Letters to his Friends/Book 1

¹ In any such dutiful, or rather affectionate, regard as I show you I satisfy the world; myself I can never satisfy. Such is the magnitude of your services to me, that when I think how you gave yourself no rest in what concerned me until you had fully achieved your purpose, while I have no such success on your behalf, I feel that life is embittered to me. The reasons are these: Ammonius, the king's^[2] repre- ​sentative, makes no secret of countering us by means of bribery; the business is being managed with the aid of those very financiers who advanced the money for it when you were in Rome. Any—and they are but few—who are well disposed to the king, are unanimous in wishing that the matter should be put in Pompey's hands, while the Senate accepts the fictitious plea of religious scruples, not for any reason of religion, but it is jealous of Pompey, and disgusted at the king's lavish bribery.

² As regards Pompey, I never cease urging and imploring him—nay even frankly rebuking him, and warning him, not to incur a storm of public obloquy; but he has left absolutely no room for any entreaties or admonitions of mine; both in his ordinary conversation, and publicly in the Senate he has advocated your cause with as much eloquence, earnestness, enthusiasm, and energy as anybody could possibly have done, while testifying at the same time in the highest terms to your good offices towards him and his own affection for you. Marcellinus,^[3] you are aware, is angry with you; in all else, however, if you except this affair of the king, he makes us think that he will support you right gallantly. We accept what he offers; but as to his determination to bring the religious question before the Senate (and indeed he has repeatedly done so), nothing can induce him to give it up.

³ What has happened up to the 13th of January (I am writing in the early morning of that day) is this: Hortensius, Lucullus, and I are in favour of yielding to the religious objections as regards the army; for in no other way could our object be attained; but according to the decree already passed on your own motion, ​we are in favour of your being authorized to restore the king, "so far as you can do so without detriment to the state"; so that while the religious difficulty eliminates the army, the Senate retains you to manage the whole affair. Crassus votes for three commissioners, not excluding Pompey, for he extends the selection even to those who happen to be in the enjoyment of imperium.^[4] Bibulus votes for three commissioners, to be chosen definitely from those who have no imperium. The other consulars agree with Bibulus, excepting Servilius, who declares that there ought to be no restoration at all; and Volcatius, who, on the motion of Lupus, votes for the appointment of Pompey; and Afranius, who agrees with Volcatius. And this increases the suspicion that Pompey desires the appointment, for it was noticed that his friends agreed with Volcatius. We are grievously embarrassed, and we have lost ground.^[5] The hurried meetings and fussy anxiety of Libo and Hypsaeus," about which there is no concealment, and the zeal of all Pompey's intimates, have created the impression that Pompey seems bent on being appointed, and those who would reject him are at the same time no friends of yours, because of the appointment you secured him.

⁴ For myself, I carry the less weight in the affair because I am in your debt, and any desire there is to please me is crushed by a notion people have that they are pleasing Pompey.

We stand much as we did long before you left; the king himself and Pompey's friends and associates have secretly inflamed the sore, then the consulars have openly made things worse and aroused strong popular prejudice. My own loyalty will be acknow​ledged by everybody, and my affection for you, far away as you are, by your friends on the spot. Were there any sense of honour in those in whom, above all others, it should be found, there would be no difficulties in our way. Farewell.

¹ Nothing was settled in the Senate on January 13, because a great part of the day was taken up with a dispute between the consul Lentulus^[6] and the tribune Caninius. I, too, spoke a good deal on that day, and appeared to make a great impression on the Senate by insisting on your goodwill towards it. So on the following day we resolved to be brief in expressing our opinions, for it seemed that the Senate had again become favourably inclined to us; of this I had assured myself not only in the course of my speech, but when I appealed to individual members, and asked for their support. And so when Bibulus's motion "that three commissioners should restore the king" was first read out for discussion, and then, Hortensius's, "that you should restore him, but without an army," and thirdly Volcatius's, "that Pompey should restore him," a demand was made that Bibulus's motion should be submitted in two parts.^[7] As long as he confined himself to the religious argument, which could no longer be opposed, he met with agreement; but on the question of the three commissioners, a large majority voted against him."^[8]

​² Hortensius's motion came next, when the tribune Lupus, on the ground that it was he who had raised the question affecting Pompey, began to insist that he should take precedence of the consuls in dividing the house.^[9] His speech was answered by angry shouts of dissent on every side, for it was as unfair as it was unprecedented. The consuls neither yielded to him nor showed any spirit in opposing him; what they wanted was, that the day should be wasted, and that is what happened; for though they openly paraded their agreement with Volcatius, they saw clearly enough that a far greater number would vote for Hortensius's motion. Large numbers were asked their opinion, and that too with no objection on the part of the consuls, for they were anxious that Bibulus's motion should succeed. ³ This dispute dragged on till nightfall, and then the Senate was dismissed.

On that day I happened to dine at Pompey's house, and availing myself of a more favourable opportunity than I had ever had before (for since you left Rome my prestige in the Senate had never been higher than on that day) I spoke to him in such a way that I think I drew his mind away from every other line of thought to a due consideration of your claims. And when I hear him speak himself, I acquit him absolutely of any suspicion of selfish greed; but when I look round at his intimate friends of whatever rank, I clearly perceive what must now be patent to all, that your whole case has long since been basely betrayed by certain people with the connivance of the king himself and his counsellors.

⁴ I write this on the 15th of January, before dawn; to-day there is to be a meeting of the Senate, and I hope we shall maintain as honourable a position ​in it as is possible amid such general treachery and unfairness. As regards the plan of bringing the question^[10] before the people, I think we have secured that no measure can be brought before them without the violation of either the auspices or the laws, or indeed without a breach of the peace. On these points a resolution of the Senate^[11] was passed, on the day before this on which I write, of the gravest import; and in spite of its having been vetoed by Cato and Caninius it was regularly drafted; it has, I believe, been sent to you. Whatever is done in any other respect, I shall send you word of it, and I shall spare no vigilance or trouble, and exercise all my discrimination and influence, to ensure that whatever is done, is done as correctly as possible. Farewell.

¹ Aulus Trebonius, whose business engagements in your province are of great and far-reaching importance and financially sound, has for many years been a very intimate friend of mine. While on the strength of his own brilliant prestige, and the high credentials given him by myself and his other friends, he has always hitherto been a highly popular personality in the province, just now, on account of your affection for me, and the close ties which bind us, he is full of confidence that this letter of mine will establish him as a persona grata with you.

​² I earnestly beg of you not to let him be disappointed in this anticipation, and I commend to your care all his business affairs, his freedmen, his agents, and his slaves; and especially do I ask you to confirm T. Ampius's^[12] decrees in connexion with his case, and in all respects so to deal with him that he may realize that my recommendation of him was no conventional formality. Farewell.

