and this platter of smoked-fish-and-cheese? ** With my usual good nature I put up with your nonsense in the old days; now it is quite another story. Yes, Hirtius and Dolabella may be my pupils in oratory, but they are my teachers in the art of dining. For I imagine you have been told, since probably you and your friends get all the news that is going, that they declaim at my house, and I dine at theirs. But as for your solemn affidavit that you are insolvent, it amounts to nothing. For even when you were a man of property, it made you more close-fisted than ever in seeking petty profits ; but now that you are taking the loss of your property so cheerfully, there is no reason why you should not look upon the transaction in this way - imagine that, in receiving me as a guest, you are accepting a sort of "composition," ** and even that blow is not so heavy coming from a friend as it would be from a debtors. **
8 But after all I don't want the sort of dinners that entail a quantity of broken meats; whatever it is, let it be of a high class and delicate quality. I remember your telling me about Phamea's ** dinner; well, let yours be at an earlier hour, but otherwise just the same. But even if you persist in putting me off with such a dinner as your good mother ** gives, I shall not refuse it. All I want is to see the man with a spirit courageous enough to set before me such fare as you describe, or even a squid cooked to look like Jupiter Miniatus. ** Believe me you will never have the courage. Before I arrive the fame of my new luxuriousness will reach you, and a fine fright it will give you. And it is no good your putting any hope in your hors-d'oeuvre **; I have done away with all that; for in the old days your olives and sausages used to take the edge off my appetite.
9 But why all this babble ? Let me only get to you! But really - for I would wipe away all fear from your mind - you may fall back upon good old smoked-fish-and-cheese. There is one expense I shall put you to - you will have to heat a bath for me; everything else for me as of old. What I wrote above was nothing but a joke.
10 As to Selicius's villa ** you have acted with scrupulous care, and written with infinite wit ; so I think I shall let the matter drop. We have been witty enough, now let us be wise. **
[17] L { late August or early September, 46 }
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING
Aren't you an absurd fellow to ask me what I think is going to happen about those municipal towns and lands, when our friend Balbus ** has been staying at your house? As though I should know anything which he doesn't know, or as though, if ever I do know anything, it is not he who always tells me. On the contrary, as you love me, make it your business to let me know what is likely to happen to us; you have had a man at your mercy who might have told you when he was sober, or at any rate when he was mellow. But, my dear Paetus, I am not inquiring into those matters, firstly, because for the last four years or so the very fact of our being alive has been so much clear gain, if indeed it be a gain, or if it be life at all, to be living after the Republic has passed away ; secondly, because I am inclined to think that I really know what is going to happen. For things will go just as those choose who have the power, and power will always be with the sword. We ought therefore to be satisfied with whatever is granted us ; anyone who could not put up with that, ought to have died.
2 It is true that they ** are surveying the lands about Veii and Capena, ** and that is not very far from my Tusculan estate. Still I feel no alarm; I enjoy my property while I may, and I pray that I always may. If it turns out otherwise, in any case, since I (hero and philosopher in one as I am !) have come to the conclusion that of all things the most beautiful is life, cannot but regard with affection the man by whose grace I have been granted it. And if it be his desire that there should be a commonwealth, such as possibly both he wishes and we all ought to pray for, none the less he does not know what to do, so inextricably has he tied himself up with his multitude of counsellors
3 But I am running on too far; for it is to you ** that I am writing. Of this much, however, you may rest assured, that not only do I, who take no part in their counsels, not know, but even the chief himself does not know what is going to happen. While we are his slaves, he is himself the slave of circumstances. It follows that neither can he possibly know what the circumstances will demand of him, nor we, what he has in his mind.
If I did not send you this reply before, it is not that I am often a laggard, especially in correspondence, but not having anything certain to go upon, it was no wish of mine either to cause you anxiety by my indecision, or give you grounds for hope by any positive assertion. This much, however, I must add, and it is the absolute truth, that as matters stand up to the present, I have heard nothing of the danger you mention. ** Be that as it may, it will be your duty, with characteristic wisdom, to hope for the best, to contemplate the worst, and to bear whatever happens.
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING
I was at my Tusculum villa enjoying a holiday, because I had sent my pupils ** to meet their particular friend, ** so that they might at the same time win his favour as far as possible for myself too, when I received your letter so brimful of charm. I gathered from it that you approve my scheme - I mean my having begun, now that the law-courts have been abolished, and I am no longer king of the forum, to keep a kind of school, just as Dionysius the tyrant, ** after his expulsion from Syracuse, is alleged to have opened a school at Corinth.
2 There is no more to be said. I too am delighted with the scheme, which gives me several advantages ; in the first place - and this is just now most necessary - I am protecting myself against these dangerous days. What such protection may be worth, I do not know. I only see that nobody so far has proposed any plan that I prefer to this - unless perhaps it would have been better to die. "In my bed?" Yes, I agree; but it has not so happened. "On the field of battle?'' I was not there. The others, it is true - Pompey, your friend Lentulus, Scipio, Afranius, - all died miserably. But Cato, ** you will say, died gloriously. Well, it is open to me to do likewise whenever I so please, provided only I do my best to prevent its being as necessary for me to do so as it was for him ; and that is just what I am doing. That then is the first advantage. 3 The next is this - I myself am getting better, first as regards my health, which I had lost owing to the exercise of my lungs having been interrupted ; secondly, whatever faculty of eloquence I may have possessed, had I not taken to this form of exercise again, would have utterly dried up. Last comes this - though you would probably put it first - that I have now disposed of ** more peacocks than you have of pigeon-poults. While you over there are revelling in Haterius's ** saws, I over here am revelling in Hirtius's sauce. ** Come then, if you are half a man, and let me at once teach you the first principles, since you ask for them, though it is but "teaching one's grandmother." **
4 But since, as I see, you are unable to find buyers for your valuation-lands ** or to fill your money-jar with denarii, you must migrate back to Rome. It is better to die of indigestion here than to die of starvation where you are. I see that you have lost your money, and I hope your friends in Naples have done the same. ** So, unless you make provision for yourself, it is all up with you. You can ride all the way to Rome on that mule of yours which you declare is all that is left to you, now that you have devoured your poor pony. ** There will be a chair for you at my school next to my own, as under-master ; a cushion ** will come next.
