DCCCLXXIX (F XII, 15)
P. LENTULUS, PROQUAESTOR, PROPRAETOR, TO
THE CONSULS, PRAETORS, TRIBUNES, SENATE, AND ROMAN
PEOPLE
PERGA, 29 MAY-2 JUNE
If you1 and your children are well, I
am glad. I am well. Asia having been overrun by
the criminal proceedings of Dolabella, I betook
myself to the neighbouring province of Macedonia
and to those defences of the Republic which the
honourable citizen Marcus Brutus had under his
command, and urged that the province of Asia and
its revenues should be restored to your authority
by those who could do so most promptly. This
alarmed Dolabella, and therefore, after plundering
the province, seizing its revenues, selecting
Roman citizens especially to beggar and sell up,
he quitted Asia quicker than the protecting force
could be brought into it. I therefore did not
think it necessary to delay any longer, nor to
wait for the garrison, and I conceived that I
ought to return at the earliest opportunity to my
duty, in order that I might both collect the
arrears of revenue and call in the money I had
deposited, and ascertain as soon as possible what
part of it had been seized, or by whose fault that
had occurred, and inform you about the whole
affair. Meanwhile on my
voyage by the island route 2 into Asia I was met by the information that Dolabella's
fleet was in Lycia, and that the Rhodians had a
number of vessels fully equipped and ready
launched. Accordingly, with the ships which either
I had brought with me or the proquaestor Patiscus
had secured—a man very closely united to
me both by intimate friendship and political
sympathies—I diverted my course to
Rhodes, trusting in your authority and the decree
of the senate, by which you had declared Dolabella
a public enemy, and also in the treaty which had
been renewed with them in the consulship of M.
Marcellus and Servius Sulpicius, 3 in which
the Rhodians had sworn to have the same enemies as
the senate and Roman people. However, I found
myself entirely mistaken. For so far from our
strengthening our fleet by any assistance from
them, our soldiers were even warned off by the
Rhodians from city, harbour, the roadstead outside
the city, from purchasing provisions, and finally
even from taking in water; while I myself was only
just allowed to approach in a single boat. This
insult and derogation from the dignity, not only
of my official position, but also of the imperial
position of the Roman people, I did not resent,
because from an intercepted despatch I had learnt
that Dolabella, if he had despaired of Syria and
Egypt—as was certain to happen-was
prepared to embark on board his ships with all his
outlaws and all his money and make for Italy; and
that for that purpose also some transports, not
one of which was less than 2,000 amphorae burden,
4 collected in Lycia were being
guarded by his fleet. Dismayed by the alarming
nature of this report, fathers of the senate, I
preferred to submit to the insult and to try first
every means, though involving personal
indignities. Therefore, being in accordance with
their wishes introduced into the city and senate,
I pleaded the cause of the Republic with the
greatest earnestness of which I was capable, and
stated the whole danger of the situation which
threatened us, if that outlaw embarked with all
his forces. But I found the Rhodians to be so
utterly misguided, that they thought the loyalists
were the weakest of all parties: that they were
more ready to disbelieve in the existing unanimity
and agreement of all orders in the defence of
liberty: that they were confident
that the tolerance of the senate and the
aristocracy was even now what it had been before,
and that no one would have the Courage to declare
Dolabella a public enemy: in fact that they
regarded as true all the figments of the traitors
rather than what had really taken place and was
being stated by me. It was with these views that
even before my arrival, after the atrocious murder
of Trebonius and numerous other abominable crimes,
two embassies from them had gone to Dolabella, and
that too contrary to all precedent, 5 it being against
their own laws, and in spite of the prohibition of
the then existing magistrates. Though they might
easily have applied a remedy for this crisis, they
refused to do so. I don't know whether it was, as
they give out, from fear for the lands which they
possess on the continent, or from the infatuation
or tolerance of a few politicians who on previous
occasions equally insulted men of the highest rank
6 and now do so to those actually in
the chief offices, without precedent and without
provocation from us. They refused—I
say—in spite of the danger threatening
us who were on the spot, and of that which
threatened Italy and our city, if that murderer
with his crew of outlaws sailed to Italy after
being expelled from Asia and Syria. Some of us
even suspected the magistrates of having detained
us and of having wasted time until Dolabella's
fleet was informed of our arrival. And this
suspicion was deepened by several things that
occurred afterwards, especially by the fact that
Dolabella's legates Sextus Marius and Gaius Titius
suddenly quitted the fleet on the Lycian coast and
fled on board a ship of war, abandoning the
transports, in the collection of which they had
spent considerable time and labour. Accordingly,
when we arrived at Lycia from Rhodes with the
ships then in our possession, we took over the
transports and sent them back to their owners.
Thus we ceased to feel what had been our chief
fear—that Dolabella might find means to
reach Italy with his outlaws. We pursued his
flying fleet as far as Sida, which is the farthest
district of my province. There I ascertained that
some of Dolabella's ships had scattered and fled,
that the rest had made for Syria and Cyprus. These
being thus dispersed, as I knew that
the very large fleet of the eminent citizen and
general Cassius would be ready to meet him in
Syria, I returned to my official duties: as I
shall do my best, fathers of the senate, to give
you and the Republic the full benefit of my zeal
and industry; and as to money—I will
collect as much as I can and with the greatest
possible promptness, and will send it by every
means in my power. When I have made a tour of my
province and have ascertained who have been
faithful to us and to the Republic in safeguarding
the money which I deposited with them, and who are
guilty of actually handing over public money and
by this gift entering into a partnership with
Dolabella in his crimes, I will inform you. And if
you will pass a severe sentence, should it so
please you, upon these men and back me up by the
weight of your authority, I shall be able with
greater ease both to collect the arrears of
revenue and keep that already collected safe.
Meantime, in order more thoroughly to protect the
revenues and to defend my province from
ill-treatment, I have enrolled a guard formed of
volunteers and only such as was absolutely
necessary. 7
After I had written this
despatch, 8 about thirty soldiers, whom
Dolabella had enlisted in Asia, escaping from
Syria arrived in Pamphylia. They brought word that
Dolabella bad arrived at Antioch in Syria: that
not being admitted he made several attempts to
force an entry, but had always been repulsed with
great loss; and accordingly after losing about 600
men, abandoning his sick, he retreated by night
from Antioch towards Laodicea: that in that night
nearly all his Asiatic soldiers deserted him: that
of these about 800 returned to Antioch and
surrendered to the officers commanding the city
who had been left there by Cassius: that the rest
crossed Mount Amanus and descended into Cilicia,
to which number they said that they also belonged
themselves: finally, that Cassius
with his whole force was reported to be four days'
march from Laodicea at the time when Dolabella was
pressing on to that town. Wherefore I feel sure
that a most villainous outlaw will be punished
sooner than I thought. 2
June, Perga.
PERGA, 29 MAY-2 JUNE