2

announced on your birthday,' we saw the Republic freed for many generations. These new alarms undo all that has gone before. Now you said in your letter to me of the 15th of May that you had lately heard from Plancus that Antony was not being received by Lepidus. If that is so, everything will be easier. If otherwise, there is a serious business on hand, the result of which I do not dread. It is your part of the play. I cannot do more than I have done. You, however, I desire—as I also hope to see become the greatest and most illustrious man in the world.

DCCCLXXXIII (BRUT. I, 8)

TO M. IUNIUS BRUTUS (IN MACEDONIA)

ROME (MAY-June)

I SHALL recommend many to you, and it is inevitable that I should do so for it is always the best men and best citizens that are most inclined to follow your judgment; and it is for your approval that all brave men desire to work and study with activity; and finally everyone thinks that my influence and favour have very great weight with you. But I recommend to you Gaius Nasidienus-a burgher of Suessa-with an earnestness beyond which I cannot go about anyone. In the war in Crete under Metellus he led the eighth "first line": afterwards he was employed in the management of his property. At this period, influenced by the party divisions in the state, and by your pre-eminent position, he wishes to gain some distinction by your means. I am recommending to you, Brutus, a man of courage, a man of good character, and—

3

1 26th April.

4

2 This letter is lost, but see p. 258.

3 Q. Metellus Creticus conquered the Cretans in B.C. 68-66. That is, he was the centurion of the first ordo in the eighth cohort of a legion: there were ten cohorts in a legion, and each cohort had six ordines with a centurion to each.

if that is at all to the point-of wealth also.1 I shall be very much obliged if you treat him so as to enable him to thank me for favours received from you.

DCCCLXXXIV (F XI, 16)

TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT EPOREDIA)
ROME (MAY-JUNE)

It is of very great importance at what time you receive this
letter-whether when you are suffering any anxiety or when
you are free from all distress. Accordingly, I have in-
structed the bearer to be careful as to the time of its
delivery. For just as in personal intercourse those who
visit us at an inconvenient time are often troublesome, so
do letters cause annoyance if delivered unseasonably. If,
however, as I hope, nothing is vexing or hampering you,
and if the messenger charged with it selects the time of
approaching you with tact and discretion, I feel confident
that I shall have no difficulty in obtaining from you what I
desire. Lucius Lamia is a candidate for the prætorship.
I am particularly intimate with him. There is a friendship
of
very old standing and very close between us, and what is
of the greatest weight of all is that he is supremely delight-
ful in a social point of view. Besides that, I am under
great obligations to him for kindness and good offices. For
in the Clodian period, being at the head of the equestrian
order and fighting with the greatest gallantry in defence of
my safety, he was banished from Rome by the consul

3

1 See vol. iii., p. 64. Mr. Tyrrell sees in this a reflexion on the disinterestedness of Brutus. No doubt money was sorely needed (see p. 224), and rich men were welcome at the camp.

3

2 L. Ælius Lamia (see vol. iii., p. 326). He was ædile in B.C. 45. Relegatus, i.e., forbidden to come to Rome, but not deprived of civil rights or property. Gabinius was consul in B.C. 58, the year of Cicero's exile. If Cicero calls him princeps ordinis equestris with definite exactness and not as a sort of general compliment, he means that he was the first decurio of the first turma of the equites. But it is

Gabinius, a thing that had never before that time happened to any Roman citizen at Rome.1 When the Roman people remembers this, it is most discreditable that I should forget it. Therefore, my dear Brutus, persuade yourself that I am a candidate for the prætorship: for though Lamia is in a brilliant position and extremely popular, and conducted his ædileship with most magnificent liberality, yet I have taken up his cause as if these things were not so. In these circumstances, if you value me as highly as I feel sure you do, since you control certain centuries of the equites, among whom you are all-powerful, send word to our friend Lupus to secure the votes of those centuries for us. Though there is nothing that I do not expect from you, Brutus, yet there is nothing in which you can more oblige me than this.

DCCCLXXXV (F XI, 17)

TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT EPOREDIA)

ROME (MAY-JUNE)

THERE is no one with whom I am more intimate than Lucius Lamia. His-I won't call them attentions, but good services, to me are great, and are most thoroughly well known to the Roman people. After administering the ædileship with most splendid liberality, he is now a candidate for the prætorship, and everybody is aware that he is not deficient either in position or popularity. But there is very doubtful whether this military organization of the equites existed at this time in reality. It was elaborated by Augustus some years later.