[19] L { latter half of August, 46 }
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING
So, do what I will, you persist in your mischief-making! You drop a hint that Balbus was satisfied with a miserably meagre table, meaning, I suppose, that since kings ** are so abstemious, much more does it behove mere consulars to be so. You don't know that I fished the whole story out of him; that he came straight from the city gate to my house ; and I am not surprised at his not rather going to his own sweet hearth, but I am at his not rather going to his own sweet heart. ** Well, my first three words were "Did our Paetus - ?" ** and he answered with an oath that he had never enjoyed himself more.
2 If you achieved this by your repartee, I shall bring you an ear quite as sensitively attuned ; if by your rich repasts, I beg you not to value the company of stammerers ** more highly than that of men of eloquence. As for me, I am hindered day after day by one thing after another. But once I have so far disengaged myself as to be able to visit your neighbourhood, I shall not be so tactless as to make you think I have given you too short notice.
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING
I was doubly delighted with your letter - because I laughed myself, and because I saw that you could now laugh too. And as to your having overwhelmed me with a volley of vituperation, ** as though I were some light-armed skirmisher in a rally of wits, it did not annoy me in the least. What I am troubled about is not having been able to come to your neighbourhood as I had intended; for you would have had not so much a guest, as a mess-mate. ** But what a terrible person! Not the man you so often choked off with your hors-d'oeuvre; no, I bring an appetite quite unimpaired to bear upon the egg course **; and so I carry on in grim earnest right up to the roast veal. Those compliments I used to win from you in the old days, "What a model of complaisance! What an easy fellow to entertain!" are over and done with. For the present I have thrown to the winds all my political anxieties, all pondering over speeches for the Senate, all careful preparation of briefs, and I have thrown myself into the camp of my former adversary Epicurus, not, however, with an eye to this modern extravagance, but to that luxurious refinement of yours - I mean on the old scale, when you had the money to meet your expenses, though indeed you have more estates ** on your hands now than ever.
2 Therefore prepare yourself; the person you have to deal with is not only a hearty eater, but one who now knows a thing or two; and you know how fussy "late-learners" ** are. You must forget all about your fruit baskets and omelettes. I have now acquired such a store of exquisite skill that I quite frequently venture to invite your friend Verrius ** and Camillus ** too, and you know how dainty and fastidious they are. But behold my audacity! I have given a dinner even to Hirtius, though there was no peacock ; and at that dinner there was nothing, except the hot sauce, ** that my cook failed to copy.
3 This then is the way I live now ; in the morning I am at home not only to loyalists - a large but melancholy crowd - but also to these exultant conquerors, and it is true that the latter honour me with every mark of courtesy and affection. When the stream of callers has ceased to flow, I wrap myself up in literature, and either write or read. A few also turn up to listen to me as to a man of learning, because I am just a little more learned than themselves. After that I devote all my time to my personal comfort. I have now mourned the loss of my country more sadly and for a longer time than ever a mother the loss of her only son.
But, as you love me, take care of your health, lest I eat you out of house and home while you are on your back; for l am determined to show you no mercy, even if you are laid up.
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING
Do you really mean it? Do you think you are mad to imitate the thunderbolts (as you call them in your letter) of my eloquence? ** Mad indeed, if you could not do so successfully ; but seeing that you even beat me, you ought to jeer at me rather than at yourself. So there is no need at all for your quotation from Trabea; the fiasco was rather my own. But be that as it may, how do I strike you in my letters ? Don't I seem to talk to you in the language of common folk? For I don't always adopt the same style. What similarity is there between a letter, and a speech in court or at a public meeting ? Why, even in law-cases I am not in the habit of dealing with all of them in the same style. Private cases, and those petty ones too, I conduct in a more plain-spoken fashion, those involving a man's civil status or his reputation, of course, in a more ornate style ; but my letters I generally compose in the language of everyday life.
But anyhow, my dear Paetus, how did it ever suggest itself to you to say that there had never been a single Papirius who was not a plebeian? Why, there have been patricians of the lesser clans, ** the first of whom was L. Papirius Mugillanus, who was censor with L. Sempronius Atratinus, having previously ** been the same man's colleague as consul, 312 years after the foundation of the City. But you were then called Papisii. **
After him there were thirteen who occupied the curule chair before L. Papirius Crassus, who was the first not to be called Papisius. He was appointed dictator, with L. Papirius Cursor as his master of horse, 415 years after the foundation of the City, and four years afterwards consul with C. Duilius. He was followed by Cursor, ** a man who held very many offices of state; there followed L. Masso, who held the rank of aedile, then a large number of Massones ; indeed I wish you had the busts of all these patrician.
The Carbones and the Turdi came next, but they were plebeians, and I think you may well disregard them; for with the exception of that C. Carbo, ** who was slain by Damasippus, not one of them was a true and loyal citizen. We all knew Cn. Carbo, and his brother the jester; was there ever a more rascally pair? Of this friend of mine, Rubria's son, I say nothing. He had three brothers, Gaius, Gnaeus, and Marcus Carbo.
Marcus, a big thief, on the accusation of P. Flaccus, was condemned for his misdeeds in Sicily ; Gaius, on being accused by L. Crassus, is said to have taken a dose of cantharides **; he was not only a turbulent tribune of the plebs, but was suspected of having assassinated P. Africanus. ** But as for this Carbo, who was put to death by our friend Pompey in Lilybaeum, there was never, in my opinion, a greater scoundrel. It was his father again who, on being accused by M. Antonius, is supposed to have evaded condemnation by means of shoemaker's vitriol. ** So I think you had better go back to your patrician forbears ; as for the plebeians, you see what a troublesome crew they were.
