CICERO
LETTERS TO ATTICUS

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CICERO'S LETTERS
TO ATTICUS
BOOK VII

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I
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I did give L. Saufeius a letter, one for you alone, because, though I had no time to write, I was reluctant that so intimate an acquaintance of yours should come to you without a note from me. But, considering the pace of philosophers, I imagine the present letter will reach you first. If, however, you have got that earlier letter now, you will know that I arrived at Athens on Oct. 14; that on disembarking at the port I received your letter from our friend Acastus; that, perturbed though I was at your arrival in Rome with a fever, nevertheless I began to take heart at Acastus' welcome announcement of your convalescence; but shivered myself at your news of Caesar's legions, and pleaded with you to beware lest friend Philotimus' time-serving injure us.[2] As for the point I touched on long ago (misrepresented to you by Turranius at Brundisium, as I gathered from a letter received from that good fellow Xeno), I set forth briefly the reason why I had not put my brother in charge of the province. Those practically were the topics of that letter. Now hear what remains.

In heaven's name, I want all the affection which you have lavished on me, and all your worldly

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wisdom, which I swear to my mind is unrivalled in every subject, to be devoted to a careful estimate of my whole position. For myself, I seem to foresee a terrific struggle, unless indeed the same god, who wrought above my boldest hopes in freeing us from a Parthian war, take pity on the state—anyhow, such a terrific struggle as there never has been before. True, the calamity would fall not only on me, but on every one. I don't ask you to consider the wider problem: solve my own little case, I entreat. Don't you see that it is you who are responsible for my friendship with both Pompey and Caesar? Ah, would that I had listened to your friendly admonitions from the outset.

"Thou couldst not sway the spirit in my breast."

But at last, however, you persuaded me to be friendly with the one, because he had done so much for me; with the other, because he was so powerful. Well, I did so, and I have studiously contrived to be particularly dear to both of them. For my idea was this. Allied with Pompey, I should never have to be guilty of political impropriety; and, siding with Caesar, I should not have to fight with Pompey. So close was the alliance of those two. But now, on your showing and in my view, there threatens a dire struggle between them. Each of them counts me his friend—unless, perhaps, Caesar is dissembling; for Pompey has no doubt, rightly supposing that his present political views have my strongest approval. But both have sent me letters (which came with yours) in terms that would appear to make more of me than of anyone at all. But what am I to do? I don't mean in the long run. If the matter is to be fought in the

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field, I see it would be better to be beaten with Pompey than to win with Caesar. But what about the points in debate on my arrival—refusing the claims of a candidate who is away from Rome and ordering the disbanding of his army. "Your opinion, Marcus Tullius," will be the question. What am I to say? "Please wait till I meet Atticus?" There is no chance of evasion. I speak against Caesar? "Where then the pledge of plighted hands?"[4] For I assisted in getting Caesar privilege on these two points, when I was asked by him personally at Ravenna to approach Caelius the tribune to propose a bill. Asked by him personally, do I say? Yes, and by our friend Pompey in that immortal third consulship.

Shall I choose the other course? "I fear" not only Pompey, but "the men and long-robed dames of Troy": "Polydamas will be the first to rail."[5] Who's he? Why, you, who praise my work and writings. Have I then avoided this trap during the last two consulships of the Marcelli, when the matter of Caesar's province was under debate, only to fall now into the thick of the trouble? That some fool may have the first vote on the motion, I feel strongly inclined to devote my energies to my triumph, a most reasonable excuse for staying outside the city. Nevertheless they will try to extract my opinion. Perhaps this will excite your mirth: I wish to goodness I were still staying in my province. I certainly ought to have stayed, if this was coming: though it would have been most wretched. For by the way

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there is one thing I want to tell you. All that show of virtue at first, which even you praised sky high in your letters, was only superficial. Truly righteousness is hard: hard even to pretend to it for long. For, when I thought it a fine show of rectitude to leave my quaestor C. Caelius a year's cash out of what was decreed me for my budget and to pay back into the treasury £8,800,[6] my staff, thinking all the money should have been distributed among them, lamented that I should turn out to be more friendly to the treasuries of Phrygia and Cilicia than to our own. I was unmoved: for I set my good name before everything. Yet there is no possible honour that I have omitted to bestow on any of these knaves. This, in Thucydides' phrase, is a digression—but not pointless.

But as to my position. You will consider first by what trick I can retain Caesar's good will: and then the matter of my triumph, which, barring political obstacles, seems to me easy to get: I infer as much from letters from friends and from that business of the public thanksgiving in my honour. For the man who voted against it,[7] voted for more than if he had voted for all the triumphs in the world; moreover his adherents were one a friend of mine, Favonius, and another an enemy, Hirrus. Cato both took part in drafting the decree, and sent me a most agreeable letter about his vote. But Caesar, in writing to congratulate me over the thanksgiving, exults over Cato's vote, says nothing about the latter's speech on the occasion, and merely remarks that he opposed the proclamation of a thanksgiving.

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I come back to Hirrus. You have begun to reconcile him to me; accomplish it. Scrofa and Silius are on your side. I have already written to them and to Hirrus himself. For Hirrus had told them in a friendly way that he could easily have prevented the decree, but was reluctant; that, however, he had sided with Cato, my very good friend, when the latter recorded a vote complimenting me in the highest terms. Hirrus added that I had omitted to write to him, though I had sent letters to every one else. He was right. It was only to him and to Crassipes that I did not write. So much for public life. Let us come home.

I wish to dissociate myself from that fellow Philotimus. He is a veritable muddler, a regular Lartidius[8].

"A truce to what is past for all our pain."[9]

Let us settle what remains; and first this point, which adds anxiety to my sorrow. This sum, I mean, whatever it is, which comes from Precius, I do not want mixed up with the accounts of mine of which that fellow has the handling. I have written to Terentia and to Philotimus himself that I shall deposit with you any moneys I may collect, for the equipment of the triumph I anticipate. So I fancy there will be no amour propre wounded: but as they like. Here is another matter for your consideration—the steps I am to take to arrange this business. You outlined them in a letter dated from Epirus or Athens, and I will support your plan.

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II
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I arrived at Brundisium on the 24th of November after enjoying your proverbial luck at sea: so fair for me "blew from Epirus the softest of breezes, Onchesmites." There, that verse with its spondaic ending you can pass off for your own on any of our new school of poets[10] you like. Your health causes me great anxiety; for I see from your letter that you really suffer. But, knowing your spirit, I strongly suspect there is something serious which compels you to give in and nearly causes a breakdown, although your Pamphilus tells me that one fit of quartan has passed, and that a second and lighter attack is coming on. But Terentia (who reached Brundisium's gates as I reached the harbour, and met me in the forum) told me that L. Pontius had informed her at Trebula that the second attack also had abated. If that is so, my utmost hopes are realized, and I expect that consummation has been attained by your caution and moderate habits.

I come to your letters, which have reached me in shoals, each more delightful than the last—I mean those in your own handwriting. I like Alexis' hand; it so closely resembles your own script; but there is one thing I do not like about it—it shows that you are ill. Talking of Alexis, I left Tiro sick at Patrae; he is, as you know, a young man, and you may add, if you like, an honest fellow. Nothing

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could be better than Tiro. So I miss him terribly, and, though he did not seem very bad, still I am anxious, and build great hopes on the care of M'. Curius, about which Tiro has written and many people have told me. Curius himself was aware of your desire that he should win my esteem: and I am greatly charmed with him. Indeed he is one of nature's gentlemen, whom it is easy to like. I carry home his will sealed with the seals of three of my family and of the praetor's staff. In the presence of witnesses he made you heir to a tenth of his estate and me to a fortieth.[12] At Actium in Corcyra Alexio made me a splendid present. Q. Cicero could not be stopped from seeing the river Thyamis. I am glad you take delight in your baby daughter, and have satisfied yourself that a desire for children is natural.[13] For, if it is not, there can be no natural tie between man and man; remove that tie, and social life is destroyed. "Heaven bless the consequence," says Carneades naughtily, but with more wisdom than our philosophers Lucius and Patron, who in sticking to selfish hedonism and denying altruism, and saying that man must be virtuous for fear of the consequences of vice and not because virtue is an end in itself, fail to see that they are describing a type not of goodness but of craftiness. But these points, I think, are handled in the volumes[14] you have encouraged me by praising.

I return to business. How I looked for the letter

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you said was entrusted to Philoxenus! For it was to contain news of Pompey's talk at Naples. Patron handed it to me at Brundisium. It was at Corcyra, I fancy, he had taken charge of it. Nothing could be more delightful. It touched on politics, the great man's opinion of my honour, the kindliness he displayed in his remarks about my triumph. But the most delightful item of all was the intelligence that you had called on him to find out his feeling towards me. This, I repeat, was what I found most delightful. As for a triumph, I had no desire for one up to the time Bibulus sent his shameless despatches and got a thanksgiving voted in the most complimentary way. Now, if he had done what he professed to have done, I should have been glad and supported the honour; but, as it is, it is a disgrace to us—to both of us: for I include you in the business—that I, on whose army his army relied, should not get the same rewards as a man who never set foot outside the city gates so long as there was an enemy this side of Euphrates. Therefore I shall make every effort, and, as I hope, shall succeed. If you were well, some points would have been settled already; but I hope you will soon be well.

For that twopenny debt to Numerius I am much bounden to you. I long to know what Hortensius has done about my triumph and what Cato is doing. Cato's behaviour to me was shamefully spiteful. He gave me a character for rectitude, equity, clemency, and good faith, for which I did not ask; what I did want, that he denied me. Accordingly in his letter of congratulation and lavish assurances, how Caesar exults over the wrong Cato did me by his deep ingratitude! Yet Cato voted Bibulus a twenty days'

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festival. Forgive me, I cannot and I will not bear it.

I long to answer all your letters; but there is no need, for soon I shall see you. Still I must tell you about Chrysippus—the conduct of that other fellow, a mere mechanic, excites my surprise less, though it could not have been more scandalous. But Chrysippus, whom I was always glad to see and held in honour, because he had a smattering of culture, fancy him deserting my son without my knowledge! I can put up with other things, though I hear of plenty, I can even put up with embezzlement; but I cannot put up with his flight. It is the most scandalous thing I ever heard of. So I have taken a leaf from Drusus' book, when, in his praetorship, as the story goes, a man, who had been manumitted, refused to take the oaths he had promised: and I have denied that those fellows ever were freed by me, especially as there were no legal witnesses to the transaction. Take it any way you will: I will abide by your decision.

The only one of your letters, which I have not answered, is the most eloquent of them all, dealing with the country's peril. I have no answer to make: I am very much upset. But the Parthians, whose sudden retreat left Bibulus half dead with fright, have taught me not to be much alarmed at anything.

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III
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On the 6th of December I came to Aeculanum, and there I read your letter, which Philotimus handed to me. I was pleased at the first glance to see it was

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in your handwriting; and I was highly delighted at the care and attention it showed. First you say that you disagree with Dicaearchus.[15] Now, though I was exceedingly anxious, and that with your approval, not to stay in my province more than a year, it was not my own efforts that gained the point. For you should know that no word was ever said in the House about any of us provincial governors outstaying the term of our appointment; so that now I am not to be blamed even for making a shorter stay in my province than was perhaps to my advantage. But "all for the best" is an apt saying, as it is in this case. For, if peace can be patched up, or the loyalists can be made to win the victory, I should be sorry not to assist or at any rate have a hand in the matter. But, if the loyalists are conquered, I should share their defeat wherever I were. So my speedy return ought not to cost me any regret. If this idea of a triumph that you approve had not come into my head, you would find me not far short of the ideal statesman I sketched in the sixth volume.[16] What would you have me do, you devourer of those books of mine? Even now I will not hesitate to throw away my great ambition, if that course is better. One cannot of course play both parts at once, the selfish candidate for triumph and the independent politician. But doubt not that I shall take honesty to be my best policy. As for your point that it were better for me, whether for my private safety, or for the public welfare, that I should retain my command, we will talk it over together. It is a matter for deliberation,

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though I agree with you in the main. You do well not to doubt my attitude towards politics: and you judge rightly that Caesar has not been liberal to me considering my services, and considering his lavishness towards others. You explain his reasons rightly: I am in the same boat with Fabius and Caninius,[17] as your letter shows. But if things were otherwise and he had been profuse in his generosity towards me, nevertheless the goddess you mention, the guardian of the city, would have compelled me to remember her fine inscription, and would not allow me to imitate Volcacius or Servius,[18] with whom you are content, but would wish me to express and maintain a policy worthy of my name. And I should have done it, if I could, in a different way from the way I must adopt now.

It is for their own power men are fighting now to the danger of the country. For if the constitution is being defended, why was it not defended when Caesar himself was consul? Why was I, on whose case the safety of the constitution depended, not defended in the following year? Why was Caesar's command prolonged, or why was it prolonged in such a fashion? Why was there such a struggle to get the ten tribunes to bring in a bill allowing him to stand in his absence? All this has made him so strong that now hope of resistance depends on one citizen. I wish that citizen had not given him so much power rather than that he now resisted him in the hour of

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his strength. But since things have come to such a pass, I shall not ask, to borrow your quotation,

"Where is the bark of Atreus' sons?"[19]

My only bark will be that which has Pompey for a pilot. For your query "What will happen when the question is put 'Your vote, Marcus Tullius'"—briefly "I vote with Pompey." Still I shall exhort Pompey privately to pacific measures. I feel that there is the greatest danger. You, who are in town, will know more. Yet I see that we have to do with a man of the greatest daring and readiness, who has on his side all the criminal and social outcasts, and all who deserve to be counted criminals and outcasts; nearly all the younger generation; all the lowest city rabble; the powerful tribunes including C. Cassius; all the insolvent, who are more in number than I imagined. All his cause wants is a good cause: it has everything else in plenty. On our side we all do everything to avoid battle. You can never be sure of the issue of war, and it is to be feared it would go against us now.

Bibulus has quitted the province and left Veiento in charge: he will be pretty slow, I hear, on his journey. This is the man in whose praise Cato spoke, when he declared that the only people he did not envy were those who could not be raised higher or not much higher.

To come to private matters: for I have fairly answered your letter on the political situation, both the one you wrote in your town villa and the one you wrote later. Now for private matters. But one word about Caelius. So far is he from affecting my

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view, that I think he must be sorry he changed his own. But what is this story of Lucceius' property being knocked down to him? I wonder you passed that over. As for Philotimus I shall take your advice. But I was not expecting from him the accounts, which he gave you: I was expecting the balance, which he wished me to enter in my note-book with my own hand at Tusculum, and for which he gave me in Asia a certificate in his own hand. If he should pay up all the money he told you was owing to me, he would still owe me as much again and even more. But, if only politics will allow, I shall not incur blame hereafter in matters of this kind. Indeed I have not been careless hitherto; but my time has been taken up by a crowd of friends. I shall therefore have your industry and advice, as you promise, and I hope I shall not be troublesome in the matter. You have no reason to lament the treatment that I meted to my crooked staff.[20] They pulled themselves together in amaze at my honesty. But nobody surprised me more than the man whom you think a nobody. From first to last he was and is splendid. But just at my departure he showed me that he had hoped for some reward; and yet he did not long cling to the idea which had entered his mind, but quickly came to himself again, and overwhelmed by the honours I had done him, regarded them as of more worth than any money.

I have received his will from Curius and bring it with me. I know the legacies Hortensius has to pay. Now I want to know the metal of the man, and what properties he is putting up for sale. When

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Caelius has taken the Porta Flumentana,[22] I don't see why I should not make Puteoli mine.

Coming to the form Piraeea, I am more to be blamed for writing it thus and not Piraeum in Latin, as all our people do, than I am for adding the preposition "in." I used "in" as before a word signifying a place and not a town. After all Dionysius and Nicias of Cos, who is with me, do not consider that the Piraeus is a town. I will look into the question. If I have made a mistake, it is in speaking of it not as a town but as a place, and I have authority. I do not depend on a quotation from Caecilius: "Máne ut ex portu in Piraeum,"[23] as he is a poor authority in Latinity; but I will quote Terence, whose fine style caused his plays to be ascribed to C. Laelius "Heri áliquot adulescéntuli coíimus in Piraeum," and again: "Mercátor hoc addébat, captam e Súnio."[24] If we want to call parishes towns, Sunium is as much a town as the Piraeus. But, since you are a purist, you will save me a lot of trouble, if you can solve the problem for me.

Caesar sends me a friendly letter. Balbus does the same on his account. Certainly I shall not swerve a finger's breadth from the strictest honour; but you know how much I still owe him. Don't you think there is fear that this may be cast in my teeth, if I am slack; and repayment demanded from me, if I am energetic? What solution is there?

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"Pay up," say you. Well, I will borrow from the bank.[28] But there is a point you might consider. If I ever make a notable speech in the House on behalf of the constitution, your friend from Tarshish[29] will be pretty sure to say to me as I go out: "Kindly send me a draft."

Anything else? Yes. My son-in-law is agreeable to me, to Tullia, and to Terentia. He has any amount of native charm or shall I say culture: and that is enough. We must put up with the faults you know of. For you know what we have found the others to be on inspection. All of them except the one with whom you negotiated for us would get me into the law courts. No one will lend them money on their own security. But this when we meet: it is a long story. My hope of Tiro's recovery lies in M'. Curius. I have written to him that he will be doing you the greatest favour.

Dec. 9, at Pontius' villa at Trebula.

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IV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Dionysius burned to be with you, so I sent him, with some misgivings I must admit; but it had to be. I knew him before to be a scholar: I find him very obliging, careful of my good name, an honest fellow, and, not to give him a mere freedman's character, evidently a man of honour. Pompey I interviewed on the 10th of December. We were together a matter of two hours: he seemed greatly delighted with

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my arrival, encouraged me about my triumph, promised to do his part, warned me not to enter the House till my business was finished, for fear I should make an enemy of some tribune by the opinions I expressed. In short, promises could go no further. As to the political situation, he hinted certain war, without hope of agreement. It appeared that, though he had long understood there was a split between himself and Caesar, he had had very recent proof of it. Hirtius, a very intimate friend of Caesar's, had come and had not called on Pompey. Besides Hirtius had arrived on the evening of the 6th of December and Balbus had arranged a meeting with Pompey's father-in-law before daybreak on the 7th to discuss affairs, when, lo, late on the night before, Hirtius set out to go to Caesar. This seemed to Pompey proof positive of a split. In a word I have no consolation except the thought, that, when even his enemies have renewed his term of office and fortune has bestowed on him supreme power, Caesar will not be so mad as to jeopardize these advantages. If he begins to run amuck, my fears are more than I can commit to paper. As things are, I meditate a visit to town on the 3rd of January.

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V
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

A number of your letters have reached me at the same time: and, although visitors bring me later news, they are delightful, as they show your affection and good will. I am concerned about your illness, and I suppose Pilia's attack of the same complaint will increase

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your trouble. Both of you do your best to get well. As for Tiro I see you are attending to him. Though when in health, he is marvellously useful to me in every department of business and literature, it is not a selfish motive, but his own charming character and modest bearing that prompts my hope for his recovery. Philogenes has never said anything to me about Luscenius. As for other matters Dionysius is with you. I am astonished your sister has not come to Arcanum. I am glad you approve my plan about Chrysippus. I shall not go to Tusculum at such a time as this, not I. It is out of the way for chance rencontres and has other drawbacks. But from Formiae I go to Tarracina on the last of December. Thence to the upper end of the Pomptine marsh: thence to Pompey's Alban villa: and so to Rome on the 3rd, my birthday.

The political crisis is causing me greater fear every day. The loyalists are not, as is imagined, in agreement. I have met numbers of Roman knights, and numbers of Members, ready to inveigh bitterly against everything and especially this journey of Pompey's. Peace is our want. Victory will bring many evils, and without doubt a tyrant. But this we shall soon discuss together. I have no news at all now: each of us knows as much as the other about political affairs, and domestic details are for us common knowledge.

All one can do is to jest—if he will allow it. For I am one who thinks it better to agree to his demands than to enter upon war. It is late to resist him, when for ten years we have nurtured this viper in our bosom. Then you ask my view. It is the same as yours; and I shall express none till my own affairs

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are concluded or abandoned. So be sure to get well. Apply some of your wonderful capacity for taking pains to shaking off the fever.

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VI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have positively no news: all mine is known to you; and there is none that I can look for from you. Only let me preserve my old ceremony of letting no visitor go to you without a letter. My fears as to the political situation are great. And so far I have found hardly a man who would not yield to Caesar's demand sooner than fight. That demand, it is true, is shameless, but stronger than we thought. But why should we choose this occasion to begin resisting?

"No greater evil threatens now"

than when we prolonged his office for another five years; or when we agreed to let him stand as a candidate in his absence. But perhaps we were then giving him these weapons to turn against us now. You will say; "What then will your view be?" My view will not be what I shall say; for my view will be that every step should be taken to avoid a conflict; but I shall say the same as Pompey, nor shall I be actuated by subserviency. But again it is a very great calamity to the state, and in a way improper to me beyond others to differ from Pompey in matters of such importance.

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VII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

"Dionysius, an excellent fellow—as I too have found him—a good scholar and your very stanch friend, arrived in Rome on the 16th of December, and gave me a letter from you." That's all you say about Dionysius in your letter. You do not add "and he expressed his gratitude to you." Yet certainly he ought to have done so, and, if he had, you would have added it with your usual good nature. I cannot make a volte face about him, owing to the character I gave him in the former letter. Let us call him then an honest fellow. He has done me one kindness at any rate in giving me this further chance to know him thoroughly. Philogenes is correct in what he wrote: he duly settled his debt. I wanted him to use the money as long as he could; so he has used it for 14 months. I hope Pomptinus is getting well. You mention his entrance into town. I am somewhat anxious as to what it means: he would not have entered the city except for some good reason. As the 2nd of January is a holiday, I don't wish to reach Pompey's Alban villa on that date for fear I should be a nuisance to his household. I shall go there on the 3rd, and then visit the city on the 4th. I forget on what day the fever will attack you again; but I would not have you stir to the damage of your health.

As for my triumph, unless Caesar has been secretly intriguing through his tribune partisans, all else seems smooth and easy. My mind is absolutely at ease, and I regard the whole business with indifference, especially as many people tell me that Pompey and his advisers

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have determined to send me to Sicily, because I still have military powers. That is a muddle-headed plan.[30] For neither has the House decreed, nor the people authorized me to have military power in Sicily. If the state delegates the appointment to Pompey, why should he send me rather than any unofficial person? So, if this military power is going to be a nuisance, I shall get rid of it by entering the first city gate I see. As for your news that there is a wonderful interest in my arrival and that none of the "right or right enough party" doubt as to my future action, I don't understand your phrase "the right party." I don't know of such a party, that is if we look for a class; of course there are individuals. But in political splits it is classes and parties we want. Do you think the Senate is "right," when it has left our provinces without military rule? For Curio could never have held out, if there had been negotiations with him—a proposal rejected by the House, which left Caesar without a successor. Is it the tax-collectors, who have never been loyal and are now very friendly with Caesar? Or is it the financiers or the farmers, whose chief desire is peace? Do you suppose they will fear a king, when they never declined one so long as they were left in peace? Well then, do I approve of the candidature of a man who keeps his army beyond the legal term? No, not even of his candidature in absence. But when the one privilege was granted, the other went with it. Do I then approve of the extension of his military power for ten years, and that carried as it was carried? Then I should have to approve of my own banishment, the throwing away of the Campanian land on the people, the adoption

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of a patrician by a plebeian, of that gentleman of Gades by the man of Mytilene.[31] And I should have to approve of the wealth of Labienus and Mamurra and the gardens and Tusculan estate of Balbus. But the source of all these evils is one. We ought to have resisted him when he was weak: that would have been easy. Now there are eleven legions, cavalry as much as he wants, the northern tribes across the Po, the city riff-raff, all the tribunes of the people, the young profligates, a leader of such influence and daring. We must either fight him or allow his candidature according to the law. "Fight," say you, "rather than be slaves." The result will be proscription if beaten and slavery even if one wins. "What shall I do then?" What the cattle do, who when scattered follow flocks of their own kind. As an ox follows the herd, so shall I follow the "right party," or whoever are said to be the "right party," even if they rush to destruction. The best course in our straits is clear to me. No one can tell the issue of war: but every one can tell that, if the right party are beaten, Caesar will not be more merciful than Cinna in slaying the nobility, nor more moderate than Sulla in robbing the rich. I have discussed la haute politique long enough, and I would do so longer, had not my lamp gone out. The end is "Your vote, Marcus Tullius." I vote with Pompey, that is with Titus Pomponius.

Please remember me to Alexis, a very clever boy, unless perhaps in my absence he has become a man, as he threatened to do.

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VIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

There was no need for you to give such strong assurances about Dionysius. A hint from you would have satisfied me. But your silence gave me all the more reason for suspicion, because you are used to cement friendships with good-natured assurances, and because I heard that he used different language about us to others. However, your letter convinces me. So I behave to him exactly as you wish.

Your bad day too I had noted from a letter you wrote at the beginning of your feverishness, and I had calculated that under the circumstances you could conveniently meet me at the Alban villa on the 3rd of January. But please do nothing to affect your health. A day or two will make no difference.

Dolabella, I see, by Livia's will shares a third of her estate with two others, but is asked to change his name. It is a social problem whether it is proper for a young noble to change his name under a lady's will. But we can determine that on more scientific grounds, when we know to how much a third of a third amounts.

Your guess that I should meet Pompey before coming to Rome has come true. On the 25th he overtook me near the Lavernium. We reached Formiae together, and were closeted together from two o'clock till evening. For your query as to the chance of a peaceful settlement, so far as I could tell from Pompey's full and detailed discourse, he does not even want peace. Pompey thinks that the constitution will be subverted even if Caesar is elected consul without

[Pg 47]

an army; and he fancies that when Caesar hears of the energetic preparations against him, he will give up the idea of the consulship this year, and prefer to keep his army and his province. Still, if Caesar should play the fool, Pompey has an utter contempt for him, and firm confidence in his own and the state's resources. Well, although the "uncertainty of war" came constantly into my mind, I was relieved of anxiety as I listened to a soldier, a strategist, and a man of the greatest influence discoursing in a statesmanlike way on the risks of a hollow peace. We had before us a speech of Antony made on the 21st of December, which attacked Pompey from boyhood, complained about the condemnation of certain people and threatened war. Pompey's comment was "What do you suppose Caesar will do, if he becomes master of the state, when a wretched, insignificant subordinate dares to talk in this strain?" In a word, he appeared not only not to seek peace, but even to fear it. But I fancy the idea of leaving the city shakes his resolution. What annoys me most is that I have to pay up to Caesar, and devote to the purpose what I should have used for my triumph. It is bad form to owe money to a political opponent. But this and many other topics can wait till we meet.

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IX
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

You ask if you are going to get a letter from me every day. Every day, if I can find a messenger. True I am at hand myself. Well, I will stop writing

[Pg 49]

when I arrive. I see I have missed one of your letters: my friend L. Quinctius was wounded and robbed near the tomb of Basilus, while he was bringing it. So you must see if there was any news in it I ought to have, and you shall solve me this inevitable problem of politics to boot. It may be necessary for us to admit Caesar as a candidate while he keeps his army, be it by the favour of the House or the tribunes. Or we may have to persuade him to take office on condition of giving up his province and his troops. Or, if he will not yield to persuasion on that point, we may refuse to admit him as a candidate at the election, and he may endure the treatment and keep his province. Or, if he employs the tribunes to interfere, yet keeps the peace, a political deadlock may be brought about. Or, if he uses force, because we reject him as a candidate, we may have to fight and he may begin at once before we are ready, or when his friends fail to get his candidature allowed at the elections in accordance with his legal privilege. He may resort to arms solely on account of his rejection as a candidate, or for a further reason, if a tribune through using obstructionist tactics or an appeal to popular feeling incur a censure or a limitation of power or suspension or expulsion from office, or if some tribune fly to him with a tale of expulsion. War begun, we must either hold the city or abandon it and cut him off from food and supplies. Of these evils some one must be borne: consider which in your opinion is the lightest. Of course you will say, "Induce him to give up his army and so take the consulship." True there can be no objection to that, if he will condescend, and I wonder he does not, if he cannot get his candidature supported

[Pg 51]

while he keeps his army. But for us some think that nothing could be worse than Caesar in office. You may say, "Better so, than with an army." Certainly: but Pompey thinks that very "so" fatal, and there is no remedy for it. "We must submit to Caesar's will." But imagine him in office again after your experience of his former tenure. You will reflect that, weak as he was, he was too strong for the constitution. What about him now? And now, if Caesar is consul, Pompey will remain in Spain. What a plight! since the worst of all is the very alternative which we cannot refuse him, and the one which, if he takes it, will of itself win him the favour of the right party. This course it is said he will not accept; let us put it out of court. Which is the worst of the remaining alternatives? To concede his impertinent demand, as Pompey terms it? Impertinent it is indeed. You have had a province for ten years, not allotted by the Senate, but by yourself through force and insubordination. This term, not a legal term, but a term of your own will and pleasure—or say, this legal term—comes to an end. The House passes a decree for the appointment of a successor. You object and cry, "Consider my candidature." Consider our case. Are you to dare the House and keep your army longer than the nation sanctions? "You must fight or yield." Then as Pompey says, let us hope for victory, or death with freedom. If we must fight, the time depends on chance, the plan of campaign on circumstances. So I do not trouble you on that point. But make any suggestion you can on my remarks. Day and night I am tormented.

[Pg 53]

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X
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have suddenly determined to leave town before daybreak, so that I may escape sightseers and gossips, especially with my bay-decked lictors. For the rest, what to do now or later, upon my word, I do not know: I am so upset by our rash and lunatic policy. What advice can I offer you, when it is to you I look for advice? I know not what plan Pompey has made or is making: so far he is cooped up in the towns, paralysed. If he makes his stand in Italy, we shall all be together: if he retires, it will be a matter for debate. So far certainly, unless I have lost my wits, his policy has been rash and foolish. Please write to me often, just what comes into your head.

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XI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

What in the name of wonder is this? What is happening? I am in the dark. People say, "Cingulum is ours, Ancona is lost, Labienus has deserted from Caesar." Are we talking of a Roman officer or of Hannibal? Wretched madman never to have seen the shadow even of right! Yet all this, he says, is done to support his honour. Can there be honour without honesty: and is it honest to retain an army without sanction, to seize the cities of your country that you may strike the better at her heart, to contrive abolition of debts, the restoration of exiles, and scores of other crimes,

[Pg 55]

"To win God's greatest gift, a crown?"

Well, let him keep his fortune. For my part, let me bask one hour in your clime's free gift of[35] sunlight, rather than win any kingdom of that sort. Better a thousand times to die than once to meditate such villainy. "Suppose you conceive a desire for it," you say. Desire is free to anyone; but I would rather be crucified than have such a desire. There is only one worse fate, to obtain your desire. But enough of this. It eases me to philosophize a trifle in our present straits.

