Letters to his Friends/Book 4

¹ My intimate friend, Gaius Trebatius,^[2] has informed me by letter that you questioned him as to my whereabouts, and that you were vexed that owing to your indisposition you had missed seeing me when I approached the City walls; and that at the present moment you were anxious, if I could get nearer to you, to confer with me as to the duty of each of us. Would that it had been possible, Servius, for us to have had a talk before all was lost^[3]—there is no other word for it! We should assuredly have been of some service to the sinking state. For I had already learned in my absence that you, foreseeing ​these calamities long before they happened, were the champion of peace both during^[4] and after your consulship. But as for me, though I approved your policy and held the same opinion myself, I made no headway. You see I had arrived late, I was all alone, I was supposed to be ill-informed as to the facts, and I had suddenly found myself in the midst of a throng of men mad with the lust of battle. Now that it seems that we can be of no assistance at all to the Republic, if there is anything in which we may take thought for our own selves—not in the way of retaining anything worth retaining of our pristine position, but of investing our grief with what dignity we may—there is nobody in the world with whom I think I ought to confer rather than with yourself. For you never forget either the examples of those famous men whom we ought to resemble, or the maxims of those wise men whom you have always venerated. And I should have myself written to you before to warn you that it would be useless for you to attend the Senate, or rather the assembly of senators,^[5] had I not been afraid of hurting the feelings of the man who begged of me to follow your lead. And, indeed, when that same person urged me to attend the Senate, I made it clear to him that I should repeat exactly what you had said about peace and the Spains.

² You see how the matter stands; that the whole world, ablaze with war, is allotted to the various military commands, while the City, bereft of laws, law-courts, justice, and credit, is left a prey to the plunderer and the incendiary. Thus it is impossible for me to have the slightest idea what I can hope for, nor even what in the circumstances I can dare to ​desire. If, however, it seems to a shrewd man like you to be expedient that we should have a talk, although it was my intention to remove still further from the City, which I can now hardly bear to hear named, I shall yet manage to get nearer to you. And I have instructed Trebatius, if there is any message you want him to send me, not to refuse to do so; and I should like you to do so, or to send me anyone you please of those you can trust, so that it may not be necessary either for you to quit the City or for me to approach it. I am paying you as great a compliment as perhaps I am claiming for myself, in the assurance I feel that whatever course you and I together decide upon will be unanimously approved by the world.

¹ I received your letter on April 28, when I was at my Cuman villa; and on reading it I gathered that Philotimus did not act quite discreetly when, in spite of the instructions he had from you (as you write) on every point, he failed to come to me himself, and merely forwarded me your letter; and I concluded that it was the shorter because you had imagined that he would deliver it in person. Anyhow, after I had read your letter, your wife Postumia came to see me, and so did our dear Servius.^[6] They were of opinion that it was for you to come to my Cuman house, and they even entreated me to write to you to that effect.

​² You ask me what plan I have; well, it is the sort of plan that I could more easily adopt myself than recommend to another. For what policy is there that I could venture to press upon a man of your exceptional influence and consummate sagacity? If we are asking what is the most right and proper course, it is there for all to see; if what is most expedient, well, that is not so evident. But if we are the kind of men we surely ought to be, the kind to believe that nought is expedient but what is right and honourable, then there can be no possible doubt as to what we should do.

³ You assume a close connexion between your case and mine; well, we were certainly both guilty of a like mistake, though our sentiments were most loyal. For whatever the policy of each of us, what we had in view was harmony, and as there was nothing more to the advantage of Caesar himself, we imagined that we were even earning his gratitude by our advocacy of peace. How greatly we have been deceived, and to what a pass things have come, you can see for yourself; and not only do you clearly understand all that is being done and all that has already been done, but also what the trend of affairs is, and what is likely to be the issue. One is therefore obliged either to approve the measures now being taken, or else to be implicated in them even if one does not approve. The former alternative strikes me as being dishonourable, the latter as being dangerous as well.

⁴ All that is left is that I think I must go; and there is nothing else to consider but what is my plan when I do go, and what my destination. Look at it as you will, no more wretched state of things has ever occurred, no, nor any problem harder to solve. For no ​decision can be made which does not find itself barred by some awkward obstacle. If you have now determined what you consider should be your course of action, even supposing it does not coincide with my own, I think, if you have no objection, that you might well dispense with your troublesome journey here; but if there is anything you would like to discuss with me, I shall look forward to seeing you. Indeed, I should like you to come as soon as possible without inconvenience to yourself—a proposal agreeable, as I gathered, to both Servius and Postumia.

¹ That you are profoundly agitated, and, amid the miseries we all feel, are suffering a special sorrow of your own—such is the report that many bring me daily. And though I am but little surprised at that and recognize it as to a certain degree my own case, still I am sorry that, endowed as you are with a wisdom almost unique, you should not rather delight in your own blessings than be harassed by the misfortunes of others. As regards myself, though I yield to no man as having suffered more sorrow than myself through the destruction and ruin of the Republic, I now find much to console me, and most of all the consciousness of the policy I had advocated. Long before it came, I foresaw as from some high watch-tower the storm that was to be, and that not by my own intuition only, but far more in consequence of your ​warnings and denunciations. For though I was absent during a great part of your consulship, yet even in my absence I used to be informed of what opinions you expressed in guarding against and foretelling this pernicious war, and I was myself present in the early days of your consulship, when, after a survey of all our civil wars, with a wealth of detail you urged the Senate, while they feared the warnings of the civil wars within their memory, to draw the inference that, as the earlier combatants had shown a ruthlessness hitherto quite unprecedented in the Republic, so whosoever should subsequently succeed in crushing the Republic by force of arms would display a tyranny far more intolerable. For men assume that what is done by precedent is also done by right; but they add to that precedent and contribute to it something, nay rather, a great deal of their own.

