DCXII (F IV, 12)
SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (AT
TUSCULUM)
ATHENS, 31 MAY
Servius sends many good wishes to Cicero.
Though I know that I shall be giving you no very
pleasant news, yet since chance and
nature bear the sway among us men, I thought it
incumbent on me to give you information of
whatever kind it might be. On the 23rd of May, on
sailing into the Piraeus, I met my colleague M.
Marcellus, 1 and spent the day there in
order to enjoy his society. Next day, when I
parted from him with the design of going from
Athens to Boeotia, and finishing what remained of
my legal business, 2 he told me that he
intended to sail round Cape Malea and make for
Italy. On the third day after that, just as I was
intending to start from Athens, at the tenth hour
of the night my friend Publius Postumius called on
me with the information that my colleague M.
Marcellus just after dinner had been stabbed with
a dagger by his friend P. Magius Cilo, and had
received two wounds, one in the stomach, a second
in the head behind the ear; but that hopes were
entertained that he might survive; and that Magius
had killed himself afterwards. He added that he
had been sent by Marcellus to tell me this, and to
ask me to send some physicians. Accordingly, I
summoned some physicians, and immediately started
just as day was breaking. When I was not far from
Piraeus, a slave of Acidinus met me bearing a note
containing the information that Marcellus had
expired a little before daybreak. So there is a
man of most illustrious character cut off in a
most distressing manner by the vilest of men. His
personal enemies had spared him in consideration
of his character; but one of his own friends was
found to inflict death upon him. However, I
continued my journey to his tent. There I found
two freedmen and a few slaves: they said the rest
had run away in terror, because their master had
been killed in front of the tent. 3 I was
obliged to carry him back to the city in the same
litter in which I had ridden down and to use my
own bearers: and there, considering the means at
my disposal at Athens, I saw to his having an honourable funeral. I could not induce
the Athenians to grant him a place of burial
within the city, 4 as they alleged that they were
prevented by religious scruples from doing so; and
it is a fact that they had never granted that
privilege to anyone. But they allowed us, which
was the next best thing, to bury him in any
gymnasium we chose. 5 We chose a place in the most famous
gymnasium in the world—that of the
Academy—and there we burnt the body, and
afterwards saw to these same Athenians giving out
a contract for the construction of a marble
monument over him. So I think I have done all for
him alive and dead required by our colleagueship
and close connexion. Goodbye. 31 May, Athens.
ATHENS, 31 MAY