1 It seems true that relegatio, or, as it was called in its mildest form, relegatio in agros, does not occur in republican times, at any rate by an edict of a magistrate in the case of a citizen, though peregrini could be, and on several occasions were, ordered to leave Rome. But it was common under the empire. See p. 195; Suet. Aug. 16, 24; Ovid. Tr. ii. 135:

Quippe relegatus, non exul, dicor in illo,
Privaque fortuna sunt data verba mea.

The edict of Gabinius would only hold good during his year of office.

such an energetic canvass going on that I am thoroughly alarmed about the whole business, and think myself bound to back up Lamia. How much help you can give me in that affair I have no difficulty in seeing, nor indeed have I any doubt of how much you are willing to do for my sake. Pray therefore, my dear Brutus, convince yourself that I can make no request of you with greater earnestness, and that you cannot oblige me more than by assisting Lamia in his canvass with all your influence and all your zeal. I warmly beg you to do so.1

DCCCLXXXVI (F X, 33)

C. ASINIUS POLLIO TO CICERO (AT ROME) CORDUBA (MAY-JUNE)

Lepidus

IF you are well, I am glad. I am also well. caused me to be later than I should have been in receiving intelligence of the battles fought near Mutina, for he detained my letter-carriers for nine days. However, it is almost a thing to be desired, that one should be as late as possible in hearing of such a calamity to the Republic, especially for those who can do no good or offer any cure for it. And oh! that by the same decree by which you summoned Plancus and Lepidus into Italy, you had also ordered me to come! Assuredly the Republic would not have sustained this blow. At which, if certain persons rejoice for the moment, because both officers and veterans of Cæsar's party appear to have perished, it is yet inevitable that they will presently have cause to mourn, when they contemplate the havoc of Italy. For the flower and main stock of our soldiers have been destroyed, if at least the news reaching me is in any degree true. Nor do I fail to perceive of how 1 That Cicero should have written these two notes on the same subject and with some identical phrases is probably to be explained by the employment of two different bearers. He was very likely uncertain where Brutus was, and which of the two would reach him.

much service to the Republic I was likely to have been, had I come to Lepidus: for I should have dispelled all his hesitation, especially with the aid of Plancus. But it was clearly necessary for me to smooth down a man who writes me the sort of letter which I inclose for your perusal, exactly in the same tone as the harangues which he is said to have delivered at Narbo,' if I wished to have any provisions during a march through his province. Besides I was afraid, if the battle took place before I had accomplished my purpose, that my detractors would put an exactly opposite interpretation on my patriotic design on account of my friendship with Antony, which after all was not greater than that with Plancus. Therefore in April having embarked two lettercarriers on two separate ships at Gades, I wrote to you and the consuls and Octavian, requesting to be informed how I could do the best service to the Republic. But, as I calculate the time, the ships started from Gades on the very day on which Pansa fought his battle: 2 for that was the first day since the winter that navigation was possible. And by heaven, being far from any suspicion of the coming civil outbreak, I had put the legions into winter quarters in remote parts of Lusitania. Moreover, both sides were in such a hurry to fight, as though they were afraid of the war being settled without the greatest possible damage to the Republic. However, if such haste was necessary, I perceive that the strategy of Hirtius was in all respects that of a consummate general. At present I have the following news from Lepidus's district of Gaul by letter and messengers: that Pansa's army has been cut to pieces; that Pansa has died of his wounds: that in the same battle the Martian legion was annihilated, and L. Tabatus, Gaius Peducæus, and Decimus Carfulenus killed: that in the battle fought by

3

1 See p. 240.

2

4

April 15th, at Forum Gallorum. See p. 182. 3 He uses the constitutional word tumultus, which was properly applied to civil war within the borders of Italy as opposed to bellum, a foreign war: though the latter is frequently used of it by Cicero and others, partly because the distinction is not observed in ordinary language, and partly ad invidiam, Antony having been declared a hostis. Pollio's having no suspicion of what was coming is a little too innocent. He was, in fact, at heart a Cæsarian, and an opponent of Cicero.

* Lepidus was governor of Northern Spain and Gallia Narbonensis.