² And that is why you ought to remember, that those who failed to follow your authority and advice perished by their own folly, when your far-sightedness might have been their salvation. You will say "What consolation is that to me, amid this oppressive gloom, and what I may call the crumbling walls of the Republic?" Yes, it is undoubtedly a sorrow that hardly admits of consolation; so overwhelming is the sense of universal loss without hope of recovery. And yet this is Caesar's own judgement of you, and the opinion of all your fellow-citizens—that your uprightness, your wisdom, and your worth, shine forth like some great light, when all other lights are quenched. This ought to conduce much to the alleviation of your troubles. Now as to your being away from your friends, that is the more easily to be ​endured, because you are at the same time out of the way of many serious annoyances; I should send you a complete list of them, were I not afraid that, far from home as you are, you might be made aware of things which you do not actually see, and are therefore, it seems to me, better off than we who do see them.

³ I think the consolation I have offered you is justified, so far as it meant your being informed by one who is most friendly to you of what might mitigate your distress. You have other means of consolation in your own hands, and they are neither unknown to me nor the least important—indeed, I feel they are by far the most important—and I have so tested their efficacy by daily trial, that they seem to me to represent salvation.

Now I well remember that you have been from the early days of your adolescence deeply devoted to every form of philosophical learning, and have mastered with enthusiastic diligence all the traditions of the wisest philosophers on the way to live aright. These could, of course, be a profit and a pleasure to us at the best of times, but in these days we have nothing else in which to find repose. I am not going to be impertinent, nor am I going to exhort one so gifted with professional skill,^[7] or shall I say natural ability, to return to those accomplishments to which you have devoted your enthusiasm from the early days of your adolescence. IV.iii.4⁴ No, I am only going to say this (and I hope you will agree with me) that, in my case, when I saw that there was no scope either in the senate-house or in the forum for that art which I had made my study, I concentrated all my attention and all my energy upon philosophy. There is not ​much more scope left for that outstanding and incomparable legal skill of yours than for mine. And so I do not pose as your mentor, but I am quite sure that you, too, are occupying yourself with matters which, though not so profitable, would distract the mind from brooding-on its troubles.

Your son Servius busies himself with conspicuous success in all the liberal arts, and especially in that in which I have already told you that I find repose; and really my affection for him is such that I should, yield in that respect to you alone, and no man else; and I have my reward in his gratitude; and in this, as may easily be seen, he thinks that when he shows me respect and deference, he is thereby doing what gives you too the greatest pleasure.

¹ I accept the excuse you offer for having so often sent me a letter in duplicate,^[8] but I accept only that part of it in which you attribute it to the carelessness or the rascality of the carriers that your letters do not reach me. As to that part of your excuse in which you declare that "poverty of language"—that is how you put it—makes you use the same words too often in your letters, I neither recognize nor approve it. Why, even I myself—and you, though jestingly (as I take it), describe me as a man of "opulent vocabulary"—admit that I am not exactly embarrassed for lack of words (for there is no need to be "mock ​modest"); and yet even so (and there is no "mock-modesty" in this either) I readily acknowledge your superiority in the refinement and good taste^[9] of your compositions.

² That policy of yours which, as you write, led you not to decline this post in Achaia, I have always approved, and approve much more heartily now that I have read your last letter; for all the reasons you specify are perfectly sound and quite worthy of your high position and sagacity. You think that in this case things have not turned out as you expected; well, there I do not agree with you at all. The fact is that so appalling is the general disorganization and chaos, so irremediable the overthrow and prostration of every interest by this most horrible war, that every man thinks that where he happens to be is the most miserable place, and himself the most miserable person in the world; and that is precisely why you not only regret your policy, but also imagine that we who are at home are happy; while we on the other hand consider you to be, not indeed free from all annoyances, but still happy as compared with ourselves. Moreover, in this particular respect your lot is better than ours—you venture to put in writing what is troubling you, we cannot do even that with any safety; and that is through no fault of the victor, who is a marvel of moderation, but of the victory itself, which in civil wars is ever overbearing.

³ On one point I claim a victory over you; I got to know of the restoration of your colleague Marcellus,^[10] ​a little earlier than you did; and, more than that, I declare to you that I saw how the whole business was managed. Please understand this—ever since these calamities set in, I mean ever since national right was first submitted to the arbitrament of arms, this is the only dignified transaction that has occurred. For Caesar himself, having protested against Marcellus's "acrimony" (that is the term he used) and having eulogized in the most complimentary terms both your fairness and your far-sightedness, suddenly and unexpectedly declared that he would not refuse the request of the Senate in the matter of Marcellus, in spite of its being a bad omen.^[11] Now when the question of Marcellus had been opened by L. Piso,^[12] and when Gaius Marcellus^[13] had flung himself at Caesar's feet, the Senate, as it had previously arranged to do, rose in a body and approached Caesar with an air of supplication. Not to waste words, this seemed to me so glorious a day that I imagined I saw before me some fair vision of the Republic rising, as it were, from the dead. ⁴ And so when all who had been asked to speak before me had expressed their gratitude to Caesar (except Volcatius, who declared, that had he been in Caesar's place, he would not have acted as Caesar did^[14]), on being asked my opinion I broke my resolution; for I had determined, not, I assure you, from indolence, but because I resented the loss of my former position, never to speak again. This determination of mine suddenly gave way before Caesar's magnanimity and the Senate's devotion^[15]; and so I expressed my thanks to Caesar at considerable length; and I am afraid that in all other such cases I have cheated myself of the honourable leisure which was my one solace amid my troubles. ​But anyhow, seeing that I have now avoided giving offence to one who, had I remained persistently silent, might have thought that I do not regard this as a constitutional government at all, I shall act in that respect with moderation, or even keep on the safe side of moderation, so as to serve his will without sacrificing my own inclinations.

