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for I have no doubt that you have often found it a great relief daily to meet and converse with one who is a most intimate friend of yours and at the same time a man of excellent character and remarkable discernment; on your part I would have you keep up your spirits, as is your duty, and indeed your habit, with the courage that characterizes you; on my part, I shall attend with zealous assiduity to all that, so far as I can judge, you wish to be done and is of importance to you and yours. And in so doing, while imitating your kindly feeling towards me, in the matter of good services I shall never overtake you.
V
Cicero to Aulus Caecina[1]
Rome, January, 45 B.C.
1 Whenever I see your son—and I see him practically I every day—I promise him my devoted and strenuous support without any qualification whatever on the score of hard work, other engagements, or lack of time; but any favour and influence with this proviso, "to the best of my power and ability." As to your book, I have not only read it, but am still reading it carefully, and I am particularly careful not to leave it lying about; I am most keenly interested in your affairs and fortunes, which seem to me to be getting more comfortable, and improving every day, and I notice that many others are keenly interested in them, of whose devotion, as also of his own hopes, I am quite sure your son has sent you a full account.
2 As to those matters, however, which can only be
- ↑ Aulus Caecina, son of the Caecina whom Cicero had defended in 69, fought on the side of Pompey. Though Caesar, after the African campaign, granted him his life, he was not allowed to return to Italy, probably because he had libelled Caesar during the war. Caecina afterwards wrote an abject recantation, which he entitled his Liber Querellarum (Book of Remonstrances), of which Caesar took no notice.