¹ On the fifteenth of January we brilliantly maintained our position in the Senate; we had already on the preceding day given the coup de grâce to that motion of Bibulus concerning the three commissioners, and the only subject of controversy left over was Volcatius's motion, though the opposition spun the affair out by various pettifogging objections. We upheld our cause in a full house, in spite of the same endless variety of arguments and the undisguised jealousy of those^[13] who were for taking the affair of the king out of your hands and putting it elsewhere. On that day we found Curio disagreeable, Bibulus much more reasonable, in fact almost friendly: Caninius and Cato assured the house that they would pass no law before the elections. As you are aware, the Lex Pupia^[14] precludes the holding ​of a Senate before February 1, and indeed during the whole of February, unless the business of the deputations has been either disposed of or adjourned.

² The popular opinion here, however, is this, that the plea of religious scruples, falsely so called, was introduced by your envious calumniators, not so much to hamper you in particular, as to prevent anyone's wishing to go to Alexandria from a selfish desire for military command. But as to your own claims, everyone considers that all proper regard has been paid them by the Senate; for everyone is aware that the fact that no division took place is due to the machinations of your opponents; if, however, they now attempt to carry any measure on the alleged grounds of serving the people, but in reality because of the infamous villainy of the tribunes, I have taken every precaution to prevent their being able to do so without a violation of either the auspices or the law, or indeed without a breach of the peace.

³ There is no need, I think, for any reference in this letter either to my own devotion to you or to the injurious conduct of certain persons; for why should I vaunt my own services,—I, the shedding of whose life-blood in defence of your claims would not, it seems to me, counterbalance a fraction of your deserts? Or why, on the other hand, deplore the injurious acts of others at the cost of bitter anguish to myself? I can guarantee your cause no protection against violence, especially now that the magistrates are so powerless; but apart from that I can assure you that the enthusiastic support of the Senate and the people of Rome will enable you to maintain your distinguished position unimpaired. Farewell.

¹ Though I could have wished for nothing better than that my extreme gratitude to you should be recognized first by yourself, and secondly by everyone else, still I am deeply grieved that the political developments which followed upon your departure have been such, that you should have had cause, while away from home, to test the loyalty and goodwill of myself and others; but your letter has made it clear to me that you quite see and feel that there is the same general loyalty in support of your claims as I met with in the matter of my recall.

² I was confidently relying upon my strategy, zeal, assiduity, and influence in regard to the king, when suddenly there was sprung upon us Cato's execrable proposal,^[15] which was enough to hamper our efforts, and turn our thoughts from a lesser anxiety to an overwhelming dread. Still, though any issue may be apprehended in so chaotic a state of affairs, there is nothing we dread more than treachery; and as for Cato, we shall certainly oppose him, come what will.

³ As regards the affair of Alexandria and the king's cause I can only promise you this:—that I shall satisfy in full measure the expectations both of yourself who are absent, and of your friends who are on the spot; though I am afraid that the business will be either snatched from our hands, or altogether abandoned, and which alternative I desire less I cannot easily determine But if we are hard

19 ​pressed, there is a third option, which neither Selicius^[16] nor I were disposed to reject, and that is that we should neither permit the cause of the king to languish, nor, in defiance of our resistance, to be put in the hands of one to whom it is thought to have been already practically assigned.^[17]

In all I do I shall be very careful to arrange that we shall not fail to make a struggle for whatever position can be held, while if there be any position we have found untenable, we shall avoid the appearance of defeat.

⁴ Wise and high-minded as you are, you will not forget that the foundations of all your greatness and distinction are your personal worth, your achievements, and the solidity of your character; and that if the gifts which fortune has bestowed upon you suffer any diminution through the treachery of a few individuals, it will do more harm to them than to you. In thought or deed I miss no opportunity of promoting your interests, and in whatever I do, I avail myself of the services of Q. Selicius, and in my opinion there is no one of your friends who has more commoon sense, integrity, or affection for yourself.

¹ As to what is being done and has been done at Rome, I expect you are being apprised by the letters of your numerous correspondents or by oral messages; ​but as to what is still in the region of conjecture and only seems likely to happen, I think I ought to write to you myself. When Pompey spoke in defence of Milo^[18] before the people on February the 6th, he was harassed with shouts of abuse, and again harshly and offensively called to account in the Senate by Cato,^[19] while his friends uttered no word of protest, and he seemed to me to be profoundly agitated. So it looks as though he has entirely dropped the Alexandrine business, which, so far as we are concerned, is as it was; for the Senate has deducted nothing from your claims except what, for the same religious reasons, can be granted to nobody else.

² What I now hope for, what I am striving to bring about, is that the king, when he understands that he cannot manage to be restored, as he had intended, by Pompey, and that, unless he is reinstated through your agency, he will be a pariah and an outcast, should come and visit you; and that is what he unquestionably will do, if Pompey gives the slightest hint that he has no objection: but you know how dilatory and reserved our friend is. Still we are leaving nothing undone which is relevant to the matter. All the other injurious proposals of Cato,^[19] we shall, I hope, have no difficulty in resisting. You have not a single friend that I can see among the consulars except Hortensius and Lucullus. The others are either covertly hostile or do not dissemble their resentment.

You must yourself keep a high and heroic heart, and assure yourself that when this paltry fellow's^[19] attack has been quelled, you will find the ​glory of your former position awaiting you inimpaired.

¹ You will be told what is going on here by Pollio,^[20] who has not only taken part, but taken a leading part, in every transaction. As for myself, amid the profound sorrow your affairs cause me, what comforts me most, I would have you know, is a hope, nay, a strong presentiment, that the unscrupulous conduct of your foes will be crushingly countered, not only by the shrewd suggestions of your friends, but also by the action of time itself, which weakens the machinations of those who hate, and would betray you.

² In the second place, I find it easy to console myself by recalling the dangers in my own life, a reflection of which I recognize in your present circumstances; for though your high position is dishonoured in a less important matter than that in which mine was brought low, still the resemblance is so close, that I trust you are not offended with me if I have shown no fear of what even you yourself have never considered worth fearing. But prove yourself to be the man I have ever known you to be "from the days" as as the Greeks say "when your finger-nails were tender,"^[21] and, take my word for it, the injustice of men will but serve as a foil to your greatness. Look to me for every evidence of the highest devotion and dutifulness to yourself, and I shall not disappoint you.