For though every department of liberal erudition, and philosophy most of all, has been my delight from my earliest manhood, yet this prepossession of mine grows upon me day by day, partly, I suppose, because my age is ripening for the reception of wisdom, partly because the times are evil, so that there is nothing else that can ease my mind of its annoyances.

⁵ You, as I gather from your letter, are drawn away from such studies by press of business; but still at this season of the year, the nights will help you considerably. Your, or rather our dear boy Servius, shows me the greatest deference and respect, and I am delighted as well with his general integrity and excellent character as with his studies and acquirements. He has many a talk with me about your staying on or quitting the province. So far my opinion holds, that we should do nothing but what we think Caesar most desires. Such is the situation here, that supposing you were at Rome, you could find no pleasure in anything except in your own people. As for the rest, nothing could be better than the great man himself; everybody and everything else is such that—well, if you had to make the choice, you would much rather hear about them than see them. It is no pleasure to me to give you this advice, as I am longing to see you; but I am thinking of what is best for you. Farewell.

¹ The announcement of the death of your daughter Tullia,^[16] which I duly received, was, believe me, as it was bound to be, a painful and bitter blow to me, and I regarded it as a calamity to both of us alike. Had I been there, I should not have failed you, and should have convinced you in person of my sympathy. Of course, any consolation of this kind is depressing, and even unpleasantly embarrassing, because the relatives and intimate friends, upon whom lies the duty of tendering it, are themselves bearing a like burden of sorrow, and cannot attempt the task without the shedding of many a tear, so that one would imagine that they themselves need others to console them, rather than that they can possibly discharge what is their own duty to others. But even so I have decided to set down in a short letter to you the thoughts that have occurred to me on the present occasion, not that I imagine they escape you, but because perhaps you are so blinded by grief, that you have a less clear perception of them.

² What reason is there for your being so profoundly distressed by a private sorrow affecting yourself? Consider how fortune has dealt with us hitherto, that we have been robbed of all that should be no less dear to men than their offspring—of country, of an honourable name, of position, of all the preferments of the state. How could this one new loss have added anything to your grief? Or what man's mind trained in such experience ought not now to be ​the reverse of sensitive,^[17]and to regard all else as of less consideration?

³ Tell me, can it be for her that you are grieving? How many times must you yourself have reflected—and the thought has often occurred to me—that in these times theirs is not the most cruel fate who have been permitted painlessly to make the change from life to death? What again was there at this time to offer her any strong inducement to live? What things seen, what hope of things not seen?^[18] What solace for her soul? That she might spend her days as the consort of some young man of high rank? You think, I suppose, that it was open to you, in your high position, to choose from among the young men of this generation a son-in-law to whose protection you might confidently entrust any child of yours! Was it that she might become the mother of sons in whose brilliant success she might rejoice? Who might by their own merit maintain the position bequeathed them by her father? Who would be likely to stand for the offices of state in their due order? And to exercise their independence in politics and in promoting the interests of their friends? Has not each one of these promises been withdrawn before it was fulfilled? But, you will say, it is surely a calamity to lose one's children? It is—unless it be a worse calamity to endure and suffer all this.

⁴ There is an incident which brought me no slight consolation, and I should like to tell you about it, in case it may be able to assuage your sorrow. On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from Aegina towards Megara, I began to survey the regions round about. Behind me was Aegina, before me Megara, ​on my right the Piraeus, on my left Corinth,^[19] towns at one time most flourishing, now lying prostrate and demolished before one's very eyes. I began to think to myself "So! we puny mortals resent it, do we, if one of us, whose lives are naturally shorter, has died in his bed or been slain in battle, when ' in this one land alone there lie flung down before us the corpses of so many towns^[20]?' Pray control yourself, Servius, and remember that you were born a human being." Take my word for it, I was not a little fortified by that reflexion. This thought also, if you do not mind, be careful to set before your eyes. Not so long ago there perished at one and the same time many of our famous men; the imperial power of the Roman people has been terribly impaired; all the provinces have been shaken to their foundations; are you so profoundly moved by the loss of the spark of life in one weak woman? If she had not met her death to-day, she would in any event have had to die in a few years' time, seeing that she was born a human being.

