The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

Rome, 5 December

b.c. 61, æt. 45

Your letter, in which you inclose copies of his letters, has made me realize that my brother Quintus's feelings have undergone many alternations, and that his opinions and judgments have varied widely from time to time.113 This has not only caused me all the pain which my extreme affection for both of you was bound to bring, but it has also made me wonder what can have happened to cause my brother Quintus such deep offence, or such an extraordinary change of feeling. And yet I was already aware, as I saw that you also, when you took leave of me, were beginning to suspect, that there was some lurking dissatisfaction, that his feelings were wounded, and that certain unfriendly suspicions had sunk deep into his heart. On trying on several previous occasions, but more eagerly than ever after the allotment of his province, to assuage these feelings, I failed to discover on the one hand that the extent of his offence was so great as your letter indicates; but on the other I did not make as much progress in allaying it as I wished. However, I consoled myself with thinking that there would be no doubt of his seeing you at Dyrrachium, or somewhere in your part of the country: and, if that happened, I felt sure and fully persuaded that everything would be made smooth between you, not only by conversation and mutual explanation, but by the very sight of each other in such an interview. For I need not say in writing to you, who know it quite well, how kind and sweet-tempered my brother is, as ready to forgive as he is sensitive in taking offence. But it most unfortunately happened that you did not see him anywhere. For the impression he had received from the artifices of others had more weight with him than duty or relationship, or the old affection so long existing between you, which ought to have been the strongest influence of all. And yet, as to where the blame for this misunderstanding resides, I can more easily conceive than write: since I am afraid that, while defending my own relations, I should not spare yours. For I perceive that, though no actual wound was inflicted by members of the family, they yet could at least have cured it. But the root of the mischief in this case, which perhaps extends farther than appears, I shall more conveniently explain to you when we meet. As to the letter he sent to you from Thessalonica,114 and about the language which you suppose him to have used both at Rome among your friends and on his journey, I don't know how far the matter went, but my whole hope of removing this unpleasantness rests on your kindness. For if you will only make up your mind to believe that the best men are often those whose feelings are most easily irritated and appeased, and that this quickness, so to speak, and sensitiveness of disposition are generally signs of a good heart; and lastly—and this is the main thing—that we must mutually put up with each other's gaucheries (shall I call them?), or faults, or injurious acts, then these misunderstandings will, I hope, be easily smoothed away. I beg you to take this view, for it is the dearest wish of my heart (which is yours as no one else's can be) that there should not be one of my family or friends who does not love you and is not loved by you.

That part of your letter was entirely superfluous, in which you mention what opportunities of doing good business in the provinces or the city you let pass at other times as well as in the year of my consulship: for I am thoroughly persuaded of your unselfishness and magnanimity, nor did I ever think that there was any difference between you and me except in our choice of a career. Ambition led me to seek official advancement, while another and perfectly laudable resolution led you to seek an honourable privacy. In the true glory, which is founded on honesty, industry, and piety, I place neither myself nor anyone else above you. In affection towards myself, next to my brother and immediate family, I put you first. For indeed, indeed I have seen and thoroughly appreciated how your anxiety and joy have corresponded with the variations of my fortunes. Often has your congratulation added a charm to praise, and your consolation a welcome antidote to alarm. Nay, at this moment of your absence, it is not only your advice—in which you excel—but the interchange of speech—in which no one gives me so much delight as you do—that I miss most, shall I say in politics, in which circumspection is always incumbent on me, or in my forensic labour, which I formerly sustained with a view to official promotion, and nowadays to maintain my position by securing popularity, or in the mere business of my family? In all these I missed you and our conversations before my brother left Rome, and still more do I miss them since. Finally, neither my work nor rest, neither my business nor leisure, neither my affairs in the forum or at home, public or private, can any longer do without your most consolatory and affectionate counsel and conversation. The modest reserve which characterizes both of us has often prevented my mentioning these facts; but on this occasion it was rendered necessary by that part of your letter in which you expressed a wish to have yourself and your character "put straight" and "cleared" in my eyes. Yet, in the midst of all this unfortunate alienation and anger, there is one fortunate circumstance—that your determination of not going to a province was known to me and your other friends, and had been at various times before distinctly expressed by yourself; so that your not being his guest may be attributed to your personal tastes and judgments, not to the quarrel and rupture between you. And so those ties which have been broken will be restored, and ours which have been so religiously preserved will retain all their old inviolability.

