The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1

We have no letters to or from Cicero in the years b.c. 64 and 63,[57 - The essay on the duties of a candidate attributed to Quintus is hardly a letter, and there is some doubt as to its authenticity. I have therefore relegated it to an appendix.] partly, no doubt, because Atticus was in Rome a great deal during these years. We take up the correspondence, therefore, after an interval of two years, which in many respects were the most important in Cicero's life. In b.c. 64 he attained his chief ambition by being elected to the consulship, but we have little trace of his public actions that year, only the fragments of one speech remaining, in defence of Q. Gallius on a charge of ambitus. The animus of the popular party, however, is shewn by the prosecution of some surviving partisans of Sulla on charges of homicide, among them Catiline, who by some means escaped conviction (Dio, xxxvii. 10). In the year of the consulship (b.c. 63) some of Cicero's most important speeches were delivered. The three on the agrarian proposals of Rullus present him to us for the first time as discussing an important question of home politics, the disposal of the ager publicus, a question which had become again prominent owing to the great additions made to it by the confiscations of Sulla. He also defended C. Rabirius, prosecuted by Iulius Cæsar for the murder of Saturninus as long ago as b.c. 100, and later in the year defended Murena on a charge of ambitus. Finally, the three Catilinarian speeches illustrate the event which coloured the whole of Cicero's life. In b.c. 62 his brother Quintus was prætor and Cicero defended in his court P. Sulla, accused of complicity with Catiline. On the 29th of December (b.c. 63) the tribune Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos prevented Cicero from making a speech when laying down his consulship, and went on to propose summoning Pompey to Rome, "to protect the lives of the citizens." This led to scenes of violence, and Metellus fled to Pompey, who reached Italy late in the year b.c. 62 from the East.

XII (f v, 7)

TO CN. POMPEIUS MAGNUS

Rome

M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets Cn. Pompeius, son of Cneius, Imperator

b.c. 62. æt. 44

If you and the army are well I shall be glad. From your official despatch I have, in common with everyone else, received the liveliest satisfaction; for you have given us that strong hope of peace, of which, in sole reliance on you, I was assuring everyone. But I must inform you that your old enemies—now posing as your friends—have received a stunning blow by this despatch, and, being disappointed in the high hopes they were entertaining, are thoroughly depressed. Though your private letter to me contained a somewhat slight expression of your affection, yet I can assure you it gave me pleasure: for there is nothing in which I habitually find greater satisfaction than in the consciousness of serving my friends; and if on any occasion I do not meet with an adequate return, I am not at all sorry to have the balance of kindness in my favour. Of this I feel no doubt—even if my extraordinary zeal in your behalf has failed to unite you to me—that the interests of the state will certainly effect a mutual attachment and coalition between us. To let you know, however, what I missed in your letter I will write with the candour which my own disposition and our common friendship demand. I did expect some congratulation in your letter on my achievements, for the sake at once of the ties between us and of the Republic. This I presume to have been omitted by you from a fear of hurting anyone's feelings. But let me tell you that what I did for the salvation of the country is approved by the judgment and testimony of the whole world. You are a much greater man than Africanus, but I am not much inferior to Lælius either; and when you come home you will recognize that I have acted with such prudence and spirit, that you will not be ashamed of being coupled with me in politics as well as in private friendship.

XIII (f v, i)

Q. METELLUS CELER TO CICERO

Cisalpine Gaul

Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul, greets M. Tullius Cicero.[58 - Q. Metellus Celer had been prætor in b.c. 63 and was now (b.c. 62), as proconsul in Gallia Cisalpina, engaged against the remains of the Catilinarian conspiracy. Meanwhile his brother (or cousin) Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos, a tribune, after trying in vain to bring Cicero to trial for the execution of the conspirators, at last proposed to summon Pompey to Rome to prevent danger to the lives of citizens. This attempt led to riots and contests with Cato, and Nepos finally fled from Rome to Pompey. By leaving Rome he broke the law as to the tribunes, and the senate declared his office vacant, and this letter would even seem to shew that the senate declared him a public enemy. This letter of remonstrance is peremptory, if not insolent, in tone, and the reader will observe that the formal sentences, dropped in more familiar letters, are carefully used.]