⁵ You, like myself, must call your mind and thoughts away from these subjects, and bethink yourself rather of what is worthy of the part you have to play, remembering that she lived as long as life was of use to her; that she and the Republic passed away together; that she saw you, her father, elected praetor, then consul, then augur; that she had been successively the bride of more than one youth of the highest rank,^[21] that she enjoyed almost every blessing in life; and it was with the fall of the Republic that she ceased to live. What reason have either you or she for quarrelling with fortune on this score? ​Finally, never forget that you are Cicero, one who has ever been wont to instruct and advise others; and do not imitate bad physicians who, in treating the diseases of others, profess to have mastered the whole art of healing, but themselves they cannot cure; nay, rather apply to yourself and set before your own mind the precepts you so often seek to impress upon others.

⁶ There is no grief that is not diminished and mitigated by the lapse of years. To await that lapse, instead of hastening to forestall the effect by applying your wisdom, is not creditable to you. But if there be any consciousness even among the dead, such was your daughter's love for yourself and affection for all her family, that this at any rate is not what she would have you do. Offer this as a tribute to her who has passed away; to your friends and comrades, for your sorrow is their own; to your country, so that if there be any need for n, she may have the benefit of your assistance and advice.

One last word—since fate has brought us to such a pass that we are compelled to give consideration even to such a matter—do not make the mistake of giving anybody grounds for suspecting that it is not so much your daughter's death that is the cause of your mourning, as the critical state of public affairs and the triumph of our opponents.

I am ashamed to write at greater length to you on this subject, lest I seem to have lost confidence in your good sense. Therefore, when I have put forward this one point, I will bring my letter to a close. We have observed on several occasions that you bear good fortune with admirable self-control, and thereby gain much credit; make a point of convincing us at last that you can bear misfortune equally ​well, and that you do not think your burden heavier than you ought to think it, and so remove the impression that of all the virtues, this is the one virtue you lack.

For my part, when I discover that you are in a calmer state of mind, I shall inform you of what is being done here, and of the general condition of my province. Farewell.

¹ Yes, Servius, I could, indeed, have wished, as you say, that you had been by my side in my most grievous affliction. How much you could have helped me had you been with me, by comforting me and bearing an almost equal share of my grief, I can easily understand from the feeling of greater tranquillity which your letter gave me. For not only did you write what could assuage my grief, but in consoling me you showed no small sorrow of your own. Your son Servius, however, by doing me all the kindnesses that such an occasion could demand, made it plain how highly he esteemed me himself, and also how grateful he was sure you would be for such a proof of his affection for me; and though I have often felt greater pleasure in his good services, I have never been more grateful for them.

Now as regards myself, not only do I find comfort in your discourse, and in what I may call your partnership in my sickness of soul, but also in the influence of your personality; for I consider it dishonourable in me not to bear my affliction in the ​way in which you, gifted as you are with such rare wisdom, think it ought to be borne. But now and then I feel crushed and hardly able to fight my grief, since I lack those consolations which those others on whose examples I fix my thoughts never, in similar circumstances, did lack.

Q. Maximus^[22] lost a son of consular rank, a man of distinction and of splendid achievement; L. Paullus,^[23] two sons within seven days; your kinsman Gallus^[24] lost his, and M. Cato^[25] was bereft of a son of consummate ability and gallantry; but then they lived when the times were such that their private grief was mitigated by the high positions they were winning for themselves in the service of the state. ² But in my case, after the loss of all those distinctions which you specify, and which I had gained by the most strenuous exertions, there still remained that one solace which has now been torn from me. I had no friends' interests, no public responsibility to interrupt my broodings; it was no pleasure to me to do anything in the courts; as for the senate-house, I could not bear the sight of it; I began to think, and it was the fact, that I had been robbed of the fruits of all my hard work and success. But when I reflected that I but shared these misfortunes with yourself and certain others, and tried to break myself in, and force myself to bear it all with patience, I always had a sanctuary to flee to and a haven of rest; I had one whose sweet converse could help me to drop the burden of all my anxieties and sorrows. But as it is, so cruel is this new wound, that the old wounds, too, which I thought had entirely healed, are breaking out afresh. For ​whereas in those days when depressed by the ills of the state, I had a house to welcome me where I could be comforted, now, depressed as I may be, I cannot flee from my house and take refuge in the state, to find repose in her prosperity. And so I absent myself both from my home and from the courts, since neither can the sorrow the state causes me any longer be consoled by my home life, nor the sorrow of my home by the state.

³ All the more do I look forward to your visiting me, and I am anxious to see you at the earliest possible date. Nothing could afford me greater relief than the renewal of our intimacy and conversations; and indeed, I hope that your arrival is, as I am told, close at hand. Now I am most wishful to see you for many reasons, but particularly so that we may discuss together beforehand what must be our line of conduct, in passing through this period during which we must adapt ourselves unreservedly to the inclinations of one man, but one who is not only farsighted but liberal and (as I think I have assured myself) no enemy to me and a sincere friend to you. But though that is so, it is still a matter for serious deliberation what line we should take, not in the way of public action, but of leading, by his gracious permission, a quiet life.

¹ Though I quite understand that your policy has hitherto been such that I should not venture to take exception to it—not that I myself agree with it, but ​because you are in my judgment a man of such wisdom that I should be sorry to prefer my own opinion to yours—still the long duration of our friendship, and your extraordinary kindness to me, which I have recognized ever since you were a boy, have prompted me to write and tell you what I thought conducive to your personal welfare, and considered not incompatible with your dignity.

