it is always to be a case of cutting out one mischief for another to grow worse than the former. No reverse can now find us unprepared or otiose, in which everyone will not be to blame, and especially yourself, whose influence the senate and Roman people not only allow to be so great, but even desire to be the very greatest that one man's can be in a free state. And this influence you ought to maintain not only by good intentions but also by prudent conduct. Now the prudence, with which you are richly endowed, does not fail you in any respect except as to moderation in bestowing honours.' All other endowments you possess in such profusion, that your excellences will stand comparison with any of the heroes of old. The only outcome of your grateful and generous heart that people feel to be wanting is a more cautious and better regulated liberality. For the senate ought to grant nothing to anybody which may serve as a precedent or justification to the ill-disposed. For instance, I am afraid in regard to the consulship that your friend Cæsar will think that he has mounted to a higher position by means of your decrees than he will be willing to descend from, if he is once made consul.2 But if Antony regarded the working machinery of kingly power left by another as an opportunity for seizing kingly power for himself, what do you suppose a man's feelings will be who shall conceive himself justified in aspiring to any kind of office, not on the authority of a slain tyrant, but on that of the senate itself? Wherefore I shall reserve my compliments

1 The honours proposed to Octavian after the battles at Mutina. 2 We have already heard of the constitutional difficulty as to the election of consuls in the places of Pansa and Hirtius (p. 228). Octavian sent to Rome soon after the battles of Mutina, demanding to be allowed to stand for the consulship, and Cicero had already on the Ist of January proposed that, whenever he was a candidate for it, he should be assumed to have held the quæstorship (5 Phil. § 47). According to Appian (B. C. iii. § 82; cp. Dio, 46, 42; Plutarch, Cic. 46), Octavian proposed to Cicero to be his colleague, promising to leave the administration to him, and Cicero agreed to the proposal, and tried to induce the senate therefore to admit his candidature-as it had to do afterwards under compulsion of his army. This story is rejected by Cicero's admirers as a Cæsarian invention, I don't quite know why. It seems not highly improbable in itself; and this letter of Brutusespecially the last sentence-seems to shew that there were at any rate rumours afloat at the time to that effect.

to your good nature and foresight till I begin to have proof that Cæsar will be content with the extra-constitutional honours that he has already received.1 "Do you mean, then," you will say, "to make me liable for another man's misconduct?" Yes, certainly for another's, if its occurrence might have been prevented by foresight. And oh that you may clearly see the depth of my alarm in regard to him!

P.S.-After writing the above I have been informed that you have been elected consul.' I shall indeed begin to imagine that I have before my eyes a complete and selfsustained Republic, when I see that. Your son is well, and has been sent in advance into Macedonia with the cavalry. 15 May, in camp.

DCCCLXIII (BRUT. I, 6)

M. IUNIUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME)

3

IMA CANDAVIA, 19 MAY

DON'T expect me to thank you. From the closeness of our intimacy, which has now reached the highest possible point of friendship, that ought long ago to have become superfluous. Your son is not in my quarters; we shall meet in Macedonia. His orders were to lead the cavalry from Ambracia by way of Thessaly, and I have written to him to meet me at Heraclea. When I see him, as you consent, I will settle with him about his return for his candidature, or rather his recom

' He had by two separate senatus consulta been invested first with the rank of propræter and the consularia ornamenta (the honorary rank of consul), and with imperium. This last was on the 5th of January.

2 See note p. 233. This rumour of course was false; but it may have been connected with the belief that Cicero had listened to Octavian's suggestion.

Candavia is a mountain across which the Egnatian Way went, about eighty miles from Dyrrachium. Ima Candavia seems to mean the district at the foot of the mountain. Brutus is therefore marching down the Egnatia into Macedonia proper.

mendation to the office.' I commend to your protection with the utmost warmth Pansa's physician Glyco, who is married to the sister of my freedman Achilles. I am told that he is suspected by Torquatus in regard to Pansa's death, and is in custody as a murderer. Nothing could be more incredible for who lost more than he did by Pansa's death? Besides he is a well-conducted moral man, whom even personal advantage would seem unlikely to tempt to crime. I beg you, and that with great earnestness-for my Achilles is as anxious about it as he is bound to be-to rescue him from prison and be his preserver. This I regard as affecting my duty as a private man as nearly as anything else could do."