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING
I like modesty, others prefer freedom, in speech. And indeed the latter opinion was held by Zeno, ** a man, I assure you, of penetration, although our Academy quarrels fiercely with him. But, as I say, the Stoics hold that we should call everything by its proper name. This is their argument - nothing is obscene, nothing shameful in the saying of it ; for if there be anything scandalous in obscenity it is either in the thing or in the word ; there is no third alternative. It is not in the thing. Accordingly the thing itself is put in words, not only in comedy - as that character in the Demiurgus ** says, "Just lately it happened"; you know the monologue, ** and you remember Roscius ** with his "so bare did she strip me" (the whole speech is veiled in expression, though the thing expressed is grossly indecent), - but in tragedy also. For what of this? - "The woman who," observe this, I say, "frequents not one bed only" **; and again "Hers, Pheres, was the bed he dared to enter." ** And again, "Me, an all-unwilling maiden, Jove o'erpowered with violence." ** "O'erpowered" is unobjectionable, and yet it means the same as - but that other word nobody would have tolerated.
So you see, though the thing meant remains the same, because the words are not indecent, no indecency is apparent. Therefore there is no indecency in the thing, much less in the words. For if what is indicated by the word is not indecent, the word indicating it cannot be indecent. When you speak of the anus you call it by a name that is not its own ; why not rather call it by its own? If it is indecent, do not use even the substituted name; if not, you had better call it by its own. The ancients used to call a tail 'penis', and hence, from its resemblance to a tail, the word 'penicillus'. ** But nowadays 'penis' is among the obscenities. "Yes, but the famous Piso Frugi ** complains in his Annals that youths are given up to the 'penis'." What you in your letter call by its own name, ** he with more reserve calls 'penis' ; but because many people use it so, it has become as obscene as the word you used. What of the common expression 'Cum nos te voluimus convenire' ** - is that obscene? I remember an eloquent consular using these words in the Senate, 'Hanc culpam maiorem an illam dicam?' ** Could he have said anything more obscene? "Not at all," you say, " for that is not what he meant." So then there is no obscenity in the word; but I have explained that there is none in the thing ; therefore there is none anywhere.
3 "To make an effort to get children" - what an honourable expression! Why, even fathers ask their sons to do so; but they do not dare to put a name to the "effort." Socrates was taught to play the lyre by a very famous musician. He was called Connus. Do you really think that obscene? When we say 'terni' in talking, there is nothing shocking in what we say; but when we say 'bini' ** it is obscene. "'Yes,'' you will remark, " to the Greeks." There is nothing then in the mere word, since I know Greek, and yet say 'bini' in talking to you ; and you are just putting it on here, as though I spoke in Greek, and not in Latin. 'Ruta' and 'menta' ** - we use both words without impropriety. I want to use the diminutive of 'menta', as one might say 'rutula' ; it is not done. 'Bella tectoriola' ** ; then use the diminutive of 'pavimenta' in that way ; you can't do it. Do you see then that all this is nothing but silly nonsense ; that there is indecency neither in the word nor in the thing, so that there is none anywhere ?
4 Therefore we introduce obscenities into words of unexceptionable meaning. Come now, is not 'divisio' ** an unexceptionable word ? But there is an obscenity in it, and 'intercapedo' ** is on all fours with it. Are these words therefore obscene? It is ridiculous in us, however, not to preface the remark "he strangled his father" with, "if you will pardon the expression," and yet be obliged to do so if it has any reference to an Aurelia or a Lollia. ** And indeed it has come to this, that we even use words that are not obscene in an obscene sense. 'Battuit', says he, is a shameless word, 'depsit' much more so. ** And yet neither is in itself obscene. 'Testis', a most decent word in a court of law, is not over-decent elsewhere. And while 'colei Lanuvini' is all right, 'Cliternini' is not so. **. Why, the thing itself can be at one moment decent, at another indecent. 'Suppedit' ** is grossly coarse; presently a man will be naked in his bath, and you will have no word of reproof. Here is your Stoic disquisition in a nutshell: "The wise man will call a spade a spade." What a lot of talk arising from a single word of yours ! I am gratified that, in arguing with me, there is no word you dare not use. As for me, I maintain, and ever shall maintain, as has always been my habit, the modest reserve of Plato; so I have used veiled language in writing to you of what the Stoics deal with in the most outspoken way. But they - why, they go so far as to say that 'crepitus' should be just as free as 'ructus'! All honour therefore to the Calends of March. ** You will, I am sure, continue to love me and to keep well.
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING
Yesterday I came to my Cuman villa, to-morrow perhaps I shall come to you. But when I know for certain, I shall give you notice a little before ; although M. Caeparius when he came to meet me in the Gallinarian wood, ** and I inquired of him how you were, told me you were in bed, suffering from your feet. Of course I was as sorry as I ought to be; but none the less I determined to come to you, so as to see you, and make a visit of it, and even to have dinner with you; for I don't suppose you have a cook too who is a victim to arthritis, Be on the look-out then for a guest who is not only a very small eater but a foe to expensive dinners.
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING **
With regard to this Rufus, ** your friend, about whom you now write to me for the second time, I should assist him to the best of my ability, even if he had done me an injury, because I saw that you were taking such pains on his behalf. When, however, both your letters, and those he has himself sent me, led me to infer conclusively that my own welfare has given him no little anxiety, I cannot help being a friend to him, and that not only on your recommendation, which naturally carries very great weight with me, but also in accordance with my own inclination and judgment.
For I would have you know, my dear Paetus, that what first began to make me suspicious and wary and careful was your letter, and there were other subsequent letters from many sources, which tallied with yours. Both at Aquinum and at Fabrateria schemes were initiated affecting myself which I see you must have overheard; and, just as if they guessed what trouble I was going to cause them, they made it their one aim and object to crush me. And I, suspecting nothing of this, should have lacked due caution, had I not been warned by you. And that is why this friend of yours requires no recommendation with me. I only pray that the fortunes of the commonwealth may be such as to enable him to recognise in me the most grateful of men. But no more about this.