That you were the man who anticipated with remarkable foresight the beginnings of these calamities, who administered the consulship with such magnificence and efficiency—of that I have a very vivid recollection; but at the same time I observed this too, that you disapproved of the plan of campaign in the civil war, and of Pompey's troops and the composition of his army, and that you always utterly distrusted it; and I think it is within your recollection that I, too, held that opinion.^[27] You, therefore, took no great part in the campaign, and I always made a point of taking no part at all. For we were not fighting with the weapons which might have given us strength, such as judgment, the weight of personality, or the soundness of our cause, in all of which we were superior, but with the brute force of our muscles, in which we were no match for our adversaries. We were consequently defeated, or, if worth knows no defeat, we were at any rate crushed and humiliated. And here it is impossible for any man not to commend most cordially your decision, as soon as you saw there was no hope of victory, to cast out of your heart every desire to continue the struggle, proving thereby that a wise man and honest citizen, while he hesitates to be responsible for the inception of a civil ​war, has no hesitation in refusing to carry it through to the bitter end.

³ I see that those who did not adopt the same policy as yourself have split up into two sections; either they attempted to renew hostilities (and these are they who betook themselves to Africa), or else, just as I did myself, they threw themselves on the mercy of the conqueror; your policy was a kind of compromise, because you perhaps thought that the latter course showed a cringing, and the former a stubborn, spirit. I quite admit that your policy was deemed a wise one by most people, or shall I say by all?—and many even thought it showed a great and gallant spirit. But, if I may say what I think, the course you have adopted has its limitations, especially as I am sure that the one thing you lack to retain all your possessions is the will to do so; for I have come to the conclusion that there is but one thing which causes our omnipotent friend to hesitate, and that is his fear that you would not regard your recall as an act of kindness at all. What I think about it there is no need for me to tell you; you can see for yourself what my own conduct has been.

⁴ But even if you had already made up your mind that you would sooner be away all your days than witness what was revolting to you, you should yet reflect that wherever you were you would still be at the mercy of the very man from whom you were trying to escape. And though he were likely to raise no objection whatever to your living in peace and independence as long as you were cut off from your country and property, you would still have to consider whether you would prefer to live at Rome and in your own house, whatever the conditions ​might be, or either at Mitylene or in Rhodes. But, seeing that the power of the man we dread is so widespread as to have embraced the whole world, would you not rather reside without danger in your own house than reside with danger in the house of another? For my own part, I would sooner be at home and in my own country, even if it meant my facing death, than in any strange and foreign land. This is what all those feel who are fond of you; and as might be expected from your very great and distinguished merits, their number is great.

⁵ I am also concerned for your private property, which I should be sorry to see dissipated; it is true that it can suffer no damage likely to be permanent, for that will not be permitted either by him who rules the Republic, nor by the Republic itself; but apart from that I don't want to see an assault of brigands upon your estate. Who these brigands are,^[28] I should make bold to tell you now, were I not sure that you are well aware of them.

⁶ At Rome there is, above all others, one man whose anxious efforts, one man whose copious and unceasing tears are ever interceding for you—your excellent cousin, C. Marcellus^[29]; in solicitude and sorrow I come next, in entreaties I lag behind him, not having the right of entry, because I stand in need of intercession myself,^[30] and I have only such influence as a defeated man may command. But for all that, in the way of counsel and active devotion I am still loyal to Marcellus. By the rest of your relatives I am not called into consultation; there is nothing I am not prepared for.

¹ I can neither venture to advise a man of such exceptional sagacity as yourself, nor to encourage one of such high spirit and unequalled fortitude, and as for offering you consolation, it is out of the question. For if you are bearing what has happened as I hear you are, I ought rather to felicitate you on your manliness than to console you in your grief. But if you are being crushed by the terrible calamities of the Republic, I have not such a superabundance of ingenuity as to comfort you when I cannot comfort myself. It remains then that I should so order my conduct in the present and in the future, and be so constantly on the alert to further all your friends' desires, as to prove my belief that I owe you in the advancement of your cause not only all that is within my power, but even what is beyond it also.

² Anyhow, please take it either as my advice to you, or my definite opinion, or as something which out of kindness I could not suppress, when I urge you to resolve, like myself, that, if there be a Republic, it is incumbent upon you—a leading man both in fame and fact—to take your place in it, yielding to the irresistible pressure of circumstances; but if there be no Republic, you should still believe that this is the most suitable place for you to live in, even as an exile. For if liberty is what we are after, what place is not subject to this tyranny? if we are seeking any place of whatsoever kind, where ​could one settle more pleasantly than in one's own home? But take my word for it, even he who is the master of the world has a partiality for men of ability; certainly, so far as circumstances and his own interests allow him to do so, he cordially welcomes noble birth and men of high position. But I have written at greater length than I intended. I return therefore to the one dominant fact that I am your friend, and that I shall stand by your friends, if only they prove themselves your friends. If not, I shall at any rate satisfy in every respect the claims of our close intimacy and mutual affection. Farewell.

¹ Though it is but a very few days since I gave Q. Mucius a somewhat long letter for you, in which I made it plain what I believed should be your resolve, and what I thought you should do, still, when your freedman Theophilus, of whose loyalty and goodwill towards yourself I had satisfied myself, was setting out, I felt sorry that he should reach you without a letter from me. Repeating, therefore, the arguments I used in my former letter of exhortation, I exhort you again and again to decide to take your place as soon as possible as a member of the Republic, whatever it is. You will perhaps see much to which you may object, but still not worse than you hear every day. Besides, it is not characteristic ​of you to be moved by the sense of sight alone, and to be less distressed when the same fact reaches you by hearsay, when it often appears even worse than it is.

