letter I will write with the candour which my own disposition and our

common friendship demand. I did expect _some_ congratulation in your letter on my achievements, for the sake at once of the ties between us and of the Republic. This I presume to have been omitted by you from a fear of hurting anyone's feelings. But let me tell you that what I did for the salvation of the country is approved by the judgment and testimony of the whole world. You are a much greater man than Africanus, but I am not much inferior to Lælius either; and when you come home you will recognize that I have acted with such prudence and spirit, that you will not be ashamed of being coupled with me in politics as well as in private friendship.

XIII (F V, I)

Q. METELLUS CELER TO CICERO

CISALPINE GAUL

_Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul, greets M. Tullius Cicero._[57]

[Sidenote: B.C. 62. ÆT. 44]

If you are well I am glad. I had thought, considering our mutual regard and the reconciliation effected between us, that I was not likely to be held up to ridicule in my absence, nor my brother attacked by you in his civil existence and property for the sake of a mere word. If his own high character was not a sufficient protection to him, yet either the position of our family, or my own loyal conduct to you and the Republic, ought to have been sufficient to support him. As it is, I see that he has been ruined and I abandoned by the last people in the world who ought to have done so. I am accordingly in sorrow and wearing mourning dress, while actually in command of a province and army and conducting a war. And seeing that your conduct in this affair has neither been reasonable nor in accordance with the milder methods of old times, you must not be surprised if you live to repent it. I did not expect to find you so fickle towards me and mine. For myself, meanwhile, neither family sorrow nor ill-treatment by any individual shall withdraw me from the service of the state.

[Footnote 57: Q. Metellus Celer had been prætor in B.C. 63 and was now (B.C. 62), as proconsul in Gallia Cisalpina, engaged against the remains of the Catilinarian conspiracy. Meanwhile his brother (or cousin) Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos, a tribune, after trying in vain to bring Cicero to trial for the execution of the conspirators, at last proposed to summon Pompey to Rome to prevent danger to the lives of citizens. This attempt led to riots and contests with Cato, and Nepos finally fled from Rome to Pompey. By leaving Rome he broke the law as to the tribunes, and the senate declared his office vacant, and this letter would even seem to shew that the senate declared him a public enemy. This letter of remonstrance is peremptory, if not insolent, in tone, and the reader will observe that the formal sentences, dropped in more familiar letters, are carefully used.]

XIV (F V, 2)

TO Q. METELLUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL)

ROME

_M. Tullius, son of Marcus, to Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul, wishes health._

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ÆT. 44]

