CCLV (A VI, 2)
TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)
LAODICEA, MAY (BETWEEN I AND 7)
YOUR freedman Philogenes having come to call
on me at Laodicea, and telling me that he was on
the point of setting sail to join you, I intrust
him with this letter, in answer to the one which I
received by Brutus's letter-carrier. And first I
will answer your last page, which gave me great
uneasiness —that is, the account sent
you by Cincius of his conversation with Statius,
in which what annoyed me most was Statius saying
that the plan had my approbation. 1
Approbation, indeed! I need say no more than this:
I wish the bonds uniting our close friendship to
be as numerous as possible, though none can be so
close as those of personal affection. So far am I
from wishing that any one tie between us should be
relaxed. He, 2 however, I
have often found by actual experience, is
accustomed to speak with some asperity on the
subjects you mention, and I have also often
succeeded in pacifying his anger. That I think you
know. In the course of our recent progress, or
campaign, if I may call it so, I have often seen
him fly into a rage, and often calm down again.
What he has written to Statius I don't know.
Whatever he meant to do in such a matter, he
certainly ought not to have written to a freedman.
I will take the greatest care to prevent anything
occurring contrary to our wishes and to what is
proper. And in a case of this kind it is not
enough that each should answer for himself: for
instance, the most important róle in the kindly
work of this reconciliation is that of the boy, or
young man, I should say, Quintus: and this I am in
the habit of impressing upon him. He seems to me,
indeed, to be strongly attached to his mother, as
he ought to be, and wonderfully so to you. But the boy's character, though
certainly a lofty one, has yet many complications,
and gives me enough to do to guide it. Having thus in my first answered your
last page, I will now return to your first. That
all the Peloponnesian states possessed a seaboard
is a fact that I accepted on the authority of the
maps of Dicaearchus, 3 a respectable writer,
and one who has even received your approbation. In
his account of Trophonius—put into the
mouth of Chaeron—he criticises the
Greeks on many accounts for their persistent
clinging to the sea, and he does not except any
place in the Peloponnesus. Though I thought well
of him as an authority—for he was a most
careful inquirer, 4 and had lived in Peloponnesus—I
was yet surprised at the statement, and feeling
scarcely convinced of its truth, consulted
Dionysius. 5 He was at first taken aback; but
presently, as he thought no less well of
Dicaearchus, than you do of C. Vestorius, and I of
M. Cluvius, 6
entertained no doubt that we should believe him.
His conclusion was that Arcadia had a seaport
called Lepreon; while Tenea, Aliphera, and Tritia
he thought were more recent foundations; and that
view he backed up by Homer's "Catalogue of the
Ships," where there is no mention of them.
Accordingly, I translated that passage from
Dicaearchus word for word. I know the form usually
employed is "Phliasii," and so take care to have
it in your copies: that is the form I now have in
mine. But at first I was deceived by the analogy
of Ὀποῦς
Π̓ούντιοι, Σίπους Σιπούντιοι (so Φλιοῦς Φλιούντιοι
Phliuntii), but I
have at once corrected this. I see that you rejoice at my
equitable and disinterested administration: you
would have done so still more, if you had been
here. Why, in these very sessions which I have
been holding at Laodicea from the 13th of February
to the Ist of May for all the
dioceses except that of Cilicia, I have effected
astonishing results. A great number of states have
been entirely released from debt, and many very
sensibly relieved: all have enjoyed their own
laws, and with this attainment of autonomy have
quite revived. I have given them the opportunity
of freeing themselves from debt, or lightening
their burdens, in two ways: first, in the fact
that no expense has been imposed upon them during
my government—and when I say "no
expense" I do not speak hyperbolically, but I mean
none, not a farthing. It is almost incredible how
this fact has helped them to escape from their
difficulties. The other way is this. There was an
astonishing amount of peculation in the states
committed by the Greeks themselves—I
mean their own magistrates. I personally
questioned those who had been in office in the
course of the last ten years. They openly
confessed it: and accordingly, without being
punished by any mark of disgrace, repaid the sums
of money to the communities out of their own
pockets. The consequence is that, whereas the
communities had paid the publicani nothing for the
present quinquennium, they have now, without any
signs of distress, paid them the arrears of the
last quinquennium also. So I am the apple of their
eye to the publicani—" A grateful set,"
quoth you. Yes, I have found it so. The rest of my
administration of justice has not been without
skill, while its lenity has been enhanced by a
marvellous courtesy. The ease with which I have
admitted men to my presence is a new thing in the
provinces. I don't employ a chamberlain. Before
daybreak I walk up and down in my house, as I used
to do in old times as a candidate. This is very
popular and a great convenience, nor have I found
it as yet fatiguing to me, being an old campaigner
in that respect. On the 15th of May I am thinking
of going to Cilicia: having spent the month of
June there—-pray heaven, in peace! for a
serious war on the part of the Parthians is
threatening—I mean to devote July to my
return journey. For my year of service is finished
on the 3oth of July: and I am in 'great hopes that
there will be no extension of my time. I have the
city gazette up to the 15 of March, from which I
gather that, owing to the persistence of my friend
Curio, every kind of business is coming on rather
than that of assigning the
provinces. 7 Therefore, as I
hope, I shall see you before long. I now come to your friend Brutus, or
rather our friend, since you will have it so.
