Page:Loeb Classical Library L205N (1958).djvu/375

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
 
Epistulae ad Familiares, V. v.

I have shown, all the services I have performed, on your behalf, who is eager for your friendship, and very much attached to myself, is leaving Rome to join you, I felt that I had to write something, especially as I could in no other way satisfy Pomponius himself.

2 Were I to look for the highest services at your 2 hands, nobody ought to regard it with surprise. For there is nothing which might conduce to your welfare, your honour, or your position, that has not found its way from me to you.[1] That in return for all this you have shown me no practical gratitude whatever, you are yourself the best of witnesses; indeed, I have been told by many that you are to be credited with something quite the opposite—I shrink from saying "I have discovered it,"[2] lest I happen to use in my letter the very expression people say you so often untruthfully attribute to me. But I had rather you should learn what has been reported to me from Pomponius, who is as much annoyed at it as I am, than from my letter. How exceptionally loyal at heart I have been to you, both the Senate and the people of Rome can testify; how much gratitude you have shown me, you can estimate for yourself, how much you owe me, it is for the rest of the world to estimate.

3 In all I have hitherto done for your sake, I was prompted by goodwill and subsequently by a regard for consistency. But what remains to be done, believe me, demands far greater enthusiasm on my part, and a far more serious effort. And unless it appears that my efforts are thrown away and wasted, I mean to persevere in them to the utmost limit of my strength; if, however, I perceive that they evoke

  1. ↑ e.g. Cicero's resignation of Macedonia in Antonius's favor, mentioned in the preceding note.
  2. ↑ Cicero was twitted by his enemies, especially Clodius, with his too frequent use of the word comperi, in connexion with the Catilianarian conspiracy, when he refused to disclose his evidence.
341
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.