If you and the army are well I shall be glad. You say in your letter that you "thought, considering our mutual regard and the reconciliation effected between us, that you were not likely to be held up to ridicule by me." To what you refer I do not clearly understand, but I suspect that you have been informed that, while arguing in the senate that there were many who were annoyed at my having saved the state, I said that your relations, whose wishes you had been unable to withstand, had induced you to pass over in silence what you had made up your mind you ought to say in the senate in my praise. But while saying so I also added this--that the duty of supporting the Republic had been so divided between us that I was defending the city from internal treachery and the crime of its own citizens, you Italy from armed enemies and covert conspiracy;[58] yet that this association in a task so noble and so glorious had been imperilled by your relations, who, while you had been complimented by me in the fullest and most laudatory terms, had been afraid of any display of mutual regard on your part being put to my credit. As this sentence betrayed how much I had looked forward to your speech, and how mistaken I had been in that expectation, my speech caused some amusement, and was received with a moderate amount of laughter; but the laugh was not against you, it was rather at my mistake, and at the open and _naïve_ confession of my eagerness to be commended by you. Surely it cannot but be a compliment to you that in the hour of my greatest triumph and glory I yet wished for some testimony of approval from your lips. As to your expression, "considering our mutual regard"--I don't know your idea of what is "mutual" in friendship; mine is an equal interchange of good feeling. Now if I were to mention that I passed over a province for your sake, you might think me somewhat insincere; for, in point of fact, it suited my convenience, and I feel more and more every day of my life the advantage and pleasure which I have received from that decision. But this I do say--the moment I had announced in public meeting my refusal of a province, I began at once thinking how I might hand it on to you. I say nothing as to the circumstances of your allotment: I only wish you to suspect that nothing was done in that matter by my colleague without my cognizance. Recall the other circumstances: how promptly I summoned the senate on that day after the lots had been drawn, at what a length I spoke about you. You yourself said at the time that my speech was not merely complimentary to you, but absolutely a reflexion on your colleagues. Farther, the decree of the senate passed on that day has such a preamble that, so long as it is extant, there can never be any doubt of my services to you. Subsequently, when you had gone out of town, I would have you recall my motions in the senate, my speeches in public meetings, my letters to yourself. And having reviewed all these together, I would like you to judge yourself whether you think that your approach to Rome the last time you came quite shewed an adequate return for all these services.[59] Again, as to your expression, "the reconciliation effected between us"--I do not understand why you speak of "reconciliation" in the case of a friendship that had never been broken. As to what you say, that your brother Metellus ought not "to have been attacked by me for a mere word," in the first place I would like to assure you that your feeling and fraternal partiality--so full of human kindness and natural affection--meet with my warmest approbation; in the next place I must claim your indulgence if I have in any matter opposed your brother in the interests of the Republic, for my devotion to the Republic is paramount. If, however, it is my personal safety that I have defended against a most ruthless assault of his, I think you should be content that I make no complaint even to you of your brother's injurious conduct. Now, when I had become aware that he was deliberately making every preparation to use his tribunician office to my ruin, I appealed to your wife Claudia[60] and your sister Mucia[61] (of whose kindness to me for the sake of my friendship with Pompey I had satisfied myself by many instances) to deter him from that injurious conduct. And yet, as I am sure you have heard, on the last day of December he inflicted upon me--a consul and the preserver of my country--an indignity such as was never inflicted upon the most disloyal citizen in the humblest office: that is to say, he deprived me when laying down my office of the privilege of addressing the people--an indignity, however, which after all redounded to my honour. For, upon his forbidding me to do anything but take the oath, I pronounced an oath at once the most absolutely true and the most glorious in a loud voice--an oath which the people swore also in a loud voice to be absolutely true. Though I had actually suffered this signal indignity, I yet on that same day sent common friends to Metellus to persuade him to alter his resolution; to whom he answered that he was no longer free to do so. And, in fact, a short time previously he _had_ said in a public meeting that a man who had punished others without trial ought not himself to be allowed the privilege of speech. What a model of consistency! What an admirable citizen! So he deemed the man who had saved the senate from massacre, the city from the incendiary, Italy from war, deserving of the same penalty as that inflicted by the senate, with the unanimous approval of all loyal citizens, upon those who had intended to set fire to the city, butcher magistrates and senate, and stir up a formidable war! Accordingly, I did withstand your brother Metellus to his face: for on the 1st of January, in the senate, I maintained a debate with him on the state of the Republic, such as taught him that he had to contend with a man of courage and firmness. On the 3rd of January,[62] on again opening the debate, he kept harping on me and threatening me at every third word of his speech; nor could any intention be more deliberate than his was to overthrow me by any means in his power, not by calm and judicial argument, but by violence and mere browbeating. If I had not shewn some boldness and spirit in opposing his intemperate attack, would not everyone have concluded that the courage I had displayed in my consulship was the result of accident rather than design? If you did not know that Metellus was contemplating these measures in regard to me, you must consider that you have been kept in the dark by your brother on matters of the utmost importance: if, on the other hand, he did intrust any part of his designs to you, then surely I ought to be regarded by you as a man of placable and reasonable temper for not addressing a word of reproach to you even on such occurrences as these. Understanding then that it was by no "mere word" (as you express it) of Metellus that I was roused, but by his deliberate policy and extraordinary animosity towards me, next observe my forbearance--if "forbearance" is the name to be given to irresolution and laxity under a most galling indignity. I never once delivered a vote in a speech against your brother: every time a motion was before the house I assented without rising to those whose proposal appeared to me to be the mildest. I will also add that, though in the circumstances there was no obligation upon me to do so, yet so far from raising objections I actually did my best to secure that my enemy, because he was your brother, should be relieved from penalties by a decree of the senate.[63] Wherefore I have not "attacked" your brother, but only defended myself from your brother's attack; nor have I been "fickle" (to quote your word), but, on the contrary, so constant, that I remained faithful to my friendship to you, though left without any sign of kindness from you. For instance, at this moment, though your letter amounts almost to a threat, I am writing back an answer such as you see. I not only pardon your vexation, I even applaud it in the highest degree; for my own heart tells me how strong is the influence of fraternal affection. I ask you in your turn to put a liberal construction upon my vexation, and to conclude that when attacked by your relatives with bitterness, with brutality, and without cause, I not only ought not to retract anything, but, in a case of that kind, should even be able to rely upon the aid of yourself and your army. I have always wished to have you as a friend: I have taken pains to make you understand that I am a warm friend to you. I abide by that sentiment, and shall abide by it as long as _you_ will let me; and I shall more readily cease to be angry with your brother for love of you, than I shall from anger with him abate in the smallest degree my kindness for you.

[Footnote 58: Metellus had been employed with Antonius against the camp at Fæsulæ, but was now engaged against some Alpine tribes.]

[Footnote 59: When Metellus was commanding against Catiline, it is suggested that he marched towards Rome to support his brother, but this is conjecture.]

[Footnote 60: Sister of P. Clodius. Of this famous woman we shall hear often again. She is believed to be the Lesbia of Catullus, and she is the "Palatine Medea" of the speech _pro Cælio_. Yet, in spite of Cicero's denunciations of her, he seems at one time to have been so fond of her society as to rouse Terentia's jealousy.]

[Footnote 61: Wife of Pompey--divorced by him on his return from the East.]

[Footnote 62: On the next meeting of the senate. The second was a _dies comitialis_ on which the senate usually did not meet (Cæs. _B. Civ._ i. I).]

[Footnote 63: For the riots caused by his contests with Cato (on which the senate seems to have passed the _senatus consultum ultimum_), and for his having left Rome while tribune.]

XV (F V, 6)

TO P. SESTIUS[64] (IN MACEDONIA)

ROME, DECEMBER

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ÆT. 44]

Decius the copyist has been to see me, and begged me to try and secure that no successor should be appointed to you this turn. Though I regarded him as a man of good character and attached to you, yet, remembering the tenor of your previous letter to me, I could not feel certain that the wishes of a cautious man of the world like yourself had undergone so complete a change. But after your wife Cornelia had called on Terentia, and I had had a conversation with Q. Cornelius, I took care to be present at every meeting of the senate, and found that the greatest trouble was to make Fufius the tribune, and the others to whom you had written, believe me rather than your own letters. The whole business has, after all, been postponed till January, but there is no difficulty about it. Roused by your congratulations--for in a letter sometime ago you wished me good luck on the completion of my purchase of a house from Crassus--I have bought that very house for 3,500 sestertia (about £28,000), a good while subsequent to your congratulation. Accordingly, you may now look upon me as being so deeply in debt as to be eager to join a conspiracy if anyone would admit me! But, partly from personal dislike they shut their doors in my face and openly denounce me as the punisher of conspiracy, partly are incredulous and afraid that I am setting a trap for them! Nor do they suppose that a man can be short of money who has relieved the money-lenders from a state of siege. In point of fact, money is plentiful at six per cent., and the success of my measures has caused me to be regarded as a good security. Your own house, and all the details of its construction, I have examined and strongly approve. As for Antonius,[65] though everyone notices his want of attention to my interests, I have nevertheless defended him in the senate with the utmost earnestness and persistence, and have made a strong impression on the senate by my language as well as by my personal prestige. Pray write to me more frequently.