2 I am distressed at your having given up going out to dinner. You have deprived yourself of a great deal of amusement and pleasure. In the next place I am really afraid (for I need not mince matters) that you will unlearn and forget to some extent your old practice of giving little dinners yourself. For if, at the time when you had plenty of hosts to set you an example, you showed but little improvement, what am I to imagine you will do now? Spurinna ** indeed, when I pointed the thing out to him, and described your previous life, pointed out that the whole commonwealth was threatened with a grave danger unless you reverted to your previous habits when Favonius ** began to blow; for the present, he added, such conduct might be tolerated, since possibly you could not endure the cold.
3 But really, my dear Paetus, joking apart, I advise you to do what, in my opinion, has a direct bearing upon a happy life - to live with men who are good and pleasant fellows, and fond of you. Life has nothing better suited to it, there is nothing better adapted to a life of happiness. And I do not base my argument on the pleasures of the palate, but on the enjoyment of life and living in common, and that relaxation of mind which is most effectively induced by familiar conversation, and assumes its most charming form in convivial gatherings, as our fellow countrymen call them; and they are wiser therein then the Greeks; they call them symposia or syndeipna, which is to say "drinkings together " or "dinings together" ; we call them " livings together,' for then, more than ever, do our lives coincide. You observe how I am trying to win you back to our dinners by philosophising? Take care of your health, and the easiest way to ensure that is to make a practice of dining out.
4 But, as you love me, take care you do not, because I write in rather a jocular vein, suspect me of having thrown to the winds my concern for the Republic. My dear Paetus, you may convince yourself of this, that day and night, my one principle of action, my one anxiety, is to secure the safety and freedom of my fellow-citizens. Never do I miss an opportunity in the way of advising, acting, or looking ahead.
In short my spirit is such that, if in this my charge and ministration I am called upon to lay down my life, I think I shall have accounted for myself not without glory. Farewell again and again.
CICERO IMPERATOR TO PAETUS, GREETING
Your letter has made me a first-rate general. I had not the slightest idea that you were such an expert in military matters. You have evidently perused the commentaries of Pyrrhus ** and Cineas ; so I intend to obey your instructions and further than that, to keep a little ship or two on the sea-coast ; they say that no better form of equipment can possibly be found to oppose the Parthian cavalry. ** But why do we joke about it? You little know what a commander-in-chief you have to deal with. The Cyropaedia ** which I had well thumbed in the reading of it, I have exemplified in its entirety during my command here.
2 But we will resume our joking some other time tête à tête, and I hope very soon. For the present attend to the word of command [or rather to obeying it; that is how they spoke in the old days]. ** I am very intimate, as I think you know, with M. Fadius, ** and I have a great regard for him, not only on account of his very high integrity and unusual modesty, but also because in these controversies which I have with your boon companions, the Epicureans, I often avail myself of his admirable assistance.
3 Well, when he came to see me at Laodicea, and I wanted him to remain with me, he was suddenly and profoundly shocked by a most horrible letter to the effect that an estate near Herculaneum had been advertised for sale by his brother Q. Fadius, - an estate of which he is joint-owner with his brother. This M. Fadius bitterly resented, and he suggested that his brother (a bit of a fool) had been urged to go to such lengths by Marcus's own private enemies. So now, as you love me, my dear Paetus, take the whole business on your shoulders, and deliver Fadius from his distress. We have need of your influence, of your counsel, and even of your personal kindness Do not allow brothers to engage in litigation, and have their heads banged together in a discreditable lawsuit. Fadius has two enemies in Mato and Pollio. ** Why say any more? I assure you I cannot fully express in a letter how grateful I shall be to you if you put Fadius at his ease. He thinks it all depends upon you, and I believe him.
CICERO TO PAETUS, GREETING
I have just taken my place at table at three o'clock, and am scribbling a copy of this letter to you in my note-book. ** "Where ?" you will say. At the house of Volumnius Eutrapelus, ** and next above me is Atticus and below me Verrius, both friends of yours. Are you surprised that we have become so merry in our slavery ? What then am I to do ? I ask you, the pupil of a philosopher, ** to advise me. Am I to suffer anguish, am I to torture myself ? What good would that do me ? And again, for how long ? Live, you say, in your books. Do you suppose that I do anything else ? Or could I live at all, were it not that I lived in my books ? But even with them, though I am not exactly sick of them, there is a certain limit. When I have left them, though I am very little concerned about my dinner - and yet this was the one subject of inquiry you put before the philosopher Dion - still I am unable to discover what better I can do, until I betake myself to bed.
2 Listen to the rest of my story. Next below Eutrapelus reclined ** Cytheris. At such a dinner-party then, you remark, was the famous Cicero,
He at whom gazed the Greeks, and to whose face
All turned their faces.
Upon my oath, I never suspected that she would be there; but after all even the great Socratic Aristippus ** did not blush when it was cast in his teeth that he had Lais for his mistress. "She is my mistress," said he, "but I am her master." It is better in the Greek; translate it yourself if you like. As for myself, however, I was never tempted by anything of that sort, even when a young man, much less now that I am an old man. A dinner-party is my delight ; there I talk on any subject that crops up ** (as they say), and I convert groans into hearty guffaws.
3 Did you behave any better, you, who actually made mock of a philosopher ? You, who when the great man asked if anybody had any question to put, declared that the one question in your head from early morn was the question of dinner. The poor old simpleton thought you would ask whether there was one heaven or millions of them. What had you to do with that ? "But good gracious," you will say, "what had you to do with a dinner at all, especially at such a table ?"
4 Well then, such is my life ; everyday something is read or written ; after that, not to fail in courtesy to my friends, I dine in their company, not only without contravening the law, ** if there be any law just now, but even keeping within the law, yes, and well within it. So you have no reason to be so awfully afraid of my arrival. You will receive a guest who is not so fond of food as he is full of fun.
