CCLXVI (F VIII, 11)
M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN
CILICIA)
ROME, JUNE
Your "thanksgiving" has given us some sharp
twinges, though they have not lasted long: for we
came to a serious deadlock. The fact is, Curio,
who is very fond of you, finding that every device
was being employed to deprive him of comitial
days, declared that nothing would induce him to
allow the thanksgiving to pass the senate, lest he
should appear to have thrown away by his own
blundering the advantage he had obtained by the
infatuation of Paullus, and should be regarded as
having sold the cause of the Republic.
Accordingly, we have had to adopt a compromise,
and the consuls have pledged themselves not to
hold the thanksgiving this year. Plainly you have
reason to thank both consuls: Paullus certainly
the rather of the two. For Marcellus answered him
that he did not build much on those thanksgivings
; 1 Paullus said
that in any case he would not hold
them this year. I was told that Hirrus meant to
talk out the decree. I got hold of him: he not
only did not do so, but when the vote for the
victims was brought forward, 2 and
he could have put a spoke in our wheel, if he had
called for a count, he held his tongue. He merely
signified his agreement with Cato, who, while
speaking of you in complimentary terms, voted
against the thanksgiving. Favonius made a third
with them. Wherefore you must thank everybody
according to his peculiar idiosyncrasy and
principles: these three, because they only shewed
their wishes instead of making speeches, and
because when they might have hindered they shewed
no fight; and Curio, because he deviated from his
own line of obstructive policy for your sake. For
Furnius and Lentulus, as in duty bound, just as
though they were personally affected, went round
with me and took trouble in the matter. I can also
speak in high terms of the exertions and
earnestness of Cornelius Balbus. For he both spoke
in strong terms to Curio, saying that, if he acted
otherwise, he would be inflicting an injury on
Caesar, and also managed to create a feeling of
mistrust as to Curio's sincerity. Some voted for
the decree who really wished for a decision
un-favourable to you—such as the
Domitii, the Scipios; and when they interposed in
this matter with the design of provoking his veto,
Curio made a very neat reply. "He was all the more
happy," he said, "not to veto the decree, because
he saw that certain persons who voted for it did
not wish it carried." As
for politics, every controversy centres on one
point—the provinces. In this matter
Pompey as yet seems to have thrown all his weight
on the side of the senate's wish that Caesar
should leave his province on the 13th of November.
when it was held, or whether it was held at all,
and he would be influenced by the convenience of
public business. Curio is resolved
to submit to anything rather than allow this: he
has given up all his other proposals. Our people,
whom you know so well, do not venture to push
matters to extremes. The situation turns entirely
on this: Pompey, professing not to be attacking
Caesar, but to be making an arrangement which he
considers fair to him, says that Curio is
deliberately seeking pretexts for strife. However,
he is strongly against, and evidently alarmed at,
the idea of Caesar becoming consul-designate
before handing over his army and province. He is
being attacked with some violence, and his whole
second consulship is being roughly criticised by
Curio. 3 Mark my
words—if they push their suppression of
Curio to extremes, Caesar will interpose in favour
of the vetoing tribune; if, as it seems they will
do, they shrink from this, Caesar will stay in his
province as long as he chooses. The vote given by
each is in the memorandum of city events 4 from which pick out
what is worth reading: skip much, especially the
hissing at the games and accounts of funerals and
other unimportant gossip. It has a good deal worth
knowing. The fact is, I prefer erring on the side
of telling what you don't want, to passing over
anything necessary. I am glad that you have
interested yourself in the business of Sittius.
But since you suspect the men I sent to you of
being of doubtful fidelity, please act as my agent
yourself.
ROME, JUNE