[Footnote 64: P. Sestius was serving as proquæstor in Macedonia under Gaius Antonius. As tribune in B.C. 57 he worked for Cicero's recall, but was afterwards prosecuted _de vi_, and defended by Cicero.]

[Footnote 65: Gaius Antonius, Cicero's colleague in the consulship. He had the province of Macedonia after the consulship, Cicero having voluntarily withdrawn in his favour to secure his support against Catiline. Scandal said that he had bargained to pay Cicero large sums from the profits of the province. He governed so corruptly and unsuccessfully that he was on his return condemned of _maiestas_.]

XVI (A I, 12)

[Sidenote: B.C. 61. Coss., M. Papius Piso, M. Valerius Messalla.]

The letters of this year are much concerned with the sacrilege of P. Clodius, who, it was alleged, had been detected in disguise in the house of the Pontifex Maximus Iulius Cæsar, when his wife was celebrating the mysteries of the Bona Dea, from which males were excluded. His trial was made the occasion of bitter party struggles, and by giving evidence in contradiction of Clodius's alibi Cicero incurred his enmity, and eventually, therefore, his own exile. Quintus is proprætor in Asia, Cæsar in Spain. Pompey reached Rome early this year. The _ordo equester_ is much irritated with the senate on the question of the contracts for the collection of the Asiatic taxes.

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

ROME, 1 JANUARY

[Sidenote: B.C. 61, ÆT. 45]

The Teucris[66] business hangs fire, and Cornelius has not called on Terentia since. I suppose I must have recourse to Considius, Axius, and Selicius:[67] for his nearest relations can't get a penny out of Cæcilius[68] under twelve per cent. But to return to my first remark: I never saw anything more shameless, artful, and dilatory. "I am on the point of sending my freedman," "I have commissioned Titus"--excuses and delays at every turn! But perhaps it is a case of _l'homme propose_,[69] for Pompey's advance couriers tell me that he means to move in the senate that a successor to Antonius ought to be named, and the prætor intends to bring the proposal before the people at the same time. The facts are such that I cannot defend him in view of the opinion either of the aristocrats or the people, and, what is more than anything else, that I have no wish to do so. For a thing has happened into the truth of which I charge you to look thoroughly. I have a freedman, who is a worthless fellow enough; I mean Hilarus, an accountant and a client of your own. The interpreter Valerius gives me this information about him, and Thyillus writes me word that he has been told the same story: that the fellow is with Antonius, and that Antonius, in exacting money payments, frequently remarks that a part is being collected for me, and that I have sent a freedman to look after our common interests. I felt exceedingly disturbed, and yet could not believe it; but at any rate there has been some gossip of the sort. Pray look into the whole matter, learn the truth, find out the author, and get the empty-headed idiot out of the country, if you possibly can. Valerius mentions Cn. Plancius as the origin of this gossip. I trust you thoroughly to investigate and find out what is at the bottom of it. I have good reason to believe that Pompey is most kindly disposed to me. His divorce of Mucia is strongly approved.[70] I suppose you have heard that P. Clodius, son of Appius, was caught in woman's clothes at Gaius Cæsar's house, while the state function was going on, and that he was saved and got out by means of a maid-servant; and that the affair is causing immense scandal. I feel sure you will be sorry for it.[71] I have nothing else to tell you. And, indeed, at the moment of writing, I am in considerable distress: for a delightful youth, my reader Sosthenes, has just died, and his death has affected me more than that of a slave should, I think, do. Pray write often. If you have no news, write just what comes uppermost.

1 January, in the consulship of M. Messalla and M. Piso.

[Footnote 66: From expressions in the following letters it seems certain that this refers to money expected from Gaius Antonius; but we have no means of deciding whether or no Teucris is a pseudonym for some agent. Cicero had undertaken to be the advocate and supporter of Antonius, and though as an actual _patronus_ in court he could not take money, he may have felt justified in receiving supplies from him. Still, he knew the character of Antonius, and how such wealth was likely to be got, and it is not a pleasant affair.]

[Footnote 67: Money-lenders.]

[Footnote 68: The rich and cross-grained uncle of Atticus. See Letter X.]

[Footnote 69: Cicero quotes half a Greek verse of Menander's, ταὐτόματον ἡμῶν, leaving Atticus to fill up the other two words, καλλίω βουλεύεται, "Chance designs better than we ourselves."]

[Footnote 70: Mucia was suspected of intriguing with Iulius Cæsar.]

[Footnote 71: The chief festival of the Bona Dea (Tellus) was in May. The celebration referred to here took place on the night between the 3rd and 4th of December. It was a state function (_pro populo_), and was celebrated in the presence of the Vestals and the wife of the consul or prætor urbanus, _in ea domo quæ est in imperio_. As Cæsar was Pontifex Maximus, as well as prætor urbanus, it took place in the _Regia_, the Pontiff's official house (Plutarch, _Cic._ 19; Dio, xxxvii. 35).]