To come back to Pompey. What, in heaven's name, do you think of his plan? I mean his desertion of Rome. I don't know what to make of it. Besides nothing could be more ridiculous. Leave the city? Would you then have done the same if the Gauls were coming? He may object that the state does not consist of lath and plaster. But it does consist of hearths and altars. "Themistocles abandoned Athens." Yes, because one city could not stand the flood of all the barbarians of the East. But Pericles did not desert her about fifty years later, though he held nothing but the walls. Once too our ancestors lost the rest of Rome, but they kept the citadel.

On the other hand to judge from the indignation in the towns and the talk of my acquaintances, it looks to me as if Pompey's flight would be a success. Here there is an extraordinary outcry (whether in

[Pg 57]

Rome also, I do not know: please tell me) at the city being left without magistrates and without the House. In fact Pompey's flight has made a marvellous stir. Men's attitude is really quite different: they object to any concession to Caesar. Explain to me what it all means.

My task is peaceful. Pompey wishes me to act as surveyor over the whole of the Campanian coast, to superintend the levy and all important business. So I expect to be a wanderer. I imagine you realize Caesar's policy, the temper of the people and the condition of affairs. Pray keep me informed, and, since things are in a changeable condition, as often as possible. It soothes me to write to you and read your letters.

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XII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

So far I have received one letter from you dated the 19th. In it you state that you sent me another; but it has not reached me. I entreat you, write to me as often as possible, not only what you shall know or hear, but even anything you may suspect; and especially give me your opinion as to what I ought or ought not to do. As to your request for information on Pompey's policy, I don't think he knows himself; certainly none of us know. I saw Lentulus the consul at Formiae on the 21st. I saw Libo. Everywhere there is panic and confusion. Pompey is on the road to Larinum; for there are cohorts there and also at Luceria and Teanum and in the rest of Apulia. No one knows whether he

[Pg 59]

will make a stand anywhere or cross the sea. If he remains in Italy, I fear it is impossible for him to have a reliable army. If he leaves Italy, where he will go or stay, and what we are to do I don't know. For I imagine that Caesar, whom you fear may be a Phalaris, will stick at no abominations. He will not be deterred by adjournment of public business, the departure of members and magistrates and the closure of the treasury. But, as you say, we shall know soon.

Meanwhile forgive me for writing so much and so often; it soothes me, and I wish to extract letters from you, and especially advice as to where to go and what to do. Shall I give myself up heart and soul to the good cause? I am not terrified by the danger, but tortured by the anguish. To think that everything has been done with such a lack of plan, or so contrary to my plan! Or shall I hesitate and play the turncoat, and join the party that holds the field? "I fear the Trojans," and I am held back not only by my duty as a citizen, but by my duty as a friend; though I am often shaken by pity for the boys. So write a line to me in my distress, although you have the same worries; and especially as to what you think I should do, if Pompey leaves Italy. I have met M'. Lepidus and he draws the line there; so does L. Torquatus. There are many obstacles before me, including my lictors. I have never seen such an intricate tangle. So I do not look to you for positive advice: but only for your opinion. In fact I want to know how the dilemma presents itself to you. It is practically certain that Labienus has left Caesar. If it could have been arranged that he could meet magistrates and Senate on his arrival at

[Pg 61]

Rome, he would have been of great service to our cause. Loyalty it would have appeared had made him regard his friend a traitor: it appears so as it is, but it is of less use. For there is no cause to serve, and I imagine that he is sorry at leaving Caesar, unless perhaps the report is false. Myself I think it true.

And please give me a sketch of city affairs, though according to your account you keep to your house. Is Pompey missed? Does Caesar seem disliked? What do you think about Terentia and Tullia? Should they remain in Rome, or join me, or seek some refuge? On these and any other topics pray write to me, I mean write often.

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XIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

In the matter of Vennonius I agree with you. Labienus I consider a hero. There has been no public action of such distinction for a long time. If he has done nothing else, he has at least hurt Caesar's feelings. But I think he has served our main interests as well. I am delighted too with Piso. His judgement on his son-in-law[36] should carry weight. However, you see the nature of our struggle. It is civil war, though it has not sprung from division among our citizens, but from daring of one abandoned citizen. He is strong in military forces, he attracts adherents by hopes and promises, he covets the whole universe. Rome is delivered to him stripped of defenders, stocked with supplies: one may

[Pg 63]

fear anything from a man who regards her temples and her homes not as his native land, but as his loot. What he will do, and how he will do it, in the absence of House and magistrates, I do not know. He will be unable even to pretend constitutional methods. But where can our party raise its head or when? You, too, remark how poor a soldier our leader is; why, he did not even know how things were in Picenum; and the crisis shows his lack of policy. Pass over other faults of the last ten years. What compromise were not better than this flight? I do not know what he is thinking of doing now, though I inquire by constant letters. It is agreed that his alarm and confusion has reached the limit. He was kept in Italy to garrison Rome, but no garrison or place to post a garrison can I see. We depend entirely on two legions that were kept here by a trick, and are practically disloyal. For so far the levy has found unwilling recruits, afraid of war. But the time of compromise is passed. The future is obscure. We, or our leader, have brought things to such a pass, that having put to sea without a rudder, we must trust to the mercy of the storm.

So I hesitate what to do with the boys. Sometimes I think of sending them to Greece. As for Tullia and Terentia, when I picture the approach of the barbarians on Rome, I am terrified. But the thought of Dolabella is some small relief to my mind. Please consider my best course, in the first place with an eye to safety, for their safety stands on a different footing to mine, and then with regard to possible criticism, if I leave them in Rome, when the loyal are all in flight. Even you and Peducaeus must be careful what you do, as he writes to me. For your

[Pg 65]

eminence is such that people will expect the same from you as from the most distinguished citizens. But you are capable of looking after yourself. Why, it is to you that I look for advice about myself and my family.

For the rest, you must discover, as far as you can, what is happening, and write to me. Add your conjectures, too, for I look forward still more eagerly to them. Anybody can inform me of what has happened. From you I hope to hear what will happen. "The prince of seers...."[38] Pardon my chatter. It is a relief to write to you, and it gets me a letter from you. I am at a loss to explain your riddle about the Oppii of Velia; it is darker than Plato's number.[39]

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XIIIa
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I understand it now, you call those pursy Oppii the bagmen of Velia.[40] I was in doubt for a long time. But the riddle solved, the rest became clear, and tallied with Terentia's reckoning. I met L. Caesar at Menturnae on the morning of the 23rd of January with the most ridiculous commission. He is not a man, but a broom untied. I imagine that Caesar is mocking us by sending such a commissioner on so important business; but perhaps the fellow has no

[Pg 67]

authority, and is palming off some chance conversation as a commission.

Labienus, my hero, arrived at Teanum on the 22nd, where he met Pompey and the consuls. As soon as I have positive news, I will inform you of what they have said and done. Pompey set out from Teanum for Larinum on the 23rd. He spent that day at Venafrum. At last Labienus has given us some encouragement, but I have no news from this quarter. Rather I expect news from you of Caesar's doings, how he takes Labienus' desertion, what Domitius is doing among the Marsi, Thermus at Iguvium, and P. Attius at Cingulum, what is the city's feeling, and what are your views as to the future. Please write me often on these topics, and give me your opinion about my women-folk and your own intentions. Were I writing myself this letter would have been longer, but I dictate it owing to inflammation of the eyes.

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XIV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On the 25th of January, setting out from Cales to Capua, I write this letter, though still suffering from slight inflammation of the eyes. L. Caesar brought Caesar's ultimatum to Pompey on the 23rd, while Pompey was at Teanum with the consuls. His conditions were accepted with the reservation that he should withdraw his garrison from the towns he has occupied outside his own province. That done, they said, we would return to Rome and settle business in the House. I hope for the present we may have peace: Caesar is rather sorry for his madness, and Pompey

[Pg 69]

is uneasy as to our forces. I am wanted at Capua to assist the levy. The settlers in Campania are hanging back. As for Caesar's professional fighting men at Capua, about whom I misinformed you on the authority of A. Torquatus, Pompey has very cleverly distributed them two a-piece to heads of families. There were 5,000 heavy armed gladiators in the school. They were said to meditate a sortie. Pompey's was a wise provision for the safety of the state.

As for my women-folk, among whom is your sister, I entreat you to consider the propriety of their stay at Rome, when the other ladies of their rank have departed. I wrote to them and to you on this point previously. Please urge them to leave the city, especially as I have those estates on the sea-coast, which is under my care, so that they can live there without much inconvenience, considering the state of affairs. For, if I give offence by the conduct of my son-in-law (though I am not his keeper), the fact that my women-folk stay in Rome after others have left makes matters worse. I should like to know what you and Sextus think about leaving town, and to have your opinion of matters in general. As for me, I cease not to advocate peace. It may be on unjust terms, but even so it is more expedient than the justest of civil wars. However, I can but leave it to fate.

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XV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Since I left Rome I have not yet let a day pass without dropping you a line; not that I had any

[Pg 71]

particular news, but I wanted to talk with you in my absence. When we cannot talk face to face, there is nothing I like better.

I reached Capua yesterday, the 25th, where I met the consuls and many fellow-members. All hope that Caesar will abide by his conditions, accepting the withdrawal of his garrisons: only Favonius objects to his dictating to us. But no one listened to him. For even Cato now prefers slavery to war: but he wants to be in the House when the terms are debated, if Caesar can be induced to withdraw his garrisons. So he does not care to do what would be most useful, and go to Sicily: and he wants to be in the House, where I fear he will cause trouble. The Senate definitely decreed that Postumius should set out for Sicily at once and succeed Furfanius. Postumius replied he would not go without Cato; he has a great idea of his own value and influence in the House. So choice fell on Fannius; he is dispatched to Sicily with military power. In our debates there is great difference of opinion. Most declare that Caesar will not stick to his compact, and that his demands were only introduced to hinder our preparations for war. I fancy, however, that he will withdraw his garrisons. For he will win his point, if he is elected consul, and win it with less scandal than by his first course. But the blow must be borne. We are sinfully unready in men and money: for we have left him not only our private purses in the city, but the state funds in the treasury. Pompey along with Labienus has set out for Appius' legions. I want your views on this. I think of returning to Formiae at once.

[Pg 73]

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XVI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I think all your letters reached me, but the first out of proper order, the others as they were dispatched by Terentia. About Caesar's ultimatum, the arrival of Labienus, and the reply of Pompey and the consuls, I informed you in my letter of the 26th of January from Capua, and I threw in a deal of other information besides. Now we have two things to wait for, first what Caesar will do on receipt of the terms given to L. Caesar to convey to him, and secondly what Pompey is doing now. Pompey indeed writes to me that in a few days he will have a strong force, and he encourages me to hope, that, if he enters Picenum, we shall return to Rome. Labienus accompanies him, confident in the weakness of Caesar's forces. His arrival has much encouraged Pompey. The consuls have ordered me to go to Capua by the 5th of February.

I set out from Capua for Formiae on the 28th of January. On receipt of your letter at Cales on that day about three o'clock I write this by return. As for Terentia and Tullia I agree with you, and I have written to them to consult you. If they have not yet started, there is no reason for them to bestir themselves, till we see how things are.

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XVII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Your welcome letter I received with delight. I thought of sending the boys to Greece when Pompey's

[Pg 75]

flight from Italy seemed likely. For I myself should have gone to Spain, but it would not have been so suitable for them. I fancy you and Sextus may well stay in Rome even now; for you are not in the least bound to be Pompey's friends: no one has ever depreciated city property so much as Pompey. I must have my joke still, you see.

You should know already the reply that Pompey is sending by Lucius Caesar, and the nature of his letter to Caesar; for it was written and sent on purpose to be published. Mentally I blamed Pompey who, though a clear writer himself, gave Sestius the task of drawing up documents of such importance, which were to come into every one's hands. Accordingly I have never seen anything more Sestian in its style.[43] Still it is plain from the letter that nothing can be denied to Caesar, and that the whole bulk of his demands are to be granted. He will be utterly mad to reject the terms, particularly when his demands are most impudent. Pray, who are you, Caesar, to insist "Provided Pompey go to Spain, provided he dismiss his garrisons"? Still the demand is being granted, but it has cost us more loss of dignity now that he has outraged the sanctity of the state and waged war against it, than if he had obtained his previous request to be admitted a candidate. And yet I fear he may want more. For when he entrusted his ultimatum to L. Caesar, he should have kept a little quiet until he received a reply. But he is said now to be more energetic than ever.

Trebatius indeed writes to me that Caesar requested

[Pg 77]

him on the 22nd of January to write and beg me to remain near the city; that would win me his best thanks. All this at great length. I calculated from the date, that as soon as he heard of my departure Caesar began to be concerned lest we should all go from town. So I have no doubt he wrote to Piso and to Servius. One thing surprises me that he did not write to me himself, or approach me through Dolabella or Caelius. However, I am not offended at a letter from Trebatius, who is my particular wellwisher. I would not reply to Caesar himself, as he had not written to me; but I wrote to Trebatius how difficult such a course would be at this juncture, but that I was staying on my country estates, and had not undertaken any part in the levy or any business. To this I will stand so long as there is any prospect of peace; but, if it comes to war, I shall act as becomes my duty and rank, after stowing away my boys to Greece. For all Italy, I gather, will blaze with war. Such a catastrophe is caused partly by disloyalty, partly by jealousy amongst her citizens. The outcome will be known in a few days from Caesar's answer to our letter. Then, if it be war, I will write again: if it be peace or a respite, I shall hope to see you.

On the 2nd of February, the date of this letter, I await my women-folk in my place at Formiae, whence I have returned from Capua. I wrote to them on your advice to stay in Rome. But I hear that panic has rather increased there. I want to be at Capua on the 5th of February, as the consuls have ordered. Any news we get here from Pompey I will let you know at once, and I shall look to letters from you for news from the city.

[Pg 79]

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XVIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On the 2nd of February my women-folk came to Formiae and brought me an account of your very kind and zealous attentions. I wished them to stay in my villa here along with the boys, till we know whether we are to have peace with dishonour, or war with its horrors. I and my brother start for Capua on the 3rd of February, the date of this letter, to meet the consuls on the 5th according to their instructions.

Pompey's reply to Caesar is said to please the people, and to have won the approval of a public meeting. I expected it. If Caesar rejects this condition, he will fall in esteem: if he accept——. You will ask my choice in the matter. I would answer, if I knew our state of preparation. It is reported here that Cassius has been driven from Ancona, and that our party hold the town. That will be a useful thing in the event of war. As for Caesar, though he has sent L. Caesar with negotiations for peace, nevertheless reports declare that he is collecting levies with the greatest energy, seizing posts, and securing the country with garrisons. What a villain robber! What a disgrace to the country, too dear a price to pay for any peace! But let us restrain our anger, yield to circumstance and accompany Pompey to Spain. That is my choice in our straits, since we did not take the chance when we had it of keeping him from his second consulship.[46] But enough of politics.

[Pg 81]

It escaped my memory to write to you about Dionysius before: but my determination is this, to await Caesar's answer, so that, if I return to Rome, Dionysius may await me there; but, if there is delay, then I would summon him. I am quite aware of what he ought to have done when I took to flight, what was proper for a scholar and a friend, especially when he had been asked to do it: but I do not expect much from a Greek. But please see, if I have to summon him, which I hope I shall not, that I may not be troubling a reluctant man.

My brother Quintus is anxious to give you a draft on Egnatius for the money he owes, and Egnatius is willing and has plenty of cash; but when the times are such that Q. Titinius,[47] whom I see often, declares he has no money to get along with, and yet has told his debtors that they may let their debts stand over at the same rate of interest as before, and when L. Ligus too is said to have taken the same steps, and Quintus at the present time has no money in hand, and is unable to borrow from Egnatius or to raise a new loan anywhere, he is surprised that you have not taken into account our national straits. Though I observe the saying wrongly ascribed to Hesiod "Hear both sides,"[48] particularly in the case of yourself, whom I have always found considerate, still I was affected by his grievance. You ought to know his grievance, such as it is.

[Pg 83]

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XIX
CICERO TO ATTICUS.

I have no news for you, and have not even sent you my lucubration of last night: for that was a letter full of good cheer, because I had heard of the temper shown at the public meeting, and thought that Caesar would abide by terms which were in fact his own. But now on this, the morning of the 3rd of February, I have got a letter from you, one from Philotimus, one from Furnius, and one from Curio to Furnius ridiculing the mission of L. Caesar. We appear to be crushed utterly, nor do I know what plan to take. I am not indeed in trouble about myself, it is the boys that put me in a dilemma. Still I am setting out for Capua, as I write this, that I may more easily get to know Pompey's affairs.

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XX
CICERO TO ATTICUS.

The occasion makes me brief. I have abandoned hope of peace: but our party takes no steps for war. Pray don't suppose that there is anything of less concern to our present consuls than the war. I came to Capua on the 4th according to instructions, in heavy rain, with the hope of hearing something from them and getting to know of our equipment. They had not yet arrived, but were expected, emptyhanded, unprepared. Pompey was reported to be at Luceria and close to some cohorts[50] of the shaky

[Pg 85]

Appian troops. Caesar is said to be tearing along, and is nearly on us, not to join battle—there is no one to join it with—but to cut us off from flight. Now, if it is to be in Italy, I am ready to die with her—and on that I need not ask your advice: but if the struggle is beyond her borders, what am I to do? The winter, my lictors, the improvidence and neglect of the leaders prompt me to stay: my friendship with Pompey, the cause of the loyalists, the disgrace of association with a tyrant, prompt me to flee. One cannot say whether that tyrant will choose Phalaris or Pisistratus as his model. Please unravel this and assist me with your advice. Though I suppose you are in a warm corner in Rome, still help me to the best of your ability. I will advise you if anything new crops up here to-day. The consuls will arrive on the 5th as arranged. I shall look for a letter every day: but answer this one as soon as you can. I have left the ladies and the boys at Formiae.

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XXI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Of our troubles you hear sooner than I. It is from your quarter they come. No good news can be expected from here. I reached Capua on the 5th of February, as the consuls bade. Lentulus arrived late in the day. The other consul had not arrived at all on the 7th: for on that day I left Capua and stayed at Cales. On the 8th before daybreak I dispatch you this letter from there. The discovery I made at Capua was that no reliance is to be placed on the consuls, and that no levy is being made anywhere. For recruiting officers do not dare to show their faces

[Pg 87]

when Caesar is at hand, and our leader is nowhere to be found and takes no action. No one enlists. It is not good will that is lacking, but hope. What an inconceivable plight is Pompey's, and how utterly he has broken down! He has neither spirit nor plan, nor forces, nor energy. I say nothing of his most disgraceful flight from the city, his timorous speeches in the towns, his ignorance not only of the strength of his opponent but of his own forces: but what of this? On the 7th of February C. Cassius the tribune came to Capua, and brought an order to the consuls to come to Rome, carry off the money from the reserve treasury[51] and leave at once. On quitting the city they are to return—but they have no escort: then there is the getting out of the city—who is going to give them leave? Lentulus replied that Pompey must first come to Picenum. No one except myself knows it; but Dolabella has written to me that that district is totally lost. I have no doubt but that Caesar is on the point of entering Apulia and that Pompey is on board ship.

What I am to do is a big problem. It would be no problem for me at all, if everything had not been disgracefully managed; and I had no part in the plan: still my proper course is a problem. Caesar himself invites to peace: but the letter is dated before he began to run amuck. Dolabella and Caelius declare that he is well satisfied with me. I am at my wits'

[Pg 89]

end. Assist me with your advice, if you can, but guard against events as much as possible. I have nothing to say in such an anxious crisis: but I am looking for your letter.

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XXII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I see there is not a foot of ground in Italy which is not in Caesar's power. I have no news of Pompey, and I imagine he will be captured unless he has taken to the sea. What marvellous dispatch! While our leader—: but it grieves me to blame him, as I am in an agony of suspense on his account. There is reason for you to fear butchery, not that anything could be less advantageous to secure Caesar a lasting victory and power; but I see on whose advice he will act. I hope it will be all right; and I think we shall have to yield. As regards the Oppii I have no suggestion to make. Do what you think best. You should speak with Philotimus, and besides you will have Terentia on the 13th. What can I do? In what land or on what sea can I follow a man, when I don't know where he is? After all how can I follow on land, and by sea whither? Shall I then surrender to Caesar? Suppose I could surrender with safety, as many advise, could I surrender with honour? By no means. I will ask your advice as usual. The problem is insoluble. Still, if anything comes into your head, please write; and let me know what you will do yourself.

[Pg 91]

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XXIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On the evening of the 9th of February, I got a letter from Philotimus, declaring that Domitius has a reliable force, the cohorts from Picenum under the command of Lentulus and Thermus have joined his army, Caesar can be cut off and fears the contingency, and the hopes of loyalists at Rome have been restored, and those of the other party dashed. I am afraid this may be a dream; but still the news revived M'. Lepidus, L. Torquatus and C. Cassius the tribune of the plebs—for they are with me, that is at Formiae. I fear the truer version may be that we are now all practically prisoners, that Pompey is leaving Italy, pursued it is said by Caesar. What a bitter thought! Caesar pursue Pompey! What, to slay him? Woe is me! And we do not all throw our bodies in the way! You too are sorry about it. But what can we do? We are beaten, ruined and utterly captive.

Still the perusal of Philotimus' letter has caused me to change my plan about the women-folk. I wrote you I was sending them back to Rome: but it has come into my mind that there would be a deal of talk, that I had now come to a decision on the political situation; and that in despair of success the return of the ladies of my house was as it were one step towards my own return. As for myself, I agree with you that I should not commit myself to the danger and uncertainty of flight, seeing that it would avail nothing to State or Pompey, for whom I would dutifully and gladly die. So I shall stay, though life—.

[Pg 93]

For your query as to the state of affairs in this quarter, Capua and the levy are in stagnation: our cause is despaired of: every one is in flight, unless some god help Pompey to join that army of Domitius with his own. It would seem that we shall know all in a day or so. As requested I send you a copy of Caesar's letter. Many of my correspondents say that he is quite satisfied with me. I can allow that, provided I continue to do nothing to stain my honour.

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XXIV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Philotimus' letter delighted me little, but those who are here considerably. Well, on the very next day a letter of Cassius from his friend Lucretius at Capua announced that Nigidius, an emissary of Domitius, had reached Capua, bringing news that Vibullius with a few soldiers was hurrying in from Picenum to Pompey's camp, that Caesar was pursuing rapidly and that Domitius had less than 3000 men. The letter stated that the consuls had left Capua. I am sure Pompey must be fleeing: I only hope he may escape. I accept your advice and have no intention of flight myself.

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XXV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

After I had sent you a despondent and, I fear, true report about the letter Lucretius dispatched to Cassius from Capua, Cephalio came to me from you with a letter more cheerful, but not as decided as usual. Any news is more credible than your news of Pompey having an army. No one brings such a

[Pg 95]

report here, but every kind of unwelcome news. It is a sorry thought that Pompey has always won in a bad cause, but fails in the best of causes. The only solution is that he knew the ropes in the former (which is not a difficult accomplishment), but did not in the latter. It is a difficult art to rule a republic in the right way. At any moment we may know all, and I will write you immediately.

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XXVI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have not had what you say is your experience:—"as often as my hopes revive." Only now are mine reviving a little, and especially over letters from Rome about Domitius and the squadrons of Picenum. Things have become more cheerful in the last two days. I have given up my preparation for flight. I spurn Caesar's threat: "If I shall meet thee here to-morrow morn."[55] The news about Domitius is good, that about Afranius is splendid.

Thanks for your very friendly advice, not to commit myself more than I can help. You add a caution against showing a leaning towards the wrong party: well, I confess I may seem to. I refused to take a leading part in civil war, so long as there were negotiations for peace, not because the war was unjust, but because former action of mine in a still juster cause did me harm. I had no desire at all to excite the enmity of a man to whom our leader offered a second consulship, and a triumph too with the fulsome flattery "on account of your brilliant achievements." I know whom I have to fear and why.

[Pg 97]

But if the war I foresee comes, I shall not fail to play my part.

About that £180,[56] Terentia sent you an answer. I did not want to trouble Dionysius, so long as I expected to be a wanderer. I gave no answer to your repeated letters about the man's duty, because daily I was expecting to settle what should be done. Now as far as I can see, my boys will certainly winter at Formiae. And I? I don't know. For, if war comes, I am determined to be with Pompey. I will keep you informed of reliable news. I fancy there will be a most terrible war, unless, as you remark, some Parthian incident occur again.[57]

[Pg 99]

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CICERO'S LETTERS
TO ATTICUS
BOOK VIII

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I
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

After I sent you my letter, I got one from Pompey. The rest of it was about what has happened in Picenum, as reported to him by Vibullius in a note, and about Domitius' levy. That you know already: but in this letter things were not so grand as in Philotimus' letter. I would have sent you Pompey's note itself, but my brother's man set out in a hurry, so I will send it to-morrow. Pompey added a P.S. in his own hand, "I think you should come to Luceria. You won't be safer anywhere else." I understood him to mean that he counts as lost the towns here and the coast. I don't wonder that a man who has given up the head should throw away the limbs. I sent a reply by return, by the hands of a sure messenger, that I was not concerned about where I should be safest, and that I would come to Luceria immediately, if his or the public interest demanded it. I entreated him to hold the coast, if he wanted supplies of corn from the provinces. I saw I was writing in vain: but I wanted to put on record now my opinion about not abandoning Italy, as I had done before about holding Rome. Evidently all forces are to be collected at Luceria, and not even there as a permanent base, but as a starting point for flight, if hard pressed.

[Pg 101]

So you need not wonder, if I am reluctant to embark on a cause, which has no policy for peace or victory, but always a policy of disastrous and disgraceful flight. I must go to face whatever fortune bring, with so-called loyalists rather than seem to disagree with real loyalists. Yet I see Rome will soon be crammed with loyalists, I mean with men of wealth and fortune, crammed full, when the towns have been abandoned. I would be among them, were it not for these tiresome lictors. I should not be ashamed of the company of M'. Lepidus, L. Volcacius, Ser. Sulpicius, not one of whom is a bigger fool than L. Domitius, nor a bigger trimmer than Ap. Claudius. Only Pompey weighs with me, for his past kindnesses, not for his public influence. For what influence has he in this case? When we were all afraid of Caesar, he cherished him. After he has begun to fear Caesar, he thinks all should be Caesar's enemies. Still I shall go to Luceria. Perhaps he will not be pleased to meet me, for I shall not be able to disguise my disgust at what he has done so far. If I could sleep, I would not bother you with such long letters. If you suffer from the same complaint, I shall be glad if you will pay me back in the same coin.

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II
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Many thanks for everything: for writing me your news, for not believing a report, which reflected on my energy, and for the expression of your opinion. I sent Caesar one letter from Capua in answer to his inquiries about his gladiators.[58] It was short but friendly, and, so far from abusing Pompey,

[Pg 103]

praised him highly. I had to do that, as I was an advocate of peace between them. If Caesar has passed on my letter, good: I should like him to placard it in public. I have sent him another letter on the date on which I dispatch this to you. I could not help doing so when he and Balbus wrote to me. I send you a copy of the letter. I don't think you can find any fault. If you can find any, tell me how I can escape criticism. You will say I should have sent no letter at all. What better plan to escape malicious tongues? However I will do so as long as I can. Your exhortations to remember my deeds and words and even writings are friendly and very pleasant; but you seem to have a different idea to mine as to honour and propriety in this business. To my mind, no statesman or general has ever been guilty of conduct so disgraceful as Pompey's. I am sorry for him. He left Rome, his country, for which and in which it were glorious to die. You don't seem to me to realize what a disaster that is. You yourself are still in your own house; but you cannot stay there any longer without the consent of villains and traitors. It is the depth of misery and shame. We wander in want with wives and children. Our sole hope lies in the life of one man, who falls dangerously sick every year. We are not driven, but summoned to leave our country. And our country which we have left will not be kept in safety against our return, but abandoned to fire and plunder. So many Pompeians are with us, not in their suburban villas, not in Rome, and, if some are still in Rome, they will soon go. Meantime I shall not stay at Capua, but at Luceria, and of course I shall abandon the coast at once. I shall wait for the move of Afranius and Petreius: for Labienus is a

[Pg 105]

man of little standing. You may say that I am too. I say nothing of myself: I leave that to others. Who has standing here? All you loyalists stay at home, and will continue to stay there. Who failed me in the old days? Who supports me now in this war, as I must call it.

So far Vibullius' achievements have been fine. You will see that from Pompey's letter. Vide the passage marked.[60] You will see Vibullius' own opinion of Pompey. My point is that I can gladly die for Pompey's sake—there is no one I hold dearer; but not in that way. In him I see no hope for the safety of the state. You express a view different from your usual view, that I must even leave Italy, if he does. That course seems to me of no advantage to the state or to my children, and, moreover, neither right nor honourable. But why do you say, "Will you be able to see a tyrant"? As if it mattered whether I hear of him or see him, or as if I wanted a better example than Socrates, who never set foot out of gate during the reign of the Thirty tyrants. Besides I have a special reason for staying. I wish I could talk it over with you.

After writing this letter on the 17th, by the same lamp as that in which I burned yours, I set out from Formiae to go to Pompey, and I may be of use, if the talk is of peace: but, if of war, of what use shall I be?

[Pg 107]

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III
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Upset by this grave and most calamitous crisis, though I have no opportunity of consulting you personally, still I wish to enjoy your advice. The whole question under debate is this. What do you think I should do, if Pompey leaves Italy, as I expect he will? To help you to a decision, I will briefly recount what occurs to me on both sides of the question.

Not only Pompey's great services in bringing about my restoration and his intimacy with me, but the public welfare, leads me to think that my policy and his or, if you will, my fortunes and his should be one. And another thing, if I remain in Italy and desert the company of loyal and distinguished citizens, I must fall into the power of one man, and, though he gives me many tokens of regard (and you know well I took good care that it should be so with this crisis in view), yet he still leaves me a twofold problem; how much trust can be put in his promises, and, if I am positive of his good will, is it proper for a man of courage and loyalty to remain in Rome and lose his position for the future where he has enjoyed the highest distinctions and commands, performed deeds of importance, been invested with the highest seat in the sacred college, and to suffer risks and perhaps some shame, if ever Pompey restore the constitution? So much for the arguments on one side.

