The Letters of Cicero Part 14

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

ANTIUM (APRIL)

[Sidenote: B.C. 59, aeT. 47]

About the geography I will think again and again. But you ask for two of my speeches, one of which I did not care to write out because I had ended it abruptly, the other because I did not want to praise the man I did not like. But that, too, I will see about. At all events, something shall be forthcoming to prevent your thinking that I have been absolutely idle. I am quite delighted to hear what you tell me about Publius; pray ferret out the whole story, and bring it to me when you come, and meanwhile write anything you may make out or suspect, and especially as to what he is going to do about the legation. For my part, before reading your letter, I was anxious that the fellow should go, not, by heaven, in order to avoid his impeachment--for I am wonderfully keen to try issues with him--but it seemed to me that, if he had secured any popularity by becoming a plebeian, he would thereby lose it. "Well, why did you transfer yourself to the Plebs? Was it to make a call on Tigranes? Tell me: do the kings of Armenia refuse to receive patricians?" In a word, I had polished up my weapons to tear this emba.s.sy of his to pieces. But if he rejects it, and thus moves the anger of those proposers and augurs of the _lex curiata_,[203] it will be a fine sight! By Hercules, to speak the truth, our friend Publius is being treated a little contemptuously! In the first place, though he was once the only man at Caesar's house, he is not now allowed to be one in twenty:[204] in the next place, one legation had been promised him and another has been given. The former fine fat one[205] for the levying of money is reserved, I presume, for Drusus of Pisaurum or for the gourmand Vatinius: this latter miserable business, which might be very well done by a courier, is given to him, and his tribuneship deferred till it suits them. Irritate the fellow, I beg you, as much as you can. The one hope of safety is their mutual disagreement, the beginning of which I have got scent of from Curio. Moreover, Arrius is fuming at being cheated out of the consulship. Megabocchus and our blood-thirsty young men are most violently hostile. May there be added to this, I pray, may there be added, this quarrel about the augurate! I hope I shall often have some fine letters to send you on these subjects. But I want to know the meaning of your dark hint that some even of the _quinqueviri_[206]

are speaking out. What can it be? If there is anything in it, there is more hope than I had thought. And I would not have you believe that I ask you these questions "with any view to action,"[207] because my heart is yearning to take part in practical politics. I was long ago getting tired of being at the helm, even when it was in my power. And now that I am forced to quit the ship, and have not cast aside the tiller, but have had it wrenched out of my hands, my only wish is to watch their shipwreck from the sh.o.r.e: I desire, in the words of your favourite Sophocles,

"And safe beneath the roof To hear with drowsy ear the plash of rain."

As to the wall, see to what is necessary. I will correct the mistake of Castricius, and yet Quintus had made it in his letter to me 15,000, while now to your sister he makes it 30,000.[208] Terentia sends you her regards: my boy Cicero commissions you to give Aristodemus the same answer for him as you gave for his cousin, your sister's son.[209] I will not neglect your reminder about your Amaltheia.[210] Take care of your health.

[Footnote 203: As he was a man _sui iuris_, Clodius's adoption into a new gens (_adrogatio_) would have to take place before the _comitia curiata_ (now represented by thirty lictors), which still retained this formal business. The ceremony required the presence of an augur and a pontifex to hold it. Cicero supposes Pompey and Caesar as intending to act in that capacity. Pompey, it seems, did eventually attend.]

[Footnote 204: One of the twenty commissioners under Caesar's agrarian law. Cicero was offered and declined a place among them. The "only man,"

of course, refers to the intrusion on the mysteries.]

[Footnote 205: To Egypt.]

[Footnote 206: This seems also to refer to the twenty agrarian commissioners, who, according to Mommsen, were divided into committees of five, and were, therefore, spoken of indifferently as _quinqueviri_ and _vigintiviri_. But it is somewhat uncertain.]

[Footnote 207: ?at? t? p?a?t????.]

[Footnote 208: Castricius seems to have been a _negotiator_ or banker in Asia. We don't know what mistake is referred to; probably as to some money transmitted to Pomponia.]

