DCCCLXXX (F x, 20)
TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GAUL)
ROME, 29 MAY
ALL the news from your part of the world is so
uncertain that nothing occurs to me to say to you.
For at one time reports of Lepidus are
satisfactory, at another the reverse. However, of
you the report is unvarying—that you can
be neither hoodwinked nor beaten. The credit for
the latter is to a certain extent fortune's, for
the former it wholly belongs to your own good
sense. But I have received a letter from your
colleague 1 dated the 15th of May, in
which he said that you had written to tell him
that Antony was not being received by Lepidus. I
shall feel more certain of this if you give me the
same information in a letter, but perhaps you do
not venture to do so owing to the ill-grounded
cheerfulness of your former letter. But as it was
possible for you, my dear Plancus, to make a
mistake—for who escapes doing so ?-so no
one can fail to see that it was impossible that
you should be taken in. Now, however, even the
plea of being mistaken has been taken
away—"Twice on the same stone," 2 you know, is a fault
reproved by a common proverb. But if the truth is
as you have written to your colleague, we are
freed from all anxiety; yet we shall not be so
until you inform us that it is the Case. My
opinion indeed, as I have often told
you in my letters, is that the man who
extinguishes the last embers of this part of the
war will be the real victor in the whole war, and
I both hope and believe that you will be the man.
I am not at all surprised and am deeply gratified
that my zeal on your behalf, which certainly Could
not have been surpassed, has been as pleasant to
your feelings as I thought it would be. You will
find it indeed to be greater and more effective
still, if things go well with you there.
29 May.
ROME, 29 MAY