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3.
[7]
I have now explained to you, O conscript fathers, my design in leaving the city.
Now I will briefly set before you; also, my intention in returning, which may
perhaps appear more unaccountable. As I had avoided Brundusium, and the ordinary route into
Greece, not without good reason, on
the first of August I arrived at Syracuse, because the passage from that city into Greece was said to be a good one. And that
city, with which I had so intimate a connection, could not, though it was very
eager to do so, detain me more than one night. I was afraid that my sudden
arrival among my friends might cause some suspicion if I remained there at all.
But after the winds had driven me, on my departure from Sicily, to Leucopetra, which is a promontory
of the Rhegian district, I went up the gulf from that point, with the view of
crossing over. And I had not advanced far before I was driven back by a foul
wind to the very place which I had just quitted.
[8]
And as the night was stormy, and as I had lodged that night in the villa of
Publius Valerius, my companion and intimate friend, and as I remained all the
next day at his house waiting for a fair wind, many of the citizens
of the municipality of Rhegium came to
me. And of them there were some who had lately arrived from Rome; from them I first heard of the harangue
of Marcus Antonius, with which I was so much pleased that, after I had read it,
I began for the first time to think of returning. And not long afterwards the
edict of Brutus and Cassius is brought to me; which (perhaps because I love
those men, even more for the sake of the republic than of my own friendship for
them) appeared to me, indeed, to be full of equity. They added besides, (for it
is a very common thing for those who are desirous of bringing good news to
invent something to make the news which they bring seem more joyful,) that
parties were coming to an agreement; that the senate was to meet on the first of
August; that Antonius having discarded all evil counselors, and having given up
the provinces of Gaul, was about to
return to submission to the authority of the senate.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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