The Letters, Volume 3. Cicero
Читать онлайн книгу.
consuls of the previous year. Hortensius—the famous orator-was noted for the splendour of his villas; his town house, in which Augustus afterwards lived, is described by Suetonius as a "moderate building" (Aug. ch. 72); but that was in view of the splendid buildings of the imperial age. It seems to have been conspicuous at this time. The right owner, the younger Hortensius, was serving Caesar (vol ii., pp.392, 400).
34 The text is corrupt. I venture to read: arbitratus es. Itane est igitur, ut scribis, istis placere eisdem lictoribus me uti, quod concessum Sestio sit? Itane may without much violence be extracted from t ea, and factum be an inserted explanation of est.
35 To P. Sestius had been allotted the province of Cilicia in succession to Cicero, but this allotment had taken place after the expulsion of the Tribunes in January, B.C. 49; for we know that Curio had up to 10th December, B.C. 50, prevented any decree as to the provinces (vol. ii., p.182). Therefore, Cicero argues, Caesar, who would not acknowledge any Senatus Consultum after the expulsion of the Tribunes, if he allows of Sestius having imperium, must do so as an act of his own. But in Cicero's own case his imperium dated long before, and Caesar could consistently acknowledge it.
36 M. Antonius and Q. Cassius, vol. ii., p.234.
37 Cicero repeats this assertion of Caesar's invitation afterwards, in answer to Antony's remark that he spared him at Brundisium when he might have killed him. (Phil. 2.5.)
38 Cicero did not wish his name to be mentioned as specially favoured by Caesar, for fear of being discredited with the Pompeians, should they eventually prevail. For Laelius, see p.33.
39 Servius Sulpicius Rufus (see vol. ii., pp.354, 361) retired to Samos after Pharsalia, and was soon afterwards employed by Caesar to govern Greece. His son had been in Caesar's army.
40 I. e., written in Cicero's name (see pp. 4, 9, 22).
41 Q Fufius Calenus (see p.35).
42 The tendency of Quintus to indulge in violent language is often referred to (see especially vol. i., p.128; vol. ii., pp.149, 191).
B.C. 47. Dict. r. p. c., C. Iulius Caesar, Mag. Eq., M. Antonius. Coss. (for three last months), Q. Fufius Calenus, P. Vatinius.
Cicero remained till towards the end of September, B.C. 47, at Brundisium, while Caesar was engaged in the Alexandrine and Pontic wars. The chief causes of anxiety and distress weighing upon him were the alienation of his brother, the uncertainty as to his own position, on the one hand with Caesar, and on the other with the Pompeians, now gathered in great force in Africa, and lastly the unhappiness of Tullia, whose relations with her husband Dolabella were very unsatisfactory to him. The clouds lifted greatly in September, when Caesar, returning to Italy, met Cicero between Tarentum and Brundisium, embraced him, and gave him free leave to live anywhere in Italy he chose. There was still the fear lest, if the Pompeians in Africa finally triumphed, he would be treated by them as a traitor. But he seems to have made up his mind that Caesar's favour offered the greater security.
CDXXI (A XI, 9)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
BRUNDISIUM, 3 JANUARY
Yes, it is quite as you say: I have acted both incautiously and in too great a hurry; nor have I any hope, seeing that I am only allowed to remain by special clauses of exemption in the edicts. If these had not been secured by your industry and kindness, I might have betaken myself to some lonely places. As it is, I can't even do that. For how does my having come before the new tribuneship help me, if' my having come at all is of no service to me ? 1 Or what am I to expect from a man who was never friendly to me, 2 when my ruin and humiliation are now secured by an actual law? Already Balbus's letters to me become daily less cordial, and a great number from many hands reach Caesar, perhaps against me. I am perishing by my own fault. It is not chance that has caused me any misfortune, everything has been incurred by my own mistakes. The fact is that when I saw what sort of war it was going to be, and that universal unreadiness and feebleness were pitted against men in the highest state of preparation, I had made up my mind to a policy, not so much courageous, as one that I of all men was justified in adopting. I gave in to my relations, or rather, I obeyed them. What the real sentiments of one of them was-his whom you recommend to my forbearance 3 —you will learn from his own letters, which he has sent to you and others. I should never have opened them, had it not been for the following circumstance. The bundle was brought to me. I untied it to see whether there was any letter for me. There was none. There was one for Vatinius, and another for Ligurius. 4 I ordered them to be delivered to these persons. They immediately came to me boiling with indignation, loudly exclaiming against "the villain." They read me the letters full of every kind of abuse of me. Ligurius raved: said, that he knew that Quintus was detested by Caesar, and yet that the latter had not only favoured him, but had also given him all that money out of compliment to me. Thus outraged I determined to ascertain what he had said in his letters to the rest. For I thought it would be fatal to Quintus himself if such a villainy on his part became generally known. I found that they were of the same kind. I am sending them to you, and if you think that it is for his interest that they should be delivered, please to deliver them. It won't do me any harm. For as to their having had their seals broken, Pomponia possesses his signet, I think. 5 When he displayed that exasperation at the beginning of our voyage, 6 he grieved me so deeply that I was quite prostrate after it, and even now he is said to be working not so much for himself as against me. So I am hard pressed by every kind of misery, and can hardly bear up against it, or rather cannot do so at all. Of these miseries there is one which outweighs all the others—that I shall leave that poor girl deprived of patrimony and every kind of property. Wherefore pray see to that, according to your promise: for I have no one else to whom to commend her, since I have discovered that the same treatment is prepared for her mother as for me. But, in case you don't find me here when you come, still consider that she has been commended to you with due solemnity, and soften her uncle in regard to her as much as you can. I am writing this to you on my birthday: on which day would that I had never been born, 7 or that nothing had afterwards been born of the same mother I Tears prevent my writing more.
CDXXII (F XIV, 16)
TO TERENTIA (AT ROME)
BRUNDISIUM, 4 JANUARY
If you are well, I am glad. I am well. Though my circumstances are such that I have no motive for expecting a letter from you or anything to tell you myself, yet somehow or another I do look for letters from you all, and do write to you when I have anyone to convey it. Volumnia ought to have been more attentive to you than she has been, and even what she has done she might have done with greater zeal and caution. However, there are other things for us to be more anxious about and vexed at. These latter distress me quite as much as was desired by those who forced me to act against my better judgment. 8 Take care of your health.
4 January.
CDXXIII (A XI, 10)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
BRUNDISIUM, 19 JANUARY
My distresses, already past calculation, have received an addition by the news brought to me of the elder and younger Quintus. My connexion Publius Terentius was employed as deputy master of his company in Asia in collecting the harbour dues and the pasture rents. 9 He saw the younger Quintus at Ephesus on the 8th of December, and entertained him warmly for the sake of our friendship, and on asking some questions about me, he tells me that Quintus replied that he was bitterly opposed to me, and shewed him a roll containing a speech which he intended to deliver against me before Caesar. 10 Terentius says that he dissuaded him from such a senseless proceeding at great length; and that afterwards at Patrae the elder Quintus talked a great deal to him in a similar strain of treachery. The latter's furious state of mind you have been able to gather from the letters which I sent on to you.