[Footnote 209: It is suggested that Aristodemus is some teacher of the two young Ciceros, to whom the young Marcus wishes to apologize for his absence or to promise some study.]

[Footnote 210: Perhaps some inscription or other ornament for Atticus's gymnasium in his villa at Buthrotum.]

x.x.xIV (A II, 8)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

ANTIUM, APRIL

[Sidenote: B.C. 59, aeT. 47]

When I had been eagerly expecting a letter from you as usual till evening, lo and behold a message that slaves have come from Rome. I summon them: I ask if they have any letters. "No," say they. "What do you say," said I, "nothing from Pomponius?" Frightened to death by my voice and look, they confessed that they had received one, and that it had been lost on the journey. Need I say more? I was intensely annoyed.

For no letter has come from you for the last few days without something in it important and entertaining. In these circ.u.mstances, if there was anything in the letter, dated 15th April, worth telling, pray write at once, that I may not be left in ignorance; but if there was nothing but banter, repeat even that for my benefit. And let me inform you that young Curio has been to call on me. What he said about Publius agreed exactly with your letter. He himself, moreover, wonderfully "holds our proud kings in hate."[211] He told me that the young men generally were equally incensed, and could not put up with the present state of things.

If there is hope in them, we are in a good way. My opinion is that we should leave things to take their course. I am devoting myself to my memoir. However, though you may think me a Saufeius,[212] I am really the laziest fellow in the world. But get into your head my several journeys, that you may settle where you intend to come and see me. I intend to arrive at my Formian house on the Parilia (21st April). Next, since you think that at this time I ought to leave out luxurious Crater,[213] on the 1st of May I leave Formiae, intending to reach Antium on the 3rd of May. For there are games at Antium from the 4th to the 6th of May, and Tullia wants to see them. Thence I think of going to Tusculum, thence to Arpinum, and be at Rome on the 1st of June. Be sure that we see you at Formiae or Antium, or at Tusculum. Rewrite your previous letter for me, and add something new.

[Footnote 211: A verse from Lucilius. "Young Curio" is the future tribune of B.C. 50, who was bribed by Caesar, joined him at Ravenna at the end of that year, was sent by him in B.C. 49 to Sicily and Africa, and fell in battle with the Pompeians and King Iuba.]

[Footnote 212: L. Saufeius, the Epicurean friend of Atticus (see Letter II). He seems to mean, "as indefatigable as Saufeius." But Prof. Tyrrell points out that it might mean, "at the risk of your thinking me as Epicurean and self-indulgent as Saufeius, I say," etc.]

[Footnote 213: The bay of Misenum, near which was Cicero's Pompeianum.]

x.x.xV (A II, 9)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

ANTIUM, MAY

[Sidenote: B.C. 59, aeT. 47]

Caecilius[214] the quaestor having suddenly informed me that he was sending a slave to Rome, I write these hurried lines in order to get out of you the wonderful conversations with Publius, both those of which you write, and that one which you keep dark, and a.s.sert that it would be too long to write your answer to him; and, still farther, the one that has not yet been held, which that Iuno of a woman[215] is to report to you when she gets back from Solonium. I wish you to believe that there can be nothing I should like more. If, however, the compact made about me is not kept, I am in a seventh heaven to think that our friend the Jerusalemitish plebeian-maker[216] will learn what a fine return he has made to my brilliant speeches, of which you may expect a splendid recantation. For, as well as I can guess, if that profligate is in favour with our tyrants, he will be able to crow not only over the "cynic consular,"[217] but over your Tritons of the fish-ponds also.[218] For I shall not possibly be an object of anybody's jealousy when robbed of power and of my influence in the senate. If, on the other hand, he should quarrel with them, it will not suit his purpose to attack me. However, let him attack. Charmingly, believe me, and with less noise than I had thought, has the wheel of the Republic revolved: more rapidly, anyhow, than it should have done owing to Cato's error, but still more owing to the unconst.i.tutional conduct of those who have neglected the auspices, the aelian law, the Iunian, the Licinian, the Caecilian and Didian,[219] who have squandered all the safeguards of the const.i.tution, who have handed over kingdoms as though they were private estates to tetrachs,[220] and immense sums of money to a small coterie.