Now look at those on the other. There is not an atom of prudence or courage in Pompey's policy—and besides nothing that is not clean contrary to my counsel and advice. I pass over the old grievance, how Caesar was Pompey's man: Pompey raised him to

[Pg 109]

place and military power, assisted him in passing laws by force and despite bad omens, granted him Further Gaul in addition to his province; Pompey married his daughter, Pompey was augur at the adoption of Clodius; Pompey was more active in effecting my restoration than in preventing my banishment; Pompey prolonged the tenure of Caesar's provincial government; Pompey championed his cause in absence; and again in his third consulship, when he began to be the defender of the constitution, struggled to get the ten tribunes to propose a bill admitting Caesar's candidature in absence; ratified that privilege by a law of his own; and opposed M. Marcellus the consul, when Marcellus would have concluded Caesar's government of the provinces of Gaul on the 1st of March. Putting all this on one side, is not this departure or rather this disgraceful and iniquitous flight from Rome a most shameful sign of panic? Any compromise ought to have been accepted in preference to abandoning our country. I admit the terms were bad, but could anything be worse than this? If you say he will restore the constitution, I ask you when and what preparation has been made to that end? We have lost Picenum: the road lies open to Rome: the funds of the state and of individuals have been delivered to our enemy. Finally we have no policy, no forces, no rendezvous for patriots; Apulia has been chosen, the least populous district in Italy and the most removed from the brunt of this war, and clearly chosen in despair for the opportunity of flight which the sea affords. With reluctance I took charge of Capua, not that I would shirk the duty, but with the reluctance which one would have in a

[Pg 111]

cause in which neither ranks nor individuals had expressed any feeling, though there was some feeling amongst the loyalists, sluggish as usual. Besides, as I felt, the crowd and the dregs of the populace were inclined to the other side, and many were merely desirous of revolution. I told Pompey himself that I could undertake nothing without a garrison and without funds. So I have had nothing at all to do, since I saw from the first, that his only object was flight. If I would share his flight, whither am I to go? With him I cannot go; for, when I set out, I learned that Caesar was so posted that I could not reach Luceria with safety. I should have to go by the Lower Sea[61] in the depth of winter and with no certain destination. Moreover am I to take my brother, or leave him and take my son? But how? Either course would cause me the greatest trouble and the greatest grief: and how he will wreak his rage on me and my property in my absence! More vindictively perhaps than in the case of others, because he will think that vengeance on me will please the people. Consider too my fetters, I mean my laurelled fasces. How awkward it will be to take them out of Italy! Suppose I enjoy a calm passage, what place will be safe for me till I join Pompey? I have no idea of how or where to go. But, if I stand my ground and find a place on Caesar's side, I shall follow the example of L. Philippus under the tyranny of Cinna, of L. Flaccus and of Q. Mucius.[62] Though it ended unfortunately

[Pg 113]

in the case of Q. Mucius, yet he was wont to say he foresaw the issue, but preferred it to taking arms against his country. Thrasybulus took the other and perhaps happier course. But Mucius' decision and views were quite definite, and so were those of Philippus; that one might do some time-serving, when it was necessary, but when one's time came, one should not miss it. But, in that event, still my fasces are a nuisance. I do not know if Caesar will be friendly; but suppose he is, he will offer me a triumph. To refuse would damage my chances with Caesar, to accept would annoy the loyalists. It is a hard and insoluble question; and yet solve it I must. What else can I do? I have said most in favour of staying in Italy: but do not infer that I have any particular inclination towards so doing: it may be, as often happens, that there are more words on one side and more worth on the other. Then please give me your advice, counting me openminded on the important question. There is a boat ready for me at Caieta and at Brundisium.

But, here are messengers arriving as I write this letter at night in Cales; and here is a letter saying that Caesar has reached Corfinium and that Domitius is there with a strong force anxious to fight. I do not think that Pompey will go so far as to abandon Domitius, though he sent Scipio ahead to Brundisium with two squadrons, and has informed the consuls that he wants one of them to take the legion raised for Faustus into Sicily. But it were base to desert Domitius, when he entreats for help. There is some hope, small enough to my mind, but favoured in this district, that Afranius has fought with Trebonius in the Pyrenees and driven him back, and that your

[Pg 115]

friend Fabius too has gone over to Pompey with his squadrons: and high hope, that Afranius is marching hither with large forces. If that is true, we may stay in Italy. But since no one knows Caesar's route, as he was supposed to be going towards Capua or Luceria, I am sending Lepta to Pompey with a letter. Myself I return to Formiae for fear I should stumble on anyone.

I wanted you to know the news, and I write with more composure than I stated above. I advance no views of my own, but ask for yours.

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IV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I count Dionysius your man rather than mine: for, though I was well acquainted with his character, I held to your opinion of him rather than to my own. The fellow has paid no respect even to your frequent certificates of character, but has become arrogant in what he takes for a fall in my fortune, though so far as human wit can avail, I will steer my course onward with some skill. I never failed Dionysius in respect or service, or in a good word for the despicable cad. Nay, I preferred to have my opinion criticized by Quintus and people in general rather than omit to praise the fellow; and, sooner than seek another master for my boys, I took pains to give them private lessons myself. Good God, what a letter I sent him: how full of respect and affection! You would think that I was sending for Dicaearchus or Aristoxenus and not for an arch-chatter-box useless as a teacher. He has a good memory: he shall have reason to say that mine is better. He answered the

[Pg 117]

letter in a tone I have never used even when I wished to decline a case. I always say, "if possible," "if no previous engagement hinders me." I have never given so curt a refusal as his curt unqualified "no" to any client however humble, however mean, however guilty, however much a stranger. It is the height of ingratitude, and ingratitude includes all sins. But enough and more than enough of this.

I have a boat ready. Still I wait for a letter from you, that I may know your answer to my problem. You know that at Sulmo C. Atius Paelignus opened the gates to Antonius, though he had five squadrons, that Q. Lucretius has escaped from the place, and that Pompey has gone to Brundisium, deserting Domitius. We are done for.

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V
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

After I sent you a letter before daybreak on the 22nd about Dionysius, on the evening of the same day came Dionysius himself. I cannot but think that it was by your influence, though he is wont to repent of his fits of temper, and this is the maddest business he has had a hand in. I did not tell you before, but I heard later, that, when he had got three miles from Rome, he took fright,

I mean he cursed roundly. May his curses fall on his own head, as the saying goes. But look at my good nature. I enclosed in your packet a strong letter for him. I should be glad to have it returned; and

[Pg 119]

only for that reason have I sent my footman Pollux to Rome. So I write to you that, if it has come into your hands, you may return it and not let it fall into his possession.

I would write any fresh news, if there were any. I am a-tiptoe with anxiety as to the business at Corfinium, which will decide the fate of the constitution. Please send the packet addressed to M'. Curius, and please recommend Tiro to Curius, and ask him to supply his wants.

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VI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

After I had sealed that letter to you, which I wanted to dispatch last night (I wrote it in the evening and did dispatch it), C. Sosius the praetor came to Formiae to visit my neighbour, M'. Lepidus, whose quaestor he was. He brought a copy of Pompey's letter to the consuls: "I have received a dispatch from L. Domitius, dated the 17th of February. I enclose a copy. Now without a word from me, I know you realize of your own accord how important it is for the State that all our forces should concentrate at one spot at the earliest possible date. If you agree, endeavour to reach me at once, leaving Capua such garrison as you may consider necessary."

Then appended is a copy of Domitius' letter which I sent you yesterday. My God, how terrified I was and how distracted I am as to the future! I hope his nickname the Great will inspire great panic on his arrival. I hope too, since nothing has stood in our way at present [except his negligence, he is not

[Pg 121]

neglecting a point which ought to be carried out vigorously].[65]

I have just heard that you have lost your fever. Upon my life I could not be better pleased, if I had recovered myself. Tell Pilia that such a perfect helpmeet should not be sick longer than her husband. I hear that Tiro has recovered from his second attack: but I see he has been raising money from strangers. I had commissioned Curius to supply him with funds. I hope it is Tiro's diffidence and not Curius' meanness that is to blame.

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VII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

The one act needed to crown Pompey's disgrace is the desertion of Domitius. I don't agree with the universal opinion that he is sure to help him. "Will he desert so distinguished a citizen as Domitius and those with him, even though he has thirty cohorts at his command?" Unless I am greatly mistaken he will desert him. He is incredibly alarmed, and has no thought but flight; and you want me to go with him; for I see what you think. Yes, I have a foe to flee from, but no friend to follow. As for your praise of that remark of mine, which you quote and call so memorable, that I would rather be conquered with Pompey than conquer with Caesar, well, I would: but it must be with Pompey my old hero or ideal. As to the Pompey of to-day, who flees before he knows from whom he is running or where to run; who has betrayed us, abandoned his country and deserted

[Pg 123]

Italy,—well, if I wanted to be conquered with him, I have got my wish; I am conquered. For the rest I cannot bear to look at Caesar's doings. I never expected to see them, nor the man himself who robs me not only of my friends, but of myself.

I have written to Philotimus about money for the journey—either from the mint,[66] for none of my debtors will pay up, or from your associates the bankers. I will give you all other requisite instructions.

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VIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

What disgrace, and therefore what misery! For I feel disgrace to be the crown of misery, or indeed the only real misery. Pompey treated Caesar as his protégé, began suddenly to fear him, declined terms of peace, made no preparation for war, quitted Rome, lost Picenum by his own fault, got himself blocked in Apulia, went off to Greece without a word, leaving us in ignorance of a plan so important and unusual. Then all of a sudden Domitius' letter to Pompey and Pompey's letter to the consuls. It seemed to me that the Right had flashed upon his gaze, and that he, the old heroic Pompey, cried:

[Pg 125]

However Pompey bids a long farewell to honour and away for Brundisium. They say that Domitius and those with him surrendered on receipt of the news. What a doleful business! Grief prevents me writing more. I await a letter from you.

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IX
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I am not upset at the circulation of my letter, indeed I myself let many people take a copy. Considering what has happened and is likely to happen, I want my views on peace published. And when I exhorted Caesar of all men to seek peace, I had no readier argument than to say, that peace became a man of his wisdom. If I spoke of his "admirable" wisdom, seeing that I was urging him on to the salvation of our country, I was not afraid of appearing to flatter him: in such a cause I would gladly have cast myself at his feet. When I use the phrase "spare time," that does not mean for the consideration of peace, but for the consideration of myself and my obligations. As to my statement that I have taken no part in the war, though the facts are evidence, I wrote it to give greater weight to my advice and it was for the same reason that I expressed approbation of his case.

But this is idle talk now: I only wish it had done some good. Why, I should not object to the recital of my letter at a public meeting, when Pompey himself, writing to Caesar, exhibited for public perusal a letter containing the words "On account of your splendid achievements," (are they more splendid

[Pg 127]

than Pompey's own, or those of Africanus? Circumstances made him say so.) and when two men like you and S. Peducaeus are going to meet him at the fifth milestone,—and at this moment to what course does he pledge himself, what is he doing, what is he going to do? Surely his belief in his rights will grow more vehement, when he sees you and men like you not only in crowds, but with joy upon your faces. "What harm in that," you ask? Not a bit, as far as you are concerned: but still the outward signs of the distinction between genuine feeling and pretence are all upset. I foresee some strange decrees of the Senate. But my letter has been more frank than I intended.

I hope to be at Arpinum on the 28th, and then to visit my country estates, I fear for the last time. Your policy, gentlemanly, but not without a touch of caution suited to the times, has my sincere approval. Lepidus, who has the pleasure of my company almost every day, never liked the plan of quitting Italy: Tullus detested it: for letters from him often reach me from other hands. However their views influence me little: they have given fewer pledges to the state than I: but I am strongly swayed by the weight of your opinion, which proposes a plan for betterment in the future and security in the present. Is there a more wretched spectacle than that of Caesar earning praise in the most disgusting cause, and of Pompey earning blame in the most excellent: of Caesar being regarded as the saviour of his enemies, and Pompey as a traitor to his friends? Assuredly though I love Pompey, from inclination and duty, still I cannot praise his failure to succour such men. If it was fear,

[Pg 129]

it was most cowardly; if, as some think, he imagined that their massacre would assist his cause, it was most iniquitous. But let us pass over this, for remembrance adds to my sorrow.

On the evening of the 24th, Balbus the younger came to me, hurrying on a secret errand to the consul Lentulus from Caesar with a letter, a commission, and the promise of a province on condition of his returning to Rome. I don't think that he can be talked over without a personal interview. Balbus said that Caesar was most anxious to meet Pompey (I believe it), and to get on good terms with him. This I do not believe and I fear all his kindness is only a preparation for cruelty like Cinna's. Balbus the elder writes to me that Caesar wants nothing better than to live in safety under Pompey. I expect you will believe that. But while I write this letter on the 25th of February, Pompey may have reached Brundisium. He set out without baggage, and before his legions, on the 19th from Luceria. But that bogy-man has terrible wariness, speed and energy. The future is a riddle to me.

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X
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I spoke to Dionysius in the frankest way, when contrary to my expectations he arrived. I told him how matters stood; asked him his intentions, and said that I would not press him against his will. He replied that he did not know where such money as he owned was: that some creditors did not pay, that other debts were not yet due. He said something about his wretched slaves that would prevent his

[Pg 131]

staying with me. I acquiesced, sorry to lose a master for my boys; but glad to be rid of an ungrateful fellow. I wanted you to know what happened and my opinion of his conduct.

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XI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

As you suppose, I am in great anxiety of mind: but it is not so great as you may imagine. I am rid of care, as soon as resolve is fixed or thought proves futile. Still I may lament my lot as I do all day long. But I fear, since lamentation is idle, I disgrace my philosophy and my works. So I spend my time considering the character of the ideal statesman, who is sketched clearly enough, you seem to think, in my books on the Republic. You remember then the standard by which our ideal governor was to weigh his acts. Here are Scipio's words, in the 5th book, I think it is: "As a safe voyage is the aim of the pilot, health of the physician, victory of the general, so the ideal statesman will aim at happiness for the citizens of the state to give them material security, copious wealth, wide-reaching distinction and untarnished honour. This, the greatest and finest of human achievements, I want him to perform." Pompey never had this notion and least of all in the present cause. Absolute power is what he and Caesar have sought; their aim has not been to secure the happiness and honour of the community. Pompey has not abandoned Rome, because it was impossible to defend, nor Italy on forced compulsion; but it was his idea from the first to plunge the world into war, to stir up barbarous princes, to bring savage tribes into

[Pg 133]

Italy under arms, and to gather a huge army. A sort of Sulla's reign has long been his object, and is the desire of many of his companions. Or do you think that no agreement, no compromise between him and Caesar was possible? Why, it is possible to-day: but neither of them looks to our happiness. Both want to be kings.

At your request I have given an outline of my views; for you wanted an expression of my opinion on these troubles. So I play the prophet, my dear Atticus, not at random like Cassandra whom no one believed, but with imaginative insight. "Now on the great sea" my prophecy runs like the old tag: such an Iliad of woe hangs over us. The case of us, who stay at home, is worse than that of those who have gone with Pompey, for they have only one to fear, while we have both. You ask then, why I stay. Well, in compliance with your request, or because I could not meet Pompey on his departure, or because it was the more honourable course. I say you will see poor Italy trodden down next summer or in the hands of their slaves drawn from every quarter of the globe. It will not be a proscription (in spite of the talk and threats we hear of at Luceria) which we shall have to dread, but general destruction. So huge are the forces that will join in the struggle. That is my prophecy. Perhaps you looked for consolation. I see none: we have reached the limit of misery, ruin and disgrace.

You inquire what Caesar said in his letter. The usual thing, that my inaction pleases him, and he begs me to maintain it. Balbus the younger brought the same message by word of mouth. Balbus was travelling to Lentulus the consul with letters from Caesar, and

[Pg 135]

promises of reward, if he would go back to Rome. Reckoning the days, however, I fancy Lepidus will cross the sea, before Balbus can meet him.

I send copies of Pompey's two dispatches to me. Please note his careless style and my careful answer.

I am waiting to see the result of this dash of Caesar's on Brundisium through Apulia. I should like a repetition of the Parthian incident.[70] As soon as I get any news, I will write. Please send me the talk of the loyalists who are said to be numerous at Rome. I know you do not go out, but talk must reach your ears. I remember a book being given to you by Demetrius of Magnesia. It was dedicated to you, and bore the title On Concord. I should be glad if you would let me have it. You see the part I am studying.

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XIa
THE GREETINGS OF CN. MAGNUS PROCONSUL TO CICERO THE IMPERATOR.

Q. Fabius came to me on the 10th of February. He announces that L. Domitius with his twelve cohorts and fourteen cohorts brought by Vibullius is on the march towards me; that he intended to leave Corfinium on the 9th of February and that C. Hirrus with five cohorts follows behind. I think you should come to me at Luceria, for here I imagine will be your safest refuge.

[Pg 137]

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XIb
M. CICERO IMPERATOR GREETINGS TO CN. MAGNUS PROCONSUL.

On the 15th of February I got your letter at Formiae. I gather that matters in Picenum were much more satisfactory than I had heard, and am glad to learn of the bravery and energy of Vibullius.

So far I have stayed on this coast where I was given the command, but I have kept a boat ready. For the news and my fears were such that I felt I must follow any plan you should make. But now your influence and your policy have encouraged me, I will stay in the coast districts and Tarracina, if you think that the district can be held. The towns, however, are without garrison, for there is no member of the Senate in the district except M. Eppius, a man of foresight and energy, whom I desired to stay at Menturnae. The gallant and influential L. Torquatus is not at Formiae, but I fancy has set out to join you.

In entire accord with your latest instructions, I went to Capua on the very day you left Teanum Sidicinum. For you had desired me to take part with M. Considius the propraetor in looking after things there. On arrival I found that T. Ampius was holding a levy with the greatest energy, and that the troops raised were being taken over by Libo, a local man of energy and influence. I stayed at Capua as long as the consuls. Once again in accordance with instructions from the consuls I went to Capua for the 5th of February. After a stay of three days I returned to Formiae.

[Pg 139]

At the present moment I do not know what are your ideas and plan of campaign. If you think that this coast should be held—and Capua has a good position and is an important town, not to speak of its loyal inhabitants, and to my mind tenable—a commander is wanted. If your plan is concentration, I will come to you at once without hesitation. Nothing would delight me more, and I told you so on the day of our departure from Rome. I do not trouble about criticisms of inactivity from anyone but yourself. If, as I foresee, war is inevitable, I feel I can easily satisfy every criticism. I have sent my relative M. Tullius in case you may wish to send a reply.

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XIc
CN. MAGNUS PROCONSUL SENDS GREETINGS TO CICERO IMPERATOR.

I hope you are well. I was glad to read your letter, for once again I recognized your tried courage in the interests of public safety. The consuls have joined my army in Apulia. I beg you earnestly in the name of your exceptional and continued zeal for the state to join me as well, so that we may plan together to benefit and assist the state in her sore straits. I hold that you should travel by the Appian road and come with speed to Brundisium.

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XId
M. CICERO IMPERATOR SENDS GREETINGS TO CN. MAGNUS, PROCONSUL.

When I sent you the letter which was delivered to you at Canusium, I had no idea that the state's

[Pg 141]

welfare would drive you to flight across the seas, and I had great hopes that it might be in Italy we should either conclude peace (the wisest course to my mind) or fight for the state with honour untarnished. My letter cannot have reached you yet, but from the message which you entrusted to D. Laelius for the consuls I learnt of your plans. I did not wait for a reply to my letter, but forthwith set out along with my brother Quintus and the children to join you in Apulia. On arrival at Teanum Sidicinum I was told by your friend C. Messius, and many other people, that Caesar was on his way to Capua, and would bivouac that very day at Aesernia. I was really startled, as it occurred to me, that, if that was so, my road was closed, and I myself was quite captured. So I went to Cales, choosing that particular place to stay at, till I should get certain news from Aesernia as to the rumour I had heard.

At Cales I received a copy of your letter to Lentulus the consul. Its purport was that you had got a letter (of which you subjoined a copy) from L. Domitius on the 17th of February, and you considered it of the greatest public importance to concentrate your forces on the earliest possible occasion, and that a sufficient garrison should be left at Capua. On the perusal of this dispatch I agreed with others in supposing that you would come in full force to Corfinium. As Caesar was encamped against the town, I considered the road thither was not safe for me.

Anxiously awaiting news, I heard two reports at the same time: news of the affair of Corfinium, and that you were coming to Brundisium. Neither I nor my brother had any hesitation about starting for

[Pg 143]

Brundisium, when many travellers from Samnium and Apulia warned us to beware of capture, because Caesar had set out for the same destination, and was likely to reach there quicker than ourselves. Under those circumstances, I, my brother and our friends were reluctant to allow any rashness of ours to damage the state as well as ourselves. Moreover, we were sure that, even if our path were clear, we could not overtake you.

Meanwhile I got a letter from you dated at Canusium, of the 20th of February, in which you urged me to hasten to Brundisium. Receiving this on the 27th, I felt confident you must have arrived at Brundisium, and I saw that our road was quite cut off and we were as completely captured as the people at Corfinium, for I do not only consider captured those who fall into the hands of armed bands, but equally those who, being shut off from a district, find themselves hedged between a garrison and an enemy in the field.

This being so, my first and chiefest wish is that I had stayed with you all the time. I showed you as much when I gave up command at Capua. I did so, not to shirk my duty, but because I saw that the city could not be held without troops, and I was reluctant to suffer the fate which I am sorry to hear has befallen some very brave men. Since, however, I have not had the fortune to be with you, would that I were acquainted with your plans, for I cannot imagine them, having hitherto thought that the last thing to happen would be that the national cause would not hold its own in Italy under your leadership. I do not criticize your plan, but I bewail the misfortunes of the state. If I cannot guess your

[Pg 145]

policy, I still suppose that you have done nothing without cogent reasons.

I think you remember that my vote has always been for peace, even on poor terms, and secondly for holding the city. As to Italy you gave me no inkling. I do not claim that my policy should have prevailed. I followed yours, not indeed for the sake of the state, of which I despaired and which even now lies in ruin and cannot be restored without a most calamitous civil war, but I wanted you, I longed to be with you, nor will I omit any opportunity that may occur of attaining my wish.

In the whole of this crisis I was well aware that my policy of peace did not please the advocates of war. In the first place I professed to prefer peace above all things, not because I had not the same fears as they had, but because I counted those fears of less moment than intestine war. Then indeed, after war had begun, when I saw terms of peace offered to you, and met by you in an honourable and generous way, I began to consider what my own interests were. That line of conduct I suppose your kindness will easily excuse. I remembered that I was the one man of all others who had suffered most cruel misery and punishment for the greatest services to the state; that I was the one man who, if I had offended Caesar (Caesar to whom was offered even on the eve of battle a second consulship and a princely triumph), would be subjected to the same struggle as before; for a personal attack on me seems to be always popular with the disloyal. This idea only came to me after open threats. It was not persecution I feared, if it were inevitable, but I thought I should seek any escape that honour could allow. There is an outline

[Pg 147]

of my policy while there was hope of peace; its fulfilment was cut short by circumstances. I have an easy reply to my critics. I have never been more friendly to Caesar than they, and they are not more friendly to the state than I. The difference between them and me is this: they are loyal citizens, and I too deserve the title, but I wanted settlement on terms which I understood you also desired, and they wanted settlement by arms. Since their policy has won, I will do my best that the state may not find me fail in the duties of a citizen, nor you in the duties of a friend.

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XII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I am even more troubled by inflammation of the eyes than I was before. Still I prefer to dictate this letter, rather than let Gallus Fadius, who has a sincere regard for us both, have no letter to give you. Yesterday I wrote myself to the best of my ability a letter containing prognostications, which I hope may prove false. One excuse for the present missive is my desire to let no day pass without communicating with you, but there is a still more reasonable excuse, to beg you to devote a little time to my case, and, as it will be a short business, I hope you will explain your view thoroughly and make it quite intelligible to me.

I have not committed myself at all. There has been no omission on my part for which I cannot give not merely a plausible but a reasonable excuse. Assuredly I was not guilty of any fault, when, to avoid

[Pg 149]

blame for cowardice and the charge of treachery to boot, I refused to take over Capua in its unprepared state. Nor am I to blame, when, after L. Caesar and L. Fabatus had brought terms of peace, I took precautions not to incur the enmity of a man to whom Pompey was offering the consulship and a triumph, when both were under arms. Finally I cannot rightly be called to account for not crossing the sea: for, though that was a course which was worthy of consideration, still I could not keep Pompey's appointment. Nor could I guess his policy, especially as from his own letter, as I see you inferred, I had no idea that he would fail to relieve Domitius. And certainly I wanted time to consider what was right and what I ought to do.

Firstly, then, I wish you would write me a careful account of your views, though you have already outlined them, and secondly that you would glance at the future, and give me an idea of what course you think would become me, where you suppose I can serve the state best, and whether the part of a man of peace is required at all, or whether everything depends on a fighter.

And I, who test everything by the standard of duty, yet remember your advice. Had I followed it, I should have been saved from the wretchedness of that crisis in my life. I call to mind the counsel you sent me then by Theophanes and Culleo, and the memory of it often makes me groan. So let me now at last go over the old reckoning which then I cast aside, to the end that I may follow a plan, which has in view not only glory, but also some measure of safety. However, I make no conditions: please give me your candid opinion. And please use your best energies to

[Pg 151]

inquire (for you have suitable agents) what our friend Lentulus and what Domitius is doing, what they intend to do, what is their present attitude, whether they blame or are annoyed with anyone—why do I say anyone?—I mean Pompey. Pompey does not hesitate to put the whole blame on Domitius, as can be inferred from his letter, of which I send you a copy. So please consider these points, and, as I wrote you before, kindly send me that volume On Concord, by Demetrius of Magnesia, which he sent to you.

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XIIa
CN. MAGNUS PROCONSUL SENDS GREETING TO THE CONSULS C. MARCELLUS AND L. LENTULUS.

As I considered that with divided forces we could be of no service to the state and no protection to one another, I sent a dispatch to L. Domitius to come to me at once with all his forces, and that, if he was dubious about himself, he should send me the nineteen cohorts, which as a matter of fact were on the march to me from Picenum. My fears have been realized. Domitius has been trapped and is not strong enough himself to pitch a camp, because he has my nineteen and his own twelve cohorts scattered in three towns (for some he has stationed at Alba and some at Sulmo), and he is unable to free himself even if he wished.

I must inform you that this has caused me the greatest anxiety. I am anxious to free men so numerous and of such importance from the danger of a siege, and I cannot go to their assistance, because I do not think that I can trust these two

[Pg 153]

legions to march to that place: moreover I have not been able to bring together more than fourteen cohorts of them, because two were sent to Brundisium, and Canusium to my mind could not be left without a garrison in my absence.

Hoping to collect larger forces I instructed D. Laelius, that with your approval one of you should come to me, and the other set out for Sicily with the force you have collected at Capua and in the neighbourhood, and with Faustus' recruits; that Domitius with his twelve cohorts should join up, and all the other troops should concentrate at Brundisium, and from thence be taken by sea to Dyrrachium. Now, since at the present time I am no more able than yourselves to go to Domitius' assistance [and it remains for him][72] to extricate himself by the mountain route, I must take steps that the enemy may not meet my fourteen doubtful cohorts or overtake me on the march.

Accordingly—and I see M. Marcellus and other members of the House who are here approve—I am resolved to lead my present forces to Brundisium. You I urge to concentrate all the forces you can and to come with them to Brundisium at the first opportunity. I consider that the arms which you meant to send to me should be used to arm your troops. If you will have the remaining arms carted to Brundisium, you will have done the state great service. Please give these instructions to my supporters. I am sending word to the praetors, P. Lupus and C. Coponius, to join you with whatever soldiery they have.

[Pg 155]

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XIIb
GREETINGS FROM CN. MAGNUS PROCONSUL TO L. DOMITIUS PROCONSUL.

I am greatly astonished that you send me no letters, and that I am kept informed of the political situation by others rather than yourself. With divided forces we cannot hope to cope with the enemy: united, I trust we may do something for the safety of our country. Wherefore, as you had arranged, according to Vibullius' letter, to start with your army from Corfinium on the 9th of February and to come to me, I wonder what reason there has been for your change of plan. The reason mentioned by Vibullius is trivial, namely that you were delayed on hearing that Caesar had left Firmum and arrived at Castrum Truentinum. For the nearer our enemy begins to approach, the quicker you ought to have joined forces with me, before Caesar could obstruct your march or cut me off from you.

Wherefore again and again I entreat and exhort you—as I did in my previous letter—to come to Luceria on the first possible day, before the forces which Caesar has begun to collect can concentrate and divide us. But, if people try to keep you back to protect their country seats, I must ask you to dispatch to me the cohorts, which have come from Picenum and Camerinum abandoning their own interests.

[Pg 157]

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XIIc
CN. MAGNUS PROCONSUL SENDS GREETING TO L. DOMITIUS PROCONSUL.

M. Calenius has brought me a letter from you dated the 16th of February, in which you express the intention of watching Caesar and hurrying to join me in Samnium, if he shall begin to march against me along the coast: but, if he linger in your neighbourhood, you say you wish to oppose his nearer advance.

To my mind your policy is ambitious and brave, but we must take great care that, if divided, we may not be outmatched by the enemy, since Caesar has numerous troops and in a short time will have more. A man of your judgement ought to bear in mind not only the size of Caesar's present array against you but the number of infantry and cavalry that he will soon collect. Evidence of that contingency is in the letter which Bussenius dispatched to me, and it agrees with the missives from others in stating that Curio is concentrating the garrisons which were in Umbria and Etruria and marching to join Caesar. With these forces combined, though one division may be sent to Alba, and another advance on you, and though Caesar may refrain from the offensive and be content to defend his position, still you will be in a fix, nor will you be able with your following to make sufficient head against such numbers to allow of your sending out foraging parties.

Therefore I beg you earnestly to come here on the first opportunity with all your forces. The consuls have decided to do the same. I have instructed

[Pg 159]

M. Tuscilius to tell you that we must beware lest the two legions without the cohorts from Picenum come within sight of Caesar. Accordingly do not be disturbed if you hear of my retreat in the face of Caesar's possible advance, for I consider that I must take every step to avoid being trapped. The season of the year and the spirit of my troops prevents me from making a camp; nor is it wise to collect the garrisons from all the towns, lest room for retreat be lost. So I have not mustered more than fourteen cohorts at Luceria. The consuls will bring in all their garrisons to me or start for Sicily. We must either have an army strong enough to allow of our breaking through the enemy's lines, or get and hold localities we can defend. At the present moment we have neither of those advantages: a large part of Italy is held by Caesar, and our army is neither so well equipped nor so large as his. We must therefore take care to look to the main issue. Again and again I beg you to come to me as soon as possible with all your forces. Even now the constitution may be restored, if we take common counsel in our action. Division means weakness: of that I am positive.

After I had written my letter Sicca brought me a dispatch and message from you. I fear I cannot comply with your request for assistance, because I do not put much trust in these legions.

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XIId
CN. MAGNUS PROCONSUL SENDS SALUTATION TO DOMITIUS PROCONSUL.

A dispatch from you reached me on the 17th of February saying that Caesar had pitched his camp in

[Pg 161]

the neighbourhood of Corfinium. What I expected and foretold has happened: he refuses to meet you in the field at present, and he is hemming you in with all his forces concentrated, so that the road may not be clear for you to join me and unite your loyal contingent with my legions whose allegiance is questionable. Consequently I am all the more upset by your dispatch: for I cannot place sufficient confidence in the loyalty of my men to risk a decisive engagement, nor have the levies recruited for the consuls come here.

