CLII (F I, 9)
TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN
CILICIA)
ROME (OCTOBER)
M. Cicero desires his warmest regards to P.
Lentulus, imperator.
1 Your letter was very gratifying to me,
from which I gathered that you fully appreciated
my devotion to you: for why use the word kindness,
when even the word "devotion" itself, with all its
solemn and holy associations, seems too weak to
express my obligations to you? As for your saying
that my services to you are gratefully accepted,
it is you who in your overflowing affection make
things, which cannot be omitted without criminal
negligence, appear deserving of even gratitude.
However, my feelings towards you would have been
much more fully known and conspicuous, if during
all this time that we have been separated, we had
been together, and together at Rome. For precisely
in what you declare your intention of
doing—what no one is more capable of
doing, and what I confidently look forward to from
you—that is to say, in speaking in the
senate, and in every department of public life and
political activity, we should together have been
in a very strong position (what my feelings and
position are in regard to politics I will explain
shortly, and will answer the questions you ask),
and at any rate I should have found in you a
supporter, at once most warmly attached and
endowed with supreme wisdom, while in me you would
have found an adviser, perhaps not the most
unskillful in the world, and at least both
faithful and devoted to your interests. However,
for your own sake, of course, I rejoice, as I am
bound to do, that you have been greeted with the
title of Imperator,
and are holding your province and victorious army
after a successful campaign. But certainly, if you
had been here, you would have enjoyed to a fuller
extent and more directly the benefit of the
services which I am bound to render
you. Moreover, in taking vengeance on those whom
you know in some cases to be your enemies, because
you championed the cause of my recall, in others
to be jealous of the splendid position and renown
which that measure brought you, I should have done
you yeoman's service as your associate. However,
that perpetual enemy of his own friends, who, in
spite of having been honoured with the highest
compliments on your part, has selected you of all
people for the object of his impotent and
enfeebled violence, has saved me the trouble by
punishing himself. For he has made attempts, the
disclosure of which has left him without a shred,
not only of political position, but even of
freedom of action. 2
And though I should have preferred that you should
have gained your experience in my case alone,
rather than in your own also, yet in the midst of
my regret I am glad that you have learnt what the
fidelity of mankind is worth, at no great cost to
yourself, which I learnt at the price of excessive
pain. And I think that I have now an opportunity
presented me, while answering the questions you
have addressed to me, of also explaining my entire
position and view. You say in your letter that you
have been informed that I have become reconciled
to Caesar and Appius, and you add that you have no
fault to find with that. But you express a wish to
know what induced me to defend and compliment
Vatinius. In order to make my explanation plainer
I must go a little farther back in the statement
of my policy and its grounds. Well, Lentulus ! At
first—after the success of your efforts
for my recall—I looked upon myself as
having been restored not alone to my friends, but
to the Republic also; and seeing that I owed you
an affection almost surpassing belief, and every
kind of service, however great and rare, that
could be bestowed on your person, I thought that
to the Republic, which had much assisted you in
restoring me, I at least was bound to entertain
the feeling which I had in old times
shewed merely from the duty incumbent on all
citizens alike, and not as an obligation incurred
by some special kindness to myself. That these
were my sentiments I declared to the senate when
you were consul, and you had yourself a full view
of them in our conversations and discussions. Yet
from the very first my feelings were hurt by many
circumstances, when, on your mooting the question
of the full restoration of my position, I detected
the covert hatred of some and the equivocal
attachment of others. For you received no support
from them either in regard to my monuments, or the
illegal violence by which, in common with my
brother, I had been driven from my house; nor, by
heaven, did they shew the goodwill which I had
expected in regard to those matters which, though
necessary to me owing to the shipwreck of my
fortune, were yet regarded by me as least
valuable—I mean as to indemnifying me
for my losses by decree of the senate. And though
I saw all this—for it was not difficult
to see—yet their present conduct did not
affect me with so much bitterness as what they had
done for me did with gratitude. And therefore,
though according to your own assertion and
testimony I was under very great obligation to
Pompey, and though I loved him not only for his
kindness, but also from my own feelings, and, so
to speak, from my unbroken admiration of him,
nevertheless, without taking any account of his
wishes, I abode by all my old opinions in
politics. 3 With
Pompey sitting in court, 4 upon his
having entered the city to give evidence in favour
of Sestius, and when the witness Vatinius had
asserted that, moved by the good fortune and
success of Caesar, I had begun to be his friend, I
said that I preferred the fortune of Bibulus,
which he thought a humiliation, to the triumphs
and victories of everybody else; and I said during
the examination of the same witness, in another
part of my speech, that the same men had prevented
Bibulus from leaving his house as had forced me
from mine: my whole cross-examination, indeed, was
nothing but a denunciation of his tribuneship;
5
and in it I spoke throughout with
the greatest freedom and spirit about violence,
neglect of omens, grants of royal titles. Nor,
indeed, in the support of this view is it only of
late that I have spoken. I have done so
consistently on several occasions in the senate.
