CCXVIII (F XV, 2)
TO THE MAGISTRATES AND SENATE
CYBISTRA (SEPTEMBER)
M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets the
consuls, praetors, tribunes, and senate. If you
are well, I am glad. I and the army are well.
Having entered the
province on the last day of July, not having been
able to arrive earlier owing to the difficulty of
the journey both by land and sea, I thought the
thing most suitable to my office, and most
conducive to the public welfare, was to provide
everything affecting the army and its active
service. These arrangements having been made by me
with more care and energy than means or sufficient
supplies, and messages and letters reaching me
nearly every day concerning an invasion of the
province of Syria by the Parthians, I thought that
I ought to direct my march through Lycaonia, the
Isaurians, and Cappadocia. For there was very
strong reason to conjecture that, should the
Parthians endeavour to quit Syria and invade my
province, they would march through Cappadocia, as
being most completely open to them. Accordingly, I
marched with the army through that part of
Cappadocia which borders on Cilicia, and pitched
my camp at Cybistra, which is a town at the foot
of Mount Taurus, in order that Artavasdes, the
Armenian king, whatever his disposition, might
know that an army of the Roman people was not far
from his frontier ; and that I might have in as
close contact as possible king Deiotarus, a
sovereign who is most loyal and devoted to our
Republic, since his advice and material support
might be of assistance to the public interests.
Having my camp in this place, and having sent the
cavalry into Cilicia—in order that my
arrival, having been notified to the communities
in that region, might confirm the loyal
dispositions of all, and at the same time that I
might get early information of what was going on
in Syria— I thought I ought
to give the three days of my stay in that camp to
a high and necessary duty. For, seeing that a
formal resolution of yours had imposed upon me the
duty of protecting king Ariobarzanes (surnamed
Eusebes and Philorhomaeus), of defending the
personal safety of that sovereign and the
integrity of his dominions, and of being the
guardian of king and kingdom alike: and seeing
that you had appended a declaration that the
safety of that sovereign was a matter of great
concern to the people and senate—a
decree such as had never been passed by our house
concerning any king before—I thought
myself bound to report the expression of your
opinion to the king, and to promise him my
protection and a faithful and energetic support,
in order that, as his personal safety and the
integrity of his dominions had been commended to
my care, he might communicate to me anything he
wished to be done. Having, in the presence of my
council, communicated these things to the king, he
began his reply by the proper expression of his
warmest thanks to you: and then went on to thank
me also, saying that he looked upon it as a very
great and honourable distinction that his personal
safety should be a matter of concern to the senate
and people of Rome, and that I should exhibit such
energy as to put beyond doubt my own good faith
and the weight of your recommendation. And,
indeed, at this first interview, he also assured
me of what I was very delighted to hear, that he
neither knew nor had a suspicion of any plots
either against his own life or against his
kingdom. After I had congratulated him and said
that I rejoiced to hear it, and yet had advised
him as a young man to remember the disaster of his
father's death, to protect himself with vigilance,
and, in accordance with the injunction of the
senate, to take measures for his safety, he then
left me and returned to the town of Cybistra.
However, next day he came to visit me in the camp,
accompanied by his brother Ariarathes and some
elder men, who had been his father's friends. In a
state of agitation and with tears in his
eyes—his brother and friends showing the
same signs of distress—he began
appealing to my good faith and the charge imposed
on me by you. On my asking with surprise what had
occurred, he said that "information of an
undoubted conspiracy had been communicated to him,
which had been withheld from him
before my arrival, because those who might have
denounced it to him had kept silence through fear,
but that now, relying upon my protection several
persons had boldly informed him of what they knew:
that among these his most devoted brother had told
him" (a story which the latter repeated in my
hearing) "that he had been solicited to aim at
becoming king: that so long as his brother was
alive he could not accept that suggestion ; but
that from fear of the danger he had never revealed
the circumstance." After this speech I advised the
king that he should take every precaution to
preserve his life ; and I exhorted the friends,
who had enjoyed the confidence of his father and
grandfather, to guard the life of their sovereign
with all care and vigilance, warned by his
father's most lamentable murder. Upon the king
asking me for some cavalry and cohorts from my
army, though I was fully aware that in view of
your senatorial decree I was not only authorized,
but even bound to comply, yet, since the public
interests demanded, owing to the news daily
arriving from Syria, that I should lead the army
as soon as possible to the frontiers of
Cilicia—and since the king, now that the
plot had been denounced, seemed not to be in need
of an army of the Roman people, but to be capable
of defending himself by his own resources, I urged
him to learn his first lesson in the art of ruling
by taking measures to preserve his life: that upon
those by whom he had discovered that a plot was
being laid against him he should exercise his
sovereign rights: punish those who must be
punished, relieve the rest from fear: use the
protection of my army rather to inspire fear in
the guilty than to keep up a state of civil war:
the result would be no doubt that all, having been
made acquainted with the decree of the senate,
would understand that in accordance with your
resolution I should protect the king if necessary.
Having thus encouraged
him, I broke up my camp there, and began my march
into Cilicia, leaving behind me on my departure
from Cappadocia an impression that by your policy
my arrival, owing to a strange and almost
providential accident, had relieved from an actual
plot a sovereign to whom you had given unsolicited
that title in most complimentary terms, whom you
had entrusted to my honour, and whose
safety you had declared in a decree to be a matter
of great concern to you. I thought it was not
improper that my despatch should inform you of
this circumstance, in order that you might learn
from what almost happened that you had long before
taken the precautions necessary to prevent it: and
I have been all the more ready to give you the
information, because in king Ariobarzanes I think
I have detected such signs of virtue and ability,
as well as of good faith and loyalty to you, that
you appear to have had good reason for all the
care and energy you have devoted to his
protection.
CYBISTRA (SEPTEMBER)
