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Epistulae ad Familiares, V. xviii.-xix.

particular have been brought into the world. Fortune has robbed you of less than your worth has brought you, for you have gained what not many "new men" have gained, and only lost what very many of the highest rank have lost. In fine, the condition of the laws, the law-courts, and politics in general, with which it seems we are threatened, is such that the man who has quitted this Republic of ours with the lightest penalty would appear to have come off best.

2 You indeed—seeing that you keep your fortune and your children, and have me and the rest closely bound to you by the ties of intimacy and goodwill, and also because you are likely to have every opportunity of living with me and all your friends, and finally because the judgment given against you is the only one out of many to be criticized, as it is thought to have been a concession, though carried by a single vote only, and that a doubtful one, to the undue ascendancy of a particular person[1]—for all these reasons then you ought to bear that trouble of yours with as light a heart as possible. My own attitude of mind towards yourself and your children will ever be what you wish it to be, and what it ought to be.

XIX

Cicero to Mescinius Rufus[2]

Cumae, April (end), 49 B.C.

1 Though I have never doubted your deep attachment to me, yet I am more and more convinced of it every day, and I have a vivid recollection of what

  1. ↑ Pompey.
  2. ↑ He had been one of Cicero's quaestors in Cilicia. We shall hear more of him in the next two letters. In this letter Cicero urges Rufus, who was in doubt as to which cause he should join, to do the right thing, and not to desert Pompey.
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