1. Born at Reate in 116 B.C. Not only was Varro considered the most learned of Roman scholars, but he was the most voluminous of Roman authors. In 67 during the Mithridatic and Pirate wars he held high command under Pompey, who bestowed upon him a "naval crown." At the outbreak of the Civil War he commanded the Pompeian forces in Further Spain, and during the Thessalian campaign he was with Cicero at Dyrrhachium; but though he supported the Pompeian party he, like many others, was pardoned by Caesar, who even compelled Antony to restore an estate of which he had robbed Varro, which is probably the reason why Varro was proscribed by the second triumvirate in 43; but he escaped, and was ultimately protected by Octavian. Cicero had no great liking for him, thinking him insincere and "full of twists," and his letters to him are, as Reid says, "cold, forced, and artificial."
2. Probably the Caninius Gallus who was tribune of the plebs in 56, and proposed that Pompey should restore Ptolemy Auletes without an army (see i. 2. 1 and 4). He was defended by Cicero in 55 and died in 44.
3. The Argonaut, famous for his keen sight. Or the reading may be 'lynceus', "with the eyes of a lynx."
4. Which would be the chief occupation of visitors to Baiae, where it was now the "season." - Tyrrell.
5. Probably Baiae.
6. ie, even at Baiae their housekeeping will be plain and simple.
7. Some make this a remark put in the mouth of Varro; but Cicero seems to be himself scornfully rejecting his own remark about "gossip."
8. 'inter nos', indicating that they were not merely together but that there was close intercourse between them,
9. "However I, despising those Philistines, as they know no better, will repair to you." Tyrrell.
10. i.e, "coals to Newcastle," as we say, the owl being favoured at Athens as being sacred to Athene, the tutelary goddess of that city.
11. Diodorus, a philosopher of Megara, whose theory of the Possible was as stated here.
12. Chrysippus differed from Diodorus in defining the Possible as what is capable of being true if circumstances do not prevent it.
13. Diodotus taught Cicero dialectic, and "the friendship between the two lasted until the death of Diodotus ; according to a fashion set by the Roman Stoic circle of the time of Cicero and Laelius, he became an inmate of Cicero's house, where he died in 59 B.C., leaving his pupil heir to a considerable property." Reid, Acad. p. 2.
14. i.e., "plain living and high thinking": so Tyrrell takes it. 'Hortus' is often used for "vegetables." Cf. Hor. Sat. ii. 4, 16.
15. This letter was written shortly after letter 7 in this book.
16. For our meeting with Caesar.
17. i.e., in first joining Pompey, and then withdrawing from the war.
18. "As of course they do."
19. Alsium was a colony on the sea-coast near Caere in Etruria, and many Roman nobles had villas there, who, being Pompeians, would hardly be cordial in their welcome of Caesar.
20. Cicero explains himself more or less in the concluding words of § 2; but his meaning is not very clear.
21. Cicero was opposed to the Pompeians' seeking the aid of Juba, king of Numidia, and his elephants.
22. Tyrrell and others take 'actis' to be the dat. plur. of 'acta', "sea-side lodgings," arguing that 'acta' (plur. of 'actum') cannot mean "engagements."
23. ie, "to join Caesar." See ix. 5. 1.
24. i.e., in suggesting that Varro and he should live together at Tusculum or Cumae. (See ix. 1. 2, 5. 3.)
25. Hom. Il. x. 224, "when two men meet, one gets an idea before the other."
26. L. Caesar (called Julius to distinguish him from his father, L. Caesar, consul in 64 B.C.) joined Pompey at the beginning of the Civil War in 49 B.C., and was the bearer of messages backwards and forwards between Pompey and Caesar. In 46 he was proquaestor to Cato at Utica, but after Cato's death persuaded the citizens to surrender to Caesar. He was pardoned by Caesar, but afterwards, possibly, though not probably, at Caesar's instigation, murdered.
27. Ter. Andr. 112, where Simo asks, "if my son Pamphilus weeps thus at the funeral of Chrysis, a comparative stranger, what will he when I, his father, die?" Cicero here apparently applies the quotation to the pardoning of L. Caesar by Julius Caesar, and means "if Caesar treats a former foe so well, how will he treat an old friend like me?" Tyrrell, however, takes the words as referring to L. Caesar's supposed murder by Caesar, and thinks that Cicero means "If Caesar puts to death an obscure opponent like L. Caesar, what will he do to me, a much more marked enemy?" This perhaps suits the context better, but it makes Cicero assume Caesar's guilt, though it was never proved.
28. A line of Ennius. The reference here is to the battles resulting in the deaths of Petreius, Juba, L. Afranius, Metellus Scipio and others.
29. proēgmena {"unobjectionable"} and apoproēgmena {"objectionable"} were terms in Stoic philosophy for things neither good nor bad from a moral point of view, but having an appreciable positive or negative value, e.g., the goods and ills of life, apart from virtue or vice. (Zeller, Stoics, p. 283.)
30. i.e., to go and meet Caesar.
31. Caesar did as a matter of fact come via Sardinia and landed in Italy at Ostia. The provinces being regarded as the estates {'praedia'} of the Roman people, Caesar, being now at the head of affairs, was practically owner of them all, including Sardinia, which he had not yet visited, probably on account of its unhealthiness.
32. The writer of this line is unknown. The rôles of master and pupil will now be reversed, Cicero having taught Dolabella rhetoric.
33. In this letter Cicero dedicates to Varro his Academica Posteriora, a philosophic treatise in four books, a portion of the first of which is still extant. He does so with some trepidation, having apparently offended Varro by giving a leading part in a previous issue of the Dialogue not to him, but to Brutus.
34. Cicero plays on the technical meaning of 'munus' as a "gift to the people" in the form of a gladiatorial exhibition.
35. Some learned treatise or other, probably the De lingua Latina, which Varro had promised to dedicate to Cicero, but after four years had made no progress with the work. See Att. xiii. 12. 1.