While I was actually writing this letter to you a despatch was delivered to me from Satrius, a legate of Gaius Trebonius, saying that Dolabella had been defeated and put to flight by Tillius and Deiotarus. I am sending you a Greek letter of a certain Cicereius to Satrius. Our friend Flavius*. in a dispute that he has with the people of Dyrrachium about an inheritance has named you as arbitrator: I beg you, Cicero, as does Flavius also, to settle this business. There is no doubt that the town owed money to the man who made Flavius his heir, nor do the Dyrrachini deny it, but they allege that they received from Cæsar a remission of their debt. Don't allow your friends to do a wrong to a friend of mine.

19 May, in camp at Ima Candavia.

5

1 In the college of pontifices, for which Cicero asked his son to stand (see p. 227). I think by aut commendationem, Brutus means politely to hint that he is sure of getting it, though of course there will be the form of election.

2

Glyco was said to have poisoned Pansa's wounds, and Octavian's enemies asserted that he did so at his instigation-a scandal that took a long time dying out (see Suet. Aug. 11; Tacitus, A. i. 10). Torquatus was Pansa's quæstor.

3 L. Tillius Cimber, who struck the first blow in the assassination of Cæsar (Suet. Iul. 82). He went afterwards-in virtue of Cæsar's nomination to the governorship of Bithynia. In the course of the next year (B.C. 42) he came to Macedonia with a fleet to aid Brutus and Cassius. He fell at Philippi, or immediately afterwards.

* Præfectus fabrum of Brutus. See p. 250.

The people of Dyrrachium had for some years had some special connexion with Cicero. He may have acted for them in some way.

See vol. i., p. 175.

DCCCLXIV (BRUT. I, 7)

M. IUNIUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME)

(MACEDONIA, LATTER PART OF MAY)

2

No one can better judge than you how dear Lucius Bibulus ought to be to me, considering his great struggles and anxieties on behalf of the Republic. Accordingly, his own excellence as well as our intimacy ought to make him your friend. I think myself therefore obliged to write at the less length for a wish of mine ought to influence you, provided that it is equitable and is conceived in fulfilment of a necessary duty. He has resolved to stand for the place of Pansa.1 I beg you therefore to nominate him. You cannot do a favour to any man more closely attached than we are to you, nor can you nominate a more deserving man than Bibulus. What need to write about Domitius and Appuleius, seeing that they are most warmly recommended to you by their own merits? To Appuleius certainly you are bound to lend the protection of your influence-but Appuleius's praises shall be sung in the special letter he brings with him. Do not fail to take Bibulus to your bosom-a man, believe me, who may develop into the sort of character to deserve your most select praises.

1 Two of the sons of Bibulus perished in a mutiny at Alexandria, and in B.C. 50 we find him trying in vain to get a third surviving son elected augur. This L. Calpurnius Bibulus may be a son of Porcia, and therefore stepson to Brutus, of whom he lived to write a memoir (vol. ii., p. 184).

2 To the augurship.

DCCCLXV (F X, 34, §§ 1, 2)

M. ÆMILIUS LEPIDUS TO CICERO (AT

ROME)

PONS ARGENTEUS (18 MAY)

If you are well, I am glad. I am well. Having been informed that Antony, after sending Lucius Antonius in advance with a detachment of his cavalry, was coming with his forces into my province, I moved with my army from the confluence of the Rhone' and determined to oppose them. Accordingly, I have come by daily marches to Forum Voconii,2 and to the east of that town I have pitched a camp on the river Argens opposite the Antonians. Publius Ventidius has united his three legions with him and has pitched a camp still farther to the east. Antony had before this junction the fifth legion, and a large number of men drawn from the other legions, but without arms. He has a large force of cavalry for it got away after the battle without loss, so that there are more than five thousand troopers. A large number of infantry and cavalry have deserted to me from him, and his force is shrinking every day. Silanus and Culleo have abandoned him. Although they had done me a serious wrong in hav

:

1 The confluence of the Rhone and the Durance, near Avignon.

2 A station on the via Aurelia, but its exact site is uncertain. Mr. Hall (The Romans on the Riviera, p. 183) places it in the territory of le Luc, twenty-four Roman miles west of Fréjus.

M. Iunius Šilanus was a son of Servilia by her second husband, D. Iunius Silanus, and therefore half-brother of Marcus Brutus and brotherin-law of Lepidus. He commanded the prætorian cohort in Antony's army, and fought at Mutina. He survived to be consul in B. C. 25. His connexion with Lepidus no doubt caused his present move. According to Dio (46, 38), he had been sent by Lepidus to assist Decimus at Mutina with the secret understanding that he was to do nothing. Q. Terentius Culleo-mentioned once or twice before-must have been a rather lukewarm Cæsarian (see vol. i., p. 162; vol. ii., p. 301). Lepidus had, however, stationed him on the pass over the Maritime Alps-the Riviera-but probably by connivance of Lepidus himself he