B.C. 49. Coss., C. Claudius, Marcellus, L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus.
B.C. 49. Coss., C. Claudius, Marcellus, L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus. |
CCC (F XVI, II)
TO TIRO (AT PATRAE)
OUTSIDE ROME, 12 JANUARY
CICERO and his son, Terentia, Tullia, Quintus
and his son, send warm greetings to Tiro. Though I
miss your ever-ready help at every turn yet it is
not for my sake so much as for yours that I grieve
at your illness. But now that the violence of your
disease has abated so far as to become a quartan
fever—for so Curius writes me
word—I hope that with care you will soon
become stronger. Only be sure-as becomes a man of
your good sense—to think of nothing for
the present except how to get well in the best
possible way. I know how your regret at being
absent worries you, but all difficulties will
disappear, if you get well. I would not have you
hurry, for fear of your suffering from
sea-sickness in your weak state, and finding a
winter voyage dangerous. I arrived at the city
walls on the 4th of January. Nothing could be more
complimentary than the procession that came out to
meet me; but I found things in a blaze of civil
discord, or rather civil war. I desired to find a
cure for this, and, as I think, could have done
so; but I was hindered by the passions of
particular persons, for on both sides there are
those who desire to fight. The long and short of
it is that Caesar himself—once our
friend— has sent the senate a menacing
and offensive despatch, 1 and is so
insolent as to retain his army and province in
spite of the senate, and my old friend Curio is
backing him up. Farthermore, our friend Antonius
and Q. Cassius, having been expelled from the
house, though without any violence, left town with
Curio to join Caesar, directly the senate had
passed the decree ordering " consuls, praetors,
tribunes, and us proconsuls to see that the
Republic received no damage." 2 Never has the
state been in greater danger: never have disloyal
citizens had a better prepared
leader. On the whole, however, preparations are
being pushed on with very great activity on our
side also. This is being done by the influence and
energy of our friend Pompey, who now, when it is
too late, begins to fear Caesar. In spite of these
exciting incidents, a full meeting of the senate
clamoured for a triumph being granted me: but the
consul Lentulus, in order to enhance his service
to me, said that as soon as he had taken the
measures necessary for the public safety, he would
bring forward a motion on the subject. I do
nothing in a spirit of selfish ambition, and
consequently my influence is all the greater.
Italy has been marked out into districts, shewing
for what part each of us is to be responsible. I
have taken Capua. That is all I wanted to tell
you. Again and again I urge you to take care of
your health, and to write to me as often as you
have anyone to whom to give a letter. Good-bye,
good-bye 12 January.
OUTSIDE ROME, 12 JANUARY
CCCI (F V, 20)
TO MESCINIUS RUFUS
OUTSIDE ROME (JANUARY)
I3 would have done my very
best to meet you, if you had chosen to come to the
place arranged. Wherefore, although from regard to
my convenience you were unwilling to disturb me, I
should wish you to believe that, if you had sent
me word, I should have preferred your wish to my
own convenience. In reply to your
letter, I Should have been able to write to you on
the details more conveniently, if my secretary, M.
Tullius, had been with me. lie, I feel certain, at
any rate in making up the accounts—I
cannot speak of other things-did not knowingly do
anything adverse to your interest or your
reputation. And in the next place I can assure you
that, if the old rule and ancient custom as to
giving in accounts had been in force, I should
never have given them in until I had first checked
and made them up with you, as our close official
connexion demanded. What I should have done
outside Rome, had the old custom remained in
force, that I did in the province, because, by the
Julian law, it was necessary to leave accounts in
the province and to give in a verbatim copy of
them at the treasury. I did not do this with a
view of forcing you to adopt my calculation; but I
put a great confidence in you, and shall never be
sorry that I did so. For I handed over my
secretary to your entire control—of whom
I now see that you entertain
suspicions—and you joined your brother
M. Mindius with him in the business. The accounts
were made up, in my absence, under your eye, to
which I did nothing whatever beyond reading them.