36. The four books of Academica mentioned above.
37. Cicero purposely uses the word 'adulescentior' instead of 'nova' to express the "young-mannishness" of the New Academy, and the self-assertion which was its characteristic. - Tyrrell.
38. See note on § 1 of this letter.
39. i.e., by means of a philosophical treatise.
40. According to Reid (Acad. p. 49) no such meeting at Cumae could have taken place between the death of Tullia (mentioned in Acad. Post. i. 11) and the writing of the Academica. Varro would at once see the impossibility, and Cicero anticipates his surprise at the end of § 1.
41. Antiochus of Ascalon was the Eclectic philosopher par excellence, professing to blend the Stoic, Peripatetic, and Academic philosophies. Philo of Larissa was the head of the New Academy. Cicero attended the lectures of both. - Tyrrell.
42. To what these words refer is not known.
43. Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who married Cicero's daughter Tullia after divorcing his wife Fabia in 51 B.C., was one of the most unprincipled men of his age, and a constant cause of anxiety to Cicero, who however professes a great affection for him. He fought for Caesar at Pharsalia (48), in Africa (46), and in Spain (45), and was made consul by him in 44. After Caesar's assassination he went over to the Republican party, but soon deserted that party when Antony gave him the province of Syria. On his way to his province he plundered the cities of Greece and Asia Minor, and at Smyrna murdered Trebonius, the proconsul of Asia. Being declared a public enemy in 43 he was besieged by Cassius at Laodicea, where, to avoid falling into his enemies' hands, he ordered one of his own men to kill him. It is highly probable that Dolabella wrote this letter at the instance of Caesar, who desired Cicero's friendship.
44. Cicero was now in Pompey's camp, which was being blockaded by Caesar.
45. s.v.g.= 'si vales, gaudeo'.
46. Dolabella would have later news of Cicero's family than Cicero himself, as the whole of Italy was in the hands of Caesar's friends. - Watson.
47. Hence the nicknames applied to Pompey - Sampsiceramus, Hierosolymarius, Arabarches, ete.
48. Salvius was a literary slave of Atticus.
49. Nicias Curtius of Cos, a grammarian, and an intimate friend of Dolabella.
50. Vidius produces some acknowledgments of a loan, possibly in Nicias's handwriting, but Nicias declares them to be a forgery. 'Versus' can describe a "line" in a legal document as well as a "line of poetry."
51. i.e, marks them as spurious with an obelisk (†), as Aristarchus did the spurious lines in Homer.
52. For Bursa see note on vii. 2.2. Cicero appears to mean "I shall do what I can to secure Nicias's acquittal ; for if I condemn him, it will only mean your reinstating him, and so providing that ignoramus Bursa with the means of education, which would make him more dangerous than ever."
53. There were various rumours about his death (cf. xv. 17 2). He was a legatus of Caesar, and an officer of some distinction ; he commanded the right wing at Pharsalia, but became unpopular as a constant purchaser at Caesar's auctions ('hasta Caesaris') of confiscated property.
54. i.e., they are quite satisfied to know that such a fellow is dead.
55. i.e., the death of his daughter Tullia, the divorced wife of Dolabella. This letter proves that the divorce had caused no breach of friendship between the families.
56. Dolabella had to defend Cicero against the attacks of Quintus the younger, the son of Cicero's brother Quintus.
57. Tetrarch of Galatia, who staunchly supported the Romans in their wars against Mithridates, and was rewarded by the Senate with the title of 'rex', and the addition of Armenia Minor to his dominions. In the Civil War he sided with Pompey, and was present at Pharsalia. In 45 B.C. his grandson Castor accused him of plotting against Caesar's life when he received Caesar in Galatia in 47. He was defended by Cicero, but the result of the trial is unknown.
58. i.e,, not an elaborate artificial piece of composition.
59. Q. Lepta, a native of Cales in Campania, was praefectus fabrum to Cicero in Cilicia in 51 B.C. He joined the Pompeians in the Civil War, and is often mentioned in Cicero's letters.
60. By Caesar on August 2, 49 B.C. Varro shortly afterwards surrendered to Caesar, but Afranius crossed over to Pompey in Greece. He was present at the baitle of Pharsalia in 48 B.C. and that of Thapsus in 46, after which he crossed over to Spain and fought for Pompey under Scapula and Afranius, renegade soldiers of Caesar. Later on, attempting to fly into Mauretania, he was taken prisoner by P. Sittius and put to death.
61. 'calamitosos' refers to the sentence of exile which they had incurred, cf. § 4.
62. The registered property of a Roman knight ('census equester') was about 400 sestertia (400,000 sesterces).
63. A Greek named Hierophilus (or Amatius) had been banished by Caesar, but, returning after his death, had set up an altar to him as a god, and a pillar to him as pater patriae. Antony had put the Greek to death without trial before the middle of April in this year, and at the end of the month Dolabella destroyed the altar and pillar, scattered the mob,and punished the worshippers. This is the action of Dolabella so effusively praised by Cicero in this letter.
64. He was probably about thirty-five, though according to Appian (B.C. ii. 129) he was made consul through Caesar's influence at the early age of twenty-five; he had never held the praetorship.
65. Consul in 64 B.C. (father of the L. Caesar mentioned in ix. 7. 2). His sister Julia married M. Antonius Creticus, and was the mother of the Triumvir. After the murder of the Dictator, L. Caesar tried to mediate between the Senate and Antony, and was proscribed by the Triumvirs, but saved by his sister Julia's intercession.
66. Especially against Antony's plots.
67. A learned and witty Epicurean, who avoided politics and made a large fortune.
68. Greek slaves or freedmen, employed as private letter-carriers.
69. The Gauls of the province of Narbonensis were called 'bracati' (breeched), the Gauls of N. Italy 'togati', and the Gauls of the greater part of Gallia 'comati' (long-haired). Cicero is evidently scoffing at the admission of Gauls by Caesar not only to the Roman citizenship but even to the Senate.