¹ I have read your letter, in which you tell me that you are pleased because I keep you so regularly informed on all matters, and you can easily see my goodwill to you. As to the latter, it is essential that I should prove my sincere affection for you if I would be the man you would have me be; as for the letter-writing it is a pleasure to me, so that widely separated as we now are by time and space, I may converse with you as often as possible by correspondence. And if I do so less frequently than you expect, the reason will be that my letters are not of such a nature that I can entrust them in a casual way to anybody. Whenever I can get hold of trustworthy men in whose hands I can properly put them, I shall not miss the opportunity.

² You want to know how each man stands in the matter of loyalty and friendly feeling towards yourself: well, it is hard to speak of particular persons. There is one fact, however—I have often hinted it to you before—which, now that all has been thoroughly sifted and investigated, I venture to set down here too, and that is that certain persons, and those most of all who most of all ought to have supported you, and could have done so to the greatest extent, have conceived an inordinate jealousy of your position, and that, though the cases are different, there has appeared a close analogy between the present crisis in your affairs and the past crisis in mine; for while the men you had fallen foul of in the interests of the state, attacked you openly, those whose ascendancy, ​position, and policy you had defended, were not so mindful of your merits, as resentful of your renown. At that time, as I wrote in detail to you before, I found Hortensius unreservedly your friend, Lucullus devoted to your cause, and L. Racilius,^[22] among the magistrates, exceptionally loyal and well-disposed; for my own defence and vindication of your claims might perhaps, in view of your extraordinary generosity to me, appear to most people to be prompted rather by a sense of obligation than an unbiased conviction.

³ Further than that, I cannot testify as to the zeal or deference or friendliness of any single one of the consulars, for Pompey, who very often talks to me about you, not only when I lead him on to do so, but even of his own accord, did not, as you know, often attend the Senate on those occasions; but your last letter to him, as I could easily understand, gave him very great pleasure. To me your considerate courtesy, or rather your consummate wisdom, seemed as charming as it was wonderful. Here is an excellent man whom you had laid under an obligation to you by an act of remarkable generosity, but who had his suspicions that because of what certain persons thought of his eagerness for office you were estranged from him—this man's friendship, by the writing of that letter, you have retained. He has always, I believe, favoured your high reputation even in those very dubious days of Caninius's^[23] activity; but since the perusal of your letter I am absolutely assured that you and your distinctions and your interests occupy his whole mind. So when I write this, you must be so good as to understand that I write ​to you after frequent conversations with him and with his approval and authority, and what I say is this,—that, since no decree of the Senate exists whereby the restoration of the king of Alexandria is taken out of your hands, and that the resolution which was drafted (and you know it was vetoed) "that nobody at all should restore the king" has so little force that it seems to be the ex parte outburst of a few angry men, rather than the deliberate measure of a sober Senate, in that case you, who hold Cilicia and Cyprus,^[24] can clearly estimate what you can achieve and attain; and if circumstances seem likely to give you the opportunity of holding Alexandria and Egypt, it is not inconsistent with your own dignity and that of our Empire that you should put the king in Ptolemais or some neighbouring spot and proceed with fleet and army to Alexandria, so that when you have pacified and garrisoned that town, Ptolemy may return to his kingdom; and so it will come about that he will be reinstated through your agency, just as the Senate originally decided, and that he will be reinstated "without a host" as was the intention (according to the religious party) of the Sibyl.

⁵ But he and I, in approving this decision, did not 5 fail to see that men are likely to judge of your policy according to its issue, that if it should fall out as we hope and pray it will, everybody will say you acted with wisdom and courage; if there be any hitch, the same people will say you acted with greed and rashness. And so it is not so easy for us to judge how far you may succeed, as it is for you, who have Egypt almost before your eyes. What we feel is this, that if you have quite satisfied yourself that you can take possession of that kingdom, you must not ​hesitate to do so; if there is any doubt about it, you must not make the attempt. Of this I can assure you, that if you carry out your enterprise to your satisfaction, you will be applauded before your return by many, and after your return by all; but I can see that any mishap will be fraught with danger because the resolution and the religious difficulty have been brought in. But for my part, while I press you to undertake what cannot fail to bring you glory, I warn you against incurring any conflict, and I return to what I wrote at the beginning of my letter, that men will base their judgement of your whole enterprise, not so much on your policy as on the result.

⁶ But if this plan of procedure in the business seems to you to be dangerous, another course commends itself to us, that if the king has kept faith with those friends of yours who have lent him sums of money throughout your province and the provinces under your command, you should assist him with your troops and supplies, knowing that the nature and geographical position of your province is such, that you would either secure his return by assisting him, or hinder it by ignoring him. How far the circumstances, the cause itself, and the course of events, bear upon this project, nobody will estimate so easily and exactly as yourself; what our opinion was, I thought that I, of all men, was the proper person to tell you.

⁷ You congratulate me on my position, on my intimacy with Milo,^[25] and on the unprincipled but impotent attempts of Clodius; well, I am not in the least surprised that, like some distinguished artist, you take a dehght in your own brilliant achievements;^[26] and yet it is hard to believe the wrong-headedness (I don't like to use a harsher word) of those who, ​while they might have retained my friendship by supporting me in a cause which was as much theirs as mine, have estranged me by their jealousy; and I assure you that I have now been almost forced by the bitter malevolence of their slanders to depart from the old political principles I have so long maintained, not indeed so far as to show forgetfulness of my dignity, but so far as to have some regard (and it is time I should) for my personal safety as well. Both objects might have been excellently secured were there any staunchness or solidity of character to be found in men of consular rank; but in most of them to such a degree is the reverse to be found that they are not so much pleased with the steadfastness of my public conduct as annoyed by its distinction.

⁸ I write thus to you all the more frankly, because you have regarded with favour not only my position to-day, which I have only attained through your help, but also what was practically the birth in the old days of my subsequent reputation and ascendancy; and at the same time because I now see that it was not my lack of noble rank, as I have hitherto fancied, that prejudiced men against me; for in your case too (and you are the noblest of the noble) I have noticed similar manifestations of malice on the part of the envious, and while it is true that they had no objection at all to your being one of our leading men, they certainly resented any higher flight. I rejoice that your fortune differed from mine; for it is one thing to have your prestige impaired, quite another thing to have your personal safety left unprotected. That I was not overwhelmed with grief at my change of fortune was entirely due to your ​gallant efforts; for you saw to it that the memory of my name seemed to gain more than my fortune lost.

⁹ I earnestly recommend you, however, prompted as I am both by your kindness to me, and my affection for you, with all care and assiduity to fulfil all the glorious aspirations with which you have been fired from your boyhood, and ever maintain undeflected by any man's wrongdoing that greatness of soul which I have always admired, and always loved. Men think highly of you, highly commend your generosity, and highly appreciate the memory of your consulship. You surely see for yourself how much more clearly marked and vivid these impressions will be, when a large contribution of glory accrues to you from your work in your province and in your imperium.