Indeed, I have on my side done everything that I
could accomplish in my province, or attempt in
Cappadocia. Thus I have urged the king in every
possible way, and continue to do so, that is to
say, by letter—for I have only had him
with me three or four days, and in the midst of
political troubles, from which I relieved him.
But, alike in our personal interviews, and
afterwards by very frequent letters, I have never
ceased begging and beseeching him for my sake, and
advising him for his own. I have had considerable
effect, but how much I do not, at this distance
from him, know for certain. The Salaminians,
however—for upon them I could put
pressure —I have brought to consent to
pay the entire debt to Scaptius, but with interest
calculated at one per cent. per month, and not
added to the capital each month, but only at the
end of each year. The money was actually paid
down: Scaptius would not take it. What do you
mean, then, by saying that Brutus is willing to
lose some-thing? He had forty-eight per cent. in
his bond. It could not be paid, nor, if it could,
could I have allowed it. I hear, after all, that
Scaptius repents his refusal. For as to the decree
of the senate which he quoted—" that the
money should be recoverable on the bond
"—its intention was to cover the case of
the Salaminians having borrowed money contrary to
the lex Gabinia. For Aulus's law forbade the
recovery of money so borrowed. The senate
accordingly decreed that it should be recoverable
on that particular bond. Now this bond has exactly
the same validity as all other bonds, not a bit
more. 8 I think Brutus will
acknowledge that my conduct has been quite regular
and correct. I don't know about you, Cato
certainly will. But now I
return to yourself. Do you really, Atticus, mean
to say— you, the panegyrist of my
integrity and punctilious
honour—"do you venture out of your own
mouth" (to quote Ennius) to ask me to give
Scaptius cavalry to help him to exact the money?
Would you, if you were with me—and you
say in your letter that you are sometimes sore at
heart to think that you are not with
me—would you have suffered me to do so,
even if I had wished it? "Not more than fifty,"
you say. There were fewer than that with Spartacus
at first. 9 What misery
would they not have inflicted in so weak an
island? "They would not have done it," do you say?
Nay, what did they not do before my arrival? They
kept the Salaminian senators shut up in their
chamber for so many days, that some of them died
of hunger. For Scaptius was a praefectus of
Appius, and Appius allowed him some squadrons.
Well, then, do you ask me— you, whose
face, by heaven! is ever before my eyes when I
think of duty and honour—do you, I say,
ask me to allow Scaptius to be praefectus of mine?
To let alone the fact that I had resolved that no
man in business should be one, and with Brutus's
approval of the rule—is such a fellow as
that to have squadrons? Why rather than cohorts of
the legions? Oh, Scaptius is spending his money,
and is now cutting a great figure! The chief men
of Salamis, says he, wish it. I know all about
that: for they came to see me even at Ephesus, and
with tears in their eyes told me of the abominable
conduct of the cavalry and of their own miseries.
Accordingly, I at once sent a letter ordering the
cavalry to quit Cyprus by a fixed day, and for
that, among other reasons, the Salaminians have
praised me to the skies in their decrees. But
where was the need of cavalry? The Salaminians
offer payment—unless, by heaven, we
choose to use armed force to compel the payment of
forty-eight per cent. interest! And shall I ever
dare to read or even to touch those books again
which you compliment so highly, 10 if I
have committed such an act as that? You have
indulged your affection for Brutus too far in
this, too far I repeat, my dearest Atticus.
Perhaps I have not done so enough: and so I have
told Brutus that you have written in this sense to
me.
Now for the rest. I do all
I can here for Appius, yet only so far as my duty
allows, though with a right good will. For I don't
dislike him, while to Brutus I am warmly attached,
and Pompey is surprisingly urgent, of whom, by
heaven, I grow fonder and fonder every day. You
have heard that C. Caelius is coming here as
quaestor. I don't know what it is, but I don't
like that business of Pammenes. 11 I hope to be at Athens in September. I
should much like to know the dates of your tours.
I understood the silly conduct of C. Sempronius
Rufus from your letter written in Corcyra. 12 In
short, I am jealous of the influence of Vestorius.
I wanted to go on chatting, but the day is
breaking; the crowd is coming in; Philogenes is in
a hurry. So good-bye, and give my love to Pilia,
when you write, and to our dear Caecilia, and
accept the same from my son.
LAODICEA, MAY (BETWEEN I AND 7)