b.c. 62. æt. 44

If you are well I am glad. I had thought, considering our mutual regard and the reconciliation effected between us, that I was not likely to be held up to ridicule in my absence, nor my brother attacked by you in his civil existence and property for the sake of a mere word. If his own high character was not a sufficient protection to him, yet either the position of our family, or my own loyal conduct to you and the Republic, ought to have been sufficient to support him. As it is, I see that he has been ruined and I abandoned by the last people in the world who ought to have done so. I am accordingly in sorrow and wearing mourning dress, while actually in command of a province and army and conducting a war. And seeing that your conduct in this affair has neither been reasonable nor in accordance with the milder methods of old times, you must not be surprised if you live to repent it. I did not expect to find you so fickle towards me and mine. For myself, meanwhile, neither family sorrow nor ill-treatment by any individual shall withdraw me from the service of the state.

XIV (f v, 2)

TO Q. METELLUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL)

Rome

M. Tullius, son of Marcus, to Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul, wishes health

b.c. 62, æt. 44

If you and the army are well I shall be glad. You say in your letter that you "thought, considering our mutual regard and the reconciliation effected between us, that you were not likely to be held up to ridicule by me." To what you refer I do not clearly understand, but I suspect that you have been informed that, while arguing in the senate that there were many who were annoyed at my having saved the state, I said that your relations, whose wishes you had been unable to withstand, had induced you to pass over in silence what you had made up your mind you ought to say in the senate in my praise. But while saying so I also added this—that the duty of supporting the Republic had been so divided between us that I was defending the city from internal treachery and the crime of its own citizens, you Italy from armed enemies and covert conspiracy;[59 - Metellus had been employed with Antonius against the camp at Fæsulæ, but was now engaged against some Alpine tribes.] yet that this association in a task so noble and so glorious had been imperilled by your relations, who, while you had been complimented by me in the fullest and most laudatory terms, had been afraid of any display of mutual regard on your part being put to my credit. As this sentence betrayed how much I had looked forward to your speech, and how mistaken I had been in that expectation, my speech caused some amusement, and was received with a moderate amount of laughter; but the laugh was not against you, it was rather at my mistake, and at the open and naïve confession of my eagerness to be commended by you. Surely it cannot but be a compliment to you that in the hour of my greatest triumph and glory I yet wished for some testimony of approval from your lips. As to your expression, "considering our mutual regard"—I don't know your idea of what is "mutual" in friendship; mine is an equal interchange of good feeling. Now if I were to mention that I passed over a province for your sake, you might think me somewhat insincere; for, in point of fact, it suited my convenience, and I feel more and more every day of my life the advantage and pleasure which I have received from that decision. But this I do say—the moment I had announced in public meeting my refusal of a province, I began at once thinking how I might hand it on to you. I say nothing as to the circumstances of your allotment: I only wish you to suspect that nothing was done in that matter by my colleague without my cognizance. Recall the other circumstances: how promptly I summoned the senate on that day after the lots had been drawn, at what a length I spoke about you. You yourself said at the time that my speech was not merely complimentary to you, but absolutely a reflexion on your colleagues. Farther, the decree of the senate passed on that day has such a preamble that, so long as it is extant, there can never be any doubt of my services to you. Subsequently, when you had gone out of town, I would have you recall my motions in the senate, my speeches in public meetings, my letters to yourself. And having reviewed all these together, I would like you to judge yourself whether you think that your approach to Rome the last time you came quite shewed an adequate return for all these services.[60 - When Metellus was commanding against Catiline, it is suggested that he marched towards Rome to support his brother, but this is conjecture.] Again, as to your expression, "the reconciliation effected between us"—I do not understand why you speak of "reconciliation" in the case of a friendship that had never been broken. As to what you say, that your brother Metellus ought not "to have been attacked by me for a mere word," in the first place I would like to assure you that your feeling and fraternal partiality—so full of human kindness and natural affection—meet with my warmest approbation; in the next place I must claim your indulgence if I have in any matter opposed your brother in the interests of the Republic, for my devotion to the Republic is paramount. If, however, it is my personal safety that I have defended against a most ruthless assault of his, I think you should be content that I make no complaint even to you of your brother's injurious conduct. Now, when