And yet I would not have you perform, what you are bound to perform by means of your army and your imperium, without considering long before you take action the position of affairs at home.^[27] Remember them in your preparations, ponder them, train yourself to meet them, and be assured—it is something you have always hoped for, and therefore having gained your position must doubtless understand—^that you can with the utmost ease maintain the highest and most exalted position in the state. And that you may not regard the exhortation I have ventured to deliver as unprofitable and superfluous, I have been actuated by the consideration that you ought to be warned by our common experiences to consider carefully, for the rest of your days, whom you should trust, and of whom you should beware.

¹⁰ You write that you want to know the political situation; well, the disagreement of the parties is very marked, but they are unequally matched in ​energy; those who have the superiority in resources, arms, and power, seem to me, thanks to the stupidity and inconsistency of their opponents,^[28] to have made such progress, as to be now superior in moral influence as well; and so with very few dissentients they have gained through the Senate all they thought they were unlikely to attain, even through the people, without an insurrection; for Caesar has not only been given money for his troops and ten lieutenant commanders by a decree, but they easily managed to prevent his being superseded under the Lex Sempronia.^[29]

I write somewhat briefly on this point, because this position of affairs gives me no satisfaction; still I do write just to warn you—and this is a lesson that even I, devoted as I have been from a boy to all kinds of literature, have still learnt better from practical experience than from books—to be taught while your prosperity is still intact, that we must neither consider our safety to the detriment of our dignity, nor our dignity to the detriment of our safety.

¹¹ You congratulate me on the engagement of my daughter to Crassipes; I appreciate your courtesy, and hope and pray the alliance will be a source of pleasure to us. ¹² Our dear Lentulus, being, as he is, a youth who shows conspicuous promise of the highest excellence, you must be careful to educate not only in all the accomplishments to which you have yourself always been devoted, but especially by making him follow in your footsteps; you can give him no better tuition than that. I have a special affection for him ​and hold him dear for three reasons,—he is your son, he is worthy of his father, and he is, and always has been, fond of me.

¹ On all matters which affect you, what has been I done, what has been decided upon, what Pompey has engaged to do, you will be best informed by M. Plaetorius, who has not only taken part, but has also taken a leading part in those affairs, and has omitted no act of duty to you which you might expect of one most devoted to you, and most shrewd and painstaking in business. He will also be your informant as to the general position of public affairs; for it is not easy to describe it in a letter. Those affairs are, it is true, in the hands of our own friends,^[30] and so securely that it seems unlikely that there will ever be any change in our generation.

² For my own part, as I ought to do, and as you yourself instructed me, and as both loyalty and expediency compel me to do, I am attaching myself to the interests of that man whose attachment to yourself you thought necessary in my interests; but you must see how difficult it is to cast off a political creed, especially when it is well and truly based.

Anyhow, I adapt myself to his will, for I cannot honourably dissent from him, and in doing so I am no hypocrite as some perhaps think I am; for so ​much am I influenced by the promptings of my heart, and, I emphatically add, my friendly feeling towards Pompey, that what is expedient to him and what he desires, now appear to me in every case right and proper; and, to my thinking, even his opponents would make no mistake, if, seeing they could be no match for him, they were to call a truce.

³ I have myself this further consolation, that I am the kind of man whose decision would be accepted by everybody with the warmest approval, whether it were to support what Pompey advocates, or to keep silent, or even (as is my particular inclination) to return to my former literary pursuits, and this last I shall undoubtedly do, if my friendship for Pompey permits me. For what had once been my aim and object after I had discharged the most honourable public offices and completed my very arduous labours—the dignified deliverance of my opinions in the Senate, and an independent position in dealing with public affairs—that I have lost for ever, and I not more than anybody else; for we must either utterly humiliate ourselves by agreeing with a minority, or disagree with them to no purpose.

⁴ I write thus to you chiefly for this reason, that it 4 may lead you to reflect at last on your own scheme of life. The senate, the law-courts, and the whole state have undergone a complete change. Tranquillity is what I must pray for, and that those who are at the head of affairs seem likely to guarantee me, if certain persons^[31] prove themselves less intolerant of their supremacy; as for that consular dignity of the intrepid and consistent senator, I have no grounds for wasting a thought on it; it has been lots for ever by ​the fault of those who have estranged from the senate both an order that was most closely bound to it^[32] and a highly distinguished person.

⁵ But—to return to what more nearly concerns your affairs—I have ascertained that you have a sincere friend in Pompey, and with him as consul, so far as I can see, you will secure all you want; in all those matters he will find in me a firm adherent, and nothing which affects you will be overlooked; nor shall I be afraid of his thinking me troublesome, for when he sees how grateful I am, he will be pleased on his own account.

⁶ I should like you to assure yourself that there is not a single thing which affects you, even the most insignificant, which is not more precious to me than all my interests put together, and feeling so, I can satisfy myself on the score of assiduity, but in practical results I fail to satisfy myself, because, I do not say my repaying, but even imagining myself repaying, any portion of your services is beyond my power.

⁷ It is rumoured that you have achieved a great success;^[33] your letter, about which I have already had a conversation with Pompey, is eagerly awaited. When it has arrived I shall be conspicuously energetic in interviewing the magistrates and senators; and in all else which affects you, though my efforts may prove beyond my capacity, I shall still be doing less than I ought to do.

¹ I was very much pleased with your letter, which made me realize that you fully appreciate my devotion to you; for why should I say "my goodwill" when even that term "devotion" itself, most solemn and sacred as it is, does not seem to me impressive enough to describe my obligation to you? But when you write that you are grateful to me for my exertions on your behalf, by a sort of overflow of affection you represent those acts, which could not be omitted without perpetrating an atrocious crime, as actually deserving of gratitude. My feelings towards you, however, would have been better recognized and more marked, if all this time during which we have been separated we had been together and at Rome.

² For in that very line of action you plainly declare that you will adopt—no man is better qualified to do so, and I eagerly look to you to do so—I mean in speaking in the Senate, and in every sphere of public life and political administration, we should have made our mark (what is my own feeling and position in politics I shall explain a little later, and at the same time reply to your questions); at any rate I should have found in you a supporter most kindly and most wise, and you in me a counsellor ​not entirely lacking, if I may say so, in knowledge of the world, and certainly loyal and well disposed. And yet on your account I rejoice, as I am bound to do, that you are now imperator^[35] and with your victorious army are holding your province after your successful operations; but undoubtedly you would have been able to enjoy the fruits of my indebtedness to you in richer abundance and to greater advantage had you been on the spot. Indeed, in the punishment of those whom you find in some cases to be your foes because you so valiantly fought for my recall, in others to be envious of you because you won so much honour and glory by that achievement, I should have proved myself a marvellously efficient coadjutor—though that never-failing foe of his own friends,^[36] who, though you honoured him by doing him the greatest kindnesses, concentrated upon you of all people his maimed and emasculated violence, has done our work for us and punished himself; his attempts have been such that their disclosure has left him for the rest of his life without a particle, I will not say of dignity, but even of independence.