At Rome I find politics in a shaky condition; everything is unsatisfactory and foreboding change. For I have no doubt you have been told that our friends, the equites, are all but alienated from the senate. Their first grievance was the promulgation of a bill on the authority of the senate for the trial of such as had taken bribes for giving a verdict. I happened not to be in the house when that decree was passed, but when I found that the equestrian order was indignant at it, and yet refrained from openly saying so, I remonstrated with the senate, as I thought, in very impressive language, and was very weighty and eloquent considering the unsatisfactory nature of my cause. But here is another piece of almost intolerable coolness on the part of the equites, which I have not only submitted to, but have even put in as good a light as possible! The companies which had contracted with the censors for Asia complained that in the heat of the competition they had taken the contract at an excessive price; they demanded that the contract should be annulled. I led in their support, or rather, I was second, for it was Crassus who induced them to venture on this demand. The case is scandalous, the demand a disgraceful one, and a confession of rash speculation. Yet there was a very great risk that, if they got no concession, they would be completely alienated from the senate. Here again I came to the rescue more than anyone else, and secured them a full and very friendly house, in which I, on the 1st and 2nd of December, delivered long speeches on the dignity and harmony of the two orders. The business is not yet settled, but the favourable feeling of the senate has been made manifest: for no one had spoken against it except the consul-designate, Metellus; while our hero Cato had still to speak, the shortness of the day having prevented his turn being reached. Thus I, in the maintenance of my steady policy, preserve to the best of my ability that harmony of the orders which was originally my joiner's work; but since it all now seems in such a crazy condition, I am constructing what I may call a road towards the maintenance of our power, a safe one I hope, which I cannot fully describe to you in a letter, but of which I will nevertheless give you a hint. I cultivate close intimacy with Pompey. I foresee what you will say. I will use all necessary precautions, and I will write another time at greater length about my schemes for managing the Republic. You must know that Lucceius has it in his mind to stand for the consulship at once; for there are said to be only two candidates in prospect. Cæsar is thinking of coming to terms with him by the agency of Arrius, and Bibulus also thinks he may effect a coalition with him by means of C. Piso.115 You smile? This is no laughing matter, believe me. What else shall I write to you? What? I have plenty to say, but must put it off to another time. If you mean to wait till you hear, let me know. For the moment I am satisfied with a modest request, though it is what I desire above everything—that you should come to Rome as soon as possible.

5 December.

b.c. 60. Coss., Q. Cæcilius Metellus Celer, L. Afranius.

This was the year in which Cæsar, returning from his proprætorship in Spain, found Pompey in difficulties with the senate (1) as to the confirmation en bloc of his acta in the East, (2) as to the assignation of lands to his veterans; and being met with opposition himself as to the triumph that he claimed, and his candidatureship for the consulship, he formed with Pompey and Crassus the agreement known as the first triumvirate. Cicero saw his favourite political object, the concordia ordinum, threatened by any opposition to the triumvirate, which he yet distrusted as dangerous to the constitution. We shall find him, therefore, vacillating between giving his support to its policy or standing by the extreme Optimates. P. Clodius is taking measures to be adopted into a plebeian gens, in order to stand for the tribuneship. Quintus is still in Asia. Pompey's triumph had taken place in the previous September.

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

Rome, 20 January

b.c. 60, æt. 46

Believe me there is nothing at this moment of which I stand so much in need as a man with whom to share all that causes me anxiety: a man to love me; a man of sense to whom I can speak without affectation, reserve, or concealment. For my brother is away—that most open-hearted and affectionate of men. Metellus is not a human being, but