² But (you will argue) you, like the rest of us, will have to say something you do not feel, and do something you do not approve. In the first place, it has ever been considered the mark of a wise man to yield to circumstances, in other words, to bow to the inevitable; in the second place, as matters now stand, things are not as bad as all that. Perhaps you are not at liberty to say what you think, but you are quite at liberty to say nothing. For all power has been put in the hands of one man, who follows no man's advice but his own, not even that of his own friends.

And it would have been much the same, if he^[31] whom we followed were in charge of the Republic. Can we possibly suppose that the man who in time of war, when we were all united by a common danger, took counsel of himself alone and a notorious clique of exceedingly indiscreet advisers, would have been likely to be less self-centred^[32] in the hour of his triumph than he had been when the issue was in the balance? And can you suppose that he who neither followed your excellently wise advice when you were consul, nor when your cousin discharged the functions of consul with your support, was inclined to avail himself of the counsel of either of you, would now, if he held everything in his hands, have been likely to desire the expression of our opinions?

³ All is misery in civil wars; our ancestors never even once had that experience; our generation has already had it several times; but nothing is more ​miserable than victory itself; for though it falls to the better men, it nevertheless makes those very men inore arrogant and less self-controlled, so that even if they are not so by nature, they are compelled to be so by necessity. For there are many things a victor is obliged to do even against his will at the caprice of those who helped him to victory. You must have seen, at the time I saw it, how ruthless this victory was destined to prove; would you then at that time also have made an exile of yourself to prevent your seeing what was objectionable to you? "No," you will say, "for I should still have been in possession of my wealth and position." Yes, but it behoved one of your high principles to regard your own private interests as comparatively of very little importance, and to be more deeply distressed at the state of the Republic. Again, what is to be the final issue of this policy of yours? For so far your conduct is approved, and your good fortune, too, considering the circumstances, is extolled—your conduct, in that, compelled as you were to follow the call of the war in its initial stage, you wisely declined to follow it up to the bitter end; your good fortune, in that you have maintained in an honourable retirement both the dignity and the reputation of your exalted rank. Now, however, there is no place in the world that should hold a greater charm for you than your country; and you ought not to love her any the less, but rather pity her, because of her disfigurement, and not to deprive her, bereft as she is of so many distinguished sons, of the light of your countenance as well.

⁴ Finally, if it was the mark of a high spirit not to have approached the conqueror as a suppliant, may ​it not possibly be the mark of a haughty spirit to spurn that same conqueror's generosity, and if it be the act of a philosopher to forgo one's country, may it not be a proof of sheer callousness not to yearn for her? And if by any chance you are unable to enjoy a public life, it is surely senseless to refuse to enjoy a private one. The main point is this, that if you think your present life is more comfortable, you still have to consider whether it is not less safe. There is no limit to the licence of the sword, but in foreign countries there is even less scruple in committing a crime. For myself, so anxious am I about your safety that I am on a par with your cousin Marcellus, or at any rate I come next to him. For you it remains to make the best of your opportunities and to take thought for your rights as a citizen, your life, and your property.

¹ Though I have no news to tell you, and am beginning to look forward more to a letter from you, or rather your arrival in person, still, as Theophilus is setting out, I felt it impossible to give him nothing in the way of a letter. Take care then to come as soon as possible; for believe me, your coming will end a period of eager expectancy, not only among us, by which I mean your friends, but among all without exception. For it sometimes occurs to me to have a lurking apprehension that the delay in your leaving for home is not displeasing to you.

​² Well, if you possessed no single sense but that of vision, I should quite forgive you for objecting to the sight of certain folk; but since what is heard is not much less offensive than what is seen, and since, moreover, I suspected that your earliest possible arrival was greatly to the interest of your private estate, and indeed, was of importance from every point of view, why, then I thought you should have some warning to that effect. But now that I have offered you my own opinion, you will consider with your usual sagacity what remains to be done. I should like you to inform me, however, about what time we are to expect you.

¹ You can easily believe that the weight of your judgement has ever had the greatest influence with me on every occasion, but most particularly in this last transaction. Though my cousin C. Marcellus, who is most devoted to me, not only advised me but urged me with prayers and entreaties as well, he failed to convince me, until your letter^[33] definitely decided me to follow your advice and his, in preference to any other. You both give me in your letters a clear account of the way the matter was carried through. Of course, your felicitations are most acceptable to me, for they spring from a heart of gold, but what is far more delightful and flatter- ​ing to me is the fact that amid the depressing paucity of such friends, relations, or connexions as would sincerely support my restoration, I have discovered that you in particular have desired my return and have given me an extraordinary proof of your friendly feeling.

² The other inducements to return were such as you specified; but the times being what they are, I could readily resign myself to going without them. This last transaction, however, is such as to leave me convinced that without the sympathy of such men and such friends as yourself, nobody, whether in adversity or in prosperity, can find life worth living. On this, therefore, I congratulate myself. But to dispel any doubt on your part that the man upon whom you have conferred this favour is your most sincere friend, of that I mean to give you some practical proof.