³ Now though I should prefer that you had learned the lesson from my experience alone, and not from your own also, still I am glad that, annoyed as you must be, you have tested at not so very great a cost the worth of men's loyalty, which I had tested at the price of the bitterest anguish. But as to the significance of the whole affair, I think I have now an opportunity of so making my explanation as to reply at the same time to your questions.

⁴ You write that you have been informed by letter that I am on good terms with Caesar and with Appius, and add that you raise no objection to that: ​ as regards Vatinius,^[37] however, you clearly indicate your desire to know what induced me to defend and eulogize him. To give you a plainer explanation of this it is necessary that I should go a little further back into the reasons of my policy.

At the beginning,^[38] thanks to the course of events and to your exertions, my dear Lentulus, I imagined that I had been restored not to my friends alone but to the commonwealth, and that while to you I owed an almost incredible affection and every act of extreme and peculiar devotion to yourself, to the Republic, seeing that it had aided you greatly in my restoration, I considered that, by reason of its own deserving, I assuredly owed a regard such as previously I had displayed as owing to it because of the common obligation of all citizens, and not because of any signal service done to myself. That I was of this mind the Senate was told by my own lips in your consulship, and you yourself must have observed it in our conversations and interviews.

⁵ And yet even in those early days there were many things that caused me heart-burnings, when, as you were dealing with the general aspects of my position in the state, I detected signs either of the covert hatred of certain persons, or of their doubtful support of my cause. For neither in the matter of my memorial buildings^[39] were you helped by those ​by whom you ought to have been helped, nor in that of the outrageous violence by which my brother and I had been ejected from my house; nor, I say it emphatically, in those very transactions which, though forced upon me by the shipwreck of my private property, I regarded as comparatively of little importance—I mean that patching up of my pecuniary losses, under a vote of the Senate—did they evince that sympathy which I had expected. But though I noticed all this (and nobody could help noticing it), still the annoyance I felt at those incidents was outweighed by my gratitude for what they had done in the past.

⁶ And so, although I was enormously indebted, as you yourself have asseverated and testified, to Pompey, and was devoted to him not only for his services to me, but also because I love him and cannot change my estimate of him, in spite of that I disregarded his wishes and remained faithful to all my old political tenets.

⁷ Yes! with Pompey sitting in court, having entered the city to give evidence in favour of P. Sextius, when Vatinius as witness had asserted that, dazzled by Caesar's luck and prosperity, I had begun to show a friendship for him, I declared that I preferred the luck of Bibulus, which Vatinius regarded as sheer ruin, to the triumphs and victories of them all; and before the same man, in another part of my speech, I declared that those who prevented Bibulus from leaving his house, and those who forced me to leave mine, were the same persons. Indeed the whole of my cross-examination was nothing but a condemnation of Vatinius's tribunate^[40]; and in it I spoke with the greatest possible frankness and spirit on ​rioting, on disregarding the auspices, and on the bestowal of royal titles.

⁸ And not in this trial only did I do so, but consistently and frequently in the Senate. Nay, more than that, in the consulship of Marcelllnus and Philippus,^[41] on the 5th of April, it was my proposal which the Senate accepted that the question of the Campanian land should be laid before a full Senate on the 15th of May. Could I have more uncompromisingly invaded the very stronghold of the triumvirs' party, or more completely forgotten the days of my trouble and recalled the days of my power? The result of this expression of my opinion was a highly excited state of mind not only among those who naturally ought to feel excited, but also among those whom I had never expected to be so.^[42]

⁹ For when a decree of the Senate had been passed on the lines of my motion, Pompey, though he had shown me no sign that he was offended, set out for Sardinia and Africa, and on the journey visited Caesar at Luca. There Caesar took exception to my motion in many respects,—since at Ravenna also, before that, he had seen Crassus, who had roused his hot indignation against me. It was common knowledge that Pompey was greatly annoyed at my proposal, as I had been told by others, but most particularly by my brother. When Pompey met him in Sardinia a few days after he had left Luca he said, "You are the very man I want to see! nothing could have happened more opportunely! Unless you remonstrate seriously with your brother, you must pay up what you guaranteed me on his behalf."^[43]

To cut the story short, he complained bitterly, ​recounted his own services to me, recalled the repeated discussions he had had with my brother about the acts of Caesar, and what my brother had made himself responsible for in regard to myself, and called my brother himself to witness that whatever he had done in the matter of my restoration he had done with the full consent of Caesar; and by way of urging upon me Caesar's cause and claims, he begged that if I would not or could not support, them, I should at least refrain from attacking them.

¹⁰ When my brother had conveyed all this to me, though it did not prevent Pompey from sending Vibullius^[44] to me with instructions that I should hold my hand free with regard to the Campanian business till his own return, I pulled myself together, and held as it were a parley with the State herself, asking that in consideration of my having suffered and performed so much on her behalf, she would permit me to do my duty, to show a spirit of gratitude to those who had deserved well of me, and to redeem the pledge given by my brother; and that she would suffer him whom she had always held to be an honest citizen to be an honest man. But in all those measures and motions of mine which seemed to offend Pompey the comments of a certain clique^[45] were brought to my ears—you ought to suspect immediately whom I mean—who though they held the same political opinions as those I acted upon, and had always held them, nevertheless declared they were delighted that I failed to satisfy Pompey and that Caesar wwould be my bitterest enemy. This I could not but deplore, but much more so the fact that they so embraced, so held in their arms, so fondled, so caressed before my very eyes one who ​was my enemy—mine do I say? nay, rather the enemy of the laws, of the law-courts, of tranquillity, of his country, of all loyal citizens—that though they did not, it is true, exasperate me—I have entirely lost all sense of exasperation—they certainly imagined that they did.

At this crisis, so far as my human judgement enabled me to do so, having carefully reviewed my whole position, and cast up the account, I have arrived at the net result of all my deliberations; and to the best of my ability, I shall give you a short exposition of it.

¹¹ For my part, if I saw that the state was in the hands of unscrupulous and abandoned citizens, as we know occurred in the days of Cinna as well as at other times, not only should I not be tempted by the prospect of material benefits, which have but little weight with me, but neither could I be forced by any considerations of danger—and yet the most intrepid of men are affected thereby—to espouse their cause, no, not though their services to me were proved to be exceptionally great.