XVII (F V, 5)

TO C. ANTONIUS (IN MACEDONIA)

ROME, JANUARY

_M. Cicero wishes health to Gaius Antonius, son of Marcus, Imperator._

[Sidenote: B.C. 61, ÆT. 45]

Though I had resolved to write you nothing but formal letters of introduction (not because I felt that they had much weight with you, but to avoid giving those who asked me for them an idea that there had been any diminution in our friendship), yet since Titus Pomponius is starting for your province, who knows better than anyone else all that I feel and have done for you, who desires your friendship and is most devotedly attached to me, I thought I must write something, especially as I had no other way of satisfying Pomponius himself. Were I to ask from you services of the greatest moment, it ought not to seem surprising to anyone: for you have not wanted from me any that concerned your interests, honour, or position. That no return has been made by you for these you are the best witness: that something even of a contrary nature has proceeded from you I have been told by many. I say "told," for I do not venture to say "discovered,"[72] lest I should chance to use the word which people tell me is often falsely attributed to me by you. But the story which has reached my ears I would prefer your learning from Pomponius (who was equally hurt by it) rather than from my letter. How singularly loyal my feelings have been to you the senate and Roman people are both witnesses. How far you have been grateful to me you may yourself estimate: how much you owe me the rest of the world estimates. I was induced to do what I did for you at first by affection, and afterwards by consistency. Your future, believe me, stands in need of much greater zeal on my part, greater firmness and greater labour.[73] These labours, unless it shall appear that I am throwing away and wasting my pains, I shall support with all the strength I have; but if I see that they are not appreciated, I shall not allow you--the very person benefited[74]--to think me a fool for my pains. What the meaning of all this is you will be able to learn from Pomponius. In commending Pomponius to you, although I am sure you will do anything in your power for his own sake, yet I do beg that if you have any affection for me left, you will display it all in Pomponius's business. You can do me no greater favour than that.

[Footnote 72: The word (_comperisse_) used by Cicero in regard to the Catilinarian conspiracy; it had apparently become a subject of rather malignant chaff.]

[Footnote 73: Cicero is hinting at the danger of prosecution hanging over the head of Antonius.]

[Footnote 74: Reading _tibi ipsi_ (not _ipse_), with Tyrrell.]

XVIII (A 1, 13)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

ROME, 27 JANUARY

[Sidenote: B.C. 61, ÆT. 45]

I have now received three letters from you--one by the hands of M. Cornelius, which you gave him, I think, at Three Taverns; a second which your host at Canusium delivered to me; a third dated, according to you, from on board your pinnace, when the cable was already slipped.[75] They were all three, to use a phrase from the schools of rhetoric flavoured with the salt of learning, and illumined with the marks of affection. In these letters, indeed, I am urgently pressed by you to send answers, but what renders me rather dilatory in this respect is the difficulty of finding a trustworthy carrier. How few of these gentry are able to convey a letter rather weightier than usual without lightening it by skimming its contents! Besides, I do not always care to send[76] whenever anyone is starting for Epirus: for I suppose that, having offered victims before your Amaltheia,[77] you at once started for the siege of Sicyon. And yet I am not even certain when you start to visit Antonius or how much time you are devoting to Epirus. Accordingly, I don't venture to trust either Achæans or Epirotes with a letter somewhat more outspoken than usual. Now some events _have_ occurred since you left me worth my writing to you, but they must not be trusted to the risk of a letter being lost, opened, or intercepted.

Well, then, to begin with: I was not called upon to speak first, and the pacifier of the Allobroges[78] was preferred to me, and though this met with some murmurs of disapprobation from the senate, I was not sorry it was done. For I am thereby freed from any obligation to shew respect to an ill-conditioned man, and am at liberty to support my position in the Republic in spite of him. Besides, the second place has a dignity almost equal to that of _princeps senatus_, and does not put one under too much of an obligation to the consul. The third called on was Catulus; the fourth, if you want to go still farther, Hortensius. The consul himself[79] is a man of a small and ill-regulated mind, a mere buffoon of that splenetic kind which raises a laugh even in the absence of wit: it is his face rather than his facetiousness[80] that causes merriment: he takes practically no part in public business, and is quite alienated from the Optimates. You need expect no service to the state from him, for he has not the will to do any, nor fear any damage, for he hasn't the courage to inflict it. His colleague, however, treats me with great distinction, and is also a zealous supporter of the loyalist party. For the present their disagreement has not come to much; but I fear that this taint may spread farther. For I suppose you have heard that when the state function was being performed in Cæsar's house a man in woman's dress got in,[81] and that the Vestals having performed the rite again, mention was made of the matter in the senate by Q. Cornificius--he was the first, so don't think that it was one of us consulars--and that on the matter being referred by a decree of the senate to the [Virgins and] pontifices, they decided that a sacrilege had been committed: that then, on a farther decree of the senate, the consuls published a bill: and that Cæsar divorced his wife. On this question Piso, from friendship for P. Clodius, is doing his best to get the bill promulgated by himself (though in accordance with a decree of the senate and on a point of religion) rejected. Messalla as yet is strongly for severe measures. The loyalists hold aloof owing to the entreaties of Clodius: bands of ruffians are being got together: I myself, at first a stern Lycurgus, am becoming daily less and less keen about it: Cato is hot and eager. In short, I fear that between the indifference of the loyalists and the support of the disloyal it may be the cause of great evils to the Republic. However, your great friend[82]--do you know whom I mean?--of whom you said in your letter that, "not venturing to blame me, he was beginning to be complimentary," is now to all appearance exceedingly fond of me, embraces me, loves and praises me in public, while in secret (though unable to disguise it) he is jealous of me. No good-breeding, no straightforwardness, no political morality, no distinction, no courage, no liberality! But on these points I will write to you more minutely at another time; for in the first place I am not yet quite sure about them, and in the next place I dare not intrust a letter on such weighty matters to such a casual nobody's son as this messenger.

