CCLXXIX (F VIII, 14)
M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (ON HIS JOURNEY
HOME)
ROME, SEPTEMBER
TAKING Arsaces prisoner and storming Seleucia
was not worth your missing the spectacle of events
which have been going on here. Your eyes would
never have ached again, if you had only seen
Domitius's look when he lost the election. 1 It
was a very full comitia, and the voting was
evidently on party lines: a very few voted from
motives of personal connexion or obligation.
Accordingly, Domitius is most bitterly angry with
me. He never hated any one even of his own friends
so much as he does me: and all the more so that he
thinks the augurship has been snatched from him
unfairly, and that I am at the bottom of it. Now
he is furious that people are so much rejoiced at
his vexation, and that there was only one man more
zealous for Antony than I was. For the young Cn.
Domitius himself has given notice- of action
against the young Cn. Saturninus—who is
very unpopular owing to his past life. The trial
is now imminent, with good hope, too, of an
acquittal, after the acquittal of Sextus
Peducaeus. As to high politics—I have
often told you in my letters that I see no chance
of peace lasting a year; and the nearer the
struggle comes, which must come, the clearer does
that danger appear. The point, on which the men in
power are bound to fight, is this - Cn. Pompeius
has made up his mind not to allow C. Caesar to
become consul, except on condition of his first
handing over his army and provinces: while Caesar
is fully persuaded that he cannot be
safe if he quits his army. He, however, proposes
as a compromise that both should give up their
armies. So that mighty love and unpopular union of
theirs has not degenerated into mere secret
bickering, but is breaking out into open war. Nor
can I conceive what line to take in my own
conduct—and I feel sure that this doubt
will exercise you a good deal also—for
between myself and these men there are ties of
affection and close connexion, since it is the
cause, not the men, that I dislike. I think you
are alive to this rule, that men ought in a case
of home differences, so long as the contest is
carried on constitutionally without an appeal to
arms, to follow the party most in the right: when
it comes to war and the camp, the stronger party;
2 and
to make up one's mind that the safer course is the
better. In this quarrel I perceive that Cn.
Pompeius has on his side the senate and the
iudices: that Caesar will be joined by all whose
past life gives them reason to be afraid, or their
future no reason to hope: that there is no
comparison between their armies. On the whole,
there is time enough to weigh the forces of both,
and to choose sides. I
almost forgot what above everything else I was
bound to write to you. Do you know that the censor
Appius is doing marvels? Busying himself about
statues, pictures, land-owning, and debt with the
greatest vigour? He is persuaded that his
censorship is a kind of soap or soda. I think he
is wrong: while he is meaning to wash off stains,
he is really exposing all his veins and vitals.
Hurry home, in the name of gods and men! Come as
quickly as you can to enjoy a laugh, that a trial
under the Scantinian law should be before Drusus,
and that Appius should be making regulations about
statues and pictures. 3 Believe me,
you ought to make haste. Our friend Curio is
thought to have acted prudently in his concession
as to Pompey's money for his troops. In a word,
you want my opinion as to the future. Unless one
or the other of these two goes to the Parthian
war, I see that a violent quarrel is impending,
which the sword and main force will decide. Both
are prepared in resolution and
forces. If it could only be transacted without
extreme danger, fortune is preparing for you a
great and enjoyable spectacle.
ROME, SEPTEMBER