Nay, even in the consulship of Marcellinus and
Philippus, 6 on the
5th of April the senate voted on my motion that
the question of the Campanian land should be
referred to a full meeting of the senate on the
15th of May. Could I more decidedly invade the
stronghold of his policy, or shew more clearly
that I forgot my own present interests, and
remembered my former political career? On my
delivery of this proposal a great impression was
made on the minds not only of those who were bound
to have been impressed, but also of those of whom
I had never expected it. For, after this decree
had passed in accordance with my motion, Pompey,
without shewing the least sign of being offended
with me, started for Sardinia and Africa, and in
the course of that journey visited Caesar at Luca.
There Caesar complained a great deal about my
motion, for he had already seen Crassus at Ravenna
also, and had been irritated by him against me. It
was well known that Pompey was much vexed at this,
as I was told by others, but learnt most
definitely from my brother. For when Pompey met
him in Sardinia, a few days after leaving Luca, he
said: "You are the very man I want to see; nothing
could have happened more conveniently. Unless you
speak very strongly to your brother Marcus, you
will have to pay up what you guaranteed on his
behalf." 7 I need
not go on. He grumbled a great deal: mentioned his
own services to me: recalled what he had again and
again said to my brother himself about the "acts"
of Caesar, and what my brother had undertaken in
regard to me; and called my brother himself to
witness that what he had done in regard to my
recall he had done with the consent of Caesar: and
asked him to commend to me the latter's policy and
claims, that I should not attack, even if I would
not or could not support them. My brother having
conveyed these remarks to me, and
Pompey having, nevertheless, sent Vibullius to me
with a message, begging me not to Commit myself on
the question of the Campanian land till his
return, I reconsidered my position and begged the
state itself, as it were, to allow me, who had
suffered and done so much for it, to fulfil the
duty which gratitude to my benefactors and the
pledge which my brother had given demanded, and to
suffer one whom it had ever regarded as an honest
citizen to shew himself an honest man. Moreover,
in regard to all those motions and speeches of
mine which appeared to be giving offence to
Pompey, the remarks of a particular set of men,
whose names you must surely guess, kept on being
reported to me; who, while in public affairs they
were really in sympathy with my policy, and had
always been so, yet said that they were glad that
Pompey was dissatisfied with me, and that Caesar
would be very greatly exasperated against me. This
in itself was vexatious to me: but much more so
was the fact that they used, before my very eyes,
so to embrace, fondle, make much of, and kiss my
enemy—mine do I say? rather the enemy of
the laws, of the law courts, of peace, of his
country, of all loyal men—that they did
not indeed rouse my bile, for I have utterly lost
all that, but imagined they did. In these
circumstances, having, as far as is possible for
human prudence, thoroughly examined my whole
position, and having balanced the items of the
account, I arrived at a final result of all my
reflexions, which, as well as I can, I will now
briefly put before you. If
I had seen the Republic in the hands of bad or
profligate citizens, as we know happened during
the supremacy of Cinna, and on some other
occasions, I should not under the pressure, I
don't say of rewards, which are the last things to
influence me, but even of danger, by which, after
all, the bravest men are moved, have attached
myself to their party, not even if their services
to me had been of the very highest kind. As it is,
seeing that the leading statesman in the Republic
was Pompey, a man who had gained this power and
renown by the most eminent services to the state
and the most glorious achievements, and one of
whose position I had been a supporter from my
youth up, and in my praetorship and consulship an
active promoter also, and seeing that this same
statesman had assisted me, in his own person by
the weight of his influence and the
expression of his opinion, and, in conjunction
with you, by his counsels and zeal, and that he
regarded my enemy as his own supreme enemy in the
state—I did not think that I need fear
the reproach of inconsistency, if in some of my
senatorial votes I somewhat changed my standpoint,
and contributed my zeal to the promotion of the
dignity of a most distinguished man, and one to
whom I am under the highest obligations. In this
sentiment I had necessarily to include Caesar, as
you see, for their policy and position were
inseparably united. Here I was greatly influenced
by two things—the old friendship which
you know that I and my brother Quintus have had
with Caesar, and his own kindness and liberality,
of which we have recently had clear and
unmistakable evidence both by his letters and his
personal attentions. I was also strongly affected
by the Republic itself, which appeared to me to
demand, especially considering Caesar's brilliant
successes, that there should be no quarrel
maintained with these men, and indeed to forbid it
in the strongest manner possible. Moreover, while