The prætors have not yet drawn their lots for the provinces. The matter remains just where you left it. The description of the scenery of Misenum and Puteoli which you ask for I will include in my speech.[83] I had already noticed the mistake in the date, 3rd of December. The points in my speeches which you praise, believe me, I liked very much myself, but did not venture to say so before. Now, however, as they have received your approval, I think them much more "Attic" than ever. To the speech in answer to Metellus[84] I have made some additions. The book shall be sent you, since affection for me gives you a taste for rhetoric. What news have I for you? Let me see. Oh, yes! The consul Messalla has bought Antonius's house for 3,400 sestertia (about £27,200). What is that to me? you will say. Why, thus much. The price has convinced people that I made no bad bargain, and they begin to understand that in making a purchase a man may properly use his friends' means to get what suits his position. The Teucris affair drags on, yet I have hopes. Pray settle the business you have in hand. You shall have a more outspoken letter soon.

27 January, in the consulship of M. Messalla and M. Piso.

[Footnote 75: _Ora soluta._ Or, if _ancora sublata_ be read, "when the anchor was already weighed." In either case it means "just as you were starting." Atticus wrote on board, and gave the letter to a carrier to take on shore.]

[Footnote 76: A word lost in the text.]

[Footnote 77: See end of Letter XXI. Cicero playfully supposes that Atticus only stayed in his villa in Epirus to offer sacrifices to the nymph in his gymnasium, and then hurried off to Sicyon, where people owed him money which he wanted to get. He goes to Antonius first to get his authority for putting pressure on Sicyon, and perhaps even some military force.]

[Footnote 78: C. Calpurnius Piso (consul B.C. 67), brother of the consul of the year, had been governor of Gallia Narbonensis (B.C. 66-65), and had suppressed a rising of the Allobroges, the most troublesome tribe in the province, who were, in fact, again in rebellion.]

[Footnote 79: M. Pupius Piso.]

[Footnote 80: "By the expression of his face rather than the force of his expressions" (Tyrrell).]

[Footnote 81: See p. 27, note 2.]

[Footnote 82: Pompey.]

[Footnote 83: Or, "inclose with my speech"; in both cases the dative _orationi meæ_ is peculiar. No speech exists containing such a description, but we have only two of the previous year extant (_pro Flacco_ and _pro Archia Poeta_). Cicero was probably sending it, whichever it was, to Atticus to be copied by his _librarii_, and published. Atticus had apparently some other works of Cicero's in hand, for which he had sent him some "queries."]

[Footnote 84: Apparently the speech in the senate referred to in Letter XIV, p. 23, spoken on 1st January, B.C. 62. Metellus had prevented his _contio_ the day before.]

XIX (A I, 14)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

ROME, 13 FEBRUARY

[Sidenote: B.C. 61, ÆT. 45]

