DCCCXVI (F X, 28)
TO GAIUS TREBONIUS (IN ASIA)
ROME, 2 FEBRUARY
How I could wish that you had invited me to
that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March!
We should have had no leavings! While, as it is,
we are having such a trouble with them, that the
magnificent service which you men then did the
state leaves room for some grumbling. In fact, for
Antony's having been taken out of the way by
you—the best of men—and that
it was by your kindness that this pest still
survives, I sometimes do feel, though perhaps I
have no right to do so, a little angry with you.
For you have left behind an amount of trouble
which is greater for me than for everyone else put
together. For as soon as a
meeting of the senate could be freely held, after
Antony's very undignified departure, 1 I returned to that old courage of
mine, which along with that gallant taking over
the province, as though he were "succeeding" to
the governorship, without allowing his predecessor
even the thirty days beyond his year given him by
the Julian law. citizen, your
father, you ever had upon your lips and in your
heart. For the tribunes having summoned the senate
for the 20th of December, and having brought a
different piece of business before it, I reviewed
the situation as a whole, and spoke with the
greatest fire, and tried all I could to recall the
now languid and wearied senate to its ancient and
traditional valour, more by an exhibition of high
spirit than of eloquence. 2
This day and this earnest
appeal from me were the first things that inspired
the Roman people with the hope of recovering its
liberty. And had not I supposed that a gazette of
the city and of all acts of the senate was
transmitted to you, I would have written you out a
copy with my own hand, though I have been
overpowered with a multiplicity of business. But
you will learn all that from others. From me you
shall have a brief narrative, and that a mere
summary. Our senate is courageous, but the
consulars are partly timid, partly disaffected.
3 We have had a great loss
in Servius. 4 Lucius Caesar
entertains the most loyal sentiments, but, being
Antony's uncle, he refrains from very strong
language in the senate. The consuls are splendid.
Decimus Brutus is covering himself with glory. The
youthful Caesar is behaving excellently, and I
hope he will go on as he has begun. You may at any
rate be sure of this—that, had he not
speedily enrolled the veterans, 5 and had
not the two legions 6 transferred themselves from Antony's army
to his command, and had not Antony been confronted
with that danger, there is no crime or cruelty
which he would have omitted to practise. Though I
suppose these facts to have been told you, yet I
wished you to know them still better. I will write
more when I get more leisure.
ROME, 2 FEBRUARY
