CCXCIX (A VII, 9)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
(FORMIAE, 27 DECEMBER)
AM I to receive," quoth you, "a letter from
you every single day?" Yes! if I find anyone to
give it to, every day. "But you are all but here
in person." Well, when I have arrived, I will stop
writing. I see that one of your letters has not
reached me. While my friend L. Quintius was
conveying it, he was wounded and robbed near the
tomb of Basilus. 1 Please consider, therefore,
whether there was anything in it which I ought to
know, and at the same time "solve this strictly
political problem." Seeing that it is necessary,
EITHER that Caesar should be allowed to stand for
the consulship while he still holds his army
(whether by the favour of senate or tribunes); OR
that Caesar should be persuaded to hand over his
province and army, and so become consul; OR, if he
cannot be persuaded to do so, that the election
should be held without admitting his name as
candidate; OR, if he employs tribunes to prevent
that, and yet makes no warlike move, that there
must be an interregnum; OR, if on the ground of
his legal candidateship having been ignored he
moves up his army, that we must fight him with
arms, while he must begin hostilities either at
once before we are prepared, or as
soon as his friends have their demand for having
him recognized as a candidate at the election
refused: but that he will either have the one
excuse for an appeal to arms (that his candidature
is ignored), or will have an additional one, if it
chances that some tribune, when vetoing the senate
or stirring up the people, is censured, or
hampered by a senatorial decree, or forcibly
removed, or driven out of the city, or flies to
him, alleging that he has been so driven out:
SEEING finally, that, if war is once begun, we
must either defend the city, or abandon it and try
to cut him off from supplies and other resources:
consider, I say, which of these evils, some one of
which we must confront, you think the least.
You will no doubt say "to
persuade him to hand over his army, and so become
consul." Well, certainly against this proposal,
supposing him to submit so far, nothing can be
said: and, since he doesn't succeed in getting his
candidature acknowledged while he still retains
his army, I wonder he does not do so. For us,
however, as certain persons think, nothing is more
to be dreaded than his becoming consul. "But I
would prefer his being consul on these terms to
his being so with an army," you will say.
Certainly. But even on "these terms," I tell you,
there is one who thinks it a grave evil. Nor is
there any remedy against it: we must submit if he
insists upon it. Imagine him consul a second time
after our experience of his former consulship!
"Why, comparatively weak as he was then," you say,
"he was more powerful than the whole state." What,
then, do you think will be the case now? Moreover,
if he is consul, Pompey is resolved to be in
Spain. What a sad state of things, when the very
worst alternative is just the one which cannot be
rejected, and the one which, if he adopts it,
would at once secure him the highest favour with
all the loyalists! Let us,
then, put this out of the question. They say that
he cannot be induced to accept it. Which is the
worst of the other alternatives? Why, to concede
to him what, according to the same authority, is
his most impudent demand. For could anything be
more impudent? "You have held a province for ten
years, a time not granted you by the senate, but
assumed by yourself with the help of violence and
sedition: this period—not assigned by
the law, but by your own
caprice—has passed. Let us, however,
grant that it was by the law: a decree is made for
naming your successor: you cry halt and say, "Take
my candidature into consideration." Rather, do you
take us into consideration. 2 Are you to have an army longer
than the vote of the people gave it you? "You must
fight unless you grant it." Certainly—to
quote Pompey again—and with a fair
prospect either of conquering or of dying free
men. Moreover, if fight we must, the time depends
on chance, the plan on circumstances. Therefore I
do not worry you on that point. In regard to what
I have said, pray make any suggestion that occurs
to you: for my part, I am on the rack day and
night.
(FORMIAE, 27 DECEMBER)