I fear it may seem affectation to tell you how occupied I have been; but I am so distracted with business that I have only just found time for this short letter, and that has been stolen from the most urgent engagements. I have already described to you Pompey's first public speech--it did not please the poor, nor satisfy the disloyal, nor find favour with the wealthy, nor appear sound to the loyalists; accordingly, he is down in the world.[85] Presently, on the instigation of the consul Piso, that most insignificant of tribunes, Fufius, brought Pompey on to the platform. The meeting was in the _circus Flaminius_, and there was in the same place that day a crowd of market people--a kind of _tiers état_.[86] He asked him to say whether he approved of the jurymen being selected by the prætor, to form a panel for the prætor himself to employ. That was the regulation made by the senate in the matter of Clodius's sacrilege. Thereupon Pompey made a highly "aristocratic" speech, and replied (and at great length) that in all matters the authority of the senate was of the greatest weight in his eyes and had always been so. Later on the consul Messalla in the senate asked Pompey his opinion as to the sacrilege and the bill that had been published. His speech in the senate amounted to a general commendation of all decrees of the house, and when he sat down he said to me, "I think my answer covers your case also."[87] When Crassus observed that Pompey had got a cheer from the idea in men's minds that he approved my consulship, he rose also to his feet and delivered a speech in the most complimentary terms on my consulship, going so far as to say that he owed it to me that he was still a senator, a citizen, nay, a free man; and that he never beheld wife, home, or country without beholding the fruits of my conduct. In short: that whole topic, which I am wont to paint in various colours in my speeches (of which you are the Aristarchus), the fire, the sword--you know my paint-pots--he elaborated to the highest pitch. I was sitting next to Pompey. I noticed that he was agitated, either at Crassus earning the gratitude which he had himself neglected, or to think that my achievements were, after all, of such magnitude that the senate was so glad to hear them praised, especially by a man who was the less under an obligation to praise me, because in everything I ever wrote[88] my praise of Pompey was practically a reflexion on him. This day has brought me very close to Crassus, and yet in spite of all I accepted with pleasure any compliment--open or covert--from Pompey. But as for my own speech, good heavens! how I did "put it on" for the benefit of my new auditor Pompey! If I ever did bring every art into play, I did then--period, transition, enthymeme, deduction--everything. In short, I was cheered to the echo. For the subject of my speech was the dignity of the senate, its harmony with the equites, the unanimity of Italy, the dying embers of the conspiracy, the fall in prices, the establishment of peace. You know my thunder when these are my themes. It was so loud, in fact, that I may cut short my description, as I think you must have heard it even in Epirus. The state of things at Rome is this: the senate is a perfect Areopagus. You cannot conceive anything firmer, more grave, or more high-spirited. For when the day came for proposing the bill in accordance with the vote of the senate, a crowd of our dandies with their chin-tufts assembled, all the Catiline set, with Curio's girlish son at their head, and implored the people to reject it. Moreover, Piso the consul, who formally introduced the bill, spoke against it. Clodius's hired ruffians had filled up the entrances to the voting boxes. The voting tickets were so manipulated that no "ayes" were distributed. Hereupon imagine Cato hurrying to the rostra, delivering an admirable invective against the consul, if we can call that an "invective" which was really a speech of the utmost weight and authority, and in fact containing the most salutary advice. He is followed to the same effect by your friend Hortensius, and many loyalists besides, among whom, however, the contribution of Favonius was conspicuous. By this rally of the Optimates the _comitia_ is dissolved, the senate summoned. On the question being put in a full house--in spite of the opposition of Piso, and in spite of Clodius throwing himself at the feet of the senators one after the other--that the consuls should exhort the people to pass the bill, about fifteen voted with Curio, who was against any decree being passed; on the other side there were fully four hundred. So the vote passed. The tribune Fufius then gave in.[89] Clodius delivered some wretched speeches to the people, in which he bestowed some injurious epithets on Lucullus, Hortensius, C. Piso, and the consul Messalla; me he only charged with having "discovered" everything.[90] In regard to the assignation of provinces to the prætors, the hearing legations, and other business, the senate voted that nothing should be brought before it till the bill had been brought before the people. There's the state of things at Rome for you. Yet pray listen to this one thing more which has surpassed my hopes. Messalla is a superlatively good consul, courageous, firm, painstaking; he praises, shows attachment to, and imitates me. That other one (Piso) is the less mischievous because of one vice--he is lazy, sleepy, unbusiness-like, an utter _fainéant_, but in intention he is so disaffected that he has begun to loathe Pompey since he made the speech in which some praise was bestowed on the senate. Accordingly, he has alienated all the loyalists to a remarkable degree. And his action is not dictated by love for Clodius more than by a taste for a profligate policy and a profligate party. But he has nobody among the magistrates like himself, with the single exception of the tribune Fufius. The tribunes are excellent, and in Cornutus we have a quasi-Cato. Can I say more?

Now to return to private matters. "Teucris" has fulfilled her promise.[91] Pray execute the commission you undertook. My brother Quintus, who purchased the remaining three-fourths of the house in the Argiletum for 725 sestertia (about £5,800), is now trying to sell his Tusculan property, in order to purchase, if he can, the town house of Pacilius. Make it up with Lucceius! I see that he is all agog to stand for the consulship. I will do my best. Be careful to let me know exactly how you are, where you are, and how your business goes on.

13 February.

[Footnote 85: The letter giving this description is lost. I think _frigebat_ is epistolary imperfect--"_he_ is in the cold shade," not, "_it_ fell flat."]

[Footnote 86: πανήγυρις. Cicero uses the word (an honourable one in Greek) contemptuously of the rabble brought together at a market.]

[Footnote 87: Pompey's general commendation of the decrees of the senate would include those regarding the Catiline conspirators, and he therefore claimed to have satisfied Cicero.]

[Footnote 88: _Meis omnibus litteris_, the MS. reading. Prof. Tyrrell's emendation, _orationibus meis, omnibus litteris_, "in my speeches, every letter of them," seems to me even harsher than the MS., a gross exaggeration, and doubtful Latin. _Meis litteris_ is well supported by _literæ forenses et senatoriæ_ of _de Off._ 2, § 3, and though it is an unusual mode of referring to speeches, we must remember that they were now published and were "literature." The particular reference is to the speech _pro Imperio Pompeii_, in which, among other things, the whole credit of the reduction of Spartacus's gladiators is given to Pompey, whereas the brunt of the war had been borne by Crassus.]

[Footnote 89: Fufius, though Cicero does not say so, must have vetoed the decree, but in the face of such a majority withdrew his veto. The practice seems to have been, in case of tribunician veto, to take the vote, which remained as an _auctoritas senatus_, but was not a _senatus consultum_ unless the tribune was induced to withdraw.]

[Footnote 90: _Comperisse_. See Letter XVII, note 1, p. 28.]

[Footnote 91: See Letters XVI and XVIII, pp. 26, 32.]

XX (A I, 15)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

ROME, 15 MARCH

[Sidenote: B.C. 61, ÆT. 45]

You have heard that my dearest brother Quintus has got Asia; for I do not doubt that rumour has conveyed the news to you quicker than a letter from any of us. Now then, considering how desirous of a good reputation he and I have ever been, and how unusually Philhellenic we are and have the reputation of being, and considering how many there are whose enmity we have incurred for the sake of the Republic, "call to mind all your valour,"[92] to secure us the praise and affection of all concerned. I will write at greater length to you on these points in the letter which I shall give to Quintus himself.[93] Please let me know what you have done about the business I confided to you, and also in your own affair; for I have had no letter from you since you left Brundisium. I am very anxious to hear how you are.

