Claudius. As your friend Cincius told me that I could take them without breaking the lex Cincia144, I told him that I should have great pleasure in accepting them, if he brought them to Italy. Wherefore, as you love me, as you know that I love you, do try by means of friends, clients, guests, or even your freedmen or slaves, to prevent the loss of a single leaf. For I am in urgent need of the Greek books which I suspect, and of the Latin books which I know, that he left: and more and more every day I find repose in such studies every moment left to me from my labours in the forum. You will, I say, do me a very great favour, if you will be as zealous in this matter as you ever are in matters in which you suppose me to feel strongly; and Pætus's own affairs I recommend to your kindness for which he thanks you extremely. A prompt visit from yourself is a thing which I do not merely ask for, I advise it.
XXVI (a ii, 1)
TO ATTICUS (IN GREECE)
Rome, June
b.c. 60, æt. 46
On the 1st of June, as I was on my way to Antium, and eagerly getting out of the way of M. Metellus's gladiators, your boy met me, and delivered to me a letter from you and a history of my consulship written in Greek.145 This made me glad that I had some time before delivered to L. Cossinius a book, also written in Greek, on the same subject, to take to you. For if I had read yours first you might have said that I had pilfered from you. Although your essay (which I have read with pleasure) seemed to me just a trifle rough and bald, yet its very neglect of ornament is an ornament in itself, as women were once thought to have the best perfume who used none. My book, on the other hand, has exhausted the whole of Isocrates's unguent case, and all the paint-boxes of his pupils, and even Aristotle's colours. This, as you tell me in another letter, you glanced over at Corcyra, and afterwards I suppose received it from Cossinius.146 I should not have ventured to send it to you until I had slowly and fastidiously revised it. However, Posidonius, in his letter of acknowledgment from Rhodes, says that as he read my memoir, which I had sent him with a view to his writing on the same subject with more elaboration, he was not only not incited to write, but absolutely made afraid to do so. In a word, I have routed the Greeks. Accordingly, as a general rule, those who were pressing me for material to work up, have now ceased to bother me. Pray, if you like the book, see to there being copies at Athens and other Greek towns;147 for it may possibly throw some lustre on my actions. As for my poor speeches, I will send you both those you ask for and some more also, since what I write to satisfy the studious youth finds favour, it seems, with you also. [For it suited my purpose148—both because it was in his Philippics that your fellow citizen Demosthenes gained his reputation, and because it was by withdrawing from the mere controversial and forensic style of oratory that he acquired the character of a serious politician—to see that I too should have speeches that may properly be called consular. Of these are, first, one delivered on the 1st of January in the senate, a second to the people on the agrarian law, a third on Otho, a fourth for Rabirius, a fifth on the Sons of the Proscribed, a sixth when I declined a province in public meeting, a seventh when I allowed Catiline to escape, which I delivered the day after Catiline fled, a ninth in public meeting on the day that the Allobroges made their revelation, a tenth in the senate on the 5th of December. There are also two short ones, which may be called fragments, on the agrarian law. This whole cycle I will see that you have. And since you like my writings as well as my actions, from these same rolls you will learn both what I have done and what I have said—or you should not have asked for them, for I did not make you an offer of them.]