entertaining these feelings, I was above all
shaken by the pledge which Pompey had given for me
to Caesar, and my brother to Pompey. Besides, I
was forced to take into consideration the state
maxim so divinely expressed by our master
Plato—"Such as are the chief men in a
republic, such are ever wont to be the other
citizens." I called to mind that in my consulship,
from the very 1st of January, such a foundation
was laid of encouragement for the senate, that no
one ought to have been surprised that on the 5th
of December there was so much spirit and such
commanding influence in that house. I also
remember that when I became a private citizen up
to the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, when the
opinions expressed by me had great weight in the
senate, the feeling among all the loyalists was
invariable. Afterwards, while you were holding the
province of hither Spain with Imperium and the Republic had no
genuine consuls, but mere hucksters of provinces,
mere slaves and agents of sedition, an accident
threw my head as an apple of discord into the
midst of contending factions and civil broils. And
in that hour of danger, though a unanimity was
displayed on the part of the senate that was
surprising, on the part of all Italy surpassing
belief, and of all the loyalists
unparalleled, in standing forth in my defence, I
will not say what happened—for the blame
attaches to many, and is of various shades of
turpitude—I will only say briefly that
it was not the rank and file, but the leaders,
that played me false. And in this matter, though
some blame does attach to those who failed to
defend me, no less attaches to those who abandoned
me: and if those who were frightened deserve
reproach, if there are such, still more are those
to be blamed who pretended to be frightened. At
any rate, my policy is justly to be praised for
refusing to allow my fellow citizens (preserved by
me and ardently desiring to preserve me) to be
exposed while bereft of leaders to armed slaves,
and for preferring that it should be made manifest
how much force there might be in the unanimity of
the loyalists, if they had been permitted to
champion my cause before I had fallen, when after
that fall they had proved strong enough to raise
me up again. And the real feelings of these men
you not only had the penetration to see, when
bringing forward my case, but the power to
encourage and keep alive. In promoting which
measure—I will not merely not deny, but
shall always remember also and gladly proclaim
it—you found certain men of the highest
rank more courageous in securing my restoration
than they had been in preserving me from my fall:
and, if they had chosen to maintain that frame of
mind, they would have recovered their own
commanding position along with my salvation. For
when the spirit of the loyalists had been renewed
by your consulship, and they bad been roused from
their dismay by the extreme firmness and rectitude
of your official conduct; when, above all,
Pompey's support had been secured; and when
Caesar, too, with all the prestige of his
brilliant achievements, after being honoured with
unique and unprecedented marks of distinction and
compliments by the senate, was now supporting the
dignity of the house, there could have been no
opportunity for a disloyal citizen of outraging
the Republic. But now
notice, I beg, what actually ensued. First of all,
that intruder upon the women's rites, who had
shewn no more respect for the Bona Dea than for
his three sisters, secured immunity by the votes
of those men who, when a tribune wished by a legal
action to exact penalties from a
seditious citizen by the agency of the loyalists,
deprived the Republic of what would have been
hereafter a most splendid precedent for the
punishment of sedition. And these same persons, in
the case of the monument, which was not mine,
indeed—for it was not erected from the
proceeds of spoils won by me, and I had nothing to
do with it beyond giving out the contract for its
construction—well, they allowed this
monument of the senate's to have branded upon it
the name of a public enemy, and an inscription
written in blood. That those men wished my safety
rouses my liveliest gratitude, but I could have
wished that they had not chosen to take my bare
safety into consideration, like doctors, but, like
trainers, my strength and complexion also! As it
is, just as Apelles perfected the head and bust of
his Venus with the most elaborate art, but left
the rest of her body in the rough, so certain
persons only took pains with my head, and left the
rest of my body unfinished and unworked. Yet in
this matter I have falsified the expectation, not
only of the jealous, but also of the downright
hostile, who formerly conceived a wrong opinion
from the case of Quintus Metellus, son of
Lucius—the most energetic and gallant
man in the world, and in my opinion of surpassing
courage and firmness—who, people say,
was much cast down and dispirited after his return
from exile. 8 Now,
in the first place, we are asked to believe that a
man who accepted exile with entire willingness and
remarkable cheerfulness, and never took any pains
at all to get recalled, was crushed in spirit
about an affair in which he had shewn more
firmness and constancy than anyone else, even than
the pre-eminent M. Scaurus himself! 9
