DLVI (A XII, 21)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
ASTURA (17 MARCH)
I have read Brutus's letter, and hereby return
it to you. it was not at all a well-informed
answer to the criticisms which you had sent him.
But that is his affair. Yet it is discreditable
that he should be ignorant of this. He thinks that
Cato was the first to deliver his speech as to the
punishment of the conspirators, whereas everyone
except Caesar had spoken before him. And whereas
Caesar's own speech, delivered from the praetorian
bench, was so severe, he imagines that those of
the consulars were less so-Catulus, Servilius, the
Luculli, Curio, Torquatus, Lepidus, Gellius,
Volcatius, Figulus, Cotta, Lucius Caesar, Gaius
Piso, Manius Glabrio, and even the
consuls-designate Silanus and Muraena. "Why,
then," you may say, "was the vote on Cato's
motion?" Because he had expressed the same
decision in clearer and fuller words. Our friend
Brutus again confines his commendation of me to my
having brought the matter before the senate,
without a word of my having unmasked the plot, of
my having urged that measures should be taken, of
having made up my mind on the subject before I
brought it before the senate. It was because Cato
praised these proceedings of mine to the skies,
and moved that they should be put on record, that
the division took place on his motion. Brutus
again thinks he pays me a high compliment in
designating me as "the most excellent consul."
Why, what opponent ever put it in more niggardly
terms? But to your other criticisms what a poor
answer! He only asks you to make the correction as
to the decree of the senate. He would have done
that much even at the suggestion of his copyist.
But once more that is his affair. As to the suburban pleasure-grounds,
as you approve of them, come to some settlement.
You know my means. If, however, we
get any more out 1
of Faberius, there is no difficulty. But even
without him I think I can get along. The
pleasure-grounds of Drusus at least are for sale,
perhaps those of Lamia and Cassius also. But this
when we meet. About
Terentia I can say nothing more to the point than
you say in your letter. Duty must be my first
consideration: if I have made any mistake, I would
rather that I had reason to be dissatisfied with
her than she with me. A hundred sestertia have to
be paid to Ovia, wife of C. Lollius. Eros says he
can't do it without me: I suppose because some
land has to pass at a valuation between us. 2 I could wish that he had told you. For if
the matter, as he writes, is arranged, and he is
not lying on that very point, it could have been
settled by your agency. Pray look into and settle
the business. You urge me
to reappear in the forum: that is a place which I
ever avoided even in my happier days. Why, what
have I to do with a forum when there are no law
courts, no senate-house, and when men are always
obtruding on my sight whom I cannot see with any
patience? You say people call for my presence at
Rome, and are unwilling to allow me to be absent,
or at any rate beyond a certain time: I assure you
that it is long since I have valued your single
self higher than all those people. Nor do I
undervalue myself even, and I much prefer abiding
by my own judgment than by that of all the rest.
Yet, after all, I go no farther than the greatest
philosophers think allowable, all whose writings
of whatever kind bearing on that point I have not
only read—which is itself being a brave
invalid and taking one's physic—but have
transcribed in my own essay. That at least did not
look like a mind crushed and prostrate. From the
use of these remedies do not call me back to the
crowds of Rome, lest I have a relapse.
ASTURA (17 MARCH)