So do your best, if any tactics can extricate you even now, to join me as soon as possible before our enemy can concentrate all his forces. The levies cannot reach here at an early date, and, even if they were concentrated, you must see how little trust can be put in troops, which do not even know one another by sight, when facing a veteran army.

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XIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Let my secretary's handwriting be proof that I am suffering from inflammation of the eyes, and that is my reason for brevity, though now to be sure I have no news. I depend entirely on news from Brundisium. If Caesar has come up with our friend Pompey, there is some slight hope of peace: but, if Pompey has crossed the sea, we must look for war and massacre. Do you see the kind of man into whose hands the state has fallen? What foresight, what energy, what readiness! Upon my word, if he refrain from murder and rapine, he will be the darling of those who dreaded him most. The people of the country towns and the farmers talk to me a great deal. They care for nothing at all

[Pg 163]

but their lands, their little homesteads and their tiny hoards. And see how public opinion has changed. They fear the man they once trusted, and adore the man they once dreaded. It pains me to think of the mistakes and wrongs of ours that are responsible for this reaction. I wrote you what I thought would be our fate, and I now await a letter from you.

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XIV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have no doubt my daily letter must bore you, especially as I have no fresh news, nor can I find any new excuse for a letter. If I should employ special messengers to convey my chatter to you without reason, I should be a fool: but I cannot refrain from entrusting letters to folk who are bound for Rome, especially when they are members of my household. Believe me, too, when I seem to talk with you, I have some little relief from sorrow, and, when I read a letter from you, far greater relief. I am quite aware that there has been no time, since fear drove me to flight, when silence and no letters would have been more appropriate, for the good reason that there is no fresh news at Rome, nor here—two or three days' journey nearer Brundisium. The issue of this first campaign will turn entirely on the action at Brundisium: and I am on thorns to hear the result. However, all will be known by the 7th. On the noon of the day (that is the 21st of February), on the morning of which Pompey left Canusium, I see that Caesar set out from Corfinium. But Caesar marches in such a way, and so spurs his men with largess, that I fear he may reach Brundisium sooner than we

[Pg 165]

want. You may wonder why I forestall disagreeable tidings which will be known in three days' time. I have no reason, except, as I said before, that I love to talk to you; and at the same time I want you to know that what I had counted my fixed resolve is shaken. The precedents you quote with approval don't quite fit my case. They are those of men who have never distinguished themselves by great political action, and are not looked up to for any act of merit. Nor, let me tell you, have I any praise for those who have crossed the sea to make preparations for war—unbearable as things here were. For I foresee how great and calamitous that war will be. I am influenced only by one man, whom I think I ought to accompany in flight, and help in the restoration of the constitution. I may seem variable; but I talk with you as I talk with myself, and there is no one who, in such a crisis, does not view matters in many lights. Moreover, I want to get your opinion, to encourage me, if you have not changed it, or otherwise to win my assent. It is particularly necessary for me to know in my dilemma what course Domitius and my friend Lentulus will take.

As for Domitius I hear many reports: at one time that he is at Tibur out of sorts, at another that he has consorted with the Lepidi in their march to Rome. That I see is untrue. For Lepidus says that he is following a hidden path, but whether to hide or reach the sea even he does not know. Lepidus has no news about his son either. He adds a provoking detail, that Domitius has failed to get back a large sum of money which he had at Corfinium. Of Lentulus I have no news. Please make inquiries on these points and inform me.

[Pg 167]

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XV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On the 3rd of March Aegypta[77] brought me your letters, one an old one dated February 26, which you say you handed to Pinarius, whom I have not seen. In that letter you were waiting to hear the result of Vibullius' advance mission. He did not meet Caesar at all, as I see from your second letter you are aware. You also wanted to know how I shall receive Caesar on his return. I intend to shun him altogether. And you contemplate flight on the day he comes, and a change in your life, which I agree is politic. You wrote too that you do not know if Domitius keeps his fasces. When you do know, please tell me. That settles the first letter.

There follow two more dated the 28th of February, which hurled me from my old position, when I was already tottering, as I had informed you. I am not upset by your phrase "angry with almighty God."[78] There is danger not only in Pompey's anger, but in Caesar's, and the issue is doubtful, though to me the worst cause seems better equipped. Nor am I influenced by the consuls, who themselves are more easily moved than leaf or feather. It is consideration of my duty that tortures me and has been torturing me all along. To remain in Italy is certainly safer: to cross the sea the path of honour. Sometimes I prefer that many should accuse me of rashness, rather than the select few of dishonourable action. For your query about Lepidus and Tullus, they have

[Pg 169]

decided to meet Caesar and to take their seats in the House.

In your last letter, dated the 1st of March, you long for a meeting between the two leaders, and have hopes of peace. But at the time of writing I fancy they will not meet, and that, if they do, Pompey will not agree to any terms. You seem to have no doubt as to what I ought to do, if the consuls go over-seas; well they will go, or rather have now gone. But bear in mind that of their number it is practically only Appius who has not a right to cross. The rest are either invested with military power, like Pompey, Scipio, Sufenas, Fannius, Voconius, Sestius and the consuls themselves, who by old custom may visit all the provinces; or else they are legates. However I have no positive views. I know what you approve and pretty well what it is right to do.

My letter would be longer, if I could write myself. I fancy I shall be able in two days' time. I have had Cornelius Balbus' letter, which I received on the same day as yours, copied, and I forward it to you, that you may sympathize with me on seeing me mocked.

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XVa
BALBUS SALUTES CICERO THE IMPERATOR.

I beg you, Cicero, to consider a plan eminently suited to your character, namely to recall Caesar and Pompey to their former state of friendship, which has been broken by the treachery of others. Believe me that Caesar will not only meet your wishes, but will esteem any endeavours of yours in this matter as a very great service. I wish Pompey would take the same

[Pg 171]

view; but it is rather a dream of mine than a hope, that he can be persuaded to come to terms at this time. When he becomes settled and recovers from fright, I shall have better hopes that your influence may avail with him.

In desiring my friend the consul Lentulus to remain in Rome, you have gratified Caesar, and myself too, I may assure you, in the highest degree. I value Lentulus as much as Caesar. If he had allowed me to renew my old intercourse, and had not again and again avoided conversation with me, I should be less unhappy than I am. For do not think that this crisis causes anyone more torment than it causes me, when I see him, to whom I am more devoted than to myself, acting in office in a way quite unfitted for a consul. If he only takes your advice and believes our professions about Caesar, and serves the remainder of his office in Rome, then I shall begin to hope that by the advice of the Senate, on your suggestion and at his formal motion, there may be effected a reconciliation between Pompey and Caesar. In that event I shall think my life's mission accomplished.

I know that you will approve entirely of Caesar's action about Corfinium. Under the circumstances there could have been nothing better than a settlement without bloodshed. I am delighted that you are pleased with the arrival of my and your Balbus. Whatever Balbus has told you about Caesar, and whatever Caesar has said to you in his letters, I am confident Caesar will convince you by his acts, be his fortune what it will, that his professions were quite sincere.

[Pg 173]

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XVI
CICERO TO ATTICUS.

I have made provision for everything except a secret and safe passage to the Adriatic. The other route I cannot face at this time of the year. How can I get to that place on which my mind is set, and whither fate calls? My departure must be in haste, for fear some obstacle and hindrance should arise. It is not, as one might think, Pompey who induces me to go. I have long known him to be the poorest of statesmen, and I now see he is the poorest of generals. I am not induced by him, but by the common talk of which Philotimus informs me. He says that the loyalists are tearing me to tatters. Loyalists, good God! And see how they are running to meet Caesar, and selling themselves to him. The country towns are treating him as a god, and there is no pretence about it, as there was in the prayers for Pompey's recovery from illness. Any mischief this Pisistratus may leave undone will give as much satisfaction as if he had prevented another from doing it. People hope to placate Caesar; they think that Pompey is angered. What ovations from the towns and what honour is paid him! In fright I dare say, but they are more afraid of Pompey. They are delighted with the cunning kindness of Caesar, and afraid of the anger of his rival. Those who are on the jury list of 360 judges, the especial partisans of Pompey, some of whom I see daily, shudder at vague Lucerias[79] which they conjure up. So I ask what sort of loyalists are

[Pg 175]

these, to banish me, while they remain at home? Still whoever they are "I fear the Trojans." Yet I see clearly with what a prospect I set out, and I join myself with a man ready to devastate our country rather than to conquer its oppressor, and I look to serve a tyrant. And indeed on March 4, the date of this letter, I am expecting every moment some news from Brundisium. Why do I say "some news," when it is news of his disgraceful flight, and the route by which the victor is returning and the direction in which he is moving. On hearing that, I think of going to Arpinum, if Caesar comes by the Appian way.

[Pg 177]

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CICERO'S LETTERS TO ATTICUS BOOK IX

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I
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Although, when you read this letter, I think I shall know what has been done at Brundisium, since Pompey left Canusium on the 21st of February and I am writing this on the 6th of March, fourteen days after his departure from Canusium, still I am in agonies of suspense as to what each hour may bring, and I am astonished that I do not even get a rumour. There is a strange hush. But perhaps this is much ado about nothing, when we must know all about it soon enough. But it does worry me that so far I have been unable to discover the whereabouts of my friend Lentulus and of Domitius. I want to know, that I may be able to find out what they are going to do, whether they are going to Pompey, and, if so, by what route and on what date.

Town, I am told, is now crammed full with our party. Sosius and Lupus, who, Pompey thought, would reach Brundisium before himself, are, it appears, sitting as magistrates. From here there is a general move: even M'. Lepidus, with whom I used to spend the day, thinks of starting to-morrow. I am lingering in my villa at Formiae to get news the sooner. Then I intend to go to Arpinum: from Arpinum I proceed to the Adriatic, choosing the least frequented route and leaving behind or even dismissing my lictors. For I am told that certain

[Pg 179]

loyalists, who now and formerly have been a bulwark of the Republic, do not like my staying in Italy, and that they sit half the day over their festive boards making caustic remarks about me.

So I must depart, and, to be a good citizen, wage war on Italy, kindle against myself again the hatred of the disloyal which had died down, and follow the plans of Lucceius and Theophanes. For Scipio can be said to set out for Syria, his allotted province, or to accompany his son-in-law, which is an honourable excuse, or to flee from Caesar's anger. The Marcelli would of course have stayed, had they not feared the sword of Caesar. Appius has the same reason for alarm, and additional reason through a fresh quarrel. Except Appius and C. Cassius all the others hold military commands, Faustus being proquaestor. I am the only one who could go or stay as I like. Besides there is my brother, whom it is not fair to involve in my trouble. With him Caesar will be even more angry, but I cannot induce him to stay behind. This sacrifice I will make to Pompey, as loyalty bids. For no one else influences me, neither talk of loyalists—for there are none—nor our cause, which has been conducted in panic and will be conducted in disgrace. To one man, one only, I make this sacrifice, though he does not even ask it and though the battle he is fighting is, as he says, not his own but the State's, I should much like to know what you think about crossing into Epirus.

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II
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Though the 7th of March, the day I think for your attack of fever,[80] should bring me a longer letter

[Pg 181]

from you, still I suppose I ought to answer the shorter note, which you sent on the 4th on the eve of your attack. You say you are glad that I have stayed in Italy, and you write that you abide by your former view. But an earlier letter led me to think you had no doubt I ought to go, if Pompey embarked with a good following and the consuls crossed too. Have you forgotten this, or have I failed to understand you, or have you changed your mind? But I shall either learn your opinion from the letter I now await: or I shall extract another letter from you. From Brundisium so far there is no news.

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IIa
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

What a difficult and calamitous business! Nothing passed over in the advice you give, nothing revealed as to your real opinion! You are glad that I am not with Pompey, and yet you lay down how wrong it would be for me to be present when he is criticized: it were shameful to approve his conduct. Agreed. Should I then speak against him? "Heaven forbid," you say. So, what can happen, if one way lies crime, and the other punishment? You advise me to get from Caesar leave of absence and permission to retire. Must I then beg and pray? That would be humiliating: and suppose I fail? You say the matter of my triumph will not be prejudiced. But what if I am hampered by that very thing? Accept it? What dishonour! Refuse it? Caesar will think that I am repudiating him entirely, more even than when I declined a place among his twenty land commissioners.[81] And it is his way, when he excuses himself

[Pg 183]

to throw on me all the blame for that period, and to say I was so bitter an enemy that I would not even take an office from him. How much more will this annoy him! Why, as much more as this honour is greater than that, and he himself is stronger. As for your remark that you have no doubt I am in bad odour with Pompey at this present time, I see no reason why it should be so, especially at this time. Pompey did not tell me his plans till after the loss of Corfinium, and he cannot complain of my not going to Brundisium, when Caesar was between me and Brundisium. Besides he knows that complaint on his part is stopped. He is of opinion that I saw clearer than he did about the weakness of the municipal towns, the levies, peace, the city, the public funds, occupying Pisenum. If however I do not go to him, when I can, he will certainly be angry. From that I shrink—not for fear of harm he may do me (for what can he do? And who

"Would be a slave but he who fears to die?"[83])

but because I shrink from being charged with ingratitude. So I trust my arrival will be, as you say, welcome to him, whenever I go. As for your remark "If Caesar's conduct be more temperate, you will weigh your advice more carefully," how can Caesar keep himself from a destructive policy? It is forbidden by his character, his previous career, the nature of his present enterprise, his associates, the material strength or even the moral firmness of the loyalist party.

I had scarcely read your letter, when up comes Curtius Postumus hurrying off to Caesar, talking of nothing but fleets and armies; "Caesar is wresting

[Pg 185]

the Spains from Pompey, occupying Asia, Sicily, Africa, Sardinia, and forthwith pursuing Pompey into Greece." So I must set out to take part not so much in a war as in a flight. For I can never put up with the talk of your friends, whoever they are, for certainly they are not what they are called, loyalists. Still that is just what I want to know, what they do say, and I beg you earnestly to inquire and inform me. So far I know nothing of what has happened at Brundisium. When I know, I shall form my plans according to circumstances and the moment; but I shall use your advice.

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III
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

The son of Domitius went through Formiae on the 8th of March hastening to his mother at Naples, and, when my slave Dionysius inquired particularly from him about his father, he sent me a message that he was outside the city. But I had heard that he had gone either to Pompey or to Spain. What the fact is, I should much like to know, for it has a bearing on the point I am now considering: if it is certain that Domitius has found no means of departure, Pompey may understand that my own departure from Italy is difficult, seeing that it is now beset with troops and garrisons, and especially in the winter season. For, were it a more convenient time of year, one could even cross the southern sea. Now there is no choice but the Adriatic, to which passage is barred. So please inquire both about Domitius and about Lentulus.

From Brundisium no news has come yet, and to-day

[Pg 187]

is the 9th of March. I expect Caesar reached Brundisium to-day or yesterday. He stayed at Arpi on the 1st. If you choose to listen to Postumus, Caesar meant to pursue Pompey; for, by calculating the state of the weather and the days, he concluded that Pompey had crossed the sea. I thought that Caesar would be unable to get crews, but Postumus was quite sure about that, and the more so because ship-owners had heard of Caesar's liberality. But it cannot be long now before I hear the full story of what has happened at Brundisium.

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IV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Though now I rest only so long as I am writing to you or reading your letters, still I am in want of subject matter, and feel sure that you are in the same position, for the present crisis debars us from the free and easy topics of friendly correspondence, and the topics connected with the present crisis we have already exhausted. However, not to succumb entirely to low spirits, I have taken for myself certain theses, so to speak, which deal with la haute politique and are applicable to the present crisis, so that I may keep myself from querulous thoughts and may practise the subject. Here are some:

Whether one should remain in one's country, even under a tyranny. Whether any means are lawful to

[Pg 189]

abolish a tyranny, even if they endanger the existence of the State. Whether one ought to take care that one who tries to abolish it may not rise too high himself. Whether one ought to assist one's country, when under a tyranny, by seizing opportunities and by argument rather than by war. Whether one is doing one's duty to the State, if one retires to some other place and there remains inactive, when there is a tyranny; or whether one ought to run every risk for liberty. Whether one ought to invade the country and besiege one's native town, when it is under a tyranny. Whether one ought to enrol oneself in the ranks of the loyalists, even if one does not approve of war as a means of abolishing tyranny. Whether one ought in political matters to share the dangers of one's benefactors and friends, even if one does not believe their general policy to be wise. Whether one who has done good service for his country, and by it has won ill-treatment and envy, should voluntarily put himself into danger for that country, or may at length take thought for himself and his dear ones and avoid struggles against the powers that be.

By employing myself with such questions and discussing the pros and cons in Greek and Latin, I divert my thoughts a little from my troubles and at the same time consider a subject which is very pertinent. But I fear you may find me a nuisance. For, if the bearer makes proper headway, it will reach you on the very day you have your attack of ague.

[Pg 191]

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V
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On your birthday you wrote me a letter full of advice, full of great kindness and of great wisdom. Philotimus delivered it to me the day after he got it from you. The points you discuss are very difficult—the route to the upper sea, a voyage by the lower sea, departure to Arpinum, lest I should seem to have avoided Caesar, remaining at Formiae, lest I should appear to have put myself forward to congratulate him; but the most miserable thing of all will be to see what I tell you must very shortly be seen.

Curtius Postumus was with me. I wrote you how tiresome he was. Quintus Fufius also came to see me—what an air! what assurance!—hastening to Brundisium denouncing Pompey's wrong-doings and the careless folly of the House. When I cannot stand this under my own roof, how shall I be able to endure Curtius in the Senate? But suppose I put up with all this in good humour, what of the question "Your vote, M. Tullius?" What will come of it? I pass over the cause of the Republic, which I consider lost, both from the wounds dealt it and the cures prepared for them; but what am I to do about Pompey? It is no use denying that I am downright angry with him. For I am always more affected by the causes of events than by the events themselves. Therefore considering our incomparable woes, or rather concluding that they have happened by his doing and his mistakes, I am more angry with Pompey than with Caesar himself. Just as our ancestors

[Pg 193]

thought that the day of the battle of Alia was blacker than the day of the capture of Rome, because the capture was but the consequence of the battle (and so the former day is still a black letter day and the latter is commonly unknown), so I too was angry in recalling his errors of the last ten years, which included the year of my affliction, when he gave me no help, to put it mildly, and recognizing his foolhardiness, sloth and carelessness at the present time. But all this I have forgotten. It is his kindness I think of, and I think of my own honour too. I understand, later indeed than I could have wished, from the letters and conversation of Balbus, but I see plainly, that the sole object is, and has been from the beginning, the death of Pompey. So I say the same as Achilles to his mother, when she said "For after Hector's death thy doom is fixed," and he replied, "Then let me die, since I have failed to save my friend."

And in my case it is not only a friend but a benefactor, a man so great and championing so great a cause. Indeed I hold that life should be paid for the kindnesses that he has done me. But in your loyal party I have no confidence: nor I do even acknowledge any allegiance to them now. I see how they surrender and will surrender themselves to Caesar. Do you think that those decrees of the towns about Pompey's health were anything compared with their congratulatory addresses to Caesar? You will say, "They are terrorized." Yes, but they themselves declare that they were terrorized on the former occasion. But let us see what has happened at Brundisium. Perhaps from that may spring different plans and a different letter.

[Pg 195]

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VI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

No news yet from Brundisium. From Rome Balbus has written that he thinks the consul Lentulus has now gone over, and that the younger Balbus has not met him, because the latter has just heard the news at Canusium and from that town has written to him. He adds that the six cohorts which were at Alba have gone to Curius by the Minucian road, that Caesar has written to tell him so and will shortly be in Rome. So I shall follow your advice. I shall not go and bury myself in Arpinum at the present time, though, since I had wished to celebrate my son's coming of age there, I thought of leaving that as an excuse to Caesar. But perhaps that itself will give offence and he might ask why I should not do it at Rome. Still, if I must meet him, I would much rather meet him here. Then I shall see the other things, where I am to go, by what route and when.

Domitius, I hear, is at Cosa, and ready it is said to sail. If it is to Spain, I do not approve, but, if to Pompey, he has my praise. Better to go anywhere than to have to see Curtius, of whom, though I have defended him, I cannot bear the sight, not to speak of others. But I suppose I had better keep quiet, for fear of convicting myself of folly in managing to be cut off wholly and made captive through my love of my country and an idea that the matter could be patched up.

Just as I had finished writing, there came a letter from Capua, of which this is a copy: "Pompey has crossed the sea with all the soldiery he has. There

[Pg 197]

are 30,000 men, two consuls, tribunes and the senators who were with him, all accompanied by wives and children. He is said to have embarked on the 4th of March. From that day there have been northerly winds. They say he disabled or burned all the ships he did not use."

[Sidennote Iliad x, 91]

On this matter a letter has been received at Capua by Lucius Metellus, the tribune of the plebs, from Clodia, his mother-in-law, who herself crossed the sea. I was anxious and distracted before, naturally enough under the circumstances, when I could find no solution of affairs. But, now that Pompey and the consuls have left Italy, I am not only distracted, but I blaze with indignation. "Steady my heart no more, but wild with grief." Believe me, I say I am no longer responsible, so great the shame I seem to have incurred. To think that in the first place I should not be with Pompey, whatever his plan, nor again with the loyalists, however rashly they have mismanaged their cause! Particularly when those very people, whose interests kept me cautious, my wife, my daughter and the boys, preferred that I should follow Pompey's fortunes, and thought Caesar's cause disgraceful and unworthy of me. As for my brother Quintus, whatever I thought right, he agreed to, and he followed my course with perfect contentment.

Your letters I am reading now from the beginning of the business. They afford me some little relief. The first warn and entreat me not to commit myself. The later ones show you are glad I stayed. While I read them, my conduct seems to me less discreditable; but only so long as I read: afterwards up rises sorrow again and a vision of shame. So I beseech you, Titus,

[Pg 199]

take this grief away from me, or at any rate lessen it by your sympathy or advice or by any other possible means. Yet what can you or any man do? God Himself could hardly help now.

But my own aim now is to achieve what you advise and hope, that Caesar excuse my absence, when any measure is brought forward against Pompey in the house. But I fear I may fail. Furnius has come from Caesar. To show you the sort of men I am following, he tells me that the son of Q. Titinius is with Caesar, but Caesar expresses greater thanks to me than I could wish. His request put in a few words, but ex cathedra, you may see from his letter. How grieved I am at your ill-health! We should have been together; assuredly advice would not have been wanting: "Two heads are better than one."

But let us not fight battles over again, let us attend to the future. Till now two things have led me astray, at first the hope of a settlement, and, if that were secured, I was ready for private life and an old age quit of public cares; and then I discovered that Pompey was beginning a bloody and destructive war. On my honour I thought that it was the part of a better man and a better citizen to suffer any punishment rather than, I will not say to take a leading part, but even to take any part in such atrocities. It seems as though it would have been preferable to die than to be one of such men. So, my dear Atticus, think on these problems, or rather think them out. I shall bear any result more bravely than this affliction.

[Pg 201]

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VIa
CAESAR THE IMPERATOR SENDS GREETINGS TO CICERO THE IMPERATOR.

Though I have only had a glimpse of our friend Furnius, and have not yet been able conveniently to speak to him or hear what he has to say, being in a hurry and on the march, yet I could not neglect the opportunity of writing to you and sending him to convey my thanks. Be sure I have often thanked you and I expect to have occasion to do so still more often in the future: so great are your services to me. First I beg you, since I trust that I shall quickly reach Rome, to let me see you there, and employ your advice, favour, position and help of all kinds. I will return to what I began with: pardon my haste and the shortness of my letter. All the other information you may get from Furnius.

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VII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I wrote you a letter dated the 12th of March, but on that day the man to whom I meant to give it did not set out. However, on that very day there arrived that "sprinter," as Salvius called him, bringing your very full epistle which has put just a drop of life into me, for recovered I cannot profess to be. Clearly you have done the one thing needful. Believe me I am not acting now with a view to a lucky issue; for I see that we can never enjoy a Republic while these two men live, or this one alone. So I

have no hope of ease for myself and I do not refuse to contemplate as possible any bitterness. The one thing I dread is doing, or, perhaps I should say, having done, anything disgraceful.

So please consider that your letter was good for me, and not only the longer, most explicit and perfect epistle, but also the shorter, in which the most delightful thing was to find that my policy and action is approved by Sextus. You have done me a great kindness....[85] Of his affection and sense of honour I am sure. But that longer letter of yours has relieved not only me but all my friends from our sorry state: so I will follow your advice and remain in the villa at Formiae, that my meeting with Caesar outside the city may not excite comment, or, if I do not meet him either here or there, I may not lead him to think I have shunned him. As for your advice to ask him to allow me to pay Pompey the same homage as I did to him, you will understand I have been doing that long since, when you see the copies I forward of letters of Balbus and Oppius. I send also a letter addressed by Caesar to them, which is sane enough considering these mad times. But, if Caesar should refuse my request, I see that you think I should undertake to be a peace-maker. In that rôle I do not fear danger—for, with so many dangers overhanging, why should I not compound by taking the most respectable—but I fear lest I may embarrass Pompey, and he fix on me "the Gorgon gaze of his dread eye." It is wonderful to see how Pompey desires to imitate Sulla's reign. I know what I am saying. He has made no secret of it. Then why

[Pg 205]

do I wish to be associated with such a man? Believe me I follow gratitude, not a cause [and I did in the case of Milo and in.... But enough of this.] "Then the cause is not good?" Yes, the best in the world; but remember it will be handled in the most disgraceful way. The first plan is to throttle Rome and Italy and starve them, then to lay waste and burn the country, and not to keep hands off the riches of the wealthy. But, since I have the same fears on Caesar's side too, if it were not for favours on the other side, I should think it better to stay in Rome and suffer what comes. But so bounden do I consider myself to Pompey that I cannot endure to risk the charge of ingratitude. But you have said all that can be said for that course too.

About my triumph I agree with you. I can throw it away willingly and with ease. I am delighted with your remark that it may be, while I am considering, "the chance to sail" may arise. "Yes," you say, "if only Pompey is firm enough." He is more firm than I imagined. In him you may be confident. I promise you, if he succeeds, he will not leave a tile in Italy. "Will you help him, then?" By heaven, against my own judgement and against all the lessons of the past I desire to depart, not so much that I may help Pompey, as that I may not see what is being done here. For please do not think that the madness of these parties will be endurable or of one kind. However, it is obvious to you that when laws, juries, courts and Senate are abolished, neither private nor public resources will be able to bear up against the lusts, daring, extravagance and necessity of so many needy men. So let me depart on any kind of voyage: be it whatever you will, only let me depart.

[Pg 207]

For I shall know the news you are waiting for, what has happened at Brundisium.

If, as you say, my conduct hitherto has been approved by the loyal party and they are aware I have not gone away, I am very glad indeed, if now there is any place for gladness. As for Lentulus I will make more careful inquiries. I have entrusted the matter to Philotimus, a man of courage and excessive loyalty.

The last thing I have to say is, that perhaps you lack a theme for your letters—for one can write on no other topic, and what more can be said on this? But since there is plenty of ability in you (and upon my soul I speak as I feel) and affection which also spurs my own wit, go on as you are doing and write as much as you can.

I am rather annoyed that you do not invite me as your guest to Epirus when you know I should give you no trouble. But good-bye. You want your walk and perfumery and I want my sleep: for your letter has induced sleep.

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VIIa
BALBUS AND OPPIUS TO M. CICERO, GREETING.

Advice—even the advice of distinguished persons, let alone nobodies like ourselves—is generally judged by results and not by intentions. However, relying on your kindness of heart, we will give you the soundest advice we can on the point about which you wrote, and, even if its wisdom may be doubted, there will be no doubt that it springs from good faith and good feeling.

If we had heard from Caesar's own lips that he

[Pg 209]

was going to do, what in our opinion he ought to do, as soon as he reaches Rome, that is to say try to effect a reconciliation with Pompey, we should feel it our duty to exhort you to take part in the negotiations, as the whole thing could most easily and with the greatest dignity be carried through by you, who have ties with both parties. If on the contrary we thought Caesar was not going to follow that course, and knew that he even wished to wage war with Pompey, we should never advise you to bear arms against a man who has done you such good service, just as we have always begged you not to fight against Caesar. But, since Caesar's intentions are still mere guesswork, we can only say that it does not seem consonant with your dignity or your well-known sense of honour to bear arms against either of them, as you are intimate with both: and we have no doubt that Caesar will be generous enough to approve of this course. If you wish it, however, we will write to Caesar to ascertain his intentions in this matter. If he sends us an answer, we will let you know our opinion at once, and convince you that we are giving the advice which seems to us to be best for your dignity, not for Caesar's policy, and, such is Caesar's consideration for his friends, that we feel sure he will approve of such a course.

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VIIb
BALBUS TO CICERO, THE IMPERATOR, GREETING.

I hope you are well.[89] After sending you a letter in conjunction with Oppius I had a note from Caesar, of which I am forwarding a copy. From it you can

[Pg 211]

see how eager he is for a reconciliation between himself and Pompey, and how far removed all cruelty is from his thoughts: and I am, as in duty bound, very glad that he takes that view. As for yourself and your honour, and loyalty to your friends, I give you my word, my dear Cicero, that I think as you do, that your reputation and your duty will not admit of your bearing arms against a man, from whom you acknowledge that you have received such favours. I have not the slightest doubt that Caesar with his extraordinary kindness will agree, and that you will satisfy him abundantly, by taking no part against him in the war and not siding with his opponents. And this he will count sufficient not only in the case of so important a personage as yourself, but even to me of his own free will he has granted the same permission not to enter a camp which would be opposed to Lentulus and Pompey, to whom I am under great obligations: and he has said he is quite satisfied, if I should perform peaceful civic functions for him, which I am at liberty to perform for them too, if I wish. So I am acting now as Lentulus' deputy at Rome and carrying out his business, fulfilling my duty and maintaining my honour and loyalty to them. But really, though I had given up hope of peace, I am no longer in despair of it, since Caesar is in the mood in which we would wish him to be.

Under the circumstances I see no objection, if you think fit, to your writing and asking for his protection, as you did for Pompey's, with my approval, at Milo's trial. If I know anything of Caesar, I will guarantee that he will consider your dignity more than his own advantage.

How far the advice I am sending may be right, I

[Pg 213]

do not know; but one thing I do know, that, in sending what I am sending to you, I am actuated by more than ordinary affection and goodwill. Though I am ready to die for Caesar's sake, there are few that I esteem as highly as I esteem you. When you have made up your mind on the point, I should like you to let me know, for I am much concerned that you should be able to show your goodwill to both parties, as you desire: and I have not the faintest doubt that you will. Take care of your health.

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VIIc
CAESAR TO OPPIUS AND CORNELIUS, GREETING.

