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DCCCXIV (F XII, 24)

TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA)
ROME (JANUARY)

I OMIT no opportunity-as is indeed my bounden dutynot only of sounding your praises, but even of securing you marks of distinction. But my exertions on your behalf I prefer being known to you from the letters of your family rather than from my own. Nevertheless, I exhort you, on your part, to throw yourself heart and soul into the cause of the Republic. This is the proper task of a spirit and a character such as yours: it is this which is called for by the hope, which you ought to entertain, of enhancing your position. But on this point at greater length at another time. For at the moment of writing this everything is in a state of suspense. The ambassadors have not yet returned, whom the senate sent, not to beg for peace, but to proclaim war in case he did not comply with the message of its emissaries. Nevertheless, as soon as the opportunity was afforded me, I spoke in defence of the constitution in my old style. I put myself forward as a leader of the senate and Roman people: nor have I since thus undertaking the cause of freedom lost a single moment in supporting the common safety and liberty. But this, too, I should prefer your learning from others. I commend Titus Pinarius to you-my most intimate friend—with an earnestness beyond which I cannot go. I am very much attached to him for all his high qualities as well as for the tastes which we have in common. He is managing the accounts and business affairs of our friend Dionysius, of whom you are very fond, while I regard him as one of the first of men. This recommendation ought not to require any word of mine, yet I make it all the same. Pray therefore let me learn from Pinarius's letters-that most grateful of men-of your kindness both to him and Dionysius.

DCCCXV (F XII, 4)

TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (IN SYRIA)

ROME, 2 FEBRUARY

I COULD wish that you had invited me to the banquet of the Ides of March: there would have been nothing left over! As it is, your leavings give me much trouble—yes, me more than anybody. Though our consuls are splendid, our consulars are utterly shameful. Though the senate is courageous, it is the lowest in rank that are most so. Nothing, indeed, can surpass the resolute bearing of the people, and of all Italy with one accord. other hand, can well be more scandalous than our emissaries Philippus and Piso. sent to deliver to Antony certain definite ance with the vote of the senate, upon his refusing to comply with one of them, they have brought back to us some intolerable demands on his part. The result is that my house is thronged, and that though I am supporting a sound constitutional measure, I have now become a popular hero.

Nothing, on the and unprincipled For having been orders, in accord

But what you are doing or intending to do, even where you are, I do not know. Report will have it that you are in Syria. But there is no confirmation of it. About M. Brutus, as he is less remote, news seems more trustworthy. Dolabella is being soundly abused by the wits for being so prompt in relieving you before you had been full thirty days. in Syria. So all are agreed that he ought not to be

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1 This is the subject of the eighth Philippic delivered on the 3rd of February. Antony's postulata are discussed in §§ 25-58. They included: (1) amnesty for all proceedings of the past year; (2) confirmation of his consular acta; (3) lands for his soldiers; (4) no inquiry as to the money taken from the temple of Ops; (5) the amnesty to include all his agents and friends; (6) the governorship of Gallia Comata for five years with six legions. In return he will give up Gallia Cisalpina.

2 Dolabella had spent some time in Asia on his way to Syria. The murder of Trebonius took place on the 2nd of February. He then went on to Syria. The quidnuncs spoke jestingly of his opposition to Cassius

admitted into Syria. You and Brutus are both highly commended because you are thought to have collected an army beyond what was hoped. I would have written at greater length, had I known the facts and the real state of the case. As it is, what I write is founded on common opinion and rumour. I am anxiously longing for a letter from you. Good-bye.

DCCCXVI (F X, 28)

TO GAIUS TREBONIUS (IN ASIA)

ROME, 2 FEBRUARY

How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March! We should have had no leavings! While, as it is, we are having such a trouble with them, that the magnificent service which you men then did the state leaves room for some grumbling. In fact, for Antony's having been taken out of the way by you— the best of men-and that it was by your kindness that this pest still survives, I sometimes do feel, though perhaps I have no right to do so, a little angry with you. For you have left behind an amount of trouble which is greater for me than for everyone else put together.