I see plainly now the direction popular jealousy is taking, and where it will finally settle. Believe that I have learnt nothing from experience, nothing from Theophrastus,[221] if you don't shortly see the time of our government an object of regret. For if the power of the senate was disliked, what do you think will be the case when it has pa.s.sed, not to the people, but to three unscrupulous men? So let them then make whom they choose consuls, tribunes, and even finally clothe Vatinius's wen with the double-dyed purple[222] of the priesthood, you will see before long that the great men will be not only those who have made no false step,[223] but even he who did make a mistake, Cato. For, as to myself, if your comrade Publius will let me, I think of playing the sophist: if he forces me, I shall at least defend myself, and, as is the trick of my trade, I publicly promise to

"Strike back at him who first is wroth with me."[224]

May the country only be on my side: it has had from me, if not more than its due, at least more than it ever demanded. I would rather have a bad pa.s.sage with another pilot than be a successful pilot to such ungrateful pa.s.sengers. But this will do better when we meet. For the present take an answer to your questions. I think of returning to Antium from Formiae on the 3rd of May. From Antium I intend to start for Tusculum on the 7th of May. But as soon as I have returned from Formiae (I intend to be there till the 29th of April) I will at once inform you. Terentia sends compliments, and "Cicero the little greets t.i.tus the Athenian."[225]

[Footnote 214: Q. Caecilius Ba.s.sus, probably quaestor at Ostia. Antium would be in his district.]

[Footnote 215: ??p??, _sc._ Clodia. She is to talk to her brother about Cicero. She is "Iuno" perhaps as an enemy--as Bacon called the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy Henry VII.'s Iuno--or perhaps for a less decent reason, as _coniux sororque_ of Publius.]

[Footnote 216: Pompey, who was proud of having taken Jerusalem.

_Traductor ad plebem_, said of the magistrate presiding at the _comitia_ for adoption.]

[Footnote 217: Cicero himself. Clodius may have called him this from his biting repartees. Prof. Tyrrell, "Tear 'em."]

[Footnote 218: The n.o.bility, whom Cicero has before attacked as idle and caring for nothing but their fish-ponds (_piscinarii_, cp. p. 59).]

[Footnote 219: The _lex aelia_ (about B.C. 150) was a law regulating the powers of magistrates to dissolve _comitia_ on religious grounds, such as bad omens, _servata de clo, etc._ Cicero (who could have had very little belief in the augural science) regards them as safeguards of the state, because as the Optimates generally secured the places in the augural college, it gave them a hold on elections and legislation.

Bibulus tried in vain to use these powers to thwart Caesar this year. The _lex Caecilia Didia_ (.B.C. 98) enforced the _trinundinatio_, or three weeks' notice of elections and laws, and forbade the proposal of a _lex satura_, _i.e._, a law containing a number of miscellaneous enactments.

Perhaps its violation refers to the _acta_ of Pompey in the East, which he wanted to have confirmed _en bloc_. The senate had made difficulties: but one of the fruits of the triumvirate was a measure for doing it. The _lex Iunia et Licinia_ (B.C. 62) confirmed the _Caecilia Didia_, and secured that the people knew what the proposed laws were.]

[Footnote 220: As Pompey did in Asia, _e.g._, to Deiotarus of Galatia, and about ten others. It is curious that Cicero speaks of the _pauci_ just as his opponent Caesar and Augustus after him. Each side looks on the other as a coterie (Caesar, _B. C._ i. 22; Monum. Ancyr. i. -- 1)]

[Footnote 221: Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle at the Lyceum, Athens (p. 70).]

[Footnote 222: The purple-bordered toga of the augur. Vatinius did not get the augurship. He had some disfiguring swelling or wen.]

[Footnote 223: Himself.]

[Footnote 224: ??d?' ?pa??es?a?, ?te t?? p??te??? ?a?ep??? (Hom. _Il._ xxiv. 369).]

[Footnote 225: Written in Greek, perhaps by the boy himself.]