But, again, the account they had received, or
rather the conjectures they were indulging in
about him, they now transferred to me, imagining
that I should be more than usually broken in
spirit: whereas, in fact, the Republic was
inspiring me with even greater courage than I had
ever had before, by making it plain
that I was the one citizen it could not do
without; and by the fact that while a bill
proposed by only one tribune had recalled
Metellus, the whole state had joined as one man in
recalling me—the senate leading the way,
the whole of Italy following after, eight of the
tribunes publishing the bill, a consul putting the
question at the centuriate assembly, all orders
and individuals pressing it on, in fact, with all
the forces at its command. Nor is it the case that
I afterwards made any pretension, or am making any
at this day, which can justly offend anyone, even
the most malevolent: my only effort is that I may
not fail either my friends or those more remotely
connected with me in either active service, or
counsel, or personal exertion. This course of life
perhaps offends those who fix their eyes on the
glitter and show of my professional position, but
are unable to appreciate its anxieties and
laboriousness. Again, they
make no concealment of their dissatisfaction on
the ground that in the speeches which I make in
the senate in praise of Caesar I am departing from
my old policy. But while giving explanations on
the points which I put before you a short time
ago, I will not keep till the last the following,
which I have already touched upon. You will not
find, my dear Lentulus, the sentiments of the
loyalists the same as you left
them—strengthened by my consulship,
suffering relapse at intervals afterwards, crushed
down before your consulship, revived by you: they
have now been abandoned by those whose duty it was
to have maintained them: and this fact they, who
in the old state of things as it existed in our
day used to be called Optimates, not only declare by look and
expression of countenance, by which a false
pretence is easiest supported, but have proved
again and again by their actual sympathies and
votes. Accordingly, the entire view and aim of
wise citizens, such as I wish both to be and to be
reckoned, must needs have undergone a change. For
that is the maxim of that same great Plato, whom I
emphatically regard as my master: "Maintain a
political controversy only so far as you can
convince your fellow citizens of its justice:
never offer violence to parent or fatherland."
10 He, it is true, alleges this as his motive
for having abstained from politics, because, having found the Athenian people all but
in its dotage, and seeing that it could not be
ruled by persuasion, or by anything short of
compulsion, while he doubted the possibility of
persuasion, he looked upon compulsion as criminal.
My position was different in this: as the people
was not in its dotage, nor the question of
engaging in politics still an open one for me, I
was bound hand and foot. Yet I rejoiced that I was
permitted in one and the same cause to support a
policy at once advantageous to myself and
acceptable to every loyalist. An additional motive
was Caesar's memorable and almost superhuman
kindness to myself and my brother, who thus would
have deserved my support whatever he undertook;
while as it is, considering his great success and
his brilliant victories, he would seem, even if he
had not behaved to me as he has, to claim a
panegyric from me. For I would have you believe
that, putting you aside, who were the authors of
my recall, there is no one by whose good offices I
would not only confess, but would even rejoice, to
have been so much bound. Having explained this matter to you, the
questions you ask about Vatinius and Crassus are
easy to answer. For, since you remark about
Appius, as about Caesar, "that you have no fault
to find," I can only say that I am glad you
approve my policy. But as to Vatinius, in the
first place there had been in the interval a
reconciliation effected through Pompey,
immediately after his election to the praetorship,
though I had, it is true, impugned his canditature
in some very strong speeches in the senate, and
yet not so much for the sake of attacking him as
of defending and complimenting Cato. Again, later
on, there followed a very pressing request from
Caesar that I should undertake his defence. But my
reason for testifying to his character I beg you
will not ask, either in the case of this defendant
or of others, lest I retaliate by asking you the
same question when you come home: though I can do
so even before you return : for remember for whom
you sent a certificate of character from the ends
of the earth. However, don't be afraid, for those
same persons are praised by myself, and will
continue to be so. Yet, after all, there was also
the motive spurring me on to undertake his
defence, of which, during the trial, when I
appeared for him, I remarked that I was doing just what the parasite in the
Eunuchus advised the captain to do: “
As oft as she names Phaedria, you retortROME (OCTOBER)
With Pamphila. If ever she suggest,
'Do let us have in Phaedria to our revel:'
Quoth you, 'And let us call on Pamphila
To sing a song.' If she shall praise his looks,
Do you praise hers to match them: and, in fine,
Give tit for tat, that you may sting her soul.
