greater honour could he have proposed in the senate? "Cicero is afraid," you will say, 66 even now of the remnant of the civil war." Does anyone then, while fearing a war nearly concluded, think that neither the tyrannical power of the victorious army's commander nor the rashness of the boy is at all alarming? Or is his motive for this very action the idea that now, owing to the greatness of his power, every kind of honour must be spontaneously offered to him? How strange is the blindness of fear! While taking precautions against what you dread, actually to invite danger and to bring it upon you, though you might perhaps have avoided it altogether! We are over-fearful of death, exile, and poverty: I think that these things are the worst of evils in Cicero's eyes, and that while he has people from whom to get what he wants, and by whom to be made much of and flattered, he has no aversion to servitude, if it be but tempered by a show of respect-if there can be any respect in what is the last and most wretched degradation. Therefore, though Octavius call Cicero "father," consult him in everything, praise and thank him, nevertheless the truth will come out that words do not agree with deeds. For what can be more contrary to common sense than to regard a man as a father, who is not even reckoned as free? For my part, I set no store by those accomplishments with which I know Cicero to be better furnished than anyone else: for what good to him are the speeches on behalf of his country's liberty, the essays on dignity, death, exile, poverty, which he has composed with the utmost wealth of language? What a much truer view Philippus seems to have of those things, when he refused all compliments to his own stepson,' than Cicero has, who pays them to one who has no connexion with him! Let him cease then from absolutely insulting our misfortunes by his boastful language; for what does it profit us that Antony has been conquered, if the only result of his defeat is to leave his place open to another? However, even now there is a note of uncertainty in your letter. Long live Cicero as he may well do-to cringe and serve! if he is not ashamed to think of his age nor his honour, nor his great

1 For Philippus would not address him as Cæsar, at any rate when he first came to Italy. See p. 21.

past. For myself, at any rate, there is no condition of servitude, however favourable, which will deter me from waging war on the principle: that is, on royalty, unconstitutional magistracies, absolutism, and power that aims at being above the laws. Though Antony may be a good man, as you say in your letter-which, however, has never been my opinion -yet the law of our ancestors was that no one, not even a father, should be an absolute master. Unless I had been as deeply attached to you as Cicero believes that Octavius is devoted to him, I should not have written this to you. I am grieved to think that as you read this you are getting angry -for you are most affectionate to all your friends, and especially to Cicero: but assure yourself of this, that my personal goodwill to Cicero is in no way modified, though my opinion is largely so, for you cannot ask a man to judge except from what seems to him to be truth in each case.

I could have wished that you had mentioned in your letter what arrangements were being made for the betrothal of our dear Attica: I might have said something to you of what I felt about the matter. I am not surprised that you are anxious about Porcia's health.1 Lastly, I will gladly do what you ask, for my sisters' ask me the same, and I know the man and his views.

DCCCLXII (BRUT. I, 4, §§ 3-6)

M. IUNIUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME)

3

CAMP IN EPIRUS, 15 MAY

Now, Cicero, now is the time for action, lest we turn out to have rejoiced in vain at the defeat of Antony, and lest

1 Porcia, if we are to accept the consolatio (Letter DCCCXCVII) as genuine, seems to have died soon after this.

2 Half-sisters: Iunia married to Lepidus, Tertia to Cassius. We have no means of knowing to whom Brutus is referring-perhaps to Lepidus, to whom Cicero may have asked him to write.

This letter-forming in the MSS. the latter part of DCCCLIII—is imperfect. The first part of it appears to have been lost.

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.1 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!

2

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)

IMA CANDAVIA,3 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.1 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."

3

4

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

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.

5 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.