CDLXX (F IX, 16)
TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES)
TUSCULUM (JULY)
I was charmed with your letter1 , in which, first of
all, what I loved was the tenderness which
prompted you to write, in alarm lest Silius should
by his news have caused me any anxiety. About this
news, not only had you written to me
before—in fact twice, one letter being a
duplicate of the other-shewing me clearly that you
were upset, but I also had answered you in full
detail, in order that I might, as far as such a
business and such a crisis admitted, free you from
your anxiety, or at any rate alleviate it. But
since you shew in your last also how anxious you
are about that matter-make up your mind to this,
my dear Paetus: that whatever could possibly be
accomplished by art—for it is not enough
nowadays to contend with mere prudence, a sort of
system must be elaborated-however, whatever could
be done or effected towards winning and securing
the goodwill of those men I have done, and not, I
think, in vain. For I receive such attentions,
such politenesses from all Caesar's favourites as
make me believe myself beloved by them. For,
though genuine love is not easily distinguished
from feigned, unless some crisis occurs of a kind
to test faithful affection by its danger, as gold
in the fire, there are other indications of a
general nature. But I only employ one proof to
convince me that I am loved from the heart and in
sincerity-namely, that my fortune and theirs is of
such a kind as to preclude any motive on their
part for pretending. In regard, again, to the man
who now possesses all power, I see no reason for
my being alarmed: except the fact that, once
depart from law, everything is uncertain; and that
nothing can be guaranteed as to the future which
depends on another man's will, not to
say caprice. Be that as it may, personally his
feelings have in no respect been wounded by me.
For in that particular point I have exhibited the
greatest self-control. For, as in old times I used
to reckon that to speak without reserve was a
privilege of mine, since to my exertions the
existence of liberty in the state was owing, so,
now that that is lost, I think it is my duty to
say nothing calculated to offend either his wishes
or those of his favourites. But if I want to avoid
the credit of certain keen or witty epigrams, I
must entirely abjure a reputation for genius,
which I would not refuse to do, if I could. But
after all Caesar himself has a very keen critical
faculty, and, just as your cousin Servius 2
—whom I consider to have been a most
accomplished man of letters—had no
difficulty in saying: "This verse is not
Plautus's, this is—"because he had
acquired a sensitive ear by dint of classifying
the various styles of poets and habitual reading,
so I am told that Caesar, having now completed his
volumes of bons mots, 3 if anything is
brought to him as mine, which is not so,
habitually rejects it. This he now does all the
more, because his intimates are in my company
almost every day. Now in the course of our
discursive talk many remarks are let fall, which
perhaps at the time of my making them seem to them
wanting neither in literary flavour nor in
piquancy. These are conveyed to him along with the
other news of the day: 4 for so he himself directed. Thus it comes
about that if he is told of anything besides 5 about me, he
considers that he ought not to listen to it.
Wherefore I have no need of your Oenomaus, 6
though your quotation of Accius's
verses was very much on the spot. But what is this
jealousy, or what have I now of which anyone can
be jealous? But suppose the worst. I find that the
philosophers, who alone in my view grasp the true
nature of virtue, hold that the wise man does not
pledge himself against anything except doing
wrong; and of this I consider myself clear in two
ways, first in that my views were most absolutely
correct; and second because, when I found that we
had not sufficient material force to maintain
them, I was against a trial of strength with the
stronger party. Therefore, so far as the duty of a
good citizen is concerned, I am certainly not open
to reproach. What remains is that I should not say
or do anything foolish or rash against the men in
power: that too, I think, is the part of the wise
man. As to the rest—what this or that
man may say that I said, or the light in which he
views it, or the amount of good faith with which
those who continually seek me out and pay me
attention may be acting—for these things
I cannot be responsible. The result is that I
console myself with the consciousness of my
uprightness in the past and my moderation in the
present, and apply that simile of Accius's not to
jealousy, but to fortune, which I
hold—as being inconstant and
frail—ought to be beaten back by a
strong and manly soul, as a wave is by a rock.
For, considering that Greek history is full of
examples of how the wisest men endured tyrannies
either at Athens or Syracuse, when, though their
countries were enslaved, they themselves in a
certain sense remained free—am I to
believe that I cannot so maintain my position as
not to hurt anyone's feelings and yet not blast my
own character? I now come
to your jests, since as an afterpiece to Accius's
Oenomaus, you have brought on the stage, not, as
was his wont, an Atellan play, 7 but, according to the present
fashion, a mime. What's all this about a
pilot-fish, a denarius, 8 and a
dish of salt fish and cheese? In my old easy-going days I put up with that sort of
thing: but times are changed. Hirtius and
Dolabella are my pupils in rhetoric, but my
masters in the art of dining. For I think you must
have heard, if you really get all news, that their
practice is to declaim at my house, and mine to
dine at theirs. Now it is no use your making an
affidavit of insolvency to me: for when you had
some property, petty profits used to keep you a
little too close to business; but as things are
now, seeing that you are losing money so
cheerfully, all you have to do, when entertaining
me, is to regard yourself as accepting a
"composition"; and even that loss is less annoying
when it comes from a friend than from a debtor.
9 Yet, after all, I
don't require dinners superfluous in quantity:
only let what there is be first-rate in quality
and recherché. I remember you used to
tell me stories of Phamea's dinner. Let yours be
earlier, 10 but in other respects like
that. But if you persist in bringing me back to a
dinner like your mother's, I should put up with
that also. For I should like to see the man who
had the face to put on the table for me what you
describe, or even a polypus-looking as red as
Iupiter Miniatus. 11 Believe me,
you won't dare. Before I arrive the
fame of my new magnificence will reach you: and
you will be awestruck at it. Yet it is no use
building any hope on your hors d'oeuvre. I have
quite abolished that: for in old times I found my
appetite spoilt by your olives and Lucanian
sausages. But why all this talk? Let me only get
to you. By all means—for I wish to wipe
away all fear from your heart—go back to
your old cheese-and-sardine dish. The only expense
I shall cause you will be that you will have to
have the bath heated. All the rest according to my
regular habits. What I have just been saying was
all a joke. As to
Selicius's villa, 12 you have
managed the business carefully and written most
wittily. So I think I won't buy. For there is
enough salt and not enough savour. 13
TUSCULUM (JULY)