¹ Though I am aware that the news I am about to I tell you is not of the pleasantest, still, seeing that our lives are under the despotic sway of chance no less than of nature, I decided that it was my duty to inform you all of what has occurred, however painful the circumstances. On the 23rd May, having arrived on board ship at the Piraeus from the district of Epidaurus,^[35] I there met Marcellus, my former colleague,^[36] and I spent the whole day there to have the pleasure ​of his company. On the following day, when I parted from him with the intention of going from the neighbourhood of Athens into Boeotia and clearing off the arrears of my judicial business, he was about to sail, he told me, round Cape Malea^[37] towards Italy.

² On the next day but one, when it was my intention to set out from near Athens, about the tenth hour of the night^[38] P. Postumius, an intimate friend of his, came to me and brought me the news that M. Marcellus, my former colleague,^[39] just after his dinner hour, had been stabbed with a dagger by P. Magius Cilo,^[40] an intimate friend of his, and that he had received two wounds, one in the gullet, the other in the head, just behind the ear, though my informant added that he hoped that he might recover; that Magius had subsequently committed suicide; that he himself had been despatched by Marcellus, to inform me of this, and to beg of me to summon some physicians. I summoned them, and immediately started for the place in the early dawn. I was not far from the Piraeus, when I was met by Acidinus's servant, bearing a note, in which he stated that Marcellus had passed away shortly before dawn. In this way was a man of the highest distinction done most cruelly to death by the vilest of men, and one who had been spared for his high deserts by his foes, found his murderer in a friend.

³ However, I hurried onwards to his tent; and there I found two freedmen, and perhaps a slave or two; they told me the others had fled in a panic of apprehension, because (as they argued) their master had been slain in front of his own tent.^[41] I was obliged to bring him back to the city in the same litter as had brought me there myself, using my own bearers; ​and there, considering the resources available at Athens, the funeral I took some pains to arrange for him was quite a handsome one.

I could not prevail upon the Athenians to make a grant of any burial ground within the city, as they alleged that they were prevented from doing so by their religious regulations; anyhow, we must admit that it was a concession they had never yet made to anybody. They did allow us to do what was the next best thing, to inter him in the precincts of any gymnasium we chose. We selected a spot near the most famous gymnasium in the whole world, that of the Academe,^[42] and it was there we cremated the body, and after that arranged that the Athenians should also ask for tenders for the erection on the same spot of a marble monument in his honour. Thus have I discharged in his death as in his life all the duties he could claim from one who was his colleague and his familiar friend. Farewell.

¹ I have been asking myself for some time past what I had best write to you; but not only does no definite theme suggest itself, but even the conventional style of letter-writing does not appeal to me. For one customary branch of correspondence in vogue among us when all was well,^[44] has been torn away from us by the hardship of the times, and fortune has effectually debarred me from writing or ​even contemplating anything of the kind. There still remained a certain style of correspondence appropriate to these times of ours in its gloom and melancholy; but I cannot fall back even upon that. For even that should surely convey either the promise of some substantial help or some consolation for your grief. I have no promise to make; for humiliated as I am by a misfortune like your own, it is only by extraneous assistance that I bear the weight of my afflictions, and my heart is more often inclined to deplore the conditions, than to rejoice in the fact, of my being alive.

² Although I have not myself personally been the victim of any particularly glaring act of injustice, and though it has never occurred to me even under present conditions to desire anything which Caesar has not spontaneously bestowed upon me, still none the less, so crushing are my anxieties, that I do not think I am acting aright even in remaining alive at all. For I have lost not only numbers of my most intimate friends, either torn away from me by death, or dragged from my side by banishment, but also all those friends whose affection I had won by the part I once played, in conjunction with yourself,^[45] in the successful defence of the Republic; and all around me I see the shipwrecks of their fortunes and the pillaging of their possessions; and not only do I hear of it, which would in itself be a misery to me, but I actually see, and it is the most distressing sight in the world, the squandering of the property of those men with whose assistance we once extinguished that awful conflagration; and in the very city in which but lately I was richly blessed in popularity, influence, and fame, of all that there is now nothing left me. ​I do continue to enjoy Caesar's extreme courtesy to me; but that cannot counterbalance violence and revolution in every relation of life and in the times themselves.

³ And so, bereft of all to which I had become habituated by my natural disposition, inclinations, and daily life, I am not only a nuisance to others, as I am sure I am, but even to myself. For though it is my very nature to be ever engrossed in some important work worthy of a man, I have now not only no scheme of action, but not even a scheme of thought. And while hitherto I have been in a position to offer my assistance to obscure or even guilty men, I am now not in a position to make even a promise of kindness to Publius Nigidius, incomparably the most learned and most virtuous of men, at one time a universal favourite and to me assuredly the best of friends. So that style of letter-writing has been plucked out of my reach.

⁴ It only remains for me to comfort you, and to suggest considerations whereby I may try to distract your thoughts from your miseries. But that genius for comforting either yourself or another, if ever man had it, is possessed in its full perfection by yourself; with any such topic, therefore, as has its source in what I may term the finer pursuits of learning, I shall not meddle, but leave it entirely to you. What conduct is worthy of a brave and wise man, what is imperatively demanded of you by your dignity, your loftiness of mind, your past history, the researches and accomplishments for which you have been distinguished from your boyhood—all that you will see for yourself. For my part, because I am in Rome and because I am interested and on the alert, ​I am in a position to read the signs and feel the truth of what I now declare to you—that you will not much longer have to endure the harassing conditions under which you are living at present, but the conditions which I share with you perhaps you will have to endure for ever.