I am very glad to hear from your letters how strongly you approve of what happened at Corfinium. I shall follow your advice with pleasure—with all the more pleasure, because I had myself made up my mind to act with the greatest moderation, and to do my best to effect a reconciliation with Pompey. Let us see if by moderation we can win all hearts and secure a lasting victory, since by cruelty others have been unable to escape from hatred and to maintain their victory for any length of time except L. Sulla, whose example I do not intend to follow. This is a new way of conquering, to strengthen one's position by kindness and generosity. As to how this can be done, some ideas have occurred to me and many more can be found. I should like you to turn some attention to the matter.

I have taken N. Magius, a praefect of Pompey. Of course I kept to my policy and set him free at once.

So now two of Pompey's praefects of engineers have fallen into my hands and I have set them free. If they have any gratitude, they ought to exhort Pompey to prefer my friendship to that of men who were always the bitterest enemies both to him and to me. It is their machinations that have brought the State into its present plight.

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VIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

As I was dining on the 14th, and indeed after nightfall, Statius brought a short letter from you. For your query about L. Torquatus, not only Lucius but also Aulus has gone [the former some two days],[91] the latter a long time ago. For your news about the sale of prisoners at Reate, I am sorry that the seeds of a proscription should be sown in the Sabine district. That many members of the House are at Rome, I also have heard. Can you give any reason why they ever left it? Here there is an idea based on guesswork rather than message or dispatch that Caesar will be at Formiae on March the 22nd. I wish I could have here Homer's Minerva disguised as Mentor, that I might say to her, "Mentor, how shall I go, and how shall I welcome him, pray?" I have never had a more difficult step to think of. But I think of it nevertheless: nor shall I be unprepared, so far as the evil days permit. Take care of yourself, for I fancy yesterday was the day for your fever.

[Pg 217]

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IX
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I got three letters from you on the 16th. They were dated the 12th, 13th and 14th. So I will take the earliest first. I agree with you that it is best for me to stay at Formiae. I also agree about the Adriatic. But as I wrote you before, I will strive to discover how I may be able with Caesar's goodwill to keep quite clear of politics. You praise me for saying that I forget Pompey's former misdeeds and ill-doings, but it is a fact. Nay, those very actions you call to mind, in which he did harm to me myself, have no place in my memory. I am so determined to feel gratitude for his kindness rather than resentment for injuries. Let me act then as you decree, and pull myself together. For I philosophize as I walk about my estate, and in my perambulations I do not cease to ponder my themes. But some of them are very difficult to decide. As for the loyalists, let it be as you wish. You know the old saying "Dionysius in Corinth."[93]

Titinius' son is with Caesar. You seem to fear that your advice irks me; but nothing indeed pleases me except your counsel and your letters. So do as you promise. Do not omit to write to me anything that comes into your mind; for nothing can delight me more.

I turn now to your next letter. You are right not

[Pg 219]

to believe the reports about the number of Pompey's soldiers. Clodia's letter made them just double. It was untrue also about the destruction of the vessels. You praise the consuls; so do I praise their courage, but I blame their policy. Their departure has destroyed the negotiations for peace, the very thing which I was contemplating. So after that I returned you Demetrius' book on Concord and gave it to Philotimus. And I have no doubt a disastrous war is imminent, which will be ushered in by famine. And here I am lamenting that I have no hand in the war, a war which will be so criminal, that though it is wicked not to support one's parents, yet our chiefs will not hesitate to destroy by starvation their country, that most reverend and holiest of parents! And my fears are not based on mere surmise. I have heard their talk. All this fleet from Alexandria, Colchis, Tyre, Sidon, Aradus, Cyprus, Pamphylia, Lycia, Rhodes, Chius, Byzantium, Lesbos, Smyrna, Miletus, Cos, is being got ready to cut off the supplies of Italy and to blockade the grain-producing provinces. And how angry Pompey will be when he comes, particularly with those who particularly desire his safety, as if he were abandoned by those whom he has abandoned! So in my doubt what I ought to do, I am greatly swayed by my good feeling towards Pompey. Without that it were better to perish in my country, than to destroy my country by saving it. As to the north wind, it is clearly as you write. I fear Epirus

[Pg 221]

may be harassed, but do you suppose there is any part of Greece that will not be robbed? Pompey openly declares and shows his men that he will be more liberal even than Caesar in largesse. You do well to advise me, when I see Caesar, not to be too complacent, and to speak rather with dignity. Clearly I must do so. I am thinking of going to Arpinum after I have met him; for I do not want to be absent on his arrival, or to have to travel to and fro in the wretched condition of the roads. I hear, as you write, that Bibulus came and went back on the 14th.

You say in your third letter that you were awaiting Philotimus. He set out from me on the 15th. That was why my reply to your letter, which I wrote immediately, was late in reaching you. I think you are right about Domitius, that he is in his place at Cosa; but what his plan is, is not known. That disgraceful mean blackguard M. Lepidus, who says that the consular elections may be held by a praetor, is playing his old part in politics. So that was the meaning of the passage in Caesar's letter of which I sent you a copy, that he wanted to enjoy my "advice" (well, that is a general expression), my "influence" (that is flattery, but I suppose he affects to want it with a view to the votes of certain senators), my "position" (perhaps he means my vote as an ex-consul). His last phrase is "help in every way." I have begun to suspect from your letter that that is the point, or something very like it. For it is highly important to him that there should not be an interregnum. That point is attained, if consuls are created by a praetor. But in our state books it is set down that it is illegal not only for

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consuls to be created by the praetors, but for the very praetors themselves, and that it has never been done; that it is illegal for consuls, because it is illegal for persons with greater powers to be proposed for election by those with less; for praetors, because they are proposed as colleagues of the consuls who have the greater powers. The next thing will be, he will want me to vote for it, and he will not be content with Galba, Scaevola, Cassius and Antonius, "then let the wide earth swallow me." But you see what a storm is coming. Which senators have crossed over to Pompey I will tell you as soon as I know. You are right about the corn supply: it cannot be done without taxation: and you have cause to fear the exorbitant demands of Pompey's associates and a wicked war. I should much like to see my friend Trebatius, although you tell me he is in despair. Do bid him hurry, for it will be convenient, if he comes before Caesar's arrival. As for that estate at Lanuvium, as soon as I heard of the death of Phamea, I longed, if the constitution was going to last, that one of my friends should buy it, and yet I did not think of you, my best friend of all. For I know that it is your custom to inquire in how many years you may recoup yourself of a purchase, and the value of fixtures, and I had seen your inventory not only at Rome but at Delos. But, though it is a pretty property, I rate it at a lower value than it was rated in Marcellinus' consulship, when I thought that, owing to the house I then had at Antium, those little gardens would please me better and cost less than the repair of my villa at Tusculum. I wanted the property for £4,500.[95] I made an offer to that amount through a third party, when he was putting

[Pg 225]

it up for sale: but he refused. Nowadays I suppose all such property is depreciated on account of the scarcity of money. It will suit me admirably, or rather us, if you buy it. Don't despise the late owner's folly: it is a most charming place. However, all these seats seem now to be doomed to destruction.

I have answered three of your letters; but I await others. So far your letters have been my support.

March 17.

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X
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have nothing to write. There is no news that I have heard, and all your letters I answered yesterday. But as a sick heart not only robs me of sleep, but will not allow me even to keep awake without the greatest pain, I have begun to write to you something or other without any definite subject, that I may have a sort of talk with you, the only thing that gives me relief.

I seem to myself to have been mad from the very beginning, and the one thing that tortures me is that I did not follow Pompey like a private soldier, when he was slipping or rather rushing to ruin. I saw he was terrified on the 17th of January: on that day I felt what he would do. Since then I have never approved his course, and he has never ceased to commit one blunder after another. Meantime not a letter to me, nothing but thoughts of flight. Well! Just as in love affairs men are repelled by untidiness, stupidity and indelicacy, so the ugliness of

[Pg 227]

his flight and his carelessness have estranged my love. For he has done nothing of a kind to induce me to share his flight. But now my old love breaks forth: now I miss him intolerably: now books, letters, philosophy, do not help me one whit. Day and night, like that bird,[96] I gaze at the sea, and long to take flight. Sorely am I punished for my rashness. Yet what rashness was there? I acted with all deliberation. For, if flight were his only object, I would have fled gladly enough. But I was aghast at warfare so cruel and desperate, the upshot of which is still unknown. What threats against the country towns, against the loyalists by name, in fact against all who should stay behind! How frequently has he remarked "Sulla could do it, and shall not I?" I could not get rid of thoughts like these. It was base in Tarquin to egg on Porsena and Octavius Mamilius against his country; it was wicked in Coriolanus, to seek help from the Volscians. Themistocles was right who preferred to die. What a dastard was Hippias, the son of Pisistratus, who fell at the battle of Marathon, bearing arms against his country! Yes, but Sulla and Marius and Cinna acted rightly, perhaps one should say within their rights; but then victory brought cruelty and death. I shrank from a war of that kind, and also because I saw cruelty even greater was being planned and prepared. Was it for me, whom some called the saviour and father of Rome, to bring against her hordes of Getae, Armenians and Colchians? Was it for me to bring famine on my fellow-townsmen and devastation on Italy? In the first place I reflected that Caesar was

[Pg 229]

mortal, and besides might be got rid of in many ways. But I thought that our city and our people should be preserved so far as in us lay for immortality; and anyhow I cherished a hope that some arrangement might be made before Caesar perpetrated such a crime or Pompey such iniquity.

Now the case is altered and my mind is altered too. The sun, as you say in one of your letters, seems to me to have fallen out of the universe. As a sick man is said to have hope, so long as he has breath, so I did not cease to hope so long as Pompey was in Italy. This, this was what deceived me, and to speak the truth after my long labours my life's evening falling peacefully has made me lazy with the thought of domestic pleasures. But now, even if risk must be run in fleeing hence, assuredly I will run it. Perhaps I ought to have done it before: but the points you wrote about delayed me, and especially your influence. For, when I got so far, I opened the packet of your letters, which I keep under seal and preserve with the greatest care. In a letter dated the 21st of January, you make the following remark: "Let us see Pompey's policy and the drift of his plans. Now if he leave Italy, it will be wrong and to my mind irrational: but then and not till then will be the time to change our plans." This you wrote on the fourth day after I left Rome. Then on the 23rd of January: "I only pray that our friend Pompey will not leave Italy, as he has irrationally left Rome." On the same day you wrote another letter, a frank reply to my request for advice. It runs: "But to answer the question on which you ask advice, if Pompey leaves Italy, I think you ought to return to Rome: for what can be the end to his

[Pg 231]

wanderings?" This gave me pause, and I see now endless war is attached to that wretched flight, which you playfully called "wandering." There follows your prophecy of the 25th of January: "If Pompey stays in Italy and no arrangement is reached, I fancy there will be a very long war. If he leaves Italy, I think that for the future there will be war à l'outrance." In this war then à l'outrance, this civil war, am I forced to take part and lot and share? Next on the 7th of February, when you had heard more of Pompey's plans, you end a letter as follows: "I would not advise you to flee, if Pompey leaves Italy. You will run a very great risk, and will not help the country, which you may be able to help hereafter, if you remain." What patriot and politician would not be influenced by such advice from a wise man and a friend? Next on the 11th of February you answer my request for counsel again as follows: "You ask me whether I hold that flight or delay is more useful. Well, I think that at the present juncture a sudden departure and hasty journey would be useless and dangerous both to yourself and to Pompey, and that it were better for you to be apart, and each on his own watch tower. But upon my honour I hold it disgraceful of us to think of flight." This disgrace our Pompey meditated two years ago: so long has he been eager to play at Sulla and proscriptions. Then, as I fancy, when you had written to me in more general terms and I had thought that some of your remarks hinted at my departure from Italy, you protest emphatically against it on the 19th of February: "In no letter have I hinted that you should accompany Pompey, if he leaves Italy, or, if I did hint it, I was worse than inconsistent, I was mad."

[Pg 233]

In the same letter there is another passage: "Nothing is left for Pompey but flight, in which I do not think and never have thought that you should share." This counsel you unroll in detail in your letter dated the 22nd of February: "If M'. Lepidus and L. Volcacius stay, I think you should stay, provided, if Pompey wins safety and makes a stand anywhere, you should leave these âmes damnées, and rather share defeat with him than share Caesar's sovereignty in the mire that will be." You argue at length in support of this view, then at the end you say: "What if Lepidus and Volcacius depart? I am quite at a loss. So I shall think you must face the event and abide by what you have done." If you had any doubt then, you certainly have no doubt left now, as those two persons remain in Italy. Next, when the flight was actually made on Feb. 25: "Meantime I have no doubt you should stay at Formiae. It will be most convenient there to await the event." On the 1st of March, when Pompey had been four days at Brundisium: "Then we shall be able to debate, not indeed with a free hand but assuredly less hampered, than if you had shared his plunge." Next on the 4th of March, though you scribbled a line on the eve of your fever bout, nevertheless you say this: "I will write more to-morrow, and answer all your questions. But I maintain this, that I am not sorry for advising you to stay, and, though very anxious, still, because I fancy it is better than flight, I stick to my opinion and am glad that you have stayed in Italy." When I was already tortured with fear that my conduct was disgraceful on the 5th of March you write: "However I am not sorry that you are not with Pompey. Hereafter, if need arise, it will be easy,

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and to him, whenever it happens, acceptable. When I say this, it is with the reservation, that, if Caesar continues, as he has begun, acting with good faith, moderation and prudence, I must thoroughly review the matter and consider more closely what our interests advise." On the 9th of March you write that my friend Peducaeus too approves my inaction: and his authority has much weight with me. From these lines of yours I console myself with the reflection that so far I have done nothing wrong: but pray support your position. So far as I am concerned there is no need: but I want others to be my accomplices. If I have not done wrong so far, I will take care of the future. Do you maintain your exhortations and assist me with your reflections. Here nothing as yet has been heard about Caesar's return. For myself I have won thus much good by my letter, I have read all yours and found rest in the act.

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XI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Do you know that our friend Lentulus is at Puteoli? I heard this from a passer-by, who declared he recognized him on the Appian road as he drew aside the curtains of his litter, and, though it seemed hardly probable, I sent servants to Puteoli to track him and hand him a letter. He was found with difficulty concealing himself on his estate, and returned me a letter in which he expressed amazing gratitude to Caesar. But about his own plans he said he had sent me a message by C. Caesius. I expect him to-day, the 20th of March.

Matius also came to me on the 19th of March.

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He seemed to me, I do declare, moderate and sensible: certainly he has always been thought to be in favour of peace. How he disliked this present pass! How he seemed to fear these âmes damnées, as you call them! In the course of a long talk I showed him Caesar's letter to me, of which I sent you a copy before, and I asked him to explain what Caesar meant by writing that he wished "to take advantage of my advice, my influence, my position and my help of all sorts." Matius replied that undoubtedly Caesar wanted my help and influence to make peace. Would that I could succeed in carrying through some political compromise in this miserable state of affairs! Matius himself declared that Caesar had that feeling, and promised that he would help such a course.

However the day before Crassipes had been with me, and he said that he had quitted Brundisium on the 6th of March and left Pompey there; the same tale was brought by those who quitted the place on the 8th. All of them, and among the rest Crassipes, who was quite capable of observing what was going on, had the same story, threatening words, breach with the loyalists, hostility to the municipalities, nothing but proscriptions, nothing but Sullas. How Lucceius talked, all the Greeks and Theophanes too! Nevertheless the only hope of safety lies in them, and I am on the watch and take no rest and long to be with the most uncongenial associates to escape the plague here. For what crime do you think that Scipio will stick at, or Faustus and Libo, when their creditors are said to be selling them up, and what do you suppose they will do to the citizens when they win? How pusillanimous Pompey is! They say that he is thinking of Egypt and Arabia Felix and Mesopotamia

[Pg 239]

and has given up Spain. The report is monstrous, but may be false. Certainly all is lost here, and there is not much hope there. I long for a letter from you. Since my flight there has never been so long a break in our correspondence. I send you a copy of my letter to Caesar. I think it will do some good.

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XIa
CICERO THE IMPERATOR TO CAESAR THE IMPERATOR, GREETING.

On reading your letter, which I got from our friend Furnius, in which you told me to come near Rome, I was not much surprised at your wishing to employ "my advice and my position"; but I asked myself what you meant by my "influence" and "help." However, my hopes led me to think that a man of your admirable statesmanship would wish to act for the comfort, peace, and agreement of the citizens, and for that purpose I considered my own character and inclination very suitable. If that is the case, and if you are touched by the desire to protect our friend Pompey and reconcile him to yourself and the State, I am sure you will find no one more suited for the purpose than I am. I have always advocated peace both with Pompey and the Senate ever since I have been able to do so, nor since the outbreak of hostilities have I taken any part in the war; I have considered that the war was attacking your rights in that envious and hostile persons were opposing a distinction conferred on you by the grace of the Roman people. But, as at that time I not only upheld your rights but urged others to assist you, so now I am greatly concerned with the rights of Pompey. It is

[Pg 241]

many years since I chose you two men for my special respect, and to be my closest friends, as you are. So I ask you, or rather beseech and entreat you with all urgency, that in spite of all your anxieties you may devote some time to considering how I may be enabled by your kindness to be what decency and gratitude, nay good-feeling, require, in remembering my great debt to Pompey. If this only mattered to myself, I should yet hope to obtain my request; but to my mind it touches your honour and the public weal that I, a friend of peace and of both of you, should be so supported by you that I may be able to work for peace between you and peace amongst our fellow-citizens. I thanked you formerly in the matter of Lentulus, for having saved him, as he had saved me. Yet on reading the letter he has sent me full of thankfulness for your generous kindness, I feel that his safety is my debt as much as his. If you understand my gratitude to him, pray give me the opportunity of showing my gratitude to Pompey too.

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XII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I had just read your letter on the 20th, when an epistle was brought to me from Lepta announcing that Pompey was blockaded and that even escape from the harbour was cut off by a fleet. Upon my honour tears prevent me from thinking or writing anything else. I send you a copy of the letter. Wretches that we are, why did we not all follow his fortunes together? See now, here are Matius and Trebatius with the same tidings. Caesar's letter-carriers met them at Menturnae. I am tortured with

[Pg 243]

sorrow, so that now I would choose the end of Mucius.[100] But how honourable, how simple, how clearly thought out was your advice as to my land-route and my sea-route and my meeting and talk with Caesar! It was equally honourable and prudent. Your invitation, too, to Epirus, how kind and generous and brotherly it is!

As for Dionysius, I am surprised. I held him in greater honour than Scipio held Panaetius, yet he has most foully mocked at my bad fortunes. I hate the fellow and I always shall. I wish I could pay him out. But his own character will do that.

I beseech you now give the greatest consideration to my proper course. An army of the Roman people invests Gnaeus Pompey. It holds him hedged by trench and mound and keeps him from flight. Yet we live and Rome is standing, the praetors preside in court, the aediles make preparations for the games, the conservatives are booking their profits, and I sit still! Am I to try to cross the sea like a madman, to beg the country towns to be loyal? The loyalists will not follow me, the irresponsible will deride me, the revolutionaries, especially now they are armed and victorious, will lay hands of violence upon me. What do you think then? Have you any plan to end this life of misery? Now I feel grief, now I am in agony, when somebody thinks me wise because I did not go with Pompey, or lucky perhaps. I think the opposite. For never did I wish to share a victory of his; I should have wished rather to share his defeat. Why should I entreat a letter from you now, your kindness, your good sense? It is all over. Nothing can help me

[Pg 245]

more, for I have no desire except that somehow my enemies may take pity on me and free me from my misery.

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XIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

"'Tis no true tale"[101] to my mind that about the fleet. For why should Dolabella in a letter dated from Brundisium on the 13th of March call it a kind of windfall for Caesar that Pompey is thinking of flight and preparing to sail by the first wind? That is very different from that letter of which I sent you a copy before. Here indeed every one speaks of sheer disaster; but there is no later nor more reliable authority on the event than Dolabella.

I have your letter of the 22nd of March, in which you postpone all advice till we know what has happened. Certainly that is wise; and in the meantime we cannot think of anything, much less arrange anything. However, Dolabella's letter compels me to turn to my former thoughts. For on the 18th of March the weather was excellent and I fancy Pompey will not have failed to take advantage of it.

That précis of your advice was not made by me to quarrel with you, but to console myself, for I suffered less pain from these evil days than from the idea I had acted wrongly and rashly. But I fancy I have not done so, since my deeds and policy agree with your advice. You say that I seem to owe Pompey so much more because I say so than because he deserves it. You are right. I have always exaggerated

[Pg 247]

his services for fear he might think I remembered the past. However much I remembered it, I should feel bound to take the course he took as an example for my behaviour now. He failed to help me when he might; but afterwards he was my friend, my very good friend. I don't quite know why; so I too will be his friend. There is this further likeness between the two cases; both of us were inveigled by the same persons. But would that I were able to help him as much as he was able to help me! However, I am truly grateful for what he did. I do not know in what way I may be able to help him now; nor, were I able, should I think it proper to help him in his preparations for such a disastrous war. Only I do not wish to hurt his feelings by staying here. I declare I could not behold the days that you can foresee, nor take part in such iniquity. But my departure was delayed, because it is hard to think of voluntary departure when there is no hope of return. For Caesar I see is so equipped with infantry, cavalry, fleet, auxiliaries from Gaul—Matius may have exaggerated, but certainly he said that ... infantry and cavalry have promised their services for ten years at their own expense. However, granted that this was gasconnade, great forces Caesar assuredly has, and he will have not the inland revenue of Italy, but the property of her citizens. Add to this the self-confidence of the man, the weakness of the loyalists, who, thinking Pompey deservedly angry with them, as you say, detest the game. I wish you had cited your authority. Domitius, who promised more than he performed,[104] and Pompey's old lovers in general do

[Pg 249]

not love him. The towns and rural population are afraid of Pompey and so far worship Caesar. Caesar is so equipped that, even if he fail to beat, I do not see in what way he can be beaten. I do not fear his finesse so much as his force majeure, for as Plato says, "a tyrant's requests partake of the nature of mandates."[105]

Places without harbours, I see, do not meet with your approval. Nor do I like them, but the place has afforded me hiding and a trusty set of attendants. If I could have had the same at Brundisium, I should have preferred it. But there is no hiding place there. But, as you say, when we know!

I am not going to excuse myself much to the loyalists. What dinners according to Sextus they are giving and receiving, how lavish and how early! They may be loyal, but they are not more loyal than I. They would influence me more if they had shown more courage.

I was wrong about Phamea's estate at Lanuvium. I was dreaming about the Trojan estate.[106] I wanted it for £4,500,[107] but the price is higher. However, I should have liked you to buy that estate for me, if I saw any hope of enjoying it.

What portentous news I read daily you may understand from the pamphlet enclosed in this packet. Lentulus is at Puteoli, and, Caesius says, in a quandary what to do. He dreads a fiasco like that at Corfinium. He thinks he has done his duty by Pompey. He is influenced by Caesar's kindness; but he is influenced more by future prospects.

To think that you can bear this! Everything is

[Pg 251]

wretched, but nothing more wretched than this. Pompey sent N. Magius to speak of peace, and yet he is under siege. I did not believe it; but I have a letter from Balbus of which I send you a copy. Read it, please, and that clause at the end which contains the remarks of the good Balbus himself, to whom Pompey gave a site for his estate and whom he had often preferred to all of us. So he is in an agony of grief. But, that you may not have to read the same, twice over, I refer you to the letter. Of peace I have no hope. Dolabella in his letter of the 13th of March speaks of war pure and simple. So let us stick to the same opinion, that there is no hope, for nothing can be worse than all this.

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XIIIa
BALBUS TO CICERO THE IMPERATOR, GREETING.

Caesar has sent me a very short letter of which I subjoin a copy. From the shortness of the letter you can infer that he is greatly occupied, to write so briefly about a matter of such importance. If there is any further news, I will write you immediately.

"CAESAR TO OPPIUS, CORNELIUS, GREETING.

"On the 9th of March I came to Brundisium, and under its walls pitched my camp. Pompey is at Brundisium. He sent N. Magius to me to talk of peace. I replied as I thought fit. I wanted you to know this at once. When I have hopes of settled terms, I will inform you immediately."

My dear Cicero, you can imagine my torture, after I again had hopes of peace, for fear anything should prevent an arrangement. I long for peace. It is all I can do in my absence from the scene of action.

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If I were there, perhaps I might succeed in seeming to be of use. Now I am tormented with waiting.

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XIV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I sent you on the 26th of March a copy of Balbus' letter to me and of Caesar's letter to him. Then that very day from Capua I got a letter from Q. Pedius saying that Caesar had written to him on the 14th in the following terms:

"Pompey confines himself to the town. My camp is at the gates. I am attempting a big job which will take many days on account of the depth of the sea: yet I have no better course. From both wings of the harbour I am building a mole, so that I may either compel him to transship the forces he has here as soon as possible, or prevent him from getting out at all."

Where is the peace about which Balbus wrote that he was tormenting himself? Could anything be more bitter, more cruel? Moreover some one told me with authority that Caesar said in conversation he was the avenger of Cn. Carbo, M. Brutus,[109] and all those on whom Sulla with Pompey to help him wreaked his cruelty: Curio under his leadership was doing nothing but what Pompey had done under Sulla's leadership: what he wanted was the restoration of those not punished with exile under the earlier laws, while Pompey had restored those who had

[Pg 255]

been traitors: he resents Pompey's violent banishment of Milo, but would only harm those who bear arms against him. This tale was told me by one Baebius, who came from Curio on the 13th, a man who is no fool, but not smart enough to invent such a tale. I am quite at a loss what to do. From Brundisium, I fancy Pompey must have set out. Whatever has happened, we shall know in a few days. I haven't a letter from you not even by Anteros, and no wonder. What is there to write about? Still I do not omit one day.

When this was written a letter came to me before daylight from Lepta dated Capua the 15th of March. Pompey has embarked from Brundisium. Caesar is due at Capua on the 26th.

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XV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

After I had sent you a letter informing you that Caesar would be at Capua on the 26th, a letter reached me from Capua saying that Caesar would see me either here or in Curio's place at Alba on the 28th. When I have seen him, I shall go to Arpinum. If he should grant me the privilege I ask, I shall put up with his terms. If not, then I shall consult myself as to what to do. As Caesar wrote to me, he has stationed one legion each at Brundisium, Tarentum and Sipontum. He seems to me to be cutting off retreat by sea and yet himself to have Greece in view rather than Spain. But these are remote considerations. Now I am stirred by the thought of meeting him; for the meeting is close at hand, and I am alarmed at the first steps he

[Pg 257]

will take, for he will want, I am sure, a decree of the Senate and a decree of the augurs (we shall be hurried off to Rome or harassed, if we are absent), so that the praetor may hold an election of consuls or name a dictator, both acts unconstitutional. Though, if Sulla could arrange to be named dictator by an interrex, why should not Caesar? I can see no solution of the problem except by meeting the fate of Mucius at the hand of Caesar, or that of Scipio[113] at the hands of Pompey.

When you read this, perhaps I shall have met the man. "Endure." My own exile was no "unkinder cut";[114] for I had prospects of speedy return and was consoled by the popular outcry. Now I long to go away and it never strikes me that there is any chance of return. Not only is there no outcry of any in town or country, but on the contrary all are afraid of Pompey as cruel in his anger. Nothing causes me more wretchedness than my having remained, and there is nothing that I want more than to flee to him to share not his fighting but his flight. But now what becomes of your counsel to put off decision till we knew how things went at Brundisium? We do know, but are as badly stuck as ever. I can scarcely hope that Caesar will give me privilege, though many are the good reasons I can bring for granting it. But I will send you immediately a report of our conversation word for word. Use all your affection to help me with your careful advise. He is coming so fast that I cannot see even T. Rebilus, as I had arranged. I

[Pg 259]

have to do everything impromptu. But nevertheless as the poet has it, "Some things I'll venture and some things God will prompt." Whatever I do you shall know forthwith. The demands Caesar sent to Pompey and the consuls, for which you ask, are not with me. The copies that were brought I sent on to you at once.[116] From them I think you can gather what those demands were. Philippus is at Naples. Lentulus at Puteoli. As to Domitius, go on inquiring where he is and what he intends to do.

You write that my remarks about Dionysius are more bitter than suits my character. See how old-fashioned I am. Upon my honour I thought that you would be more angered than I: for, apart from the fact that I think you should be stirred by any injury done by anyone to me, this man in a way outraged you in treating me so badly. But it is for you to decide what weight you should give to the matter. I will not put anything upon you. I always thought the fellow was not quite sane: now I think he is an abandoned blackguard. But he is as much his own enemy as mine. You did well with Philargyrus. You certainly had a good and true case in contending that I had not abandoned but rather had been abandoned.

When I had dispatched my letter on the 25th, the servants I had sent to Matius and Trebatius brought me a letter in the following terms:

"MATIUS AND TREBATIUS TO CICERO IMPERATOR, GREETING.

"After leaving Capua we heard on the way that Pompey with all the forces he had set out from

[Pg 261]

Brundisium on the 17th of March: that Caesar on the next day entered the town, made a speech and went off at full speed to Rome, meaning to be at the city before the 1st of April, to remain there a few days and then to set out for Spain. It seemed proper since we had sure news of Caesar's approach to send your servants back to you to give information as early as possible. Your charges have our attention, and we will act as circumstances demand. Trebatius is trying hard to reach you before Caesar.

"When this letter had been written, news came to us that Caesar would stop on the 25th at Beneventum, at Capua on the 26th, on the 27th at Sinuessa. This we consider certain."

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XVI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Though I have nothing to write to you, still, not to miss a day, I send this letter. On the 27th of March Caesar will stop at Sinuessa, they say. He sent me a letter dated the 26th, in which he looks forward to my "resources," not as in the former letter to "my help." I had written praising to the skies his kindness, his clemency at Corfinium. He replied as follows:

"CAESAR IMPERATOR TO CICERO IMPERATOR, GREETING.

"You are right to infer of me (for I am well known to you) that there is nothing further from my nature than cruelty. Whilst I take great pleasure from that fact, I am proud indeed that my action wins your approval. I am not moved because it is said that those,

[Pg 263]

whom I let go, have departed to wage war on me again, for there is nothing I like better than that I should be true to myself and they to themselves. I could wish you to meet me at Rome that I may avail myself of your advice and resources, as usual, in everything. You must know that nothing pleases me more than the presence of your relative Dolabella. This favour also I shall owe to him; for he will not be able to do otherwise than arrange it, such is his kindness, his feeling and goodwill towards me."