I had become aware that he was deliberately making every preparation to use his tribunician office to my ruin, I appealed to your wife Claudia[61 - Sister of P. Clodius. Of this famous woman we shall hear often again. She is believed to be the Lesbia of Catullus, and she is the "Palatine Medea" of the speech pro Cælio. Yet, in spite of Cicero's denunciations of her, he seems at one time to have been so fond of her society as to rouse Terentia's jealousy.] and your sister Mucia[62 - Wife of Pompey—divorced by him on his return from the East.] (of whose kindness to me for the sake of my friendship with Pompey I had satisfied myself by many instances) to deter him from that injurious conduct. And yet, as I am sure you have heard, on the last day of December he inflicted upon me—a consul and the preserver of my country—an indignity such as was never inflicted upon the most disloyal citizen in the humblest office: that is to say, he deprived me when laying down my office of the privilege of addressing the people—an indignity, however, which after all redounded to my honour. For, upon his forbidding me to do anything but take the oath, I pronounced an oath at once the most absolutely true and the most glorious in a loud voice—an oath which the people swore also in a loud voice to be absolutely true. Though I had actually suffered this signal indignity, I yet on that same day sent common friends to Metellus to persuade him to alter his resolution; to whom he answered that he was no longer free to do so. And, in fact, a short time previously he had said in a public meeting that a man who had punished others without trial ought not himself to be allowed the privilege of speech. What a model of consistency! What an admirable citizen! So he deemed the man who had saved the senate from massacre, the city from the incendiary, Italy from war, deserving of the same penalty as that inflicted by the senate, with the unanimous approval of all loyal citizens, upon those who had intended to set fire to the city, butcher magistrates and senate, and stir up a formidable war! Accordingly, I did withstand your brother Metellus to his face: for on the 1st of January, in the senate, I maintained a debate with him on the state of the Republic, such as taught him that he had to contend with a man of courage and firmness. On the 3rd of January,[63 - On the next meeting of the senate. The second was a dies comitialis on which the senate usually did not meet (Cæs. B. Civ. i. i).] on again opening the debate, he kept harping on me and threatening me at every third word of his speech; nor could any intention be more deliberate than his was to overthrow me by any means in his power, not by calm and judicial argument, but by violence and mere browbeating. If I had not shewn some boldness and spirit in opposing his intemperate attack, would not everyone have concluded that the courage I had displayed in my consulship was the result of accident rather than design? If you did not know that Metellus was contemplating these measures in regard to me, you must consider that you have been kept in the dark by your brother on matters of the utmost importance: if, on the other hand, he did intrust any part of his designs to you, then surely I ought to be regarded by you as a man of placable and reasonable temper for not addressing a word of reproach to you even on such occurrences as these. Understanding then that it was by no "mere word" (as you express it) of Metellus that I was roused, but by his deliberate policy and extraordinary animosity towards me, next observe my forbearance—if "forbearance" is the name to be given to irresolution and laxity under a most galling indignity. I never once delivered a vote in a speech against your brother: every time a motion was before the house I assented without rising to those whose proposal appeared to me to be the mildest. I will also add that, though in the circumstances there was no obligation upon me to do so, yet so far from raising objections I actually did my best to secure that my enemy, because he was your brother, should be relieved from penalties by a decree of the senate.[64 - For the riots caused by his contests with Cato (on which the senate seems to have passed the senatus consultum ultimum), and for his having left Rome while tribune.] Wherefore I have not "attacked" your brother, but only defended myself from your brother's attack; nor have I been "fickle" (to quote your word), but, on the contrary, so constant, that I remained faithful to my friendship to you, though left without any sign of kindness from you. For instance, at this moment, though your letter amounts almost to a threat, I am writing back an answer such as you see. I not only pardon your vexation, I even applaud it in the highest degree; for my own heart tells me how strong is the influence of fraternal affection. I ask you in your turn to put a liberal construction upon my vexation, and to conclude that when attacked by your relatives with bitterness, with brutality, and without cause, I not only ought not to retract anything, but, in a case of that kind, should even be able to rely upon the aid of yourself and your army. I have always wished to have you as a friend: I have taken pains to make you understand that I am a warm friend to you. I abide by that sentiment, and shall abide by it as long as you will let me; and I shall more readily cease to be angry with your brother for love of you, than I shall from anger with him abate in the smallest degree my kindness for you.

