M. Tullius Cicero, For Plancius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

As all those municipal towns which are between Vibo and Brundusium were in my interest, O judges, they, though many people threatened me, and though they were in great alarm themselves, rendered my journey safe to me. I arrived at Brundusium, or, I should rather say, I arrived outside the walls. I avoided entering the city which was of all others the most friendly to me and which would have allowed itself to be destroyed before it would have permitted me to be torn from its embrace. I went to the villa of Marcus Laenius Flaccus; and though he had every sort of fear before his eyes,—though he was threatened with confiscation of his property, and exile and death, yet he chose to encounter all these things, if they were to happen rather than abandon the design of protecting my life. I, placed by his hands and by those of his father, a most sensible and virtuous man, and by those of his brother and both his sons in a safe and trustworthy ship, and being escorted by their prayers and vows for my return, departed thence to go to Dyrrachium, which was devoted to my interests. [98] And when I had come thither, I ascertained—as indeed I had heard before—that Greece was full of wicked and abandoned men, whose impious weapons and destructive firebrands my consulship had wrested from their hands. And before they could hear that I had arrived in those districts, and although they were many days' journey from them, I proceeded into Macedonia to Plancius. But as soon as ever Plancius heard that I had crossed the sea.—(listen, listen, I say, and take notice, O Laterensis, that you may know how much I owe to Plancius, and that you may confess at last that what I am doing I am doing out of proper gratitude and piously; and that the trouble which he took for my safety, if it is not to do him any good, ought at all events not to be any injury to him,)—as soon, I say, as he heard that I had arrived at Dyrrachium, he immediately came to me himself, without his lictors, without any of the insignia of his office, and with his robe changed for one of morning. [99]

Oh, how bitter to me, O judges, is the recollection of that time and place, when he fell on my neck, when he embraced me, and bedewed me with his tears, and was unable to speak for grief! O circumstance cruel to be heard of, and impious to be beheld! O all the remainder of those days and nights during which he never left me, until he had conducted me to Thessalonica, and to his official house as quaestor! Here I will say nothing at present about the praetor of Macedonia, beyond this, that he was always a most excellent citizen, and a friend to me; but that he felt the same fear that the rest did; and that Cnaeus Plancius was the only man—I will not say, who had no such fear—but who, even if those things were to happen which were dreaded, was willing to encounter and endure them in my company and for my sake. [100] For even when Lucius Tubero, my intimate friend, who had been lieutenant to my brother, had come to me on his return from Asia, and had revealed to me in the most friendly spirit the treacherous designs which he heard were formed against me by the banished conspirators, and when I was preparing therefore to go into Asia on account of the connection subsisting between that province and my brother and myself, he would not allow me to depart. He, Plancius, I say, detained me by force and by a close embrace, and for many months never departed from me, discarding his character as a quaestor and assuming that of my companion.