For as soon as a meeting of the senate could be freely held, after Antony's very undignified departure,' I returned to that old courage of mine, which along with that gallant

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taking over the province, as though he were succeeding" to the governorship, without allowing his predecessor even the thirty days beyond his year given him by the Julian law.

When Antony had met the legions from Macedonia at Brundisium, he preceded them with a strong detachment to Rome, arriving between the 15th and 22nd of November, his main body of troops being ordered to muster at Tibur. He ordered in an edict a meeting of the senate on the 23rd, but did not appear, having put off the meeting by another edict to the 28th. He, however, only transacted some formal business -a supplicatio in honour of Lepidus, and a sortitio of the provincesand then hurriedly left the city for Tibur, probably on hearing of the desertion of the two legions.

citizen, your father, you ever had upon your lips and in your heart. For the tribunes having summoned the senate for the 20th of December, and having brought a different piece of business before it, I reviewed the situation as a whole, and spoke with the greatest fire, and tried all I could to recall the now languid and wearied senate to its ancient and traditional valour, more by an exhibition of high spirit than of eloquence.

This day and this earnest appeal from me were the first things that inspired the Roman people with the hope of recovering its liberty. And had not I supposed that a gazette of the city and of all acts of the senate was transmitted to you, I would have written you out a copy with my own hand, though I have been overpowered with a multiplicity of business. But you will learn all that from others. From me you shall have a brief narrative, and that a mere summary. Our senate is courageous, but the consulars are partly timid, partly disaffected. We have had a great loss in Servius. Lucius Cæsar entertains the most loyal sentiments, but, being Antony's uncle, he refrains from very strong language in the senate. The consuls are splendid. Decimus

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Brutus is covering himself with glory. The youthful Cæsar is behaving excellently, and I hope he will go on as he has begun. You may at any rate be sure of this-that, had he not speedily enrolled the veterans,* and had not the two legions transferred themselves from Antony's army to his command, and had not Antony been confronted with that danger, there is no crime or cruelty which he would have omitted to practise. Though I suppose these facts to have been told you, yet I wished you to know them still better. I will write more when I get more leisure.

This is the speech known as the third Philippic.

2 Cicero had advocated in the senate on the 1st and following days of January the most uncompromising hostility to Antony, the fullest recognition of Octavian and of the action of the two legions, and of Decimus Brutus. But he could not get his motion passed, the embassy to Antony being voted on the 7th, as a tentative measure before proceeding to extremities.

3 Servius Sulpicius Rufus, who died while on the mission in Antony's camp, near Mutina.

4 See p. 145.

5 The Martia and the quarta. See p. 166.

DCCCXVII (F IX, 24)

TO LUCIUS PAPIRIUS PÆTUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (FEBRUARY)

YOUR friend Rufus, on whose behalf you have now twice written to me, I would have assisted to the best of my power, even if he had done me an injury, when I saw that you were so anxious in his favour. Since, however, both from your letter and from one which he has himself written to me, I perceive and am convinced that my safety has been a matter of much anxiety to him, I cannot fail to be his friend and that not solely from your recommendationwhich has deservedly the greatest weight with me--but also from my own feeling and deliberate judgment. For I wish you to know, my dear Pætus, that your own letter was the origin of suspicion, caution, and careful inquiry on my part; and I afterwards received other letters from many quarters which were of like tone to yours. For both at Aquinum and Fabrateria plots were laid against me, of which I perceive that you have had some information; and as though these men divined how much trouble I was likely to give them, their design was nothing short of my complete ruin. Being then totally unsuspicious of this, I should have been more off my guard, had I not received this hint from you. Therefore that friend of yours requires no recommendation with me. Heaven send that the future of the Republic be such as to make it possible for him to appreciate my extreme gratitude! But enough of this.

I am sorry to hear that you have given up going out to dinner for you have deprived yourself of a great source of amusement and pleasure. Again, I am even afraid—you'll allow me to speak frankly-that you will unlearn and partly forget that habit of yours-the giving of little dinners! For if even when you had models on which to form yourself, you made so little progress in the art, what am I to expect

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