While you, who have so often lightened my anxiety and my anguish of soul by your conversation and advice, who are ever my ally in public affairs, my confidant in all private business, the sharer in all my conversations and projects—where are you? So entirely am I abandoned by all, that the only moments of repose left me are those which are spent with my wife, pet daughter, and sweet little Cicero. For as to those friendships with the great, and their artificial attractions, they have indeed a certain glitter in the outside world, but they bring no private satisfaction. And so, after a crowded morning levée, as I go down to the forum surrounded by troops of friends, I can find no one out of all that crowd with whom to jest freely, or into whose ear I can breathe a familiar sigh. Therefore I wait for you, I long for you, I even urge on you to come; for I have many anxieties, many pressing cares, of which I think, if I once had your ears to listen to me, I could unburden myself in the conversation of a single walk. And of my private anxieties, indeed, I shall conceal all the stings and vexations, and not trust them to this letter and an unknown letter-carrier. These, however—for I don't want you to be made too anxious—are not very painful: yet they are persistent and worrying, and are not put to rest by the advice or conversation of any friend. But in regard to the Republic I have still the same courage and purpose, though it has again and again of its own act eluded treatment.116 For should I put briefly what has occurred since you left, you would certainly exclaim that the Roman empire cannot be maintained much longer. Well, after your departure our first scene, I think, was the appearance of the Clodian scandal, in which having, as I thought, got an opportunity of pruning licentiousness and keeping our young men within bounds, I exerted myself to the utmost, and lavished all the resources of my intellect and genius, not from dislike to an individual, but from the hope of not merely correcting, but of completely curing the state. The Republic received a crushing blow when this jury was won over by money and the opportunity of debauchery. See what has followed! We have had a consul inflicted upon us, whom none except us philosophers can look at without a sigh. What a blow that is! Though a decree of the senate has been passed about bribery and the corruption of juries, no law has been carried; the senate has been harassed to death, the Roman knights alienated. So that one year has undermined two buttresses of the Republic, which owed their existence to me, and me alone; for it has at once destroyed the prestige of the senate and broken up the harmony of the orders. And now enter this precious year! It was inaugurated by the suspension of the annual rites of Iuventas;117 for Memmius initiated M. Lucullus's wife in some rites of his own! Our Menelaus, being annoyed at that, divorced his wife. Yet the old Idæan shepherd had only injured Menelaus; our Roman Paris thought Agamemnon as proper an object of injury as Menelaus.118 Next there is a certain tribune named C. Herennius, whom you, perhaps, do not even know—and yet you may know him, for he is of your tribe, and his father Sextus used to distribute money to your tribesmen—this person is trying to transfer P. Clodius to the plebs, and is actually proposing a law to authorize the whole people to vote in Clodius's affair in the campus.119 I have given him a characteristic reception in the senate, but he is the thickest-skinned fellow in the world. Metellus is an excellent consul, and much attached to me, but he has lowered his influence by promulgating (though only for form's sake) an identical bill about Clodius. But the son of Aulus,120 God in heaven! What a cowardly and spiritless fellow for a soldier! How well he deserves to be exposed, as he is, day after day to the abuse of Palicanus!121 Farther, an agrarian law has been promulgated by Flavius, a poor production enough, almost identical with that of Plotius. But meanwhile a genuine statesman is not to be found, even "in a dream." The man who could be one, my friend Pompey—for such he is, as I would have you know—defends his twopenny embroidered toga122 by saying nothing. Crassus never risks his popularity by a word. The others you know without my telling you. They are such fools that they seem to expect that, though the Republic is lost, their fish-ponds will be safe. There is one man who does take some trouble, but rather, as it seems to me, with consistency and honesty, than with either prudence or ability—Cato. He has been for the last three months worrying those unhappy publicani, who were formerly devoted to him, and refuses to allow of an answer being given them by the senate. And so we are forced to suspend all decrees on other subjects until the publicani have got their answer. For the same reason I suppose even the business of the foreign embassies will be postponed. You now understand in what stormy water we are: and as from what I have written to you in such strong terms you have a view also of what I have not written, come back to me, for it is time you did. And though the state of affairs to which I invite you is one to be avoided, yet let your value for me so far prevail, as to induce you to come there even in these vexatious circumstances. For the rest I will take care that due warning is given, and a notice put up in all places, to prevent you being entered on the census as absent; and to get put on the census just before the lustration is the mark of your true man of business.123 So let me see you at the earliest possible moment. Farewell.

20 January in the Consulship of Q. Metellus and L. Afranius.

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

Rome, 15 March

b.c. 60, æt. 46

It is not only if I had as much leisure as you, but also if I chose to send letters as short as yours usually are, should I easily beat you and be much the more regular in writing. But, in fact, it is only one more item in an immense and inconceivable amount of business, that I allow no letter to reach you from me without its containing some definite sketch of events and the reflexions arising from it. And in writing to you, as a lover of your country, my first subject will naturally be the state of the Republic; next, as I am the nearest object of your affection, I will also write about myself, and tell you what I think you will not be indisposed to know. Well then, in public affairs for the moment the chief subject of interest is the disturbance in Gaul. For the Ædui—"our brethren"124—have recently fought a losing battle, and the Helvetii are undoubtedly in arms and making raids upon our province.125 The senate has decreed that the two consuls should draw lots for the Gauls, that a levy should be held, all exemptions from service be suspended, and legates with full powers be sent to visit the states in Gaul, and see that they do not join the Helvetii. The legates are Quintus Metellus Creticus,126 L. Flaccus,127 and lastly—a case of "rich unguent on lentils"—Lentulus, son of Clodianus.128 And while on this subject I cannot omit mentioning that when among the consulars my name was the first to come up in the ballot, a full meeting of the senate declared with one voice that I must be kept in the city. The same occurred to Pompey after me; so that we two appeared to be kept at home as pledges of the safety of the Republic. Why should I look for the "bravos" of others when I get these compliments at home? Well, the state of affairs in the city is as follows. The agrarian law is being vehemently pushed by the tribune Flavius, with the support of Pompey, but it has nothing popular about it except its supporter. From this law I, with the full assent of a public meeting, proposed to omit all clauses which adversely affected private rights. I proposed to except from its operation such public land as had been so in the consulship of P. Mucius and L. Calpurnius.129 I proposed to confirm the titles of holders of those to whom Sulla had actually assigned lands. I proposed to retain the men of Volaterræ and Arretium—whose lands Sulla had declared forfeited but had not allotted—in their holdings. There was only one section in the bill that I did not propose to omit, namely, that land should be purchased with this money from abroad, the proceeds of the new revenues for the next five years.130 But to this whole agrarian scheme the senate was opposed, suspecting that some novel power for Pompey was aimed at. Pompey, indeed, had set his heart on getting the law passed. I, however, with the full approval of the applicants for land, maintained the holdings of all private owners—for, as you know, the landed gentry form the bulk of our party's forces—while I nevertheless satisfied the people and Pompey (for I wanted to do that also) by the purchase clause; for, if that was put on a sound footing, I thought that two advantages would accrue—the dregs might be drawn from the city, and the deserted portions of Italy be repeopled. But this whole business was interrupted by the war, and has cooled off. Metellus is an exceedingly good consul, and much attached to me. That other one is such a ninny that he clearly doesn't know what to do with his purchase.131 This is all my public news, unless you regard as touching on public affairs the fact that a certain Herennius, a tribune, and a fellow tribesman of yours—a fellow as unprincipled as he is needy—has now begun making frequent proposals for transferring P. Clodius to the plebs; he is vetoed by many of his colleagues. That is really, I think, all the public news.

