Page:Loeb Classical Library L205N (1958).djvu/425

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

Let us carry out the suggestion, so far as it proves possible; for what could suit either of us better? I shall see you then at an early date.

XVI

Cicero to Titius[1]

Rome (?), 46 B.C. (?).

1 Although there is nobody in the world less fitted to offer you consolation, since your tribulations have caused me such sorrow that I am myself in need of consolation, still, seeing that my own sorrow was further removed from the bitterness of most intense grief than was yours, I decided that it was due to our close connexion and my friendly feeling for you that I should not remain so long silent while you are in such affliction, but should offer you some such measure of consolation as might mitigate, if it could not succeed in remedying, your sorrow.

2 Now there is a form of consolation, extremely commonplace I grant you, which we ought always to have on our lips and in our hearts—to remember that we are human beings, born under a law which renders our life a target for all the slings and arrows of fortune, and that it is not for us to refuse to live under the conditions of our birth, nor to resent so impatiently the misfortunes we can by no process of forethought avoid, but, by recalling to mind what has befallen others, to induce the reflection that what has happened to ourselves is nothing new.

3 But neither these nor any other forms of consolation employed by the wisest of men and handed down

  1. ↑ It is uncertain what Titius this was; most probably the T. Titius to whom Ep. lxxv in Book XIII. is addressed. He had been Pompey's legatus and entertained Cicero at Anagnia in 56.
391
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.