already in my previous letter commended it to your consideration. But here are you seeking-just as though the constitution were already recovered-to give back their just rights to your neighbours of Marseilles. These rights may possibly be restored to them by arms-though I do not know how far we can rely on them-they cannot be so by anybody's influence.1 P.S. The short letter written by you afterwards was very agreeable to me—that about Brutus's letter to Antony, and also his to you. It seems possible that things may be better than they have been hitherto. But I must take measures as to my present position and as to where to go immediately. DCCXVII (A XIV, 15) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) CUMÆ, I MAY My admirable Dolabella! For now I call him mine. Before this, believe me, I had my secret doubts. It is indeed a notable achievement-execution from the rock, on the cross, removal of the column, the contract given out for paving the whole spot. In short-positively heroic! He 2 1 Massilia (as we have seen, vol. ii., p. 394) had held out against Cæsar in B.C. 49, and had been obliged to surrender after a long siege, and had given up its arms and ships. But it does not appear to have lost its position as a libera civitas, or if it did, it soon regained it. A figure of Massilia was carried in Cæsar's triumph (Off. ii. § 28: see also 2 Phil. § 94; 8 Phil. § 18), and this perhaps implies a loss of libertas for the time. Why Cicero calls the people of Massilia “neighbours to Atticus is not clear. One suggestion is that their ambassadors were living near him at Rome. 2 In the absence of Antony (2 Phil. 107), who had already punished some of the rioters (see p. 9), Dolabella took stringent measurespulled down the memorial column (1 Phil. § 2), crucified those of the rioters who were slaves, and hurled from the Tarpeian rock some who were free. This unconstitutional conduct on the part of both consuls was condoned by the Senate and Optimates because exercised against Cæsarian sympathisers. Dolabella, after Cæsar's murder, had at first seems to me to have put an end to that artificial pretence of regret, which up to this time was daily growing, and which, if it became deeply rooted, I feared might prove dangerous to our tyrannicides. As it is, I entirely agree with your letter and hope for better things: though I cannot stand those people who, while pretending to desire peace, defend unprincipled proceedings: but we can't have everything at once. Things are beginning to go better than I had expected: and of course I will not leave the country till you think I may do so with honour. Brutus certainly I will always be ready to serve at any time or place, and that I should have done, even if there were no ties between us, for the sake of his unparalleled and extraordinary character. I put this whole villa and all that it contains at the service of our dear Pilia, being myself on the point of departing this 1st of May for my house at Pompeii. How I wish you could persuade Brutus to stay at Astura DCCXVIII (A XIV, 16) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) PUTEOLI, 3 MAY I DESPATCH this letter on the 3rd of May, when on the point of embarking on a rowing boat from the Cluvian pleasure-grounds,' after having handed over to Pilia my villa on the Lucrine lake, its servants, and bailiffs. I myself on that day am threatening the cheese-and-sardine dishes of my friend Pætus. In a very few days I shall go to Pompeii, and afterwards shall return to my domains at Puteoli and Cuma. What desirable spots in other respects, yet owing to the crowd of visitors almost to be shunned! taken the side of the murderers and even pretended to have been privy to the plot, but seems gradually to have betrayed sentiments of the opposite description (App. B. C. iii. 122). Those inherited from Cluvius of Puteoli. 2 I am going to stay with Pætus at Naples. See p. 15. But to come to business. What a gallant coup de main of my Dolabella! What a magnificent display! For my part I never cease mingling praise and exhortation in writing to him.' Yes, you are quite right in the opinion you express in all your letters about the action as well as the man. In my opinion our friend Brutus might walk through the forum even with a gold crown on his head. For who would venture to assault him with the fear of the cross and the rock before their eyes? Especially as this transaction has been so loudly cheered and so heartily approved by the very mob? Now, my dear Atticus, do make things all right for me. I want, as soon as I have done fully all that Brutus requires of me, to make an excursion into Greece. It is much to 3 my son's interest, or rather to mine, or by heaven to that of us both, that I should drop in upon him in his studies. For in the letter of Leonides' which you forwarded to me, what is there, after all, to give us any great pleasure? I shall never think the boy's report satisfactory while it contains such a phrase as as he is going on at present." These are not the words of confidence, but rather of anxiety. Moreover, I had charged Herodes to write to me in detail; but as yet I have not had a line from him. I fear he had nothing to say which he thought would be pleasant for me to know. I am much obliged to you for having written to Xeno. It concerns my duty as well as my reputation that my son should not be in any way short of means. I hear that Flaminius Flamma is at Rome. I have written to tell him that I have given you a written commission to speak to him about the business of Montanus. Please see that the letter I have sent him is delivered, and --if quite convenient to yourself-have a personal interview with him. I think, if there is a spark of shame in the man, he will see that the payment is not deferred to my loss. As 5 'As the best way of keeping him up to the mark. Cp. vol. iii., p. 59. 