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Epistulae ad Familiares, V. vii.-viii.

to them in your letter, in consideration, not only of our intimacy, but of their importance to the state; and I can only suppose that you omitted any such reference because you were afraid of wounding anybody's feelings. Anyhow you must allow me to say that what I accomplished for the salvation of our country is now approved by the deliberate pronouncement of the whole world; and when you return home, you will recognize that the wisdom as well as the courage I showed in my achievements was such, that you, though a much greater man than Africanus[1] ever was, will find no difficulty in admitting me, who am not much less a man than Laelius, into close association with yourself both in public policy and in private friendship.

VIII

To M. Licinius Crassus, on his way to Syria

Rome, latter half of January (?), 54 B.C.

1 What enthusiasm I showed on the. . .[2] in defending, or I might even say in exalting your official position, I have no doubt all your correspondents have told you. My speech was neither lukewarm nor ambiguous, nor such as could be passed over in silence. For I fought my battle[3] against the consuls, and many of the consulars too, with an eagerness I have never shown in any cause before, and I took upon myself the perpetual championship of your dis-

  1. ↑ P. Corn. Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Minor, son of L. Aemilius Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia, but adopted by P. Scipio, the elder son of Scipio Africanus Maior, the conqueror of Hannibal. His friendship with the younger Laelius, as great as that of Scipio Africanus Maior with Laelius’s father, is immortalized in Cicero’s treatise Laelius, sive De amicitia.
  2. ↑ The date has been lost.
  3. ↑ Crassus’s enemies, among whom were the consuls for 54, Domitius Ahenobarbus and Applus Claudius, seem to have proposed a curtailment of his powers and resources in the East; this was resisted by Cicero, who fought hard for him, and apparently with success, in the Senate.
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