When, however, the leading man in the state was Gnaeus Pompey, a man who had gained such power and eminence as he has by the highest public services and the most brilliant military achievements, one whose public claims I had conspicuously supported from my youth upwards, and as conspicuously promoted both in my praetorship and in my consulship: when, moreover, he had himself given me the help of his influence and speeches on his own account, as well as of his advice and exertions in common with yourself; and when he regarded my enemy as his one great enemy in the state, I really did not ​think I had any reason to dread very much the imputation of inconsistency if in the expression of some of my opinions I made a slight change in my political attitude, and contributed my moral support to the advancement of a most illustrious man who had laid me under the deepest obligations.

¹² In this determination, I was obliged, as you must see, to include Caesar, the policy and position of the two men being so intimately connected. Here I attached great weight as well to the long-standing friendship, which, as you yourself are aware, my brother Quintus and I had with Caesar, as to Caesar's courtesy and generosity, which even in this short time I have recognized and acknowledged both in his letters and his acts of kindness to me. I was profoundly influenced too by the interests of the state, which seemed to me to demur to any quarrel with those great men, especially after Caesar's extraordinary successes, and indeed emphatically to forbid it.

But what impelled me most strongly to come to this decision was Pompey's having pledged his word for me to Caesar, and my brother's having pledged his to Pompey. Moreover, in a matter affecting the state, I could not but mark the inspired words in the writings of my master Plato "as are the leaders in a commonwealth, so are the other citizens apt to be."^[46] I well remembered that in my consulship from the very first day of January such a foundation had been laid for the strengthening of the Senate, that nobody should have been surprised on December 5th^[47] to find so much spirit, or shall I say authority in that body. I remembered also that when I had retired from office, up to the consulship^[48] of Caesar ​and Bibulus, when my opinions carried great weight in the Senate, the opinion of all loyal citizens was practically one.

¹³ Afterwards, when you were holding Eastern Spain with military command,^[49] and the Republic had not consuls, but merely dealers in provinces and the sutlers and paid agents of sedition,^[50] my head^[51] by some evil chance was tossed like an apple of discord into the welter of contending factions and civil strife.

And then at the critical moment, when there arose a demonstration of unanimity in my defence which was quite marvellous in the Senate, incredibly strong throughout Italy, unparalleled among all honest citizens, well, if you ask me what happened, I shall make no answer—so many are to blame and in such varying degrees—but only briefly remark that it was not the rank and file who failed me but the commanders. And in all this supposing for the moment that blame attaches to those who failed to defend me, no less attaches to those who left me in the lurch; and if any who may have been frightened are to be censured, much more do any who pretended to be frightened deserve reproach.

At any rate that well-known decision of mine may justly claim commendation in so far as I was unwilling to leave my fellow-citizens, whom I had once saved and who now were eager to save me, bereft of leaders as they were, to the mercy of an armed rabble of slaves, but chose rather that it should be made manifest to all the world, how powerful the unanimity of loyal citizens might have proved had they been allowed to fight for me in the days when I stood upright, seeing that they had been able to set me on my feet again when I lay prostrate; ​and that temper of theirs you not only correctly estimated when you pleaded my cause, but you also encouraged it and kept it up to the mark.

¹⁴ And in that same cause—so far from denying it, I shall ever remember and take pleasure in proclaiming it—you found certain of our noblest citizens more courageous in promoting my recall than they had been in keeping me at Rome; and had they elected to persevere in that policy all along, the recovery of their own ascendancy would have coincided with my restoration.

For when the loyalists had been encouraged by your consulship and set upon their feet again by your admirable and consistent official action, especially when Pompey had taken up the cause, and when Caesar too, who after his brilliant achievements had been honoured by extraordinary and even unprecedented marks of distinction and comlimentary resolutions of the Senate, was now inclined to associate himself with the authority of that order, no unprincipled citizen could have had any opportunity for doing violence to the constitution. ¹⁵ But mark, I beg of you, what followed.

First of all that fiendish violator of women's religious observances, who had shown as little respect for the "good goddess"^[52] as he had for his three sisters, left the court "without a stain on his character," thanks to the votes of those who, when the tribune of the plebs desired by the verdict of honourable men in the court to inflict condign chastisement upon a turbulent fellow-citizen, deprived the Republic of such a precedent for the punishment of sedition as would have been famous for all time; and those same persons later on per​mitted a monument^[53]—it was not mine, for it was not built out of any spoils of mine, I only gave out the contract for its erection, but a monument belonging to the Senate—to be branded, and that, too, in letters of blood, with the name of a public enemy. Now in so far as these gentlemen promoted my recall, I am deeply grateful to them; but I could wish that they had chosen to have some regard not merely, like doctors, for my recovery, but also, like trainers, for my vigour and healthy appearance. As it is, just as Apelles completed with the most refined art the head and shoulders of his Venus, while he left the rest of her body begun but not finished, so certain people have confined their good offices to my head^[54] alone, and have left the rest of me incomplete and only rough-hewn.

¹⁶ But in all this I belied the expectations not only 16 of those who envied, but also of those who hated me; for they had heard some time or other an untrue account of that most high-spirited and courageous of men, who, in my opinion, stood out above all others in gallantry and firmness of character, Quintus Metellus,^[55] the son of Lucius Metellus, and constantly allege that on his return from exile he was a broken-hearted and dispirited man—it has to be proved however that one who left his country with the utmost readiness, and bore his exile with remarkable cheerfulness, and was not particularly anxious to return, was crushed by just that very episode in which he had proved his superiority in determination and dignity to everybody else in the world, not excepting that extraordinary man, the celebrated M. Scaurus^[56]—anyhow what they had heard, or perhaps only imagined, about Metellus, ​they thought exactly applicable to myself—that I was likely to be dejected! And that, too, when the Republic was inspiring me with a greater courage than I had ever possessed, by having made it clearly evident that the one citizen she could not do without was myself, and when, while Metellus's recall hung on the motion of a single tribune,^[57] my own recall was acclaimed with one voice by the whole Republic, with the Senate giving the lead, and all Italy following suit, with eight tribunes proposing the motion, with you as consul putting it to the vote at a meeting of the Centuries, with every class and every member of it energetically promoting the measure—using, in a word, all the forces at her disposal.

¹⁷ And yet from that day to this I have made no particular claim of any kind which could reasonably offend any man be he ever so maliciously disposed. My one earnest endeavour is not to be found wanting in service, advice, or practical assistance, either to my friends, or even to those who have a less immediate claim upon me.