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XVII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I am awaiting Trebatius on March the 27th, the date of this letter. From his tidings and Matius' letter I shall consider how to talk to Caesar. What a wretched age this is! I have no doubt Caesar will urge me to come to Rome. For he gave orders that notices should be posted even at Formiae that he wanted a full house on the 1st. Must I refuse? But why do I anticipate? I will write you all about it at once. From Caesar's conversation I shall decide whether I ought to go to Arpinum or elsewhere. I wish to celebrate my son's coming of age. Arpinum, I think, will be the place. Please consider what I should do next, for my troubles have made me stupid. From Curius I want to hear whether you have had news about Tiro. For to me Tiro has written in such a way that I am anxious to know how he is. Those two who come from his part say that his condition is critical. In the midst of many great troubles this also distresses me; for in our present straits his energy and loyalty would be very serviceable.

[Pg 265]

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XVIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

In both respects I followed your advice. I spoke so as to gain Caesar's respect rather than his gratitude; and I persisted in my resolve not to go to Rome. We were mistaken in thinking he would be easy to manage. I have never seen anyone less easy. He kept on saying that my decision was a slur on him, and that others would be less likely to come, if I did not come. I pointed out that my case was very unlike theirs. After much talk he said, "Well, come and discuss peace." "On my own terms?" I asked. "Need I dictate to you?" said he. "Well," said I, "I shall contend that the Senate cannot sanction your invasion of Spain or your going with an army into Greece, and," I added, "I shall lament Pompey's fate." He replied, "That is not what I want." "So I fancied," said I: "but I do not want to be in Rome, because either I must say that and much else, on which I cannot keep silent, if I am present, or else I cannot come." The upshot was that I was to think over the matter, as Caesar suggested, with a view to closing our interview. I could not refuse. So we parted. I am confident then he has no liking for me. But I like myself, as I have not for a long time.

For the rest, ye gods what a following! What âmes damnées in your phrase! Celer is an hero to the rest. What an abandoned cause, and what desperate gangs! What can one think of a son of Servius and a son of Titinius being in an army which beset Pompey? Six legions! He is very wide-awake and

[Pg 267]

bold. I see no end to our evil days. Now assuredly you must produce your advice. This was the limit we contemplated.

Caesar's finale, which I had almost forgotten, was hateful:—"If I may not use your advice, I shall use the advice I can and go to any length." You will say: "You have seen him to be as you have described him: and did you heave a sigh?" Indeed I did. You ask for the rest of our talk. What more is there to tell? He went straight to Pedum, I to Arpinum. From thence I await the "twittering swallow"[118] you talk of. You will say you prefer me not to dwell on past mistakes. Even Pompey, our leader, has made many.

But I await a letter from you. There is no room now, as before, for your "await the event." The limit we fixed was that interview; and I have no doubt I annoyed Caesar; so I must act the more quickly. Please send me a letter and deal with la haute politique. I await a letter from you now very anxiously.

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XIX
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Since Rome was out of bounds, I celebrated my son's coming of age at Arpinum in preference to any other place, and so doing delighted my fellow-townsmen. Though they were pleased, yet I must tell you they and all others I have met are sad and sorry.

[Pg 269]

So dark and direful is the coup d'oeil of this vast calamity. Levies are being made; troops are being drafted into winter quarters. These measures are hardships in themselves even when taken by loyalists, when the war is just, when there is some consideration. You can imagine how bitter they are when taken quite tyrannically by desperadoes in wicked civil war. But you must remember that every scoundrel in Italy is of the party. I saw them all together at Formiae. I could hardly believe them to be human. I knew every one of them, but I had never seen the whole collection together.

Let us go then whither we please, and leave our all behind. Let us set out to Pompey, who will be more gratified at our arrival than if we had been with him all along. For then we had great hopes; but now I at least have none: nor has anyone except myself departed from Italy, unless he imagines Caesar to be his enemy. Heaven be my witness I do not take this step for the sake of the Republic, which to my mind is utterly destroyed, but for fear I may be charged with ingratitude to one who relieved me from the inconveniences which he himself had inflicted: and, at the same time, because I cannot endure the sight of the horrors that are happening and are bound to happen. Moreover I fancy that now decrees of the Senate have been passed, and my only hope is that they will agree with Volcacius' proposal. But what does it matter? There is only one proposal for everybody. But the most implacable enemy will be Servius, who has sent his son with Pontius Titinianus to destroy or at least to capture Gnaeus Pompey. Though Titinianus has the excuse of fear, what excuse has Servius? But let us cease

[Pg 271]

from anger and let us reflect that there is nothing left us now except what to me is least desirable—life.

As for me, since the Adriatic is beset, I shall sail by the lower sea, and, if it be difficult to start from Puteoli, I shall seek Croton or Thurii, and like a loyal and patriotic citizen play the pirate. Other means of conducting this war I see none. We will go and bury ourselves in Egypt. We cannot match Caesar on land, and we cannot rely on peace. But enough of this outcry.

Please entrust a letter to Cephalio about all that has been done, and even about people's talk, unless men have become quite dumb. I followed your advice, especially when I maintained in our conversation a proper dignity and persisted in my refusal to go to Rome. For the rest please write to me in as much detail as possible (for the worst has come to the worst) what you approve and what you think, though now there can be no doubt. But yet, if anything comes into your mind, or rather whatever comes into your mind, please write to me.

[Pg 273]

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CICERO'S LETTERS TO ATTICUS BOOK X

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I
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On the third of April coming to my brother's house at Laterium, I got your letter with some little relief, a thing which had not happened to me since this disaster began. For I attach very great weight to your approval of my firmness of mind and my action. As for your writing that it meets with the approval of my friend Sextus, I am as glad as if I fancied myself to have won the approval of his father, on whose judgement I always set the very highest value. I often call to mind how it was he who said to me on that famous December the 5th, when I asked him what we were to do next: "Let me not die a coward and shameful death, but greatly daring live in fame for aye." So his influence lives for me, and his son, who is very like him, has the same weight as he. Please give him my best compliments.

Your plan, it is true, you postpone for a very short time,—for I fancy by now that that venal peace-maker must have wound up his speech, and something must have been done in the session of Senators, for I don't consider it a Senate,—still you keep mine in suspense, but the less so because I have no doubt as to what you think we should do. For when you write that Flavius is offered a legion and Sicily, and that the matter is now in hand, just think what

[Pg 275]

iniquities are being prepared and meditated, some now and some in the future? I shall certainly neglect the law of Solon, your countryman, and I imagine mine too soon, who provided the death penalty for anyone who should not take one side in a revolution, and, unless you advise otherwise, I shall keep apart both from Caesar and Pompey. The former course is quite certain: but I shall not forestall events. I shall await your advice and the letter which I asked you to give to Cephalio—unless you have now sent another.

You write, not on the authority of anyone, but as your own idea, that I shall be drawn into any negotiations there may be for peace. I cannot imagine that there can be such negotiations, since it is Caesar's positive determination to rob Pompey, if possible, of army and province, unless perhaps that hireling can induce him to keep quiet, pending the passage to and fro of intermediaries. I see nothing that I can hope for or even imagine is likely to happen. However this is the very question for an honest man to decide and one of the great questions of la haute politique, whether one may enter the council of a tyrant, if the subject of debate is good. Therefore, if anything should happen to cause me to be summoned—I don't in the least expect anything will, for I have said all I can say about peace, and Caesar was determined to repudiate it—still, if anything should happen, write and tell me what you think I should do in any case. For so far nothing has happened that demands greater deliberation.

I am glad you are pleased with the words of that loyal citizen Trebatius, and your frequent bravos have so far been my sole pleasure. Your letter I

[Pg 277]

await eagerly. I expect it has been dispatched now. With Sextus you have preserved the same dignity that you prescribe for me. Your friend Celer has more wit than wisdom. What you heard from Tullia about the boys is true. Mucius' ending,[122] which you mention, does not seem to me so sad as it sounds. It is this distraction in which we now find ourselves that is like death. For I have the alternative, either to take part in politics with a free hand among the disloyal, or to side with the loyal at all costs. I ought either to follow the loyalists in their rashness or attack the other party in its daring. Either course spells danger: but my present action brings shame without safety.

The man who sent his son to Brundisium to negotiate peace (my views on peace are yours, that it is patent pretence, but that war is being prosecuted with the utmost activity) that man I think and not I will be chosen as commissioner. So far to my relief I have heard nothing. So I fancy it less necessary to write or consider my possible course of action, if I should happen to be chosen.

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II
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I received your letter brought by Cephalio on the 5th of April. The next day I intended to stop at Menturnae, and to return thence at once. I halted at my brother's place at Arcanum in order that I might be in a more retired place till I get certain news and that such preparations for the journey, as did not need my presence, might be made.

[Pg 279]

The "bird that twitters of flight"[123] is here and I am afire with eagerness, though I have no idea of destination or route. But these will be considered by me and by those who know. You however must assist me with your advice, so far as possible, as you have before. The tangle cannot be unravelled. Everything must be entrusted to fortune. We are simply struggling without hope. If anything better happens, I shall be surprised. I would rather Dionysius did not come to me: Tullia has written to me about him. The time is unsuitable, and I should prefer that discomforts as great as mine should not be seen by a man who is not my friend. But I do not want you to be his enemy on my account.

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III
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Though I have nothing at all to write about, yet these points remain, which I want to know. Has Caesar started? In what condition has he left Rome? In Italy itself whom has he placed in charge of each region or department? Who were sent to Pompey and the consuls as peace commissioners according to the decree of the Senate? To make these inquiries I have taken the trouble to send this letter. So you will do well and please me, if you inform me on these points and of anything else which I ought to know. I stay in Arcanum till I get information.

[Pg 281]

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IIIa
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On the 7th of April I dictate this letter, the second on the same day, and yesterday I dispatched a longer one in my own handwriting. It is said you have been seen in the Regia,[124] and I don't blame you, since I laid myself open to the same blame. But I await a letter from you. I don't see what news I can expect; but still, even if there is none, I wish you would just tell me that.

Caesar has written to excuse me for not coming to Rome, and says that he takes it in good part. I am not concerned at his saying that Titinius and Servius have complained to him for not allowing them the same privilege as he did to me. What fools they are! They send their sons to besiege Pompey, and themselves hesitate to enter the House. However, I send you a copy of Caesar's letter.

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IV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have received a lot of letters from you on the same day, all of them written with care and one, which is as big as a book, worth reading several times, as I am doing. Your labour has not been in vain: you have gratified me very much. And so I beseech you continue to write as often as you can, so long as it is possible, that is, so long as you know where I am. And as for our daily lamentations let us make an end of them once for all, if we can, or at

[Pg 283]

any rate moderate them, which we certainly can. For I have given up thinking of the dignity, the honours and the position I have lost: I think of what I have attained, what I have done, the glory of my career, in short what a difference there is even in our present straits between me and those through whom I have lost all. They are the people who thought they could not attain their extravagant desires without expelling me from the State: and you see now what has come of their coalition in a criminal conspiracy.

The one burns with a madman's lust for crime, which does not cool one whit, but rather increases day by day. He has just driven Pompey from Italy, now on one side of the world he is pursuing him, on the other he is trying to rob him of his province: and he no longer refuses, nay, he practically demands, to be called a tyrant, as he is. The other, who once would not even give me a helping hand, when I threw myself at his feet, declaring he could do nothing against Caesar's will, now, having slipped from the grasp of his father-in-law's mailed hand, is preparing war by land and sea. The war is not unjust on his part, nay, it is even righteous and necessary; but, unless he conquers, it will be fatal to his fellow-countrymen; and, even if he does conquer, it will be disastrous. These are our great men; but I do not hold their achievements one whit superior to mine, nor even their fortune, though they may seem to have basked in fortune's smiles while I have met her frowns. For who can be happy, when he has caused his country to be deserted or enslaved? And if, as you admonish me, I was right in saying in those books of mine that nothing is good, save

[Pg 285]

what is honourable, and nothing bad, save what is dishonourable, then certainly both of them are most miserable, since both of them have thought less of their country's safety and dignity than of their own high place and private interests. My conscience then is clear and helps to support me, when I think that I have always rendered my country good service, when I could, and assuredly have never harboured any but loyal thoughts, and that the State has been wrecked by the very storm which I foresaw fourteen years ago. With a clear conscience then I shall depart, though the parting will cost me a bitter pang: nor shall I go so much for my own sake or for my brother's—our day is done—as for our children, to whom I think at times we ought to have secured at least a free country. For one of them I feel the most poignant grief—not so much because he is my son, as because he is exceedingly dutiful—while the other unfortunately has turned out the bitterest disappointment of my life. He has been spoiled, I suppose, by our indulgence, and has gone to lengths that I dare not name. I am waiting for your letter too; for you promised to write more fully when you had seen him himself. All my humouring of him has been accompanied by considerable strictness: and I have had to put my foot down not over one fault of his or a small one, but over many grave faults. But his father's kindness should surely have been repaid by affection rather than by such cruel disregard. For we were more annoyed at his sending letters to Caesar than we let you see, but I think we made his life a burden to him. I dare not describe this recent journey of his and his hypocritical pretence of filial duty: I only know that, after he met Hirtius,

[Pg 287]

he was summoned to Caesar's presence, and discussed the difference between my views and his own and my plan of leaving Italy. Even that I write with hesitation. But it is no fault of mine: it is his disposition which must cause us anxiety. That is what corrupted Curio and Hortensius' son, not their fathers' fault.

My brother is prostrate with grief, though he does not fear for his own life so much as for mine. It is to him, to him more than me, I want you to offer consolation, if you can. The best consolation would be that what we have heard was false or exaggerated. If it was true, I fail to see what will come of this runaway existence. For if the constitution were still intact, I should know what to do both in the way of severity and in the way of kindness. Now, under the sway of some passion, be it wrath or sorrow or fear, I have written more bitterly than either your affection for him or mine warrants. If what I have said is true, you will pardon me: if it is false, I shall be only too glad to have the error removed. However it may be, you must not blame his uncle or his father.

When I had got so far, I received a message from Curio that he was coming to see me. He came to his place here yesterday evening, that is on the 13th. If any point worth mentioning to you occurs in our conversation, I will add it to this letter.

Curio passed by my house, and sent a message saying he was coming very soon. Then he hurried off to make a speech at Puteoli. He made his speech, returned and stayed a very long time. How disgusting! You know the sort of man he is: he hid nothing. In the first place he is quite sure that all

[Pg 289]

those condemned by Pompey's law are going to be recalled: and so he is going to make use of their services in Sicily. He had no doubt about Caesar getting the two Spains and said he would start from them with an army to wherever Pompey might be. Pompey's death would be the end of the war. Caesar had been carried away by anger into wishing to have the tribune Metellus killed and he had had a narrow shave. If it had happened, there would have been an enormous massacre. Many had spoken in favour of a massacre: and Caesar himself was not by nature and inclination averse to cruelty, but he thought that mild measures would win popularity. But, if he lost popular favour, he would be cruel. He had been put out when he found that he had offended the populace itself by seizing the treasury: and so, though he had fully made up his mind to harangue the people before leaving, he had not ventured to do so, and he had gone off in a very disturbed state of mind. But when I asked Curio what he looked forward to, what end, and what constitution, he confessed openly that there was no hope left. He was afraid of Pompey's fleet, and, if it put to sea, he should desert Sicily. I asked, what was the meaning of his six lictors, why their staves were laurelled, if the Senate gave them to him, and why there were six, if Caesar gave them. [128] He said, "I wanted to snatch a vote from the House for them (for it could not be done openly): but Caesar hates the Senate like poison, and declares that all such authority will

[Pg 291]

proceed from him." "But why six?" "Because I didn't want twelve, though I could have had them." I said: "I wish I had asked for what I hear Philippus has got from him: but I was afraid to ask, as he got nothing from me." He replied: "He would willingly have given you permission. But take it that you did get it. I will write to him just as you wish, and say we have spoken about the matter. What does it matter to him where you are, as you do not attend the House? If you were not in Italy at this very moment, it would not damage his cause in the least." I responded that I was looking for a retired and solitary retreat, especially because I still had my lictors in attendance. He agreed with me. "How about this then," said I. "My way through to Greece lies through your province, as the Adriatic is guarded." "There is nothing I should like better," he said, and added many very handsome remarks. So something has come of it: I could sail not only in safety, but openly.

The rest he put off for the next day: I will write and tell you if there is anything worth mentioning. But there are some things I omitted to ask: whether Caesar was going to wait for an interregnum, or what he meant by saying that he had been offered the consulship but had refused it for the next year. And there are other points I must ask about. Finally he swore—though to be sure he makes no bones about swearing—that Caesar was very friendly to me. I expressed my doubt. He said he had heard from Dolabella. I asked what he said, and he declared he said Caesar had thanked him warmly for wanting me to go to Rome, and not only approved but showed pleasure. Of course I felt relieved.

[Pg 293]

The suspicion of domestic treachery and of the talk with Hirtius has been removed. How I hope young Quintus is worthy of his family, and how I keep urging myself to note the points in his favour! But need he have visited Hirtius? There is something in the tale, but I hope it may not prove of much consequence. Still I wonder he is not back yet. But we shall see about this.

Please introduce Terentia to the Oppii: for there is only one danger in Rome now.[130] As for me, give me the benefit of your advice as to whether I am to go to Regium on foot or to embark straight from here, and on all the other points too, as I am staying here. I shall have something to write as soon as I have seen Curio. Please keep me posted up in news about Tiro's condition, as you have done.

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V
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

About the whole of my plans I have written to you before, as I think, exactly. Of the day I can say no more for certain than this, that it will not be before the new moon. Curio's conversation on the next day had practically the same gist, except that he showed still more frankly that he could not see an end to this state of things.

As for your commission about the control of Quintus, you are asking for the moon.[131] However I

[Pg 295]

shall be guilty of no omission and would that you——. But I will not be too troublesome. The letter I forwarded at once to Vestorius; he kept asking why it was not sent. Vettienus has spoken with you in a tone more accommodating than his letter to me: but I am greatly astonished at the man's carelessness. Philotimus informed me that he could buy that lodge of Canuleius for 400 guineas, and could get it even for less, if I asked Vettienus to act as purchaser. So I did ask Vettienus to get a deduction from that sum, if he could. He promised. Lately he has informed me that he bought it for about £250, and asked me to inform him to whom I wished to convey it, adding that the day for payment was the 13th of November. My reply was somewhat cross, but yet in a familiar joking vein. Now, as he is acting handsomely, I have no charge against him, and I have written to him that you have informed me. Please let me know about your journey, what you intend to do and when.

April 16.

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VI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

So far nothing stops me beyond the weather. I am not going to play a sharp game. Let what will happen in Spain, I have made up my mind to go. My plans have all been unfolded to you in previous letters; so this is a short one; also because I am in a hurry and rather busy.

As for young Quintus "surely I do my best,"[134] you

[Pg 297]

know the rest. You go on to advise me, and you advise me like a prudent friend; but all will be simple, if I beware of the youngster. It is a big business; he is full of oddities and has no simplicity or sincerity. I wish you had undertaken his training; for his father is too kind. If I tighten the rein, he loosens it. If I could act without his father, I could manage the youngster, as you can do. But I excuse you. It is, as I say, a big business.

Pompey, I am certain, is marching through Illyricum into Gaul. By what route and whither I am now to travel, I shall see.

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VII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Yes, I think you are right to hedge, and stay in Apulia and Sipontum: nor do I consider that your case is the same as mine. Of course in the matter of the constitution the right course is the same for both of us: but the constitution is not now in question. It is a struggle between two kings, in which defeat has overtaken the more moderate king, the one who is more upright and honest, the one whose failure means that the very name of the Roman people must be wiped out, though, if he wins the victory, he will use it after the manner and example of Sulla. Therefore in a contest like this you must not openly express your sentiments for either side, but must await the event. My case however is different. I am under the bond of an obligation, and cannot show ingratitude. But yet I do not fancy that I shall be found in the line of battle, but at Malta or some other similar place. You may say I

[Pg 299]

do not help the man to whom I am loth to show ingratitude. No. Perhaps he would have been glad if I had helped him less. But that we shall see. Let me only get away. A fair opportunity is offered now that Dolabella is in the Adriatic and Curio in the straits of Sicily.

I have conceived some hope that Servius Sulpicius wishes to see me. I have dispatched Philotimus, my freedman, to him with a letter. If he wishes to play the man, we shall have a fine time together. But if not, well, I shall be my own old self. Curio stayed with me. He thinks that Caesar is falling in popular esteem and he is mistrustful about going to Sicily, if Pompey should begin a naval action.

The boy Quintus got it hot when he came. I see it was greed and the hope of a large bounty. This is a great evil; but disloyalty, which I feared, there was I hope none. But this flaw, I fancy you will gather, did not proceed from my spoiling him, but from his own temperament. Still, I must teach him discipline.

As to the Oppii of Velia, you will arrange with Philotimus as you think fit. Your place in Epirus I shall regard as my own; but it seems I shall go on another tack.

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VIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Circumstances advise, you have pointed out, and I see for myself, that it is time there was an end to our correspondence on topics which it is dangerous to have intercepted: but since my daughter often writes beseeching me to await the issue in Spain and

[Pg 301]

always adds that you think the same, and this is what I have gathered myself from your letters, I think it is well for me to write to you what I think about it.

The advice would be wise, it seems to me, only if I meant to shape my course according to what happens in Spain. That is impossible. For either, as I should much prefer, Caesar must be driven from Spain, or the war will drag on, or Caesar will seize Spain, as he seems to be confident. If Caesar is driven from Spain, you can imagine how pleasing and honourable my arrival will seem to Pompey, when I suppose even Curio will go over to him. If the war drags on, for what am I to wait or how long? The remaining alternative is that I should keep neutral, if we are beaten in Spain. I take the opposite view: for I think I am more bound to desert Caesar as victor than as vanquished, and while he is still doubtful rather than confident about his fortunes: for I foresee a massacre, if he conquers, attack on the wealth of private persons, the recall of exiles, repudiation of debts, high office for the vilest men, and a tyranny intolerable to a Persian much more to a Roman. Will my indignation be able to keep silence? Can my eyes endure to see myself giving my vote along with Gabinius, or indeed Gabinius being asked his opinion before me? Your client Clodius in waiting? Plaguleius, the client of C. Ateius, and all the others? But why do I make a list of opponents, when I shall be unable to see in the House without pain friends whom I have defended or to mix with them without shame? And what if even that may not be allowed to me, for all I know? For Caesar's friends write me that he is not at all

[Pg 303]

satisfied because I did not come to the Senate. Am I still to hesitate whether to sell myself to him at grave risk, when I refused to join him even with a certainty of reward. Besides consider this that the verdict on the whole contest does not depend on Spain; unless perhaps you think that, if Spain is lost, Pompey will throw down his arms, when his policy has always been that of Themistocles. He considers that the master of the sea must be master of the empire: so he has never planned to hold Spain for its own sake. The equipment of the fleet has always been his first care. So he will take to the sea in due season with a huge fleet and will come to Italy. What then will be the fate of us, if we stay here idle? Neutrality will be impossible. Shall we then resist the fleet? Could there be a crime deeper, greater or baser? Isolated I ran risks: shall I hesitate with the help of Pompey and the rest of the nobles. If now I am to take no account of duty but only of danger, it is from Pompey's party I run risk, if I do wrong, from Caesar, if I do right: and such is our evil plight that no plan is so free from danger as to leave a doubt that I should avoid doing with disgrace as well as danger what I should have avoided, if it had been safe. You will say I might safely have crossed the sea with Pompey. It was altogether impossible. It is easy to reckon the days: but nevertheless (for let me confess the truth: I do not even sugar my confession) supposing I could, I was mistaken over a point which perhaps ought not to have misled me; but it did. I thought that peace might be made: and, if it should be, I did not wish Caesar to be angry with me, when at the same time he was

[Pg 305]

friendly with Pompey. For I had realized how exactly they were alike. That fear of mine led me to delay. But I gain all now by haste, and, if I delay, I lose all. Nevertheless, my friend, there are auguries which urge me on, with hope not uncertain: I do not mean those of my own college which came down from Attus Navius: but Plato's words about the tyrant.[139] For I see that Caesar can in no way maintain his position much longer, without causing his own fall, even if we are backward. For in his first and flourishing days it did not take him a week to incur the bitter hatred of the needy abandoned rabble, by letting slip through his fingers so quickly his fictitious claim to two things, clemency in the case of Metellus and ample wealth in the case of the public money. Now what kind of associates and servants can he employ? Are men to rule provinces and direct affairs not one of whom could steer his own fortunes for two months?

I need not put all the points together; you see them clearly enough: but put them before your eyes and you will understand that his reign can hardly last for half a year. If I am mistaken, I will bear the consequences, as many illustrious men, eminent in public life, have borne them, unless perhaps you consider that I should prefer to die like Sardanapalus [in his bed] rather than like Themistocles in exile. For Thucydides tells us that though Themistocles was "the best judge of current affairs on the shortest reflection, and the shrewdest to guess at what would happen in the future," yet he fell into misfortunes, which he would have escaped, had there been no

[Pg 307]

error in his calculations. Though he was, as the same writer says, "a clear-sighted judge of the better and the worse course in a doubtful crisis,"[140] yet he failed to see how to avoid the hate of the Spartans and his own fellow-citizens, nor what promise he ought to make to Artaxerxes. Africanus would have been spared that cruel night,[141] and that master of craft C. Marius the fateful day of Sulla's triumph, if nothing had ever escaped their calculations. So I strengthen myself by that prophetic remark of Plato: I am not deceived nor will it happen otherwise. Caesar is bound to fall either through the agency of his enemies or of himself, and he is his own worst enemy. I hope it will be in our lifetime, though it is an occasion for us to consider the lasting future and not our own narrow life. If anything happens to me before that day, it will not have mattered to me much whether I see it come about or foresee that it will happen long before. Since this is so, I must not obey men against whom the Senate armed me with power to see that the Republic took no harm.[142]

To you all my interests have been entrusted, though they need no entrusting considering your great affection for me. I have nothing to write, for I sit waiting to sail. Yet I never wanted so much to write anything, as I want to tell you that of your

[Pg 309]

many kindnesses none has given me greater pleasure than your very gracious and constant care of Tullia. She herself has been charmed and I not less. She has shown admirable qualities, has borne the national calamity and private worries with great fortitude and displayed it over my departure. She loves me and sympathizes with me and yet wishes me to act rightly and keep my good repute. But enough of this, lest I begin to pity myself.

If you get more certain tidings about Spain or any other matter, pray write and tell me while I am here, and perhaps at the time of going I may send you news, the more so because Tullia fancies that you are not leaving Italy at the present moment. I must explain to Antony as I did to Curio that I want to stay in Malta and refuse to take part in this civil war. I only hope that I may find him as easy and good to me as I found Curio. He will come it is said to Misenum on the second, that is to-day; but he has sent in advance a nasty letter of which I subjoin a copy:

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VIIIa
"ANTONIUS TRIBUNE PROPRAETOR GREETING TO CICERO IMPERATOR.

"Had I not a great affection for you, and much more than you think, I should not have been alarmed at a report which has been spread about you, especially as I thought it to be false. But, just because I like you so very much, I cannot hide from myself that the report, although it may be false, causes me great concern. That you are about to go over seas I cannot believe, when you have such dear regard for Dolabella

[Pg 311]

and your daughter Tullia, that queen among women, and you are rated so highly by all of us, who, I dare swear, care almost more than you do for your dignity and position. However, I considered that it was no part of a friend to be unmoved even when scoundrels talked, and I have been more particular, because I thought that a harder task was laid upon me by our disagreement, which sprang more from jealousy on my part than from wrong on yours; for I want you to convince yourself that no one is dearer to me than you, except Caesar, and at the same time I am positive that Caesar reckons M. Cicero highly among his friends. So my dear Cicero I beg you not to commit yourself and not to rely on the honour of a man, who for the sake of conferring a kindness first did you a harm, and on the other hand not to flee from a man, who although he will not love you, which is out of the question, will always wish you to be safe and in high distinction.

"I have taken the trouble to send you Calpurnius, an intimate friend of mine, that you may know I am greatly concerned for your life and position."

On the same day Philotimus brought me a letter from Caesar of which this is a copy:

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VIIIb
"CAESAR IMPERATOR TO CICERO IMPERATOR, GREETING.

"Although I had concluded that you would do nothing rashly or imprudently, nevertheless I have been so stirred by what people say that I thought it best to write to you and ask you in the name of our goodwill to each other not to go anywhere, now that fortune inclines my way, where you did not think it

[Pg 313]

necessary to go before anything was certain. For you will have done a serious injury to our friendship and consulted your own interest very little, if you show that you are not following fortune (for everything that has happened seems most favourable to me and most unfavourable to Pompey), nor yet following the right cause (for the cause was the same then, when you thought fit to hold aloof from it), but that you have condemned some act of mine, the greatest harm you could do me. Do not take such a step, I pray you by the right of our friendship. Finally what better befits a good and peaceful man and a loyal citizen than to keep out of civil disturbance. There are some who approved such a course, but could not follow it because of the danger. But you may examine the evidence of my life and the opinion given by my friendship[144]; you will find no safer or more honourable course than to keep quite clear of the quarrel.

"April 16 on the march."

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IX
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

The arrival of Philotimus (what a fellow he is! how stupid! how often he lies on Pompey's behalf!) has frightened the rest of us to death. For myself I am hardened. None of us doubted that Caesar had checked Pompey's progress: Philotimus says he is simply flying. Nobody doubted that Petreius had joined Afranius: he brings no such news. In fact we have all been sure that Pompey had actually made

[Pg 315]

his way with large forces into Germany through Illyricum, for that was the news sans doute. So I think I must make for Malta, until there is news from Spain. This from Caesar's letter I almost think I may do without annoying him, for he says there is no more honourable or safe course open to me than to keep quite clear of the fight. You will say "Where then is your courage which you showed in recent letters?" It is there and the same; but would that I had only to decide for myself. The tears of my family at times weaken me, when they beg me to wait for news about Spain. The miserable tone of M. Caelius' letter making this same request that I should wait, not to risk so rashly my fortunes, my only son and all my family, moved our boys to weeping; although my own son is made of stronger stuff, and for that very reason he affects me more deeply, thinking only of my reputation.

So I shall go to Malta, thence where it seems good. Still even now send me a line, especially if there is any news from Afranius. If I have an interview with Antony, I will inform you of the result. However, as you advise, I will take care how I trust him, for the policy of concealment is hard and dangerous too. Servius Sulpicius I await till the 7th. Both his wife Postumia and his son urge me to this. I rejoice that your ague is better. I send you also a copy of Caelius' letter.

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IXa
CAELIUS TO CICERO, GREETING.