When I received a copy from my secretary, I
regarded it as received from your brother. If that
was a compliment, I could not pay you a greater
one: if it was an instance of confidence, I have
shewn you almost more than I shewed myself: if my
duty had been to see that nothing was entered in
them that was not for your honour and advantage,
there was no one to whom I could have intrusted
them in preference to the man to whom I did do so.
At any rate, I merely obeyed the law by depositing
copies of the accounts made up and audited in two
cities, Laodicea and Apamea, which I regarded as
the two chief cities (for it had to be the chief
cities). So then to this point my first reply is
that, though for good and sufficient reasons I
have made haste to give in the accounts at the
treasury, yet I should have waited for you, had I
not considered that depositing the accounts in the
province was tantamount to giving them in at the
treasury. 4
As to what you say of
Volusius, that has nothing to do with the
accounts. I have been advised by experts-among
them by C Camillus, the best lawyer of the day and
a very kind friend of mine— that the
debt (the amount was not 3,000 sestertia, as you
say, but 1,900) could not be transferred from
Valerius to Volusius, and that the sureties of
Valerius were liable. For a sum of money had been
paid us in the name of Valerius as purchaser: the
balance I entered in the accounts. 5 But your proposal robs me of
the fruit of my liberality, of my activity, and
even (what, after all, I do not much care about)
of a moderate amount of good sense: of my
liberality, because you prefer to suppose my
legate and my prefect, Q. Lepta, to have been
relieved from a most serious calamity by the good
offices of my secretary rather than of myself, and
that though they ought never to have been made
liable: of my activity, because you suppose that
in regard to so important a duty, I may say so
grave a danger, I neither knew anything nor took
any thought—that my secretary made any
entry he chose without even going through the form
of reading it over to me: of my good sense,
because you think that an arrangement, which had
been thought out by me with no little acuteness,
had been practically not thought of at all. The
fact of the matter is that the release of Volusius
was my own design, and I also formed the plan for
relieving the securities of Valerius and Tit.
Marius himself from so heavy a loss. And this
scheme has not only the approval of everybody, but
their warm commendation, and, if you wish to know
the real truth, I perceived that my secretary was
the one person who did not like it. But it was my
view that, so long as the People got its own, a
good man should consult for the interests of so
large a number-whether of friends or fellow
citizens. As regards Lucceius, the
arrangement Come to, at the suggestion of Pompey,
was that the money should be deposited in a
temple. I acknowledged that as having been done on
my order. This money Pompey has employed, as
Sestius did that deposited by you. But this, I am
aware, does not affect you. I should have been
sorry to have omitted to record your having
deposited the money in the temple on my order, had
not that sum been attested by records of the most
solemn and precise nature— stating to
whom it was paid, by what decree of the senate,
and in virtue of what written order from you and
from myself it had been handed over to P. Sestius.
6 Seeing that these
facts had been put on record in so many ways, that
a mistake in regard to them was impossible, I did
not make an entry, which after all had no
reference to you. However, I wish now I had made
the entry, since I see that you regret its not
having been done. I quite
agree as to your being obliged, as you Say, to
enter this transaction, and your balance will not
differ at all from mine by your doing so. You may
add also, "on my authority," which, though I did
not add it, I have no reason for denying, nor
should deny, had there been any such reason, and
had you declined to add it. Again, as to the sum
of 900,000 sesterces: that, at any rate, was
entered in accordance with your own or your
brother's wishes. However, if there is any entry
(for the posting of the public
ledger is not Completed) which I can correct even
now in my accounts, I must
consider—since I have not taken
advantage of the decree of the
senate—what grace the laws allow me.
7
Anyhow, you were not bound to make the entry you
have made in regard to the amount collected tally
with my accounts, 8 unless I am mistaken-for there
are others with more technical knowledge than
myself. But pray do not doubt my doing everything
that I think to be for your interests or in
accordance with your wish, if I possibly can.
As to what you say about
the list for good-service rewards, you must know
that I have returned the names of my military
tribunes and prefects, and the members of the
staff—at least of my own staff. OUTSIDE ROME (JANUARY)