XV (f v, 6)

TO P. SESTIUS[65 - P. Sestius was serving as proquæstor in Macedonia under Gaius Antonius. As tribune in b.c. 57 he worked for Cicero's recall, but was afterwards prosecuted de vi, and defended by Cicero.] (IN MACEDONIA)

Rome, December

b.c. 62, æt. 44

Decius the copyist has been to see me, and begged me to try and secure that no successor should be appointed to you this turn. Though I regarded him as a man of good character and attached to you, yet, remembering the tenor of your previous letter to me, I could not feel certain that the wishes of a cautious man of the world like yourself had undergone so complete a change. But after your wife Cornelia had called on Terentia, and I had had a conversation with Q. Cornelius, I took care to be present at every meeting of the senate, and found that the greatest trouble was to make Fufius the tribune, and the others to whom you had written, believe me rather than your own letters. The whole business has, after all, been postponed till January, but there is no difficulty about it. Roused by your congratulations—for in a letter sometime ago you wished me good luck on the completion of my purchase of a house from Crassus—I have bought that very house for 3,500 sestertia (about £28,000), a good while subsequent to your congratulation. Accordingly, you may now look upon me as being so deeply in debt as to be eager to join a conspiracy if anyone would admit me! But, partly from personal dislike they shut their doors in my face and openly denounce me as the punisher of conspiracy, partly are incredulous and afraid that I am setting a trap for them! Nor do they suppose that a man can be short of money who has relieved the money-lenders from a state of siege. In point of fact, money is plentiful at six per cent., and the success of my measures has caused me to be regarded as a good security. Your own house, and all the details of its construction, I have examined and strongly approve. As for Antonius,[66 - Gaius Antonius, Cicero's colleague in the consulship. He had the province of Macedonia after the consulship, Cicero having voluntarily withdrawn in his favour to secure his support against Catiline. Scandal said that he had bargained to pay Cicero large sums from the profits of the province. He governed so corruptly and unsuccessfully that he was on his return condemned of maiestas.] though everyone notices his want of attention to my interests, I have nevertheless defended him in the senate with the utmost earnestness and persistence, and have made a strong impression on the senate by my language as well as by my personal prestige. Pray write to me more frequently.

XVI (a i, 12)

b.c. 61. Coss., M. Papius Piso, M. Valerius Messalla.

The letters of this year are much concerned with the sacrilege of P. Clodius, who, it was alleged, had been detected in disguise in the house of the Pontifex Maximus Iulius Cæsar, when his wife was celebrating the mysteries of the Bona Dea, from which males were excluded. His trial was made the occasion of bitter party struggles, and by giving evidence in contradiction of Clodius's alibi Cicero incurred his enmity, and eventually, therefore, his own exile. Quintus is proprætor in Asia, Cæsar in Spain. Pompey reached Rome early this year. The ordo equester is much irritated with the senate on the question of the contracts for the collection of the Asiatic taxes.