That such is the tenour of my public life is perhaps a cause of offence to those who, dazzled by its glitter and display, fail to discern its anxieties and troubles; but in one thing they make no secret of their complaints—that in any opinions I express which do honour to Caesar, I am, as it were, guilty of defection from my old party. Now I am influenced not only by what I put before you a little while ago, but also, and by no means least, by what I had begun to explain to you; and that is, my dear Lentulus, that you will not find the political sentiments of loyal citizens the same as you left behind you. Those ​sentiments, confirmed by my consulship, afterwards occasionally obscured, utterly suppressed before your consulship, but revived by you, have now been entirely renounced by those who should have fostered them; and that it is so, those who in the old days of our power were entitled optimates not only clearly show by their bearing and looks, whereby it is very easy to keep up a pretence, but have furthermore often impressed it upon us by their actual votes both in the Senate and on the bench.

¹⁸ And so it follows that among wise citizens—and a wise citizen is what I wish both to be and to have the credit of being—there ought to be a complete change both of opinion and purpose. For that same Plato, whose teaching I earnestly endeavour to follow, gives us this injunction—"to assert yourself in politics only so far as you can justify your measures to your fellow-citizens; for it is as wrong to use violence to your country as to one of your parents."^[58] And indeed he declares that the reason why he did not take part in public affairs was that, finding the people of Athens now almost in a state of dotage,^[59] and seeing that they could be ruled neither by argument nor by anything but force, while he despaired of their being persuaded, he did not deem it lawful that they should be forced.

My own position was different, inasmuch as my people were not in their dotage, and not being free to choose whether I should engage in politics or not, my hands were tied; but I rejoiced none the less that in one and the same cause^[60] it was allowed me to defend a policy at once advantageous to myself and right in the judgement of any honest man. ​Added to these inducements was the notable and even greater than human generosity shown to my brother and myself by Caesar—Caesar, who might have claimed my support whatever he might undertake to do; as it is, so extraordinary is his success and so brilliant are his victories, that even were he not what he is to me, I should deem him worthy of all honour. For what I would have you believe is this, that apart from yourself and others to whom I owe my restoration, there is nobody in the world to whose kind offices I am so deeply indebted, and I not only confess it, but I am actually glad of it.

¹⁹ And now that I have explained this to you, what you ask me about Vatinius and Crassus is easily answered. In Appius's case you write that, just as in the case of Caesar, you have no fault to find, and I am glad that the line I took meets with your approval. Now as to Vatinius. Immediately on his election as praetor, a reconciliation had been brought about between us, in the first instance by the intervention of Pompey, though it is true that I had opposed Vatinius's candidature in the most scathing terms in the Senate, but not so much with the object of injuring him, as of defending and doing honour to Cato. Upon this there followed a surprisingly urgent request on the part of Caesar that I should undertake Vatinius's defence.^[61]

But why did I eulogize him? Well, I beg of you not to ask me that question, either in the case of this client or of any other, lest I retaliate by putting the same question to you on your return; though I don't see why I should not do so even before your return. For just call to mind the persons in whose ​favour you have sent recommendations from the ends of the earth. But don't alarm yourself; for those same persons are, and always will be, praised by me also. However, in the matter of Vatinius's defence, I had another motive to spur me on; as I remarked at the trial when I was pleading for him, I was doing just what the Parasite urged the Captain to do in the Eunuchus^[62]:

So I begged the gentlemen of the jury, since certain noble friends of mine, who had shown me the greatest kindness in the past, were now evincing an undue affection for my special enemy, and before my very eyes were constantly either drawing him aside, as if for solemn consultation, or else playing "hail fellow well met" with him, since they had their Publius, I begged the jury, I say, to allow me, too, another Publius of my own, in dealing with ^ whom I might give my friends' conscience a sly dig or two just to show that I was a little annoyed with them; and I not only said so, but I do so again and again, to the delight of gods and men.

²⁰ So much for Vatinius; now let me tell you about Crassus.^[63] Since he and I were by this time on quite good terms (for in the interests of public harmony I had, as it were, expunged by a voluntary amnesty the whole list of his grossly injurious acts), I should have put up with his sudden defence of Gabinius^[64]— ​the very man he had fiercely assailed a few days earlier—still I should have put up with it, had he undertaken that defence without any abuse of myself. But when on my arguing the case he attacked me without provocation, well, then I flashed out; it was not, I think, the irritation of the moment only (for that would probably have been less violent), no, but that pent-up rancour due to the many wrongs he had done me, a rancour of which I imagined I had completely purged my soul, had yet settled there without my knowing it, and suddenly revealed itself in all its bitterness.

And at this very time certain persons, indeed those very men whom I often hint at but do not name, though they declared that they had benefited very greatly by my outspoken manner, and that they considered that episode to be my first real restoration to the Republic as my old self again, and though my quarrel with Crassus had proved of great benefit to me even among the outside public, those same people now declared that they were delighted that he was at enmity with me, and that those^[65] who were in the same boat with him would never be friends with me. And when their malicious remarks were brought to my ears through the kindness of men of unimpeachable honour, when Pompey had striven as he never strove before to bring about my reconciliation with Crassus, and when Caesar plainly showed by his letter that that passage-at-arms had caused him intense annoyance—why, then I took into account not only my circumstances, but also the promptings of nature; and Crassus, so that our reconciliation might be, as it were, formally announced to the people of Rome, set out for his province, I ​might almost say, from under my very roof; for having previously arranged a day with me^[66] he was my guest at a dinner I gave at the country seat of my son-in-law Crassipes.

And that is the reason (as indeed you write that you have been told) why on his^[67] earnest recommendation I undertook to support Crassus's cause, and did so support it in the Senate, as I was in honour bound to do.

²¹ You have now heard by what considerations I have been led, in supporting each measure and each case, and also what my exact position is in politics so far as I have any part in them. And on that point I should like you to be firmly convinced of this—that those are precisely the sentiments I should have entertained had I been entirely uncommitted and had a free hand; for I should still have been of opinion that no resistance should be offered to powers so invincible, that the established preeminence of our highest citizens should not, even if that were possible, be abolished, and that we should not persist in holding to an unvarying opinion when the circumstances have entirely altered and the political inclinations of honest men have undergone a corresponding change, but that we should move with the times. For never has an undeviating persistence in one opinion been reckoned as a merit in those distinguished men who have steered the ship of state. But just as in sailing it shows nautical skill to run before the wind in a gale, even if you fail thereby to make your port; whereas when you can get there just as well by slanting your yards,^[68] it is sheer folly to court disaster by keeping your original course, rather than change it and still ​reach your desired destination; on the same principle in the conduct of state affairs, while we should all have as our one aim and object what I have so repeatedly preached—the maintenance of peace with honour—it does not follow that we ought always to express ourselves in the same way, though we ought always to have in view the same goal.