In my dismay at your letter, in which you show that your thoughts are set on some unhappy act

[Pg 317]

without saying exactly what it is, though you disclose sufficiently what kind of an act it is, I write this on the spot. In the name of your fortunes and your children, I beg and beseech you, Cicero, not to take any step that may endanger your life and safety. For I call gods and men and our friendship to witness that I told you before, and that it was no casual warning that I gave you, but certain information, after I had met Caesar and found out what his view would be, if he won the victory. If you imagine that he will maintain his present policy of letting his adversaries go and making peace, you are mistaken; he is meditating and even proclaiming nothing but cruelty and severity. He left Rome in anger with the Senate: these recent vetoes have clearly provoked him: you may take my word for it there will be no chance of begging off. Then, if you have any care for yourself, your only son, your house and what hopes you have left, if I and your excellent son-in-law have any influence with you—and you ought not to wish to spoil our fortunes—then do not compel us to hate or relinquish a cause, in whose victory our safety lies, or to harbour unnatural wishes for your destruction. Finally consider this: any offence there may have been in your hesitation, you have already given. Now it is the height of folly to side against Caesar in his hour of victory, when you refused to attack him while his fortunes were doubtful; and to join in the flight of those, whom you would not follow when they stood their ground. Beware lest for fear of showing too little zeal for the "better party," you use too little care in choosing the better course. But, if I cannot persuade you entirely, at least wait till it is known how we get on in Spain,

[Pg 319]

which I assure you will be ours as soon as Caesar arrives. What your friends' hopes are, when they have lost Spain, is more than I know; and what your idea is in joining them, when they have no hopes, is more than I can imagine.

What you hinted at without speaking plainly, Caesar had heard, and as soon as ever he had said "good day," he told me what he had heard about you. I said I knew nothing about it: but I asked him to send you a letter as the best means of inducing you to stay. He is taking me with him to Spain. If he were not, I should have hurried to you, before going to Rome, wherever you might have been, and should have pressed this view on you personally and done all in my power to restrain you. Once more and yet once more, Cicero, think before you utterly destroy yourself and all your family: do not wittingly and with your eyes open put yourself in a position from which you see there is no escape. But, if you are moved by the call of the conservative party, or if you cannot endure the insolence and arrogant behaviour of certain persons, I think you should choose some town remote from the war, until the matter is settled: and settled it will be at once. If you do that, I shall consider you have acted wisely, and Caesar will not be offended.

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X
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

How blind I am not to have foreseen it! I send you Antony's letter. I have often written to him that I planned nothing against Caesar's policy, that I was mindful of my son-in-law, of our friendship,

[Pg 321]

that, if I had thought otherwise, I could have been with Pompey, that I wished to leave Italy because I was loth to wander about with my lictors, though I had not made up my mind definitely even to that. See in what an ex cathedra tone he answers me:—"Your policy is quite right. For a man who wishes to be neutral remains in his country; the man who leaves his country seems to express his conviction on one side or the other; but it is not for me to determine, whether anyone has the right to leave or not. The part Caesar has given me is not to let anyone at all leave Italy; so it is of little use for me to approve your plan, if all the same I cannot make an exception for you. I think you should send to Caesar and ask him this favour. I have no doubt that you will succeed, especially as you promise not to forget our friendship."

That is a laconic epistle.[146] I will certainly take my cue from the man. He is to come on the evening of the 3rd, that is to-day. To-morrow therefore he will perhaps come to me. I will sound him: I will hear him: say I am in no hurry: that I will send to Caesar. I will act secretly, with a very few attendants I will lie hidden somewhere; but assuredly, however unwilling these people are, I will fly off; and would that it may be to Curio! "Mark what I say."[147] Another great grief has come upon me. I will do something worthy of my reputation.

Your malady gives me grave anxiety. I pray you

[Pg 323]

get medical advice in its initial stage. Your letter about the Massilians[148] pleased me. Let me know whatever you hear. I should have liked to have Ocella, if it could be done openly, and I had got Curio to allow it. Here I am awaiting Servius Sulpicius, for it is at the request of his wife and son, and I think it is necessary. Antony carries about Cytheris[149] with him in an open litter as his second wife, and besides he had seven other litters of friends male or female. See what a disgraceful death we die, and doubt, if you can, that, whether Caesar returns victor or vanquished, he will perpetrate a massacre. Even in an open boat, if I cannot get a vessel, I will tear myself away from these parricides and their doings. But I will write more when I have met him.

My nephew I cannot but love, though I see clearly that he has no affection for me. I never saw anyone so unprincipled, so averse to his own relations, with such mysterious plans. What a weight of anxiety! But it will be my business, as it is now, to discipline him: he has wonderful ability, but his character requires training.

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XI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

After sealing my former letter, I did not feel inclined to hand it to the person that I had intended, as he was a stranger; so it was not despatched on that day. Meantime Philotimus came and gave me

[Pg 325]

a letter from you. The conduct of my brother about which you write shows little firmness, but no chicanery, no treachery, nothing inflexibly opposed to goodness, nothing that cannot be turned where you will by a single conversation. In short all his relations, even those with whom he is so often angry, are nevertheless dear to him, and I to be sure am dearer than life. I do not blame him for writing in one strain about his boy to you and in another to the boy's mother. I am distressed by what you say about the journey and your sister, and the more so because the times are such that I cannot remedy the matter. For certainly I would have done so: but you see in what trouble I am, what desperation.

As for his financial affairs, I often hear from him, and they are not in such a state as to prevent him from being anxious to pay you and from making efforts to that end: but if Q. Axius does not pay me in this my flight the £100 I lent his son, and pleads in excuse the state of the times, and if Lepta and others do the same, I confess I am always surprised to hear from Quintus that he is pressed for some £175. For of course you see his straits. However he has ordered the sum to be paid to your account. Perhaps you suppose that he is slow or close-fisted in money matters. No one is less so: but enough about my brother.

As for his son, the father has certainly always indulged him; but indulgence does not make him a liar or a miser or disloyal to his friends, though it does perhaps make him surly, haughty and aggressive. Accordingly he has these defects which are due to spoiling; but they are not intolerable, shall I say, as young men go nowadays. But the defects which, to

[Pg 327]

me at any rate who love him, are more distressing than even the evils on which we have fallen, do not proceed from any indulgence of mine; for they are deep rooted: but I would have rooted them up, had I been allowed. But the times are such that I must bear everything. My own son I control easily. He is quite tractable. My own policy has lacked vigour owing to my pity for him; and the more he wants me to be unflinching, the more I fear I may prove cruel to him.

Well Antony came yesterday evening; soon perhaps he will visit me, perhaps not even that, as he has written what he wanted done; but you shall know forthwith what has happened. All I do now is done secretly.

What shall I do about the boys? Shall I entrust them to a small boat? What courage do you suppose I shall have on the voyage? For I remember sailing in the summer in an open Rhodian boat with them and how anxious I was; and how do you suppose it will be in the bad season in a tiny pinnace? Misery everywhere!

Trebatius is with me, a real man and a loyal citizen. Ye gods, what awful news he brings! So even Balbus is thinking of attending the Senate! But I will give Trebatius himself a letter for you to-morrow. I agree with your letter that Vettienus is friendly to me. But I made a rather bitter jest at his expense, because he wrote curtly to me about paying my debt. Appease him, if he took it in bad part. I addressed him by his title "commissioner of the mint" because he addressed me as "proconsul." But since he is a good man and has affection for me, let me keep my affection for him. Farewell.

[Pg 329]

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XII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

What is to happen to me? Who is there more ill-starred, or even more humiliated? Antony says he has received orders about me definitely. Yet I have not seen him myself so far; but he told Trebatius. What can I do now? Nothing succeeds and all my best laid plans fail abominably. For, when I had won over Curio, I imagined I had attained my end. He had written about me to Hortensius. Reginus was wholly my friend. I never suspected that Antony had anything to do with this part of the sea. Whither can I turn now? Everywhere I am watched. But enough of lamentation. I must steal away and creep privily into some cargo boat; I must not allow it to appear that I connive at being hindered. I must go to Sicily. If I once get there, I shall have greater ends in view. If only all goes well in Spain! However, I do hope the news about Sicily may prove true! Hitherto I have had no luck. It is said the Sicilians have gathered round Cato, prayed him to resist and promised every support: and that he has been induced to begin making a levy. I don't believe it, good as the authority is. I know for a fact that that province could have been held. But we shall soon hear from Spain.

Here I have C. Marcellus, who holds the same views as myself or makes a good pretence of doing so. I have not indeed met him myself; but I hear it from one of his most intimate friends. Write to me, if you have any news. If I attempt anything, I shall inform you at once. Young Quintus I shall handle

[Pg 331]

with severity. I hope my efforts may succeed. But please some time tear up the letters in which I criticize him severely, for fear anything ever come to light. I will tear up yours. Servius Sulpicius I am still awaiting, nor do I hear anything satisfactory from him. You shall know whatever happens.

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XIIa
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Undoubtedly I must admit I have been mistaken. But is it once only or on one topic? No, in everything. The more carefully I have thought, the less wisely have I done. "Let bygones be bygones."[152] In the future only let us not invite disaster. You bid me provide for my journey. What can I provide? All the possible accidents are so obvious, that, if I would shun them, I must sit still in shame and grief: and, if I disregard them, it is odds that I fall into the hands of villains. But see how miserable I am. Sometimes it seems preferable that I should receive some damage however bitter from Caesar's party, that people may see I am hated by the tyrant. But, if the voyage for which I hoped were open to me, certainly, as you wish and advise, I should have done something to justify delay. But I am watched with extraordinary care and even Curio is suspect. So I must make a bold move or use craft. If a bold move, I need good weather: but, if craft, should there be any faux pas, you see how disgraced I should be. I am carried away by circumstances and must not be afraid of a bold course.

[Pg 333]

I often reflect about Caelius; and if I have such an opportunity, I will not let it go. I hope Spain is safe. The action of the Massilians is praiseworthy in itself, and is a proof to me that things are going well in Spain. They would have been less bold, if it were otherwise, and they should know, for they live near and are watchful. You are right to remark the expression of popular feeling in the theatre. Even the legions which Caesar got in Italy seem to me to be very disloyal to him. However he is his own worst enemy. You are right to fear that he may run amuck. Assuredly he will, if he loses hope. That is all the more inducement for me to do something in the spirit of Caelius, and I hope with better luck. But everything in due course; and, whatever it be, I will inform you forthwith. I will do all for young Quintus that is necessary, and will undertake the task not only of Arcadia but of the whole Peloponnese.[154] He is able, if only he had character. However, if he has none so far, he may get it, or virtue is not teachable, and that I can never believe.

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XIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Your letter was very pleasing to my daughter and of course to me, for your correspondence always brings a gleam of hope. So please write, and, if you can be hopeful, don't fail to be so. Don't be too much afraid of Antony's lions.[155] He is a jovial fellow. Just hear

[Pg 335]

how he plays the statesman. He summoned by letter ten leading men and the board of four from the municipal towns. They came to his country house in the morning. First he slept till nine. Then, when he heard the men had come from Naples and Cumae (for Caesar is angry with them), he bade them return on the next day, saying that he wished to take a bath and a laxative. This he did yesterday. But to-day he has arranged to cross to Aenaria. He is promising the exiles[157] that they shall return.

But let us pass over this and talk about ourselves. I got a letter from Q. Axius. As for Tiro, thanks. I like Vettienus. I have repaid Vestorius. Servius is said to have stopped at Menturnae on the 6th of May. To-day he will stop with C. Marcellus in his villa at Liternum. To-morrow early he will see me, and will give me a subject for a letter to you. Just now I can find nothing to write. I am much astonished that Antony has not even sent a messenger to me, especially when he has paid me much attention. I suppose he has some more truculent order about me. He does not wish to refuse me to my face, but I was not going to ask the favour, nor, if I had got it, should I have believed him. However I will think out some plan. Let me know if anything has happened in Spain; for now there is time for news to have come, and everybody awaits it with the idea, that, if all go well there, there will be no more trouble. But I do not think the business is over, if Spain be kept, nor yet hopeless, if it be lost. Silius and Ocella and the rest I suppose are detained. I see that you too are hindered by Curtius, though I think you have a passport.

[Pg 337]

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XIV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

What a wretched life this is! and to be so long afraid is more wretched than the very thing one fears! Servius, as I told you before, came on the 7th of May and on the next morning visited me. Not to detain you longer, we could not see our way to a plan. Never have I seen a man more upset with fear; and upon my soul he feared nothing that did not deserve to be feared. He pointed out that Pompey was angry with him, that Caesar was not friendly, that the victory of either would be terrible, both because Pompey was cruel and Caesar daring, and because of their money difficulties, which could only be got rid of by an attack on private property. He bewailed all this with such a flood of tears, that I was surprised they had not dried up in all that long time of misery. My own eyes do not shed one single tear, though this inflammation prevents me from writing to you; but it is often tiresome by keeping me awake. So please collect all the consolation you can and send it to me—not from philosophy or books—I have plenty of that, but I find somehow that the cure is too weak for the disease. Search rather for any news about Spain or Massilia. What Servius says about them is quite satisfactory, and he also tells me there is excellent authority for the story of the two legions. News of this kind then send me, if you get it, and such like topics. Anyhow in a few days something must be heard.

But to return to Servius. We deferred all our conversation to the next day: but he is reluctant to leave Italy, declaring he would much rather die in

[Pg 339]

his bed whatever happens. He has unpleasant scruples about his son's military service at Brundisium. On one point he is quite firm, that, if the condemned are restored, he will go into exile. I for my part replied "that will certainly happen, and what is happening is equally disagreeable," and I quoted many examples. My examples however did not increase his courage but his fear: so that it appears I must rather conceal from him my design than invite him to share it. He is not to be depended on. By your advice I will consider about Caelius.

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XV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

While Servius was with me, Cephalio came with your letter of the 10th, which gave me great hope of better news about the eight cohorts. For even the cohorts which are here are said to be wavering. On the same day Funisulanus brought me a letter from you, corroborating the same news. I gave him a full reply about his business, explaining all your kindness. Hitherto he has not been satisfactory; and he owes me a large sum and is not considered safe. Now he says that he will settle; but that a debtor of his was slow in paying, and that you are to pay the money by your letter-carriers, if that debtor has deposited it with you. The amount Philotimus' man Eros will tell you. But to return to more important matters.

That Caelian plan you favour is coming to a head: so I am worried whether to await a favourable wind. It is a standard we want, and men will flock to it. With your advice, that I should set sail openly, I entirely agree: and so I think I will set out. However

[Pg 341]

I await a letter from you meanwhile. Servius' advice has not been helpful. All sorts of bars meet us in every opinion he expresses. Only one man, C. Marcellus, have I known to be more timid, and he is sorry he was ever a consul. What a lowborn spirit! He is said even to have strengthened Antony's resolution to prevent my departure: so that his own conduct I suppose may appear more honourable. Antony started for Capua on the 10th, sending word that shame prevented his visiting me, because he thought I was annoyed with him. So I shall go, and openly as you advise, unless hope of playing a more important part shall offer. But that can scarcely occur so soon. Allienus the praetor thought one of his colleagues would be chosen,[158] if I were not. Let it be anyone they like so long as it is some one.

As to your sister, I approve. As for young Quintus, I am doing my best, and I hope things are better. As for my brother Quintus, you must know that he is taking extraordinary pains to borrow money to settle his debt; but so far has squeezed nothing out of L. Egnatius. Axius is modest about the £100[159]: for he often requested in his letters that I should pay Gallius as much as he wanted. Even if he had not written, could I have helped it? I have often promised indeed; but he wanted so much at once. They should have helped me rather in my difficulties, confound them. But I will write of this another time. I am glad you are rid of your ague, and Pilia too. While bread and provisions are being put on board, I am going off to my estate at Pompeii. Please thank Vettienus for his trouble. If you can find a messenger, give me a letter before I leave.

[Pg 343]

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XVI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I had just sent a letter to you about a number of matters, when very early in the morning Dionysius came to my house. I should not only have been civil to him, I should have pardoned him altogether, if he had come in the spirit you described. For the letter I got at Arpinum said that he was coming and would do whatever I wanted; and I wanted or rather longed that he should be with me. It was because he had flatly refused to do so, when he came to my villa at Formiae, I used to write to you about him rather bitterly. However, after the first greeting, he said, to put it shortly, that I must excuse him and that business prevented his going with me. I said little in reply, but I was greatly hurt, for I understood that he looked down on my fortunes. You may be astonished, but you must know that this is one of the greatest sorrows I have suffered in this crisis. I hope that he may be a friend to you. When I wish that, I wish you prosperity, for just so long he will be your friend.

My plan, I hope, will be free from risk, for I have kept the matter a secret, and, as I think, I shall not be watched very keenly. Only let the voyage be as good as I want, and all precautions that foresight can suggest will be taken. While I am here, please write not only anything you know or hear, but even what you foresee.

Cato, who could have held Sicily without any trouble—and, if he had held it, all loyalists would have flocked to him—sailed from Syracuse on the

[Pg 345]

23rd of April, as Curio has informed me by letter. I only hope Cotta may hold Sardinia, as they say, for there is a rumour to that effect. If that happens, what a reflection of Cato!

To lessen suspicion of my journey and intentions I started for my place at Pompeii on the 12th of May to stay there while the necessary provisions were made for my voyage. When I arrived, I was told the centurions of the three cohorts here wished to visit me the next day. That was what my friend Ninnius said—that they wished to hand over themselves and the town to me. But I left the next morning before daybreak, so that they should not see me at all: for what was the use of three cohorts, or more indeed? And what was our equipment? I pondered too over the matter of Caelius when I read it in your letter, which I received on the same day as I arrived at Cumae. It was possible too that it was a mere ruse, so I did away with all grounds of suspicion. But, while I was on my way back, Hortensius came, and turned out of his way to greet Terentia, and he had spoken of me with much courtesy. I think I shall see him soon, for he has sent a servant to announce his coming. This is better behaviour than that of my fellow augur Antony, who carries an actress in a sedan among his lictors.

As you have lost your quartan fever and have not only thrown off your new malady but also your cold, you must present yourself before me sound and fit in Greece. Meanwhile drop me a line.

[Pg 347]

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XVII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On the 14th of May Hortensius came to me, just as I had written my letter. I wish his conduct were always as it is now.[163] You would never believe how gushing he was, and I intend to take advantage of it. Then Serapion came with a letter from you. Before I opened it, I told him that you had written to me about him before, as you had done. Then when I had read the letter, I told him the rest in full detail, and upon my word I like the man; for I think him to be learned and upright. Moreover I think I will use his ship and make him my fellow-passenger.

Inflammation of the eyes often breaks out again, not indeed very troublesome, but enough to prevent my writing. That your health has recovered from your old complaint and your new attacks I am glad.

I wish I had Ocella here: for it looks as if things are going to be rather easier. Just now the equinox is delaying me. It has been very boisterous. When that is over, I only hope Hortensius may keep to the same mind. So far he could not be more generous.

You wonder about the passport I mentioned, as if I hinted you were guilty of some crime. You say you can't discover how it came into my mind. For my part since you wrote that you meditated leaving, and I had heard that a passport was indispensable, I decided you must have one: and also because you had taken out a passport for the boys. That was the reason for my opinion, but please write and tell me

[Pg 349]

what you intend, and especially if there is any news.

May 16.

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XVIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

My daughter was confined on the 19th of May: a boy, a seven months' child. I am glad she had a safe delivery. As for the thing that has been born, it is a very poor specimen. So far I have been detained by an astonishing calm, which has been a greater hindrance than the watch kept on me. For all that gush of Hortensius proved child's talk. So it will be found. The villain has been corrupted by Salvius his freeman. Accordingly hereafter I shall write to you, not what I intend to do but what I have done. For every eavesdropper[164] seems to be listening to what I say.

However if you have any news about Spain or any other topic, please write, but do not count on a letter from me, till I have reached the desired haven; or possibly I may write something on the voyage. But even this much I write in fear. How sluggishly and draggingly everything has gone! The foundation was badly laid and the rest is of a piece.

Just now I am going to Formiae; perhaps there too the Furies will follow me. However according to Balbus' conversation with you my idea of going to Malta does not win approval. Can you doubt then that Caesar regards me as an enemy? To be sure I have written to Balbus telling him that you had informed me of his kindness and his suspicion. I

[Pg 351]

thanked him for his kindness: as regards the suspicion, clear me. Is there a more unlucky man living? I won't say more for fear of hurting you too. I am tortured by the thought that the time has come when I can no longer act either with boldness or discretion.

[Pg 353]

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CICERO'S LETTERS TO ATTICUS BOOK XI

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I
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I got your sealed document, which Anteros brought. It gave me no information about my private affairs. I am exceedingly distressed about them, because Philotimus, who managed them, is not at Rome, nor do I know where in the world he is. And my whole hope of preserving my credit and private property lies in your tried and proved kindness towards me. If in this last desperate crisis you still show that, I shall face the dangers which I share with others more courageously: and I adjure and beseech you to do so. I have in local currency[165] in Asia nearly £18,000.[166] By a bill of exchange for that amount it will be easy for you to maintain my credit. Unless I had thought I were leaving it all square (trusting one, whom you have long since known I ought not to have trusted), I should have delayed a little longer and not left my private concerns embarrassed. The reason why I have been rather long in writing to you about it, is that I was a long time in gathering what was to be feared. Again and again I beseech you that you undertake to protect me in every way, so that, supposing my present associates are spared, I may along with them remain unembarrassed and put down my safety to your kindness.

[Pg 355]

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II
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I received your letter on the 4th of February, and on the same day I accepted the inheritance formally according to the will. Of my many and miserable anxieties one is taken away, if, as you say, this inheritance is sufficient to maintain my credit and reputation, though I know you would have defended it even without the inheritance with all your resources. As for what you write about the dowry[167] I adjure you for heaven's sake to manage the whole business and protect the poor girl, a victim of my culpable carelessness, with my funds, if there are any, and out of your own, so far as you can without inconvenience. Pray do not let her remain in the utter want you depict. On what are the rents of my farms being wasted? That 500 guineas[168] of which you write, no one ever told me that it had been kept back out of the dowry, for I would never have allowed it. But that is the least of the blows I have suffered. I cannot write to you about them for sorrow and tears. Of the money I had in Asia I have called in nearly half. It would appear to be safer where it is than with the tax-collectors.

As for your exhortations to be of good courage, I wish you could find some reason why I should be so. If, on the top of my other sorrows, there comes that which Chrysippus said is under consideration (you gave me no hint), I mean the confiscation of my town

[Pg 357]

house, I am the most wretched man alive. I pray and beseech you pardon me. I can write no more. You see, I am sure, with what a weight of misery I am oppressed. If I shared it with others, who seem to be in the same predicament, I should feel less blameworthy and bear it better. Now I have no consolation unless you can arrange, if it is now possible, that I may not be visited with any special disaster and harm.

I have been rather slow in sending back your letter-carrier, because there was no opportunity of sending him. From your agents I have received some £600[169] and the necessary clothing. Please send letters to any people you think right in my name. You know my intimate friends. If they notice the absence of my seal or handwriting, please say I have avoided using them owing to the sentries.

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III
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

What is happening here you may gather from the bearer of your letter. I have kept him longer than I should, because every day I am expecting something fresh to happen, and there was no reason for sending him even now, except the subject on which you ask for an answer, namely what I wish as to the first of July. Both courses are dangerous, both the risk of such a sum of money at such a dangerous time, and the breaking with Dolabella, which you mention, while the political issue is still uncertain. Accordingly I will leave this matter in particular like others

[Pg 359]

to your kind care, and to the consideration and desire of poor Tullia, whose interests would have been better consulted, if originally I had discussed our safety and fortunes with you in person rather than by letter.

You say there is no trouble threatening me especially in this public misfortune. There is a little consolation in that, but there are many circumstances special to me, which you must see are very serious and might easily have been avoided. However they will be less serious, if, as hitherto, they are lightened by your care and management.

The money is with Egnatius. Let it remain there, so far as I am concerned: for things cannot last long as they are, so that I shall soon know what is most necessary. However, I am in want of everything, because the man I am with[170] too is in great straits and I have lent him a large sum of money, thinking that, when things settle down, that will bring me honour as well as profit. Please, as before, if there are any persons to whom you think I ought to write, do it for me. Pay my greetings to your family. Take care of your health. Above all, as you say, make every careful provision that nothing maybe wanting to my daughter, on whose account you know I am very unhappy.

June 13, at the camp.

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IV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have received your letter by Isidorus and two written later. From the last I understand that the

[Pg 361]

property did not sell. So please see to her support yourself. As to the estate at Frusino, if only I am to enjoy the fruits, it will be convenient for me. You say I owe you a letter. Well, I am hindered by want of matter, having nothing worth writing; for nothing that happens and nothing that is done has my approbation at all. If only I could talk with you instead of writing! Here to the best of my power I conserve your interests with these people. The rest Celer will do. Hitherto I have avoided every office, especially as it was impossible for anything to be done in a way that suited me and my fortunes.

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IVa
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

You ask what new moves have been made. Isidorus will tell you. I don't think the rest of the task will be any more difficult. Please pay attention to what you know is my greatest wish, as you say you are doing. I am overwhelmed by care, and that brings with it also great bodily infirmity. When that has passed, I shall go to the man who is conducting the business and who is in high hopes.[171] Brutus is friendly; and takes a keen part in the cause.

That is all that I can prudently commit to paper. Farewell. About the second instalment of Tullia's dowry, pray consider carefully what ought to be done, as I said in the letter, which Pollex took.

[Pg 363]

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V
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

What were the reasons, how bitter, how grave and unforeseen, which swayed me and compelled me to act by a kind of impulse rather than by reflection, I cannot bring myself to write without great agony of mind. So weighty were they that they have brought about what you see. Accordingly I do not know what to tell you about my affairs nor what to ask of you. You can see for yourself the sum and substance of the matter.

For my part I have gathered from your letters—both that which you wrote in conjunction with others and the one you wrote in your own name—what I saw myself too, that you are somewhat disconcerted by my sudden move, and are looking for some new means of protecting me. I don't quite see how I can do as you suggest and come nearer to Rome, travelling through towns at night. For I have not suitable stopping-places to spend all the days in; nor, for the point you are aiming at, does it much matter whether I am seen in towns or on the road. However I will consider how this plan, as well as others, can most conveniently be carried out.

I am so fearfully upset both in mind and body that I have not been able to write many letters; I have only answered those who have written to me. I should like you to write in my name to Basilus and to anyone else you like, even to Servilius, and say whatever you think fit. From this letter you will quite understand that the reason why I have not written to you at all for such a long time, is that I

[Pg 365]

had nothing to write about, not that I did not wish to write.

For your query about Vatinius, neither he nor anyone else would fail in service to me, if they could find any means of helping me. Quintus showed the bitterest ill-feeling to me at Patrae. His son came thither from Corcyra: and I suppose they have set out from there with the others.

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VI
CICERO to ATTICUS, GREETING.

I see you are anxious about your own fate and the fate of us all, and especially about me and my sorrows; but my sorrows are not lessened one whit by the addition of yours in sympathy, they are even increased. Of course your own intelligence makes you feel what consolation can comfort me most: for you approve of my plan and say that under the circumstances I could not have done anything better. You add something, which does not weigh with me so much as your judgement, though it has some weight, that every one else—I mean every one else who matters—approves of what I did. If I could persuade myself of that, I should feel less sorrow. "Believe me," you say. I do believe you; but I know how anxious you are to relieve my sorrow. I have never regretted leaving the camp. Cruelty was so rampant there, and there was so close an alliance with barbarian nations, that a plan was sketched out for a proscription not of persons but of whole classes; and everybody had made up their minds that the property of you all was to be the prize of his victory. I say "you" advisedly, for none

[Pg 367]

but the cruellest thoughts were entertained about you personally. So I shall never regret my resolve; but I do regret my plan of action. I wish I had settled down in some town, till I was called for. There would have been less talk about me, less pain for me; this particular regret at any rate would not be worrying me. To remain inactive at Brundisium is annoying from every point of view. And how can I go nearer to Rome, as you advise, without the lictors given me by the people? They cannot be taken from me without depriving me of my rights. Only lately, as I was approaching Brundisium, I made them mix with the crowd with nothing but sticks in their hands for fear the soldiery might attack them: ever since I have kept at home. I have written to Oppius and to Balbus, asking them to consider how I can move nearer to Rome. I think they will advise me to do so. For they promise that Caesar will be anxious not only to preserve my dignity, but even to increase it; and they bid me be of good cheer and entertain the highest of hopes. This they warrant and guarantee. Personally I should have felt surer about it, if I had stayed where I was. But that is harping on the past; so pray look to the future and investigate the matter with them, and, if you think it necessary and they approve, call in Trebonius, Pansa and anyone else you like, that I may win Caesar's approval by appearing to follow his friends' advice, and let them write to Caesar, telling him that, what I have done, I did at their advice.

My dear Tullia's illness and weakness frightens me to death. I understand you are taking great care of her, and I am very grateful. About Pompey's end

[Pg 369]

I never had any doubt. For despair of his success had so completely taken possession of the minds of all the kings and peoples, that I thought this would happen to him, wherever he might go. I cannot help feeling sorry for his fate, for I knew him to be a man of honour and high moral principle. Am I to condole with you about Fannius? He used to speak virulently of you for staying in Rome. L. Lentulus, you know, had promised himself Hortensius' house, Caesar's gardens, and a place at Baiae. Precisely the same is taking place on this side too, except that on the other there was no limit. For they counted every one who stayed in Italy as an enemy. But I would rather speak of this sometime when I am less worried.

I hear my brother Quintus has set out for Asia to make his peace. About his son I have heard nothing; but ask Diochares, Caesar's freedman, who brought those letters from Alexandria. I have not seen him. He is said to have seen Quintus either on the way, or was it already in Asia? I am looking forward to a letter from you, as the occasion demands. Please try to get it conveyed to me as soon as possible.

November 27.

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VII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I am much obliged to you for your letter, in which you have recorded carefully everything you think concerns me. So you say that they approve both of my actions, and of my keeping my lictors, as Sestius is allowed to keep his: though in his case I think it is not so much a question of being allowed to keep

[Pg 371]

them as of their being assigned to him by Caesar himself. For I am told he repudiates all the decrees of the Senate which were passed after the departure of the tribunes. So, if he wants to be consistent, he will be able to approve my lictors.

However, what is the use of talking about lictors, when I have almost been ordered to leave Italy. For Antony has sent me a copy of a letter from Caesar, in which he said he had heard that Cato and L. Metellus had come to Italy and intended to live openly at Rome: that he did not like, for fear it might cause some disturbance: and that none may enter Italy, until he has himself investigated their case. He put the point very strongly. So Antony wrote asking my pardon, and saying he could not help obeying the letter. Then I sent L. Lamia to him to point out that Caesar had told Dolabella to write and tell me to come to Italy as soon as possible: and that it was on the strength of that letter that I had come. Then Antony issued an edict excepting myself and Laelius by name. I wish he had not done that: he might have made an exception without mentioning names.