15 March.

[Footnote 92: παντοίης ἀρέτης μιμνήσκεο (Hom. _Il._ xxii. 8)]

[Footnote 93: The allotment of provinces had been put off (see last letter) till the affair of Clodius's trial was settled; consequently Quintus would not have much time for preparation, and would soon set out. He would cross to Dyrrachium, and proceed along the _via Egnatia_ to Thessalonica. He might meet Atticus at Dyrrachium, or go out of his way to call on him at Buthrotum.]

XXI (A I, 16)

TO ATTICUS

ROME (MAY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 61, ÆT. 45]

You ask me what has happened about the trial, the result of which was so contrary to the general expectation, and at the same time you want to know how I came to make a worse fight of it than usual. I will answer the last first, after the manner of Homer.[94] The fact is that, so long as I had to defend the authority of the senate,[95] I battled with such gallantry and vigour that there were shouts of applause and crowds round me in the house ringing with my praise. Nay, if you ever thought that I shewed courage in political business, you certainly would have admired my conduct in that cause. For when the culprit had betaken himself to public meetings, and had made an invidious use of my name, immortal gods! What battles! What havoc! What sallies I made upon Piso, Curio, on the whole of that set! How I fell upon the old men for their instability, on the young for their profligacy! Again and again, so help me heaven! I regretted your absence not only as the supporter of my policy, but as the spectator also of my admirable fighting. However, when Hortensius hit on the idea of a law as to the sacrilege being proposed by the tribune Fufius, in which there was no difference from the bill of the consul except as to the kind of jurymen--on that point, however, the whole question turned--and got it carried by sheer fighting, because he had persuaded himself and others that _he_ could not get an acquittal no matter who were the jurymen, I drew in my sails, seeing the neediness of the jurors, and gave no evidence beyond what was so notorious and well attested that I could not omit it.[96] Therefore, if you ask the reason of the acquittal--to return at length to the former of the two questions--it was entirely the poverty and low character of the jury. But that this was possible was entirely the result of Hortensius's policy. In his alarm lest Fufius should veto the law which was to be proposed in virtue of a senatorial decree, he failed to see that it was better that the culprit should be left under a cloud of disgrace and dishonour than that he should be trusted to the discretion of a weak jury. But in his passionate resentment he hastened to bring the case into court, saying that a leaden sword was good enough to cut _his_ throat. But if you want to know the history of the trial, with its incredible verdict, it was such that Hortensius's policy is now blamed by other people after the event, though I disapproved of it from the first. When the rejection of jurors had taken place, amidst loud cheers and counter-cheers--the accuser like a strict censor rejecting the most worthless, the defendant like a kind-hearted trainer of gladiators all the best--as soon as the jury had taken their seats, the loyalists at once began to feel distrust. There never was a seedier lot round a table in a gambling hell. Senators under a cloud, equites out at elbows, tribunes who were not so much made of money as "collectors" of it, according to their official title.[97] However, there were a few honest men in the panel, whom he had been unable to drive off it by rejection, and they took their seats among their uncongenial comrades with gloomy looks and signs of emotion, and were keenly disgusted at having to rub elbows with such rascals. Hereupon, as question after question was referred to the panel in the preliminary proceedings, the severity of the decisions passes belief: there was no disagreement in voting, the defendant carried none of his points, while the accuser got even more than he asked. He was triumphant. Need I say more? Hortensius would have it that he was the only one of us who had seen the truth. There was not a man who did not think it impossible for him to stand his trial without being condemned a thousand times over. Farther, when I was produced as a witness, I suppose you have been told how the shouts of Clodius's supporters were answered by the jury rising to their feet to gather round me, and openly to offer their throats to P. Clodius in my defence. This seemed to me a greater compliment than the well-known occasion when your fellow citizens[98] stopped Xenocrates from taking an oath in the witness-box, or when, upon the accounts of Metellus Numidicus[99] being as usual handed round, a Roman jury refused to look at them. The compliment paid me, I repeat, was much greater. Accordingly, as the jurymen were protecting me as the mainstay of the country, it was by their voices that the defendant was overwhelmed, and with him all his advocates suffered a crushing blow. Next day my house was visited by as great a throng as that which escorted me home when I laid down the consulship. Our eminent Areopagites then exclaimed that they would not come into court unless a guard was assigned them. The question was put to the whole panel: there was only one vote against the need of a guard. The question is brought before the senate: the decree is passed in the most solemn and laudatory terms: the jurymen are complimented: the magistrates are commissioned to carry it out: no one thought that the fellow would venture on a defence. "Tell me, ye Muses, now how first the fire befell!"[100] You know Bald-head, the Nanneian millionaire,[101] that panegyrist of mine, whose complimentary oration I have already mentioned to you in a letter. In two days' time, by the agency of a single slave, and one, too, from a school of gladiators, he settled the whole business--he summoned them to an interview, made a promise, offered security, paid money down. Still farther, good heavens, what a scandal! even favours from certain ladies, and introductions to young men of rank, were thrown in as a kind of _pourboire_ to some of the jurors. Accordingly, with the loyalists holding completely aloof, with the forum full of slaves, twenty-five jurors were yet found so courageous that, though at the risk of their lives, they preferred even death to producing universal ruin. There were thirty-one who were more influenced by famine than fame. On seeing one of these latter Catulus said to him, "Why did you ask us for a guard? Did you fear being robbed of the money?" There you have, as briefly as I could put it, the nature of the trial and the cause of the acquittal.