And therefore, as I stated a little while ago, even were I absolutely untrammelled in my choice, I should be in politics no other than I now am. But attracted as I am by the kindnesses of some and impelled by the malicious conduct of others into this way of thinking, I see no objection to my feeling and saying on political questions whatever I consider most conducive both to my own interests and those of the state; and I do so all the more openly and frequently because my brother Quintus is on Caesar's staff, and because no single word of mine, however trivial, much less any action has passed in Caesar's favour, which he^[69] has not welcomed with a gratitude so clearly expressed as to make me feel that he is sincerely obliged to me. This enables me to enjoy as though they were my own the advantages both of his influence, which is very powerful, and of his pecuniary resources which, as you know, are very great; indeed I fail to see how otherwise I could have wrecked the intrigues against me of unprincipled scoundrels, than by combining with the safeguards I always possessed the friendliness of men in power.

²² This is precisely the course of action I should have adopted, I am inclined to think, had you been here at my elbow; for I know the sobriety and restraint of your nature; I know your mind, which, while full of friendship for me, has yet no tinge of ​ill-feeling towards others; on the contrary, it is as great and exalted as it is ingenuous and artless. I have myself noticed that certain folk have behaved towards you as you might have noticed they also behaved towards me; what has affected me, would surely also, I am sure, have affected you.

But whensoever it may be that I have the benefit of your presence here, you will be the guiding spirit in all my undertakings, and you will be as solicitous for my position, as you were for my restoration. In any event you will have in me a partner and a comrade in all your proceedings, expressions of opinion, and desires, in a word, in everything, and I shall have no purpose so constantly before my eyes as long as I live, as that of making you daily and increasingly rejoice that you have been to me the best of friends.

²³ You ask me to send you whatever I have written since your departure; well, I have certain speeches which I shall give Menocritus to bring you, but there are not so very many of them, so don't be alarmed. I have also written (you see I am more or less disengaging myself from the lure of oratory and returning to the gentler Muses, who are now, as they ever have been from my earliest youth, my chief delight), I have written, I say, on the model of Aristotle—at least that is how I wanted to do it—three books in the form of a discussion and dialogue, entitled The Orator, which I think will be of some use to your son Lentulus; for they disagree entirely with the commonly accepted rules, and embrace all the theories of rhetoric held by the ancients, including those of Aristotle and Isocrates. Furthermore, I have written three books in verse on My Own Times,^[70] ​and these I should have sent you long ago, had I deemed it desirable to publish them; they are, and will be for all time, witnesses of your services to me and my devotion to you; but I was afraid, not of those who might imagine themselves calumniated (for indeed my criticisms were neither lavish nor severe), but of those who had deserved well of me, to name all of whom would have been an endless business.

Still if I find anybody to whom I can safely entrust them, I shall take care that even the last-named books are sent to you. Indeed all this side of my life and daily activities I lay before you without reserve; whatever I can achieve in literature or research, my old amusements, that I shall be delighted to submit entirely to your critical judgement; for you have always had a liking for such pursuits.

²⁴ As to what you tell me in your letter about your domestic affairs and commission me to do in the matter, I have it so much at heart, that I rather resent being reminded of it, and as to being requested—well, I can hardly help feeling really hurt. Of my brother Quintus's business^[71] you write that last summer being prevented by illness from crossing over into Cilicia you had not been able to effect a settlement, but that you would now spare no pains to do so; that business, I assure you, is of such a nature that my brother verily believes that if he adds the land in question to his own, it is you he will have to thank for the consolidation of his estate.

I would have you inform me as intimately and as frequently as may be about all that concerns yourself, and about your son's studies and exercises,—mine indeed as much—and believe that never was a man dearer or more charming to another than ​you are to me, and that I mean not only to impress that fact upon yourself, but also to ensure its recognition by everybody in the world, yes, and by all generations to come.

²⁵ Appius has now made a public declaration in the Senate of what he used often to assert before in private conversation, "that if he were allowed to get a law through the comitia curiata he would cast lots with his colleague for their respective provinces, but that if no such law were passed, he would come to an arrangement with his colleague and become your successor in Cilicia; that the passing of such a law in the comitia curiata, while formally important for a consul, is not indispensable; and that holding the province as he did by a decree of the Senate, he would hold imperium also under the law of Sulla, until such time as he entered the city."^[72] What your several friends and relations write to you about it respectively I cannot tell; I only know that opinions differ. There is a certain section who think you would be within your rights in not resigning your province, because, as they say, your successor's appointment lacks the sanction of a law passed in the comitia curiata. There are others, too, who think that, if you do retire, you can leave behind you a representative in charge of the province.

I am myself not so sure of the legal point (though that is not so very doubtful either), as I am of this, that it is due to your exalted position, your dignity, and your kindness (the exercise of which I know is a great and constant satisfaction to you), to ​hand over your province to your successor without a moment's delay, especially as you could not well thwart his eagerness for office without rousing a suspicion of such eagerness in yourself. As regards myself, I consider I have a double duty to discharge—to tell you plainly what I think, and to defend whatever you may do.

²⁶ Since I wrote the foregoing letter I have read yours about the publicani,^[73] and while I could not but approve the fairness with which you dealt with them, I could wish that you had managed by some happy dexterity to avoid falling foul of the interests or inclinations of a department you have always honoured. For my part I shall not cease to defend your decrees, but you know the traditions of that class of men; and you remember what bitter enemies they proved themselves to the great Q. Scaevola^[74] himself. At all events I strongly advise you, if by any means you can do so, either to effect a reconciliation with that department, or to mitigate their resentment. It is a difficult problem, but I am sure you are shrewd enough to solve it.^[75]

[Cicero greets L. Valerius, "learned in the law "]—for I really don't see why I should not flatter you to that extent, especially since in these days one may safely put impudence in the place of erudition. ​I have heartily thanked our friend Lentulus by letter in your name. I should like you, however, to make no further use of my letter of recommendation, but to come and see us again after all this time, and prefer to reside where you are of some account, rather than over there, where you seem to be the only man who knows anything at all.^[77] And yet those who come from where you are accuse you either of arrogance in giving no " opinion " ^ at all, or of insolence in giving an "opinion"^[78] not at all to their taste. But I am really longing to have a merry chat with you tête à tête. So be sure you come as soon as possible, and leave your beloved Apulia unvisited, so that we may have the joy of celebrating your safe arrival. If you arrive there such a Methuselah,^[79] you will not recognize a single friend.