For my part, ever since I won what I may call the splendid and immortal glory of the famous fifth of December132 (though it was accompanied by the jealousy and hostility of many), I have never ceased to play my part in the Republic in the same lofty spirit, and to maintain the position I then inaugurated and took upon myself. But when, first, by the acquittal of Clodius I clearly perceived the insecurity and rotten state of the law courts; and, secondly, when I saw that it took so little to alienate my friends the publicani from the senate—though with me personally they had no quarrel; and, thirdly, that the rich (I mean your friends the fish-breeders) did not disguise their jealousy of me, I thought I must look out for some greater security and stronger support. So, to begin with, I have brought the man who had been too long silent on my achievements, Pompey himself, to such a frame of mind as not once only in the senate, but many times and in many words, to ascribe to me the preservation of this empire and of the world. And this was not so important to me—for those transactions are neither so obscure as to need testimony, nor so dubious as to need commendation—as to the Republic; for there were certain persons base enough to think that some misunderstanding would arise between me and Pompey from a difference of opinion on these measures. With him I have united myself in such close intimacy that both of us can by this union be better fortified in his own views, and more secure in his political position. However, the dislike of the licentious dandies, which had been roused against me, has been so far softened by a conciliatory manner on my part, that they all combine to show me marked attention. In fine, while avoiding churlishness to anyone, I do not curry favour with the populace or relax any principle; but my whole course of conduct is so carefully regulated, that, while exhibiting an example of firmness to the Republic, in my own private concerns—in view of the instability of the loyalists, the hostility of the disaffected, and the hatred of the disloyal towards me—I employ a certain caution and circumspection, and do not allow myself, after all, to be involved in these new friendships so far but that the famous refrain of the cunning Sicilian frequently sounds in my ears:133

Of my course and way of life, therefore, you see, I think, what may be called a sketch or outline. Of your own business, however, you frequently write to me, but I cannot at the moment supply the remedy you require. For that decree of the senate was passed with the greatest unanimity on the part of the rank and file,134 though without the support of any of us consulars. For as to your seeing my name at the foot of the decree, you can ascertain from the decree itself that the subject put to the vote at the time was a different one, and that this clause about "free peoples" was added without good reason. It was done by P. Servilius the younger,135 who delivered his vote among the last, but it cannot be altered after such an interval of time. Accordingly, the meetings, which at first were crowded, have long ceased to be held. If you have been able, notwithstanding, by your insinuating address to get a trifle of money out of the Sicyonians, I wish you would let me know.136 I have sent you an account of my consulship written in Greek. If there is anything in it which to a genuine Attic like yourself seems to be un-Greek or unscholarly, I shall not say as Lucullus said to you (at Panhormus, was it not?) about his own history, that he had interspersed certain barbarisms and solecisms for the express purpose of proving that it was the work of a Roman. No, if there is anything of that sort in my book, it will be without my knowledge and against my will. When I have finished the Latin version I will send it to you; and thirdly, you may expect a poem on the subject, for I would not have any method of celebrating my praise omitted by myself. In this regard pray do not quote "Who will praise his sire?"137 For if there is anything in the world to be preferred to this, let it receive its due meed of praise, and I mine of blame for not selecting another theme for my praise. However, what I write is not panegyric but history. My brother Quintus clears himself to me in a letter, and asserts that he has never said a disparaging word of you to anyone. But this we must discuss face to face with the greatest care and earnestness: only do come to see me again at last! This Cossinius, to whom I intrust my letter, seems to me a very good fellow, steady, devoted to you, and exactly the sort of man which your letter to me had described.