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

Rome, 1 January

b.c. 61, æt. 45

The Teucris[67 - From expressions in the following letters it seems certain that this refers to money expected from Gaius Antonius; but we have no means of deciding whether or no Teucris is a pseudonym for some agent. Cicero had undertaken to be the advocate and supporter of Antonius, and though as an actual patronus in court he could not take money, he may have felt justified in receiving supplies from him. Still, he knew the character of Antonius, and how such wealth was likely to be got, and it is not a pleasant affair.] business hangs fire, and Cornelius has not called on Terentia since. I suppose I must have recourse to Considius, Axius, and Selicius:[68 - Money-lenders.] for his nearest relations can't get a penny out of Cæcilius[69 - The rich and cross-grained uncle of Atticus. See Letter X (#x4_pgepubid00043).] under twelve per cent. But to return to my first remark: I never saw anything more shameless, artful, and dilatory. "I am on the point of sending my freedman," "I have commissioned Titus"—excuses and delays at every turn! But perhaps it is a case of l'homme propose,[70 - Cicero quotes half a Greek verse of Menander's, ταὐτόματον ἡμῶν, leaving Atticus to fill up the other two words, καλλίω βουλεύεται, "Chance designs better than we ourselves."] for Pompey's advance couriers tell me that he means to move in the senate that a successor to Antonius ought to be named, and the prætor intends to bring the proposal before the people at the same time. The facts are such that I cannot defend him in view of the opinion either of the aristocrats or the people, and, what is more than anything else, that I have no wish to do so. For a thing has happened into the truth of which I charge you to look thoroughly. I have a freedman, who is a worthless fellow enough; I mean Hilarus, an accountant and a client of your own. The interpreter Valerius gives me this information about him, and Thyillus writes me word that he has been told the same story: that the fellow is with Antonius, and that Antonius, in exacting money payments, frequently remarks that a part is being collected for me, and that I have sent a freedman to look after our common interests. I felt exceedingly disturbed, and yet could not believe it; but at any rate there has been some gossip of the sort. Pray look into the whole matter, learn the truth, find out the author, and get the empty-headed idiot out of the country, if you possibly can. Valerius mentions Cn. Plancius as the origin of this gossip. I trust you thoroughly to investigate and find out what is at the bottom of it. I have good reason to believe that Pompey is most kindly disposed to me. His divorce of Mucia is strongly approved.[71 - Mucia was suspected of intriguing with Iulius Cæsar.] I suppose you have heard that P. Clodius, son of Appius, was caught in woman's clothes at Gaius Cæsar's house, while the state function was going on, and that he was saved and got out by means of a maid-servant; and that the affair is causing immense scandal. I feel sure you will be sorry for it.[72 - The chief festival of the Bona Dea (Tellus) was in May. The celebration referred to here took place on the night between the 3rd and 4th of December. It was a state function (pro populo), and was celebrated in the presence of the Vestals and the wife of the consul or prætor urbanus, in ea domo quæ est in imperio. As Cæsar was Pontifex Maximus, as well as prætor urbanus, it took place in the Regia, the Pontiff's official house (Plutarch, Cic. 19; Dio, xxxvii. 35).] I have nothing else to tell you. And, indeed, at the moment of writing, I am in considerable distress: for a delightful youth, my reader Sosthenes, has just died, and his death has affected me more than that of a slave should, I think, do. Pray write often. If you have no news, write just what comes uppermost.

1 January, in the consulship of M. Messalla and M. Piso.

XVII (f v, 5)

TO C. ANTONIUS (IN MACEDONIA)