What a heap of troubles and how serious too! And you are doing your best to make them lighter, and with some success—indeed that you try so hard to relieve me is some relief in itself. I hope you won't find it a burden to do so as often as possible. But you will succeed in your object best, if you can convince me that I have not entirely lost the good opinion of the loyal party. Yet what can you do in that matter? Nothing of course. But, if anything gives a chance, that is what will best console me. I see that at present it is impossible:

[Pg 373]

but if anything does turns up, as in this present case. It used to be said that I ought to have gone with Pompey: but now his death tends to absolve me from blame for neglecting my duty in that case. But where I am thought to have been most lacking is in not going to Africa. My view was that barbarian auxiliaries drawn from a most deceitful race were not the proper persons to defend the State, especially against an army which had won so many victories. That view may not meet with approval; for I hear that many patriots have arrived in Africa, and I know there were some there before. This is a point that really bothers me: and here again I must trust to luck, that there may be some of them, or, if such a thing is possible, all of them, who put safety first. For, if they hold fast and succeed, you can see what a position I shall be in. You will say "How about it, if they are defeated?" That is a more honourable blow. This is what tortures me. However, you have not told me why you do not prefer Sulpicius' policy to mine. It may not be so glorious as Cato's: but it is at any rate free from danger and regret. The last case is that of those who stayed in Achaia. Even they are in a better position than I am, because there are many of them together, and, when they do come to Italy, they will go straight home. Please continue your efforts to ameliorate my position and to win over as many people as possible to approval.

You explain why you do not come. Yes, I know your reasons and think it is to my interest that you should stay where you are, for one thing that you may be able to carry out any necessary negotiations about me with the proper persons, as you have done.

[Pg 375]

And in the first place I should like to call your attention to this point. I think there are many who have reported or will report to Caesar either that I am repenting of my policy or that I do not approve of recent events. Though both are true, they say it out of spite against me, not because they have seen it to be so. Everything rests on the support of Balbus and Oppius, and on their confirming Caesar's good will to me by sending him frequent letters. Please do your best to bring this about. The other reason why I prefer you not to leave is that you say Tullia begs for your assistance. What a misfortune? What can I say? What can I even wish? I will cut the matter short, for tears spring to my eyes at once. I give you a free hand: do you look to it. Only take care that nothing is done under the present circumstances to offend the great man. I crave your pardon. Tears and sorrow prevent me from dwelling any longer on this topic. I will only add that nothing makes me feel more grateful to you than your love for her.

You are quite right to send letters for me to anyone to whom you think it necessary. I have met a man who saw young Quintus at Samos and his father at Sicyon. They will easily obtain their pardon. I only hope, that, as they will see Caesar first, they will think fit to further my case with him, as much as I should have furthered theirs, if I had been able.

You ask me to take it in good part, if there is anything in your letters that wounds my feelings. I promise you to take it in the best possible part, and I beg you to write everything quite openly, as you do, and to do so as often as possible. Farewell.

Dec. 17.

[Pg 377]

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VIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Though of course you see for yourself in what distress I am, you will learn more about it from Lepta and Trebatius. I am paying very heavily for my rashness, which you want to persuade me was prudence: and I don't want to stop you arguing that it was and writing to me to that effect as often as possible. For your letters afford me a good deal of relief under the present circumstances. You must use your utmost endeavour with those who are my supporters and have influence with him—Balbus and Oppius especially—to make them write about me as strongly as possible. For I hear that I am being attacked by some who are with him, and also by letter. Their attack must be met, as the importance of the matter demands. Fufius, a very bitter enemy of mine, is there. Quintus sent his son not only to make peace for himself, but to accuse me. He keeps saying that I am trying to set Caesar against him, though Caesar and all his friends deny it. And he does not cease, wherever he is, from heaping all sorts of abuse on me. It is the most surprising thing that ever happened to me and the bitterest of all my present sorrows. Those who reported the matter to me professed to have heard it from his own lips, when he was slandering me at Sicyon in the hearing of many. You know his way; indeed you may have had some personal experience of it. Now it is all turned on me. But I increase my own sorrow, and yours too, by speaking of it. So I return to my first point. Take care that Balbus sends some one expressly

[Pg 379]

for this purpose. Please send letters in my name to anyone you think should have them. Farewell.

Dec. 18.

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IX
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have certainly acted incautiously, as you say, and more hastily than I should; and I have no hope seeing that I am tied here by the special clause in the edict. If that had not been inserted by your own kind efforts, I might have gone to some lonely retreat. Now not even that is open to me. How does it help me that I came before the tribunes entered on office, when my coming at all does not help? And what have I now to hope from a man who never was friendly with me, when my ruin and humiliation is secured even by law? Balbus' letters to me are becoming daily cooler, and it may be he receives dozens against me. My own fault is my ruin. Fortune has brought no ills upon me: I have brought them all on my own head. For when I saw what kind of war it was going to be, one side unprepared and weak and the other thoroughly well prepared, I had made my plan—not a very courageous plan perhaps, but one for which there were special excuses in my case. I gave way to my relations, or rather I obeyed them. What the real feelings of one of them were—the one for whom you speak—you will know from the letters he has sent to you and to others. I should never have opened them, had it not been for the following circumstance. A packet was brought to me. I undid it to see if there was any letter for me. There was none; but one for Vatinius and another for Ligurius. Those I had

[Pg 381]

sent to them. They came to me at once boiling with indignation and crying shame on him, and they read me letters full of all kinds of abuse of myself. Then Ligurius burst out with fury, "to his certain knowledge Caesar detested Quintus and had favoured him and given him all that money out of compliment to me." After this blow I wanted to know what he had said to the others: for I thought it would be disastrous to his own reputation if such a scandal got abroad. I found they were all of a piece, and have sent them to you. If you think it will do him any good to have them delivered, have them delivered. It won't do me any harm. Though the seals are broken, I think Pomponia has his signet. When, at the beginning of our voyage, he adopted this bitter tone, I was so upset that I was prostrated afterwards; and now he is said to be working against me rather than for himself.

So I am weighed down by such a heavy burden of griefs that I can hardly bear up under it; indeed, I cannot possibly bear up under it. And among all my miseries there is one that outweighs all the rest—that I shall leave that poor girl[175] deprived of her patrimony and penniless. So I hope you will fulfil your promise and look after her. I have no one else to entrust her to, for I hear that her mother is threatened with the same fate as myself. If you do not find me here, take this as sufficient injunction as regards her, and soften her uncle towards her as far as you can.

This I am writing on my birthday. Would that I had been left to die on the day of my birth, or that my mother had never had another child. Tears prevent me from writing more.

[Pg 383]

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X
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

To my sorrows, which are incalculable, there has come an addition in the news that is brought me about the two Quinti. My friend P. Terentius was acting as deputy to the collector of port-dues and pasture tax in Asia, and he saw young Quintus at Ephesus on the 8th of December and gave him a cordial invitation on account of our friendship. And when he asked him something about me, Quintus told him that I was his deadliest enemy and showed him the manuscript of a speech which he said he was going to deliver before Caesar against me. Terentius said all he could to dissuade him from such folly. Afterwards at Patrae the elder Quintus talked freely to him in the same scandalous strain. What a rage he is in you will have inferred from the letters I sent you. I am sure this will grieve you. To me it is positive torture, especially as I don't expect I shall even have a chance of expostulating with them.

The news I get about the state of affairs in Africa is quite different to what you sent me. They say that all is as strong and as ready as possible. Then there are Spain and Italy alienated from Caesar; his legions are not what they were either in strength or in loyalty; and in the city things are in a poor plight; I cannot get a moment's peace except when I am reading your letters. They would certainly be more frequent, if you had any news which you thought would lighten my sorrows. Still I beg you not to neglect writing to me, whatever the news may be; and, if you cannot bring yourself to hate those who have shown such unfeeling hostility to me, at

[Pg 385]

any rate reprove them, not in the hope of doing any good, but to make them feel that I am dear to you. I will write more, if you answer the last letter I sent. Farewell.

Jan. 19.

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XI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Worn out as I am by the agony of my grievous sorrows I should not find it an easy task to write to you, even if there were anything I ought to write; and it is far less easy, when I have nothing worth writing, especially as there is not even a gleam of hope for better days. So hopeless am I that now I do not look forward even to your letters, though they always bring me something I like to hear. So pray write, whenever you have a messenger. I have no answer to give to your last letter, though it is a long time since I received it, for I see no change in the long interval: the right cause is strong, and I am paying very heavily for my folly.

The £250[176] which I had from Cn. Sallustius are to be paid to P. Sallustius. Please see that it is done without delay. I have written to Terentia about it. And now it is nearly all spent: so I wish you would arrange with her for some money for me to go on with. I shall possibly be able to get some here, if I know I have a balance at Rome; but, before I know that, I dare not try. You see the position of all my affairs. There is no sort of misfortune which I am not enduring and expecting. For this state of affairs

[Pg 387]

I feel the greater sorrow, because my fault is greater. My brother in Achaia does not cease slandering me. Your letter has of course had no effect. Farewell.

March 8.

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XII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Cephalio delivered a letter from you on the 8th of March in the evening. Now on the morning of the same day I had sent messengers and had given them a letter for you. But, when I read yours, I thought I ought to send some answer, particularly because you show you are in doubt as to what explanation I am going to offer Caesar of my departure when I did depart from Italy. I have no necessity for a new explanation, for I have often told him myself and instructed others to tell him that I could not put up with people's talk, although I wished it, and much else to the same effect. For there is nothing that I should be more unwilling for him to imagine than that I did not make up my own mind on so important a question. Afterwards I received a letter from Cornelius Balbus the younger saying that Caesar thought my brother Quintus had sounded the bugle for my departure (that was his expression). I was not then aware of what Quintus had written about me to many people; but, though he had spoken and acted with great bitterness when face to face with me, none the less I wrote to Caesar as follows:

"I am as much troubled about my brother Quintus as about myself; but under the present circumstances I do not venture to recommend him to you. One thing, however, I will venture to ask you—I

[Pg 389]

beseech you to acquit him of doing anything to disturb my sense of your claims on me or to lessen my affection for you, and rather to regard him as the main factor of our union and the companion, not the leader, in my departure. And therefore in all other matters you will give him all the credit that your own kindness and your mutual friendship demands. What I earnestly beg you again and again is, that you will not let me stand in his light with you."

So, if I ever do meet Caesar, though I have no doubt that he will be lenient to Quintus and that he has already made that plain, I shall behave as I always have behaved. But, as I see, what I ought to be most anxious about is Africa, which you say is daily growing stronger, though only to the extent of raising hopes of a compromise rather than a victory. If it could only be true! But I read the signs quite differently, and I think you agree with me, and only say the contrary to hearten me, not to deceive me, especially as Spain too has now joined Africa.[177]

You advise me to write to Antony and others. If you think it necessary, please do it for me, as you have often done before; for I cannot think of anything worth writing. You hear I am less broken-spirited; but can you believe it, when you see that to my former troubles are now added my son-in-law's fine doings?[178] However, pray do not cease

[Pg 391]

doing what you can to hearten me, that is writing to me, even if you have nothing to say. For a letter from you always brings me something.

I have accepted Galeo's legacy. I suppose it only required a simple form of acceptance,[179] since none was sent to me.

March 8.

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XIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have not received any letter from Murena's freedman as yet. It was P. Siser who delivered the one I am answering. You speak of a letter from Servius' father, and you tell me some say that Quintus has landed in Syria: neither is true. You want to be informed how those who have come here feel or felt towards me. I have not found any ill-disposed: but, how important that is to me, I am sure you can imagine. To me the whole state of affairs is insufferably painful; and most of all that I have got myself into such a case, that the only things that can be of any use to me are precisely what I have always wished not to happen.

They say the elder P. Lentulus is at Rhodes, the younger at Alexandria, and it is certain that C. Cassius has left Rhodes for Alexandria. Quintus has written to apologize to me in terms much more irritating than when he was abusing me most violently. For he says that he understands from your letter that you were annoyed with him for writing

[Pg 393]

harshly about me to many people, and so he is sorry that he hurt your feelings: but he was right in what he did. Then he explains with the greatest coarseness why he did it. But he would never have shown his hatred for me either now or before, if he had not seen that everything was against me. How I wish I had got nearer to you, even by night-journeys as you suggested. Now I cannot conceive where or when I shall see you.

As to my co-heirs in Fufidius' property, there was no reason for you to write to me: for their demand is quite just, and anything you did I should think right. As to the repurchase of the estate at Frusino, you know already what I wish. Though my affairs were then in a better position, and I did not expect to be in such desperate straits, still my mind has not altered. How it is to be done, you will arrange. And please consider to the best of your ability some way of obtaining ready money for current expenses. All the money I had I handed over to Pompey at a time when it seemed advisable to do so. So then I took money from your steward and borrowed from others, and now Quintus complains by letter that I did not give him a penny, when he never asked for it and I never set eyes on the money myself. But please see what can be managed and what advice you have to give me on all points: you know all about it.

Grief prevents me from writing more. If there is anything you think should be written to anyone in my name, please do so as usual; and as often as you have anyone to whom you can give a letter to me, don't forget it. Farewell.

[Pg 395]

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XIV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I am not offended with you for telling me the truth in your letter and not even attempting, as you were wont, to console me under my burden of public and personal woes, which you confess is impossible now. For affairs are no longer in the position they were, when, if nothing else, I thought I had companions and partners in my policy. For all those in Achaia and in Asia, who petitioned for pardon and did not obtain it, and even some of those who did, are said to be on the point of sailing for Africa. So I have no one to share my fault except Laelius, and even he is in a better position than I am in one respect, as he has been taken back now.[180] But about me I have no doubt that Caesar has written to Balbus and Oppius: if the news had been good, I should have heard from them and they would have spoken to you too. I should like you to speak to them about it and to let me know what they say, not that any safeguard given by him can have any certainty, but still something can be foreseen and provided for. Though I am ashamed to look anyone in the face, especially with such a son-in-law, still in this disastrous crisis I see nothing else to wish for. Quintus is still keeping on, as both Pansa and Hirtius have written to tell me; and he is said too to be making for Africa with the rest. I will write to Minucius at Tarentum, and send your letter: I will let you know whether anything comes of it. I should have been surprised that

[Pg 397]

you were able to raise the £250,[183] if there had not been a good receipt from Fufidius' estates. However I am looking forward eagerly to your coming: it is my great desire to see you, if it is anyhow possible—for indeed circumstances demand it. The end is now drawing near; and, what it will be, it is easy to estimate at Rome, but here it is more difficult. Farewell.

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XV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Since you give good reasons why I cannot see you at the present time, pray consider what I am to do. For although Caesar holds Alexandria, he seems to be ashamed even to send a dispatch about it, while the others are apparently on the eve of coming here from Africa, and those in Achaia too are either going to return from Asia to join them or they are going to stop in some neutral place. So what do you think I am to do? I see advice is difficult. For I am the one and only person—except perhaps one other, who cannot return to the one party and who has no hope at all offered him from the other. Still I should like to know what you think: and that was one reason, among others, why I should have liked to see you, if it were possible.

I told you before that Minucius has only paid £100.[184] Please see that the rest is provided. Quintus in his letter instead of an earnest appeal used the most bitter language, and his son showed extraordinary animosity. There is no conceivable ill

[Pg 399]

with which I am not oppressed. But all of them are lighter to bear than my sense of guilt: that is overwhelming and enduring. If I were to have those, whom I thought I had, to share that guilt, that would still be some consolation, though a poor one. But every one else's case admits of some way out, mine of none. Some were captured, some cut off, so there is no doubt about their intentions, especially since they have extricated themselves and joined forces again. Nay even those, who of their own free will came to Fufius,[186] can only be thought cowards. But there are many who will be taken back, however they choose to take themselves back to the fold. So you ought not to be surprised that I cannot bear up against all my sorrow. For I am the one and only person whose slip cannot be mended, except perhaps Laelius—and what good is that?—for they say even C. Cassius has changed his mind about going to Alexandria.

This I am writing to you not in the hope that you may remove my care, but to know whether you have any suggestion to make about the things that are wearing me out: to the rest you may add my son-in-law and other things which tears prevent me from writing. Why, even Aesopus'[187] son grieves me sorely. There is absolutely nothing wanting to make me the most miserable of men. But I return to the first point. What do you think I ought to do, come secretly

[Pg 401]

somewhere nearer Rome, or cross the sea? For stay here any longer I cannot.

Why could nothing be settled about Fufidius' estate? For the arrangement was one about which there is generally no dispute, since the share, which seems smaller, can be made up by the proceeds of the sale.[188] I have a reason for asking. For I suspect my co-heirs think my case is doubtful, and so prefer to keep the matter open. Farewell.

May 14.

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XVI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

It is not my fault at the present time (for I did commit an error before) that the letter you send[189] does not give me any consolation. For it is grudgingly written, and raises great suspicion that it is not by Caesar: I expect you noticed that too. About going to meet him I will do as you advise. For no one thinks he is coming, and those who come from Asia say there has been no word of peace: and it was hope of a peace that led me into this error.

I see nothing to make me think of hope, especially now that that blow has fallen in Asia, in Illyricum, in the Cassian affair, in Alexandria itself, in Rome and in Italy.[190] For my part, even if he is on his return—whereas

[Pg 403]

he is said to be still fighting—still I think the business will be settled before he does return.

You say, however, that some feeling of pleasure was aroused among the loyalists when they heard of this letter. Of course you do not omit anything in which you think there is the least consolation, but I cannot bring myself to believe that any of the loyalists supposed that I prize any salvation highly enough to beg for it of him: especially as I have not even a single partner in this policy now. Those who are in Asia are waiting to see how things turn out: those in Achaia too keep holding out to Fufius the hope that they will petition for pardon. They at first had the same fear and the same plan as myself; but the hitch at Alexandria improved their case and ruined mine. So I still make the same request of you as in former letters: if in these desperate straits you see anything you think I ought to do, tell me of it. If I am taken back by the loyalists, which you see is not the case, still, so long as the war lasts, I don't see what I am to do or where I am to stay; still less, if I am rejected by them. So I await a letter from you, and I beg you to write to me without hesitation.

You advise me to write to Quintus about this letter. I would, if the letter gave me any pleasure, though some one has written to me saying: "Considering the evil days, I am pretty comfortable at Patrae, and I should be more so, if your brother would speak of you as I should like to hear him."

[Pg 405]

As to his writing to you to say that I don't answer any of his letters, I've only had one from him. To that I gave an answer to Cephalio, but he was delayed many months by storms. I have already mentioned that young Quintus has written to me most bitterly.

The last thing I have to ask you is, that, if you think it right and care to undertake it, you and Camillus together should advise Terentia to make her will. Circumstances suggest that she ought to make provision for satisfying her creditors. I hear from Philotimus that she is doing some underhand things. I can hardly believe it; but anyhow, if there is anything of the kind (and there possibly may be), it ought to be guarded against. Please write to me about everything, and especially what you think about her. I want your advice about her, even if you cannot think of any plan: for in that case I shall take it the case is desperate.

June 3.

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XVII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I have given this letter to some one else's messengers, who are in a hurry. That is why it is short; also because I am just going to send my own. Tullia came to me on the 12th of June and told me of all your attention and kindness to her and delivered three letters. I however have not derived the pleasure from her goodness, kindness and affection, which I ought to derive from a matchless daughter, nay, my grief exceeds all bounds when I think that such a fine character should be involved in such a

[Pg 407]

distressful fate, and that this should happen through no fault of hers, but through my own grave error. So I do not expect any consolation from you now, though I see you are ready to offer it, nor any counsel, since none can be taken: and I realize that you have tried every way in your former letters and in these last.

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XVIIa
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I am thinking of sending my son with Sallustius to Caesar. As for Tullia, I see no reason for keeping her with me any longer when both of us are in such sorrow: so I am going to send her back to her mother, as soon as she herself will allow me. In return for the letter which you wrote in a consolatory style, please consider that I have made the only answer, which, as you yourself know, was possible.

You tell me Oppius has had a talk with you: and what you say agrees well enough with my suspicions of him. But I feel sure that party[191] can never be convinced that their actions can possibly win my approval, whatever I may say. However, I will be as moderate as I can: though, what difference it makes to me, if I do incur their enmity, I cannot conceive.

I see you have a good reason for not being able to come to me: and I am very sorry that is so. There is no news that Caesar has left Alexandria; and it is well known that no one at all has left that place since the 15th of March, and that he has despatched no letters since the 13th of December. So you see it was quite untrue about the letter dated Febr. 9,

[Pg 409]

though it would not have been of any importance, if it had been true. I hear L. Terentius has left Africa and come to Paestum. What news he brings, or how he got out, or what is happening in Africa, I should like to know. For he is said to have been passed out through the agency of Nasidius. What it all means, I wish you would write and tell me, if you find out. I will do as you say about the 80 guineas.[192] Farewell.

June 14.

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XVIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

There is no rumour of his leaving Alexandria as yet: on the contrary, he is thought to be in great difficulties. So I am not sending my son, as I had arranged, and I beseech you to get me away from here: for any punishment is lighter to bear than staying here. On this point I have written to Antony, to Balbus and to Oppius. For whether there is going to be a war in Italy, or whether he will employ his fleet—and it may be either, but one it must be—this is a most inappropriate place for me. I understood of course from what Oppius said according to your letter, how angry they are with me: but I beg you to turn their anger. I don't expect anything now that is not unpleasant: but my present condition is as desperate as anything can be. So please speak with Antony and the Caesarians, and see the matter through for me as best you can: and let me have an answer on all points as soon as possible. Farewell.

June 14.

[Pg 411]

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XIX
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

As I had a chance of giving a letter to your men, I did not miss it, though I have nothing to say. You are writing less often than you used to do and less fully, I suppose because you have nothing that you think I should be glad to read or hear. However please write, if there is anything of any kind whatever. There is one thing that I do long for, any possibility of a peace: myself I have no hope of such a thing: but, as you sometimes give a slight hint, you compel me to have some hope of what I hardly dare long for.

Philotimus is said to be coming on the 13th of August. Of Caesar I have no further news. Please answer my former letter. I only want time enough to take some precaution now in my misfortunes, as I have never taken any before. Farewell.

July 22.

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XX
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On the 14th of August there arrived from Seleucea Pieria C. Trebonius after 28 days' journey: and he said he had seen young Quintus at Antioch in Caesar's train with Hirtius. They had got what they wanted about my brother without any difficulty at all. I should feel more joy at that, if what I have got myself gave me some sure ground for hope.[193] But there are things

[Pg 413]

I have to fear from the Quinti and others: and Caesar's own regal concessions are again in his own power to revoke. He has even pardoned Sallustius. Indeed he is said not to deny anyone, and that in itself arouses a suspicion that he is only deferring investigation. M. Gallius, son of Quintus, has given back his slaves to Sallustius. He came to transport the legions to Sicily, and he says Caesar is going from Patrae to Sicily. If he does, I shall come nearer Rome, and I wish I had done so already. I am expecting eagerly your answer to my last request for advice. Farewell.

August 15.

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XXI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

On August 25 I received a letter from you dated Aug. 19, and, on reading it, the sorrow which possessed me long ago at Quintus' shameful conduct, but which I had now laid aside, was reawakened in all its force. Though you could not possibly have helped sending me that letter, I wish it had not been sent.

For the points you mention about the will, please see what is to be done and how. About the money, Terentia has written to me just what I suggested to you before, and, if I need it, I will draw on the sum you mention.

[Pg 415]

Caesar probably won't reach Athens by the 1st of September. There are said to be many things that keep him in Asia, especially Pharnaces. The 12th legion, which Sulla visited first, is said to have driven him off with stones, and it is thought none of them will stir. Caesar it is supposed will go straight from Patrae to Sicily. But, if so, he must come here. I should have preferred him to go straight there, for I should have got away from here somehow. Now I am afraid I must wait for him, and in addition to other afflictions my poor daughter must endure this unhealthy climate.

You advise me to make my actions fit the times. I would, if circumstances permitted, and it were anyhow possible. But what with all my own mistakes and the wrongs inflicted on me by my family, there is nothing worthy of myself that I can do or even pretend to do. You compare Sulla's reign: that in principle was all that could be noble, but it was rather too lacking in moderation. The present crisis however is such that I forget myself, and should much prefer the public cause to win rather than that with which my interests are bound up. However, please write to me as often as possible, especially as no one else writes, and, if all the world were writing, I should still look forward to your letters more than any. You say Caesar will be kinder to Quintus for my sake: but I told you before he had made every concession to young Quintus, without mentioning me. Farewell.

[Pg 417]

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XXII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Balbus' letter-carrier delivered the packet quite promptly. For I have got a letter from you in which you seem to doubt whether I received those letters. I wish they had never been delivered: for they increased my sorrow, and, if they had fallen into anyone's hands, they would not have told them anything new. For his hatred of me and the kind of letters he writes are common knowledge. Even Caesar, when he sent them to your friends, seems to have done it, not to show his annoyance at Quintus' disgraceful conduct, but, I suppose, to make my misfortunes better known. You say you are afraid they may do Quintus some harm, and you are trying to remedy it. Why, Caesar did not even wait to be asked about him. That does not annoy me: what is more annoying is that the favours granted to me have no sterling value.

Sulla, I believe, will be here to-morrow with Messalla. They are hurrying to him, hounded away by the soldiers, who refuse to go anywhere, until they get their pay. So, though people thought he would not, he will be coming here; but not in a hurry. For he is travelling slowly, and he is stopping many days in each town. Then, however he manages things, Pharnaces must delay him. So what do you think about me? For already I am scarcely capable physically of bearing this bad climate, which adds ill-health to my troubles. Shall I commission these people, who are going to him, to make my excuses, and come nearer Rome? Please give the point your

[Pg 419]

attention and help me with your advice, which you have not done in spite of many requests. I know it is a knotty question: but, as there is a choice of evils, the mere sight of you is something to me. If I get that, I shall have made some advance. Please attend to the will, as you promise.

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XXIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

Camillus has written to me saying that you have spoken to him on the subject about which I suggested you should consult with him. Now I am expecting a letter from you: only I don't see how the thing is to be changed, if it is not as it ought to be. But, when I got a letter from him, I looked for one from you, though I suppose you did not know the post was going. I only hope you are well: for you said you had an attack of some kind of illness.

A man of the name of Agusius came from Rhodes on the 8th of July. He tells me young Quintus set out to go to Caesar on May 29th, and Philotimus arrived at Rhodes the day before with a letter for me. You will hear Agusius himself: but he is travelling rather slowly. So I arranged to give this to some one who was going more quickly. What there is in that letter, I don't know, but my brother Quintus offers me hearty congratulations. For my part after my great mistake I cannot even imagine anything that can possibly be endurable to me. I beg you to

[Pg 421]

think of my poor girl, both as regards the point about which I wrote lately—making some arrangement to avoid destitution—and also as regards the will itself. The other thing too I wish I had attended to before; but I was afraid of everything. In this very bad business there was nothing better than a divorce. I should have done something like a man, either on the score of his cancelling of debts or his night attacks on houses, or Metella or all his sins together: I should not have lost the money, and I should have shown some manly spirit. I remember of course your letter, but I remember the circumstances too: still anything would have been better than this. Now he seems to be giving notice of divorce himself; for I have heard about the statue of Clodius. To think that a son-in-law of mine above all people should do such a thing as that, or abolish debts! So I agree with you we must serve a notice of divorce on him. Perhaps he will ask for the third instalment of the dowry. So consider whether we should wait for a move of his or act first.[196] If I can possibly manage it, even by night journeys, I will try to see you. Please write to me about this and anything else it may interest me to know. Farewell.

[Pg 423]

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XXIV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

What you wrote to me some time ago and to Tullia too about me, with the intention that it should be passed on to me, I feel to be true. It adds to my misery, though I thought nothing could be added, that, when I have received the deepest injury, I cannot show anger or even annoyance with impunity. So I must put up with that. And when I have borne that blow, I shall still have to suffer what you warn me to guard against. For I have got myself into such trouble, that, whatever the state of affairs or the feelings of the people may be, the result for me apparently will be the same.

But here I take the pen myself; for I shall have to deal with confidential matters. Please see to the will even now, as it was made when she had begun to get into difficulties. She did not bother you, I think; for she did not even ask me about it. But, supposing that is so, since you have broached the subject already, you will be able to advise her to deposit it with some one whose position is not affected by this war. Myself I would rather you were the person, if she agrees to that. The fact is I am keeping the poor woman in the dark as to that fear of mine.[197]

For that other matter, I know of course that nothing can be put up for sale now, but things could be put away and hidden, so that they escape the crash which is threatening. For, when you

[Pg 425]

write that my fortune and yours are at Tullia's service, I believe you as to yours, but what can there be of mine? Now as to Terentia, I omit lots of other things, for what can one add to this? You wrote to her to remit me by bill of exchange £100, saying that was the balance. She sent me 80 guineas,[198] adding that that was all the balance. If she purloins so trifling an amount from so small a total, you can see what she has been doing in the case of larger sums.

Not a trace of Philotimus as yet: nay, he has not even informed me by letter or messenger what he has done. Those who come from Ephesus say they saw him there going into court about some lawsuits of his own, which possibly—indeed in all probability—are deferred till Caesar's arrival. So I suppose he either has nothing which he thinks he need hurry to bring to me, or I have sunk so low in my misfortunes that, even if he has, he does not take the trouble to bring it until he has finished all his own business. And that causes me considerable annoyance, but not so much as I think it ought. For I don't think anything matters much less to me than what answer he brings back from that quarter. Why, I am quite sure you know.

You advise me to mould my looks and words according to circumstances. It is difficult, but I would put a rein on myself, if I thought it mattered to me at all. You say you think the African business can be arranged by an interchange of letters: I wish you would say, why you think so: for I can't imagine any reason for thinking it possible. However please write to me, if there is anything that would give me

[Pg 427]

a crumb of comfort: but, if, as I see is the case, there is nothing, write and tell me that. If I hear anything first I will write to you. Farewell.

August 6.

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XXV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.

I can quite believe what you explain at some length in your letter, that no advice of yours can assist me: and certainly there is no consolation which can relieve my sorrow. For none of my misfortunes has come upon me by fate—that would have been endurable—but I have brought all on myself by my mistakes and my mental and bodily afflictions, which I only wish my nearest and dearest had thought fit to remedy. So, as there is no hope of any advice from you or any consolation, I will not ask for them henceforth: only please do not cease from writing to me anything that may occur to you, when you have anyone to send it by, and so long as there is anyone to send it to; which will not be long.

There is a rumour, though not a very certain one, that Caesar has left Alexandria. It came first from a letter of Sulpicius, and has been confirmed by all subsequent messengers. Whether to prefer it to be false or true, I don't know, as it does not matter to me.

As I told you already about the will I should like it to be preserved in a safe place.[200] I am worn out and harassed by the infatuation of my unhappy daughter. I don't think there ever was such a child

[Pg 429]

of misfortune. If I can do anything for her in any way, I wish you would suggest it to me. I see there will be the same difficulty as there was before in giving me advice: but this causes me more anxiety than anything. It was blind of me to pay the second instalment. I wish I had not: but that is over and done with. I beg you to do your best, as it is in the last extremity, to collect and get together what you can from the sale of plate and furniture, of which there is a good deal, and put it in a safe place. For now I think the end is near, there will be no peace negotiations, and the present government will collapse even without an adversary. As to this speak to Terentia too at your convenience, if you think fit. I cannot write everything. Farewell.

July 5.