⁵ It seems to me quite clear, in the first place, that the very man who has most to say in the matter is decidedly disposed to sanction your restoration. I am not writing thus at random. The less my intimacy with him, the more searching are my investigations. It is only to make it easier for him to give a less favourable reply to those with whom he is more angry than with you, that he has hitherto been dilatory in delivering you from your distress. As a matter of fact it is surprising how well those who are in close touch with him, and indeed those in whose company he finds most pleasure, both speak and think of you. Add, moreover, the goodwill of the commons, or rather the unanimity of all classes. Even our great Republic herself whose power, it is true, is now at its lowest (but power she is bound to have), whatever her strength may be, will at an early date, believe me, prevail upon the very men, who now hold her in subjection, to grant this boon on your behalf.

⁶ I therefore come back to this—I now even make you a promise, which at first I forebore to make. It is my intention to make friends with those in closest touch with him, who already have a high regard for me, and are much in my company, and, moreover, to worm myself into familiarity with the great man himself—a familiarity from which I have been hitherto shut out by my own lack of self-assertion, and I shall not fail to follow up every opening ​whereby I may think it possible to arrive at the goal of our desires. In connexion with this whole affair I shall do more than I dare write; for everything else, though I know for certain you can have all for the asking from many other quarters, I have myself made every preparation; there is not a thing in my private possession that I had not sooner be yours than mine. I write the less fully about this matter and on the whole question, because I had rather leave you to hope for yourself, what I on my side consider a certainty, that you will come to your own again.

⁷ My last word is this: I beg and beseech you to be of good courage, and to bethink you not only of the discoveries for which you are indebted to other great men of science, but also of those you have yourself made by your own genius and research. If you make a list of them, it will give you every good hope, and you will endure what befalls you, of whatever nature it may be, as a philosopher should. But you know that better than I do, indeed, better than anybody. On my side, I shall give the most devoted and painstaking attention to what I see is of importance to you, and preserve unimpaired the memory of your services to me in the most gloomy period of my life.

¹ I have had two letters from you, dated from Corcyra; in one of them you congratulated me because you had been told that I was maintaining ​my old position; in the other you expressed a hope that the arrangement I had made^[47] might turn out well and happily. Well if "position" means the holding of sound political opinions, and making those opinions acceptable to men of sound character, I certainly do maintain my position; but if "position" consists in the ability to give practical effect to your opinions, or even merely to defend them with freedom of speech, why, then I have no vestige of position left me, and we are doing exceedingly well if we can but school ourselves to endure with self-control those evils, some of which have already befallen us, and others are hanging over us; and it is hard to do so in a war of this sort,^[48] the issue of which on one side threatens massacre, and on the other slavery.

At this dangerous crisis I feel some slight consolation, when I recall that I foresaw all this, at the time when I was seriously alarmed even at our successes and not at our failures alone, and saw how great was the risk of submitting a point of constitutional right to the arbitrament of arms. For supposing that, by means of those arms, the party I had been drawn to join, not by any desire for war, but by the hope of arranging a peace, had proved victorious, I was none the less aware how sanguinary was bound to be the victory of men so angry, so rapacious, and so arrogant; and if on the other hand they were to be defeated, how crushing was bound to be the ruin of my fellow-citizens, some of them men of the highest rank, others of the highest character also, but men who, when I foretold all this and took the wisest measures for their safety, were more anxious that I should be regarded as showing undue timidity than proper prudence.

​³ Now you congratulate me upon the step I have taken;^[49] well, I am quite sure you mean it; but I assure you that in these unhappy days I should not have made any change in my life had I not found on my return, that my domestic affairs were in no less evil plight than those of the state. For when those very persons in whose eyes my welfare and all I possessed should have been most precious, considering the imperishable benefits I had bestowed upon them, had behaved so wickedly that I could find no safety within the walls of my own house, no corner of it without its ambush,—then I thought it about time to protect myself by new and trustworthy alliances against the treachery of the old. But enough, or even too much, about my own affairs.

⁴ As to yours, I should be glad to see you no more anxious than you ought to be, in other words, not imagining that you have anything special to fear. If there is to be any sound basis of any constitution of whatever nature, I can see that you will be free of all danger; for I take it that you have already appeased one party, while the other has never been angry with you. But as regards my own wishes for your welfare, I should like you to assure yourself, that for my part whatever steps I may find it necessary to take, though I am quite aware what my position is and how little I can do at the present juncture, I shall none the less be at hand to support your interests, your reputation, and your restoration by my efforts and advice, and, at any rate, you may be sure, by my eagerness to serve you. I should be glad if you, on your part, would take every care to let me know both what you are doing, and what you think you are likely to do. Farewell.

¹ I am in receipt of your very short letter, which did not enable me to discover what I was anxious to know, though I did discover what I had never doubted. In other words, how bravely you were bearing our common calamities, I had no means of learning; how sincerely you loved me, I could easily perceive; but the latter I knew already; had I known the former, I should have written accordingly.

² But despite the fact that I have previously written as much as I considered ought to be written, I have yet thought it necessary at such a crisis as this to caution you briefly not to imagine that you are in any special danger of your own; we are all in great danger, but after all it is a common danger. It is not right then that you should either demand for yourself alone any special privilege of fortune, or repudiate the fortune that has befallen us all. Let us, therefore, continue to be on the same terms of mutual friendship as we always have been. What I can but hope for in your case, I can guarantee in my own.