70. What Cicero means is that native Roman wit has deteriorated since the incorporation, first of the Latins (Latium), and subsequently of Celts, in the Roman community.
71. Q. Granius was a well-known auctioneer and wag.
72. Lucilius was the famous poet and satirist.
73. L. Licinius Crassus and Laelius were not only orators but distinguished for their wit.
74. Q. Lutatius Catulus, an upright and inflexible aristocrat, as consul in 78 resisted his seditious colleague Lepidus, and later opposed the bestowing of extraordinary powers upon Pompey. In 63 he voted for the execution of the Catilinarians. He died in 60 B.C.
75. ie., in the ship's hold.
76. Generally supposed to be Caesar, but Cicero would hardly have called him his familiaris. Tyrrell and Purser are probably right in suggesting that it is Balbus, who was Caesar's agent.
77. An obvious sneer at the servility of the Senate and the new office (praefectus moribus for three years) given to Caesar after his African victory.
78. Paetus, being an epicure, took advantage of vegetables not being included in Caesar's sumptuary law. For this and what follows see vii. 26. 2.
79. For Sulla see note on ix. 10. 2.
80. Probably the Silius who was propraetor of Bithynia in 51 B.C., to whom letter xiii. 61 is addressed. Some message of his had made Cicero uneasy about Caesar's feelings towards himself.
81. To ensure Cicero's getting the letter, Paetus had written it out twice, giving each copy to a different letter-carrier. Letter-carriers were not always to be trusted. (Cf. iv. 4. 1.)
82. This was Servius Claudius, on whose death in 60 B.C. Paetus gave Cicero his library. Suetonius (Grammat. 3) speaks highly of his learning.
83. The title of a play by Accius, some lines of which Paetus had quoted by way of warning Cicero against exciting Caesar's hostility by sarcastic remarks, however witty.
84. That "jealousy wears down its victim as a rushing torrent of water erodes a cliff."
85. He refers to Socrates at Athens under the Thirty, and Plato at Syracuse under Dionysius.
86. Since Sulla's time the fabulae Atellanae (light Oscan plays, after the fashion of Greek satiric dramas, so called from Atella in Campania, whence they originated) were generally superseded by mimi, a coarser form of drama, or farce.
87. He playfully accuses Paetus of trying to put him off with cheap and meagre fare.
88. According to one of Caesar's laws, passed in 49, to relieve the financial situation, creditors were compelled to take in payment the lands of their debtors at the price they would have fetched before the Civil War, that price being estimated by arbitrators, the lands so valued being called 'aestimationes' ; this involved an average loss to creditors, according to Suetonius, of 25 per cent. See note on v. 20, 9.
89. The gist of the whole passage from 'Tu autem' seems to be this: It is no good your trying to get out of entertaining me properly by pretending to "file your petition." Why, when you were well off, you were stingier than ever. If you have really suffered by Caesar's financial law (it does not seem to have affected your spirits very much), why not regard the expense of entertaining me as a mere item in your bankruptcy (?), and regarding it as an 'aestimatio' (see above), a "composition" (as Shuckburgh translates it) offered you by your debtors? And after all I am not your debtor, but your friend.
90. Probably the uncle of Tigellius. See vii. 24. 2.
91. Who evidently, like John Gilpin's wife, "had a frugal mind."
92. On certain festivals, and especially at triumphal banquets, earthenware figures of Jupiter were introduced stained with red-lead or cinnabar. The squid or polypus would have to be cooked in some red sauce to give it that colour.
93. The 'promulsis', the first course of the Roman dinner, consisted of eggs, olives, salt-fish, sausages {'lucanica'}, etc. The drink was generally 'mulsum', mead, which gave the course its name.
94. Probably a villa in Naples belonging to Selicius, a banker.
95. Lit. "There has been plenty of wit (in this letter), but not enough sober sense," i.e. let us stop joking and come to business. D has 'sannionum', "buffoons," meaning, I suppose, "there are plenty of jokes one might make about the matter, but few jokers to appreciate them."
96. See ix. 19,
97. i.e., Caesar's officials.
98. Capena was in Etruria, near Mount Soracte, 20 or 36 miles from Tusculum.
99. Who know more than I do.
100. That the lands at Naples would be confiscated.
101. He refers jokingly to Hirtius and Dolabella. See letter ix. 16.
102. Caesar, on his return from his victory in Africa.
103. Dionysius the younger. Cicero seems to be the earliest authority for the story; it is repeated by Plutarch and Justin.
104. M. Cato, who committed suicide at Utica (hence his surname Uticensis) after Caesar's victory at Thapsus in 46 B.C.
105. i.e., "demolished," "consumed."
106. Probably some lawyer whom Paetus had engaged.
107. Cicero plays on the two meanings of 'ius', "legal procedure" and "sauce," as he had many years before in 2 Verr. i. 121 (‘‘ius Verrinum''). I have here repeated the traditional translation of the Latin pun.
108. The Latin is a translation of ὗς Ἀθηνᾶν sc. διορθοῖ, said of an ignoramus correcting an expert.
109. For 'aestimationes' see note on letter 16. 7 above.
110. "And so be unable to detain you there by their hospitality."
111. ie. sold it to pay for your dinners.
112. On which to recline at the subsequent banquet.
113. i.e., friends of Caesar. But 'reges' is also commonly used, "great folk."
114. There is an obvious innuendo in the change of 'suam' to ‘ad suam.'
115. Sc., "entertain you properly ?"
116. The adj. 'balbus' = "stuttering."
117. There is probably a double meaning here, 'malis' meaning "abuse," and 'malis' "apples," the latter being often used as missiles to hurl at the heads of the professional jester {scurra} at a banquet.
118. Lit., one who shared the same tent on military service.
119. The first course; 'mala', "apples," being the last. Hence the phrase 'ab ovo usque ad mala' = "the dinner from beginning to end." Roast veal or fowl seems to have been the last course before 'mala', "dessert."