” So I asked the jurors, since certain men of high rank, who had also done me very great favours, were much enamoured of my enemy, and often under my very eyes in the senate now took him aside in grave consultation, now embraced him familiarly and cheerfully—since these men had their Publius, to grant me another Publius, in whose person I might repay a slight attack by a moderate retort. 11 And, indeed, I am often as good as my word, with the applause of gods and men. So much for Vatinius. Now about Crassus. I thought I had done much to secure his gratitude in having, for the sake of the general harmony, wiped out by a kind of voluntary act of oblivion all his very serious injuries, when he suddenly undertook the defence of Gabinius, whom only a few days before he had attacked with the greatest bitterness. Nevertheless, I should have borne that, if he had done so without casting any offensive reflexions on me. But on his attacking me, though I was only arguing and not inveighing against him, I fired up not only, I think, with the passion of the moment—for that perhaps would not have been so hot—but the smothered wrath at his many wrongs to me, of which I thought I had wholly got rid, having, unconsciously to myself, lingered in my soul, it suddenly shewed itself in full force. And it was at this precise time that certain persons (the same whom I frequently indicate by a sign or hint), while declaring that they had much enjoyed my outspoken style, and had never before fully realized that I was restored to the Republic in all my old character, and when my conduct of that controversy had gained me much credit outside the house also, began saying that they were glad both that he was now my enemy, and that those who were involved with him would never be my friends. So when their ill-natured remarks were reported to me by men of most respectable character, and when Pompey pressed me as he had never done before to be reconciled to Crassus, and Caesar wrote to say that he was exceedingly grieved at that quarrel, I took into consideration not only my circumstances, but my natural inclination : and Crassus, that our reconciliation might, as it were, be attested to the Roman people, started for his province, it might almost be said, from my hearth. For he himself named a day and dined with me in the suburban villa of my son-in-law Crassipes. On this account, as you say that you have been told, I supported his cause in the senate, which I had undertaken on Pompey's strong recommendation, as I was bound in honour to do. I have now told you with what motives I have supported each measure and cause, and what my position is in politics as far as I take any part in them: and I would wish you to make sure of this—that I should have entertained the same sentiments, if I had been still perfectly uncommitted and free to choose. For I should not have thought it right to fight against such overwhelming power, nor to destroy the supremacy of the most distinguished citizens, even if it had been possible; nor, again, should I have thought myself bound to abide by the same view, when circumstances were changed and the feelings of the loyalists altered, but rather to bow to circumstances. For the persistence in the same view has never been regarded as a merit in men eminent for their guidance of the helm of state ; but as in steering a ship one secret of the art is to run before the storm, even if you cannot make the harbour; yet, when you can do so by tacking about, it is folly to keep to the course you have begun rather than by changing it to arrive all the same at the destination you desire: so while we all ought in the administration of the state to keep always in view the object I have very frequently mentioned, peace combined with dignity, we are not bound always to use the same language, but to fix our eyes on the same object. Wherefore, as I laid down a little while ago, if I had had as free a hand as possible in everything, I should yet have been no other than I now am in politics. When, moreover, I am at once induced to adopt these sentiments by the kindness of certain persons, and driven to do so by the injuries of others, I am quite content to think and speak about public affairs as I conceive best conduces to the interests both of myself and of the Republic. Moreover, I make this declaration the more openly and frequently, both because my brother Quintus is Caesar's legate, and because no word of mine, however trivial, to say nothing of any act, in support of Caesar has ever transpired, which he has not received with such marked gratitude, as to make me look upon myself as closely bound to him. Accordingly, I have the advantage of his popularity, which you know to be very great, and his material resources, which you know to be immense, as though they were my own. Nor do I think that I could in any other way have frustrated the plots of unprincipled persons against me, unless I had now combined with those protections, which I have always possessed, the goodwill also of the men in power. I should, to the best of my belief, have followed this same line of policy even if I had had you here. For I well know the reasonableness and soberness of your judgment: I know your mind, while warmly attached to me, to be without a tinge of malevolence to others, but on the contrary as open and candid as it is great and lofty. I have seen certain persons conduct themselves