CCLXXI (F II, 17)
TO GNAEUS SALLUSTIUS (PROQUAESTOR IN
SYRIA)
TARSUS, 18 JULY
Your orderly delivered me your letter at
Tarsus on the 17th of July, and I will now proceed
to answer it, as I perceive is your wish, in
detail. About my successor I have heard nothing,
and I don't think there will be one. There is no
reason for my not leaving the province to the day,
especially as all fear from the Parthians is
removed. I am strongly inclined to stop nowhere. I
think I shall go to Rhodes for the sake of the
boys, but of even that I am not certain. I wish to
arrive outside the city as soon as possible, yet
the course of politics and events in Rome will
guide the course of my journey. Your successor
cannot in any case make such haste as to enable
you to meet me in Asia. As to delivering the
copies of accounts, your non-delivery of them, for
which you say Bibulus gave you licence, is no
inconvenience to me: but I scarcely think you are
justified in so doing by the Julian law, which
Bibulus disregards on a certain settled principle,
1 but which I think
you ought certainly to observe. You say that the
garrison ought not to have been withdrawn from
Apamea; I see that others think the same, and I am
much annoyed that rather unpleasant remarks have
been made by my ill-wishers. As to whether the
Parthians have crossed or not I perceive that you
are the only man who has any doubt. Accordingly,
all the garrisons, which I had raised to a state
of great effectiveness I have been induced by the
positive assertions I hear made to dismiss. As to
my quaestor's accounts, it was neither reasonable
that I should send them to you, nor were they then made up. I think of depositing
them at Apamea. Of the booty taken by me no one,
except the quaestors of the city—that
is, the Roman people—has touched or will
touch a farthing. At Laodicea I think I shall
accept sureties for all public money, so that both
I and the people may be insured against loss in
transit. As to what you say about the 100,000
drachmae, in a matter of that kind no concession
to anyone is possible on my part. For every sum of
money is either treated as booty, in which case it
is administered by the praefecti or it is paid
over to me, in which case it is administered by
the quaestor. You ask me what my opinion is as to
the legions which the senate has ordered for
Syria. 2 I had my doubts before
about their coming; now I feel no doubt, if news
is received in time of there being peace in Syria,
that they will not come. I see that Marius, the
successor to the province, will be slow in coming
precisely because the Senate has decreed that he
should accompany the legions. There's the answer to one letter. Now
for the second. You ask me to recommend you as
earnestly as possible to Bibulus. In this matter
inclination on my part is not wanting, but it
seems to me to be a proper opportunity for
expostulating with you: for you are the only man
of all Bibulus's staff who never informed me of
his complete and causeless alienation from me. For
a number of people reported to me that, when there
was a great alarm at Antioch, and great hopes were
entertained of me and my army, he was accustomed
to say that they would prefer to endure any-thing
rather than be thought to have wanted my help. I
am not at all annoyed that, from the loyalty due
from a quaestor to his praetor, you say nothing of
this: although I was informed of the treatment you
are receiving. He, for his part, when writing to
Thermus about the Parthian war, never sent me a
line, though he knew that the danger from that war
specially affected me. The only subject on which
he wrote to me was the augurship of his son: 3 in regard to which I
was induced by compassion, and by
the friendly feelings I had always entertained to
Bibulus, to be at the pains of writing to him with
the greatest cordiality. If he is universally
ill-natured—which I never
thought—I am the less offended by his
conduct to me: but if he is on special bad terms
with me, a letter from me will do you no good. For
instance, in his despatch to the senate, Bibulus
took the whole credit for matters in which we both
had a share. He says in it that he had secured
that the rate of exchange should be to the public
advantage. Again—and this is wholly my
doing—the declining to employ
Transpadane auxiliaries he mentions as a
concession of his own, also to the profit of the
people. On the other hand, when a thing is
entirely his own doing, he brings me into it:
"When WE demanded more corn for the auxiliary
cavalry" he writes. Surely, again, it is the mark
of a small mind, and one which from sheer
ill-nature is poor and mean, that because the
senate conferred the title of king on Ariobarzanes
through me, and commended him to me, he in his
despatch does not call him king, but the "son of
king Ariobarzanes." Men of this temper are all the
worse if favours are asked of them. Nevertheless,
I have yielded to your wish, and have written him
a letter, with which you can do what you like when
you have received it.
TARSUS, 18 JULY