120. Paetus's debtors had handed their lands over to him at the reduced valuation (see note on letter 16.7), and he was unable to dispose of them.
121. Those who take to any study or pursuit late in life (‘seri studiorum,' Hor. Sat. i. 10. 22) are apt to make a great ado over it; and so Cicero, having just taken to gastronomy, will require "exquisite artistry" and no plain fare.
122. Mentioned as Cicero's fellow-guest in Letter 26 of this Book.
123. The distinguished lawyer, a great friend of Cicero. See v. 20. 3 and xiv. 14. 2.
125. For Hirtius's famous sauce see ix. 18. 3.
126. Paetus had evidently written something in which he used rather fine language, and then said he must be mad to imitate Cicero's rhetoric, quoting at the same time some passage condemnatory of bombast from Trabea, for whom see ii. 9. 2.
127. These were the heads of patrician families belonging originally to the Latin, Sabine, and Etrurian communities bordering on Rome who, when their cities were incorporated into the Roman state, and their families into the patriciate, were themselves received into the Senate. - Tyrrell.
128. i.e, in 444 B.C.
129. The change of "‘s" into ‘‘r" is traditionally attributed to Appius Claudius Caecus, consul in 307 and 296 B.C.
130. He was consul five times and dictator at least twice between 333 and 309 B.C. He was the chief hero of the second Samnite War.
131. Slain in 82, having been tribune of the plebs in 90, and one of the authors of the Lex Plautia Papiria, which gave the Italians the citizenship of Romie.
132. A deadly poison.
133. Historians generally incline to the belief that P. Africanus died a natural death, though Mommsen thinks he was the victim of a political conspiracy.
134. Sulphate of copper, called by the Greeks 'chalkanthon'.
135. Of Citium, founder of the Stoic school. "The Stoic argument which Cicero here controverts appears to be as follows : - If in what is called impure language there is anything impure, it must be in the thing or the word ; it is not in the thing (§ 1), for we have allusions to such things in unexceptional dramatic passages ; and if not in the thing, a fortiori it cannot be in the word (§ 2-4); therefore there is no such thing as impurity anywhere, and the wise man will call a spade a spade." Tyrrell. Cicero also ridicules the prurient detection of obscenity where there is none.
136. By Sextus Turpilius.
137. A 'canticum' was a more or less lyrical monologue, as opposed to a 'diverbium' (dialogue). This was probably the soliloquy of a young man who had been "fleeced"' by a courtesan. - Tyrrell.
138. For Roscius see note on vii. 1. 2.
139. Probably out of the Clytaemnestra of Attius, where Electra reproaches her mother.
140. The source of this quotation is unknown.
141. Probably out of the Antiope of Pacuvius. 'Violat' is an euphemism for some such word as 'stuprat'.
142. Our "pencil."
143. Tribune of the plebs in 149 B.C.
144. ie., 'mentula'.
145. 'Cum nos' must have been pronounced 'Cun-nos'.
146. 'Illam dicam', probably pronounced 'illan-dicam', suggesting 'landica' = "clitoris".
147. 'Terni' = three each, 'bini' = two each, but 'bini' suggests βινεῖν.
148. "Rue and mint." The diminutive of 'menta' would be 'mentula', the word Paetus had used.
149. "Pretty wall-plaster, or stucco."
150. 'Divisio' contains -visio, 'visium' being "a stench," and 'pedo' = πέρδω.
151. Or "saving your presence." 'Strangulavit' = 'compressit'.
152. Typical courtesans.
153. 'Battuere' = "to pound"; 'depsere' =" to knead."
154. The meaning of this is obscure, though 'coleus' ('culeus' or 'culleus') sometimes = 'scrotum.'
155. See note above on 'divisio'.
156. The day when the Festival of the Matrons (Matronalia) was celebrated. Cicero implies that the best corrective of the coarseness of speech, condoned, and even encouraged, by the Stoics, is respectful decency of language in conversing with women. Lambinus, on the strength of these words, would date this letter March I.
157. A forest of pines, near Cumae, infested by robbers. Cf. Juv. iii, 307.
158. The difference in time between this letter and the last, and still more strikingly the next, is another proof of the lack of orderly arrangement in the compilation of the letters ad Familiares.
159. Perhaps the Salvidienus Rufus mentioned in AdBrut. 25 (i. 17) § 4. Prof. Palmer identifies him with Horace's Nasidienus Rufus, Sat. ii. 8. To what plot Cicero alludes further on in § 1 is not known.
160. This was Spurinna the augur, who warned Caesar, shortly before his assassination, that his life was in danger.
161. The west wind which heralded spring (cf. Hor. Od. i. 4, 'solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni'). At present (in February) Paetus might urge that he was prevented from going out to dinners by the cold.
162. According to Aelian both Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, and his minister Cineas wrote treatises on military affairs.
163. The prototype of our "horse-marines."
164. Xenophon's Education of Cyrus.
165. I believe Tyrrell is right in suspecting these words as a gloss.
166. M. Fadius Gallus, a particular friend of Cicero's, to whom letters 23-26 in Book VII. are addressed.
167. Probably the famous Asinius Pollio, for whom see note on x. 31. 1.
168. Cicero would afterwards copy the letter into 'chartae'.
169. See vii. 32 and 33.
170. Explained at the end of § 1.
171. "Quia meretrix; nam honestae mulieres sedebant," Manutius. The quotation which follows is probably from the Telamo of Ennius.
172. The head of the Cyrenaic school. He held that the bodily pleasure of the moment was the summum bonum, and that eudaimonia {happiness} was the sum of such moments. According to Athenaeus, the words used by Aristippus were ἔχω καὶ οὐκ ἔχομαι, of which the translation gives the point.
173. Or "is brought on the tapis," though Dr. Reid thinks it may mean "what meets the foot.".
174. Caesar's sumptuary law, passed in this year (46), which even restricted the purchase and enjoyment of certain delicacies.
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