2 The tutor of the young Marcus Cicero. 3 One of young Cicero's teachers at Athens. We have already heard of him as undertaking a history of Cicero's consulship (vol. i., p. 67). * An Epicurean philosopher at Athens (vol. ii., pp. 26, 31). Atticus seems to have employed him to transmit money to young Cicero. 5 C. Flaminius Flamma owed Plancus money and also it seems Cicero. See vol. iii., p. 258. to Attica you have done me a great kindness in seeing that I knew of her recovery before I knew that she had been unwell. DCCXIX (A XIV, 17 a AND F IX, 14) TO P. CORNELIUS DOLABELLA POMPEII, 3 MAY THOUGH I am quite content, my dear Dolabella, with the glory you have earned, and feel it to be a source of great exultation and pleasure, yet I cannot help confessing that it adds a finishing stroke to my joy that popular opinion associates my name with your praises. I meet a great many people every day, for large numbers of men of rank are collected in this district for their health, besides a goodly crowd of friends of mine from the country towns. Well, I have met none who did not with one consent praise you to the skies, adding in the same breath a very warm expression of thanks to me. For they say that they have no doubt that it is in obedience to my precepts and advice that you are shewing yourself to be a most eminent citizen and brilliant consul. Though I can answer such men with the most absolute truth that what you are doing you do on your own judgment and your own initiative, and do not need any man's advice, yet I neither admit outright the truth of their remark, lest I should detract from your glory by making it seem to have sprung entirely from my advice, nor do I deny it entirely either. For I am even too covetous of honour. And, after all, it is no disparagement to your dignity—as it was not to that of Agamemnon himself the "king of kings"-to have some Nestor to assist you in forming your plans. Whereas it redounds to my glory that as still a young man you should have a brilliant reputation as a consul while being, so to speak, a pupil of my school.2 1 1 That is, below the statutable age for the consulship. Dolabella was only about twenty-five. 2 See vol. iii., p. 93, for Dolabella's study of rhetoric under Cicero. Lucius Cæsar, for instance, when I visited him on his sick bed at Naples, though racked with pains all over his body, scarcely got the formal words of greeting out of his mouth before he exclaimed: Oh my dear Cicero, I congratulate you on having an influence with Dolabella, such as if I had had with my sister's son,' we might now have been safe. Your Dolabella indeed I both congratulate and thank-for he is the only man since your consulship that I can with any truth call a consul." Then he proceeded to say a great deal about the occurrence, and how you had managed the affair, declaring that no more splendid and brilliant act had ever been done, nor one more beneficial to the state. And this was the observation of everyone. Now, I beg of you to allow me to accept this quasiinheritance, so to speak, of another man's glory, and to permit me to some extent to be a sharer in your reputation. However, my dear Dolabella-for this is only my jokeit would give me greater pleasure to divert the full stream of my glories, if I may be said to have any, upon you, than to draw off any part of yours. For while I have always had the warm attachment to you which you have had every opportunity of appreciating, by your recent acts I have been so inflamed that nothing can exceed the ardour of my attachment. For there is nothing, believe me, fairer, more beautiful, or more attractive than virtue. I have always, as you know, loved Marcus Brutus for his eminent ability, his very agreeable manners, and unequalled honesty and consistency. Nevertheless, on the Ides of March my affection was so much enhanced, that I was surprised to find an addition possible in what I had looked upon as having long ago reached its height. Who could have thought that any addition was possible to my affection for you? Yet so great an addition has been made that I seem to myself never to have loved before, only to have liked. Wherefore what need to exhort you to support your position and reputation? Shall I quote to you the examples illustrious men, as people usually do when exhorting another. 2 1 L. Cæsar's sister Iulia married first' Antonius Creticus, by whom she was the mother of Marcus Antonius, and secondly Lentulus, the Catilinarian conspirator (2 Phil. § 14). See, however, vol. ii., p. 137. |