Page:Loeb Classical Library L205N (1958).djvu/361

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Epistulae ad Familiares, V. ii.

your fellow-praetors drawing lots, I say nothing; I only wish to give you a hint that nothing was done in that matter by my colleague without my cognizance.^[1] Just recall everything else that happened—how promptly I convened the Senate on that day after the balloting was over, at what length I spoke about you; indeed, you yourself told me at the time that my speech was not only complimentary to yourself, but went so far as to reflect unpleasantly upon your colleagues.

⁴ And now we come to that decree of the Senate passed on the same day,^[2] the preamble of which is such, that so long as that decree is extant, there can be no possible doubt as to my kindness to you. Again, after you had left Rome, I should like you to call to mind how I spoke of you in the Senate, what I said at public meetings, and what was the letter I sent you. When you have made a list of all these acts of mine, I should be glad if you would judge for yourself, whether, when lately you came to Rome,^[3] your arrival on the scene strikes you as an adequate response, in a reciprocal sense, to all those services of mine.

⁵ You refer in your letter to "the renewal of our friendship"; well, I do not understand why you apply the term "renewal" to what has never been impaired.

⁶ As for your remark that "your brother Metellus ought not to have been attacked by me on account of 'a mere phrase,'" in the first place I should like you to believe that I warmly approve that feeling of yours, that brotherly affection so full of human kindness and affection; in the second place, if in any respect I have opposed your brother for the sake of the

↑ C. Antonius, Cicero's colleague, had presided at the sortitio, and at Cicero's instance had contrived that Cisalpine Gaul should fall to Metellus.
↑ It is not clear what this decree was; the preamble must have contained complimentary references to Metellus.
↑ Metellus had probably approached Rome in the winter of 63-62 as a demonstration in support of his brother Nepos, when the latter attacked Cicero in the Senate, as described below. Watson.

327

[1] C. Antonius, Cicero's colleague, had presided at the sortitio, and at Cicero's instance had contrived that Cisalpine Gaul should fall to Metellus.

[2] It is not clear what this decree was; the preamble must have contained complimentary references to Metellus.

[3] Metellus had probably approached Rome in the winter of 63-62 as a demonstration in support of his brother Nepos, when the latter attacked Cicero in the Senate, as described below. Watson.

[1]

[2]

[3]