You ask me why I urge you to come home, and at the same time you intimate that you are hampered by business affairs, and yet say that you will nevertheless hasten back, not only if it is needful, but even if I desire it. Well, there is certainly no absolute necessity, yet I do think you might plan the periods of your tour somewhat more conveniently. Your absence is too prolonged, especially as you are in a neighbouring country, while yet I cannot enjoy your society, nor you mine. For the present there is peace, but if my young friend Pulcher's149 madness found means to advance a little farther, I should certainly summon you from your present sojourn. But Metellus is offering him a splendid opposition and will continue to do so. Need I say more? He is a truly patriotic consul and, as I have ever thought, naturally an honest man. That person, however, makes no disguise, but avowedly desires to be elected tribune. But when the matter was mooted in the senate, I cut the fellow to pieces, and taunted him with his changeableness in seeking the tribuneship at Rome after having given out at Hera, in Sicily,150 that he was a candidate for the ædileship; and went on to say that we needn't much trouble ourselves, for that he would not be permitted to ruin the Republic any more as a plebeian, than patricians like him had been allowed to do so in my consulship. Presently, on his saying that he had completed the journey from the straits in seven days, and that it was impossible for anyone to have gone out to meet him, and that he had entered the city by night,151 and making a great parade of this in a public meeting, I remarked that that was nothing new for him: seven days from Sicily to Rome, three hours from Rome to Interamna!152 Entered by night, did he? so he did before! No one went to meet him? neither did anyone on the other occasion, exactly when it should have been done! In short, I bring our young upstart to his bearings, not only by a set and serious speech, but also by repartees of this sort. Accordingly, I have come now to rally him and jest with him in quite a familiar manner. For instance, when we were escorting a candidate, he asked me "whether I had been accustomed to secure Sicilians places at the gladiatorial shows?" "No," said I. "Well, I intend to start the practice," said he, "as their new patron; but my sister,153 who has the control of such a large part of the consul's space, wont give me more than a single foot." "Don't grumble," said I, "about one of your sister's feet; you may lift the other also." A jest, you will say, unbecoming to a consular. I confess it, but I detest that woman—so unworthy of a consul. For
"A shrew she is and with her husband jars,
and not only with Metellus, but also with Fabius,154 because she is annoyed at their interference in this business.155 You ask about the agrarian law: it has completely lost all interest, I think. You rather chide me, though gently, about my intimacy with Pompey. I would not have you think that I have made friends with him for my own protection; but things had come to such a pass that, if by any chance we had quarrelled, there would inevitably have been violent dissensions in the state. And in taking precautions and making provision against that, I by no means swerved from my well-known loyalist policy, but my object was to make him more of a loyalist and induce him to drop somewhat of his time-serving vacillation: and he, let me assure you, now speaks in much higher terms of my achievements (against which many had tried to incite him) than of his own. He testifies that while he served the state well, I preserved it. What if I even make a better citizen of Cæsar,156 who has now the wind full in his sails—am I doing so poor a service to the Republic? Farthermore, if there was no one to envy me, if all, as they ought to be, were my supporters, nevertheless a preference should still be given to a treatment that would cure the diseased parts of the state, rather than to the use of the knife. As it is, however, since the knighthood, which I once stationed on the slope of the Capitoline,157 with you as their standard-bearer and leader, has deserted the senate, and since our leading men think themselves in a seventh heaven, if there are bearded mullets in their fish-ponds that will come to hand for food, and neglect everything else, do not you think that I am doing no mean service if I secure that those who have the power, should not have the will, to do any harm? As for our friend Cato, you do not love him more than I do: but after all, with the very best intentions and the most absolute honesty, he sometimes does harm to the Republic. He speaks and
The
Nep.
Atticus seems to have seen a copy belonging to some one else at Corfu. Cicero explains that he had kept back Atticus's copy for revision.
Cicero evidently intends Atticus to act as a publisher. His
The passage in brackets is believed by some, not on very good grounds, to be spurious. Otho is L. Roscius Otho, the author of the law as to the seats in the theatre of the equites. The "proscribed" are those proscribed by Sulla, their sons being forbidden to hold office, a disability which Cicero maintained for fear of civil disturbances. See
Pulchellus,
Where he had been as quæstor. Hera is said to be another name for Hybla. Some read
Clodius is shewing off his modesty. It was usual for persons returning from a province to send messengers in front, and to travel deliberately, that their friends might pay them the compliment of going out to meet them. Entering the city after nightfall was another method of avoiding a public reception. See Suet.
See p. 37, note 3.
Clodia, wife of the consul Metellus. See p. 22, note.
We don't know who this is; probably a
Though Cæsar has been mentioned before in regard to his candidature for the consulship, and in connexion with the Clodius case, this is the first reference to him as a statesman. He is on the eve of his return from Spain, and already is giving indication of his coalition with Pompey. His military success in Spain first clearly demonstrated his importance.
During the meeting of the senate at the time of the Catilinarian conspiracy (2