Next you want to know the present state of public affairs and of my own. That settlement of the Republic--firmly established by my wisdom, as you thought, as I thought by God's--which seemed fixed on a sure foundation by the unanimity of all loyalists and the influence of my consulship--that I assure you, unless some God take compassion on us, has by this one verdict escaped from our grasp: if "verdict" it is to be called, when thirty of the most worthless and dissolute fellows in Rome for a paltry sum of money obliterate every principle of law and justice, and when that which every man--I had almost said every animal--knows to have taken place, a Thalna, a Plautus, and a Spongia, and other scum of that sort decide not to have taken place. However, to console you as to the state of the Republic, rascaldom is not as cheerful and exultant in its victory as the disloyal hoped after the infliction of such a wound upon the Republic. For they fully expected that when religion, morality, the honour of juries, and the prestige of the senate had sustained such a crushing fall, victorious profligacy and lawless lust would openly exact vengeance from all the best men for the mortification which the strictness of my consulship had branded in upon all the worst. And it is once more I--for I do not feel as if I were boasting vaingloriously when speaking of myself to you, especially in a letter not intended to be read by others--it was I once more, I say, who revived the fainting spirits of the loyalists, cheering and encouraging each personally. Moreover, by my denunciations and invectives against those corrupt jurors I left none of the favourers and supporters of that victory a word to say for themselves. I gave the consul Piso no rest anywhere, I got him deprived of Syria, which had been already plighted to him, I revived the fainting spirit of the senate and recalled it to its former severity. I overwhelmed Clodius in the senate to his face, both in a set speech, very weighty and serious, and also in an interchange of repartees, of which I append a specimen for your delectation. The rest lose all point and grace without the excitement of the contest, or, as you Greeks call it, the ἀγών. Well, at the meeting of the senate on the 15th of May, being called on for my opinion, I spoke at considerable length on the high interests of the Republic, and brought in the following passage by a happy inspiration: "Do not, Fathers, regard yourselves as fallen utterly, do not faint, because you have received one blow. The wound is one which I cannot disguise, but which I yet feel sure should not be regarded with extreme fear: to fear would shew us to be the greatest of cowards, to ignore it the greatest of fools. Lentulus was twice acquitted, so was Catiline, a third such criminal has now been let loose by jurors upon the Republic. You are mistaken, Clodius: it is not for the city but for the prison that the jurors have reserved you, and their intention was not to retain you in the state, but to deprive you of the privilege of exile. Wherefore, Fathers, rouse up all your courage, hold fast to your high calling. There still remains in the Republic the old unanimity of the loyalists: their feelings have been outraged, their resolution has not been weakened: no fresh mischief has been done, only what was actually existing has been discovered. In the trial of one profligate many like him have been detected."--But what am I about? I have copied almost a speech into a letter. I return to the duel of words. Up gets our dandified young gentleman, and throws in my teeth my having been at Baiæ. It wasn't true, but what did that matter to him? "It is as though you were to say," replied I, "that I had been in disguise!" "What business," quoth he, "has an Arpinate with hot baths?" "Say that to your patron," said I, "who coveted the watering-place of an Arpinate."[102] For you know about the marine villa. "How long," said he, "are we to put up with this king?" "Do you mention a king," quoth I, "when Rex[103] made no mention of you?" He, you know, had swallowed the inheritance of Rex in anticipation. "You have bought a house," says he. "You would think that he said," quoth I, "you have bought a jury." "They didn't trust you on your oath," said he. "Yes," said I, "twenty-five jurors did trust me, thirty-one didn't trust you, for they took care to get their money beforehand." Here he was overpowered by a burst of applause and broke down without a word to say.

My own position is this: with the loyalists I hold the same place as when you left town, with the tagrag and bobtail of the city I hold a much better one than at your departure. For it does me no harm that my evidence appears not to have availed. Envy has been let blood without causing pain, and even more so from the fact that all the supporters of that flagitious proceeding confess that a perfectly notorious fact has been hushed up by bribing the jury. Besides, the wretched starveling mob, the blood-sucker of the treasury, imagines me to be high in the favour of Magnus--and indeed we have been mutually united by frequent pleasant intercourse to such an extent, that our friends the boon companions of the conspiracy, the young chin-tufts, speak of him in ordinary conversation as Gnæus Cicero. Accordingly, both in the circus and at the gladiatorial games, I received a remarkable ovation without a single cat-call. There is at present a lively anticipation of the elections, in which, contrary to everybody's wishes, our friend Magnus is pushing the claims of Aulus's son;[104] and in that matter his weapons are neither his prestige nor his popularity, but those by which Philip said that any fortress could be taken--if only an ass laden with gold could make its way up into it. Farthermore, that precious consul, playing as it were second fiddle to Pompey,[105] is said to have undertaken the business and to have bribery agents at his house, which I don't believe. But two decrees have already passed the house of an unpopular character, because they are thought to be directed against the consul on the demand of Cato and Domitius[106]--one that search should be allowed in magistrates' houses, and a second, that all who had bribery agents in their houses were guilty of treason. The tribune Lurco also, having entered on his office irregularly in view of the Ælian law, has been relieved from the provisions both of the Ælian and Fufian laws, in order to enable him to propose his law on bribery, which he promulgated with correct auspices though a cripple.[107] Accordingly, the _comitia_ have been postponed to the 27th of July. There is this novelty in his bill, that a man who has promised money among the tribes, but not paid it, is not liable, but, if he has paid, he is liable for life to pay 3,000 sesterces to each tribe. I remarked that P. Clodius had obeyed this law by anticipation, for he was accustomed to promise, and not pay. But observe! Don't you see that the consulship of which we thought so much, which Curio used of old to call an apotheosis, if this Afranius is elected, will become a mere farce and mockery? Therefore I think one should play the philosopher, as you in fact do, and not care a straw for your consulships!

You say in your letter that you have decided not to go to Asia. For my