CCCLV (A IX, 2 a)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
FORMIAE, 8 MARCH
WHAT a difficult, what a hopeless thing! You
pass over no point in giving your advice, and yet
how completely you fail to reveal what your real
opinion is! You are glad that I am not with
Pompey, and yet you suggest how dibcreditable it
would be for me to be in the House when any attack is made on him; yet shocking
to approve his conduct. Certainly. To speak
against him, then? "God forbid !" say you. What,
then, is to be done, if the one course is
criminal, the other exposed to punishment? "You
will obtain permission," say you, "from Caesar to
absent yourself and live in retirement." Am I to
implore this permission, then? How humiliating!
What if I fail to get it? Again, you say, "The
question of your triumph will be unprejudiced."
What if this very thing is used to put pressure
upon me? Should I accept it? What a disgrace!
Should I decline it? Caesar will think that I am
repudiating his whole policy, as formerly in the
case of the land commission. 1
Why, in excusing himself, he always throws the
whole blame for what then happened on me, saying
that I was so bitterly opposed to him, that I
would not accept even an honour at his hands. With
how much greater irritation will he take a similar
proceeding from me now? It will, of course, be
greater in proportion as this honour is greater
than the former, and he is himself in a stronger
position. But you say that
you have no doubt I am in very bad odour with
Pompey by this time: I don't see why that should
be the case, particularly at this time. Shall a
man who never told me anything about his plan,
till after he had lost Corfinium, complain of my
not having come to Brundisium, when Caesar lay
between me and Brundisium? In the next place,
complaint on his side he must know to be barred.
He considers that I was clearer sighted than he
about the weakness of the municipal towns, the
levies, the maintenance of peace, the city, money,
and the need of occupying Picenum. If, on the
other hand, I don't go when it is in my power, he
will have some right to be angry with me: and I
shrink from that, not for fear of his hurting
me—-for what could he do? And “Who
is a slave who does not fear to die?”
2 But because
I have a horror of ingratitude. I feel confident,
therefore, that my arrival in his
camp, whenever it takes place, will, as you say,
be welcome enough. 3 For as to what you say, "If Caesar
acts with more moderation you will reconsider your
advice to me "- how can he help behaving
ruthlessly? Character, previous career, the very
nature of his present undertaking, his associates,
the strength of the loyalists, or even their
firmness, all forbid it. I
had scarcely read your letter, when Curtius
Postumus called on me as he was hurrying to join
Caesar, talking of nothing but fleets and
armies—"Caesar was going to seize the
Spains, 4 occupy Asia, Sicily,
Africa, Sardinia, and was promptly pursuing Pompey
into Greece." I must start, therefore, with the
view of sharing not so much in a war as in a
stampede. For I shall never be able to stand the
gossip of your folk at Rome, whatever they are,
for loyalists they are not, in spite of their
name. Nevertheless, it is precisely that which I
want to know— what they say; and I
earnestly entreat you to make inquiries and inform
me. As yet I am entirely ignorant of what has
happened at Brundisium: when I know, I shall shape
my plans in the light of facts and circumstances,
but I shall consult you.
FORMIAE, 8 MARCH