towards you as you might have seen the same persons conduct themselves towards me. The same things that have annoyed me would certainly have annoyed you. But whenever I shall have the enjoyment of your presence, you will be the wise critic of all my plans: you who took thought for my safety will also do so for my dignity. Me, indeed, you will have as the partner and associate in all your actions, sentiments, wishes—in fact, in everything; nor shall I ever in all my life have any purpose so steadfastly before me, as that you should rejoice more and more warmly every day that you did me such eminent service. As to your request that I would send you any books I have written since your departure, there are some speeches, which I will give Menocritus, not so very many, so don't be afraid! I have also written—for I am now rather withdrawing from oratory and returning to the gentler Muses, which now give me greater delight than any others, as they have done since my earliest youth—well, then, I have written in the Aristotelian style, at least that was my aim, three books in the form of a discussion in dialogue On the Orator, which, I think, will be of some service to your Lentulus. For they differ a good deal from the current maxims, and embrace a discussion on the whole oratorical theory of the ancients, both that of Aristotle and Isocrates. I have also written in verse three books On my own Times, which I should have sent you some time ago, if I had thought they ought to be published—for they are witnesses, and will be eternal witnesses, of your services to me and of my affection—but I refrained because I was afraid, not of those who might think themselves attacked, for I have been very sparing and gentle in that respect, but of my benefactors, of whom it were an endless task to mention the whole list. Nevertheless, the books, such as they are, if I find anyone to whom I can safely commit them, I will take care to have conveyed to you: and as far as that part of my life and conduct is concerned, I submit it entirely to your judgment. All that I shall succeed in accomplishing in literature or in learning—my old favourite relaxations—I shall with the utmost cheerfulness place before the bar of your criticism, for you have always had a fondness for such things. As to what you say in your letter about your domestic affairs, and all you charge me to do, I am so attentive to them that I don't like being reminded, can scarcely bear, indeed, to be asked without a very painful feeling. As to your saying, in regard to Quintus's business, that you could not do anything last summer, because you were prevented by illness from crossing to Cilicia, but that you will now do everything in your power to settle it, I may tell you that the fact of the matter is that, if he can annex this property, my brother thinks that he will owe to you the consolidation of this ancestral estate. I should like you to write about all your affairs, and about the studies and training of your son Lentulus (whom I regard as mine also) as confidentially and as frequently as possible, and to believe that there never has been anyone either dearer or more congenial to another than you are to me, and that I will not only make you feel that to be the case, but will make all the world and posterity itself to the latest generation aware of it. Appius used some time back to repeat in conversation, and afterwards said openly, even in the senate, that if he were allowed to carry a law in the comitia curiata, he would draw lots with his colleague for their provinces; but if no curiatian law were passed, he would make an arrangement with his colleague and succeed you: that a curiatian law was a proper thing for a consul, but was not a necessity: that since he was in possession of a province by a decree of the senate, he should have imperium in virtue of the Cornelian law until such time as he entered the city. I don't know what your several connexions write to you on the subject: I understand that opinion varies. There are some who think that you can legally refuse to quit your province, because your successor is named without a curiatian law: some also hold that, even if you do quit it, you may leave some one behind you to conduct its government. For myself, I do not feel so certain about the point of law—although there is not much doubt even about that—as I do of this, that it is for your greatest honour, dignity, and independence, which I know you always value above everything, to hand over your province to a successor without any delay, especially as you cannot thwart his greediness without rousing suspicion of your own. I regard my duty as twofold—to let you know what I think, and to defend what you have done. P.S.—I had written the above when I received your letter about the publicanito whom I could not but admire the justice of your conduct. I could have wished that you had been able by some lucky chance to avoid running counter to the interests and wishes of that order, whose honour you have always promoted. For my part, I shall not cease to defend your decrees: but you know the ways of that class of men; you are aware how bitterly hostile they were to the famous Q. Scaevola himself. However, I advise you to reconcile that order to yourself, or at least soften its feelings, if you can by any means do so. Though difficult, I think it is, nevertheless, not beyond the reach of your sagacity.