Rome, January

M. Cicero wishes health to Gaius Antonius, son of Marcus, Imperator

b.c. 61, æt. 45

Though I had resolved to write you nothing but formal letters of introduction (not because I felt that they had much weight with you, but to avoid giving those who asked me for them an idea that there had been any diminution in our friendship), yet since Titus Pomponius is starting for your province, who knows better than anyone else all that I feel and have done for you, who desires your friendship and is most devotedly attached to me, I thought I must write something, especially as I had no other way of satisfying Pomponius himself. Were I to ask from you services of the greatest moment, it ought not to seem surprising to anyone: for you have not wanted from me any that concerned your interests, honour, or position. That no return has been made by you for these you are the best witness: that something even of a contrary nature has proceeded from you I have been told by many. I say "told," for I do not venture to say "discovered,"[73 - The word (comperisse) used by Cicero in regard to the Catilinarian conspiracy; it had apparently become a subject of rather malignant chaff.] lest I should chance to use the word which people tell me is often falsely attributed to me by you. But the story which has reached my ears I would prefer your learning from Pomponius (who was equally hurt by it) rather than from my letter. How singularly loyal my feelings have been to you the senate and Roman people are both witnesses. How far you have been grateful to me you may yourself estimate: how much you owe me the rest of the world estimates. I was induced to do what I did for you at first by affection, and afterwards by consistency. Your future, believe me, stands in need of much greater zeal on my part, greater firmness and greater labour.[74 - Cicero is hinting at the danger of prosecution hanging over the head of Antonius.] These labours, unless it shall appear that I am throwing away and wasting my pains, I shall support with all the strength I have; but if I see that they are not appreciated, I shall not allow you—the very person benefited[75 - Reading tibi ipsi (not ipse), with Tyrrell.]—to think me a fool for my pains. What the meaning of all this is you will be able to learn from Pomponius. In commending Pomponius to you, although I am sure you will do anything in your power for his own sake, yet I do beg that if you have any affection for me left, you will display it all in Pomponius's business. You can do me no greater favour than that.

XVIII (a 1, 13)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

Rome, 27 January

b.c. 61, æt. 45

I have now received three letters from you—one by the hands of M. Cornelius, which you gave him, I think, at Three Taverns; a second which your host at Canusium delivered to me; a third dated, according to you, from on board your pinnace, when the cable was already slipped.[76 - Ora soluta. Or, if ancora sublata be read, "when the anchor was already weighed." In either case it means "just as you were starting." Atticus wrote on board, and gave the letter to a carrier to take on shore.] They were all three, to use a phrase from the schools of rhetoric flavoured with the salt of learning, and illumined with the marks of affection. In these letters, indeed, I am urgently pressed by you to send answers, but what renders me rather dilatory in this respect is the difficulty of finding a trustworthy carrier. How few of these gentry are able to convey a letter rather weightier than usual without lightening it by skimming its contents! Besides, I do not always care to send[77 - A word lost in the text.] whenever anyone is starting for Epirus: for I suppose that, having offered victims before your Amaltheia,[78 - See end of Letter XXI (#x5_pgepubid00076). Cicero playfully supposes that Atticus only stayed in his villa in Epirus to offer sacrifices to the nymph in his gymnasium, and then hurried off to Sicyon, where people owed him money which he wanted to get. He goes to Antonius first to get his authority for putting pressure on Sicyon, and perhaps even some military force.] you at once started for the siege of Sicyon. And yet I am not even certain when you start to visit Antonius or how much time you are devoting to Epirus. Accordingly, I don't venture to trust either Achæans or Epirotes with a letter somewhat more outspoken than usual. Now some events have occurred since you left me worth my writing to you, but they must not be trusted to the risk of a letter being lost, opened, or intercepted.

Well, then, to begin with: I was not called upon to speak first, and the pacifier of the Allobroges[79 - C. Calpurnius Piso (consul b.c. 67), brother of the consul of the year, had been governor of Gallia Narbonensis (b.c. 66-65), and had suppressed a rising of the Allobroges, the most troublesome tribe in the province, who were, in fact, again in rebellion.] was preferred to me, and though this met with some murmurs of disapprobation from the senate, I was not sorry it was done. For I am thereby freed from any obligation to shew respect to an ill-conditioned man, and am at liberty to support my position in the Republic in spite of him. Besides, the second place has a dignity almost equal to that of princeps senatus, and does not put one under too much of an obligation to the consul. The third called on was Catulus; the fourth, if you want to go still farther, Hortensius. The consul himself[80 - M. Pupius Piso.] is a man of a small and ill-regulated mind, a mere buffoon of that splenetic kind which raises a laugh even in the absence of wit: it is his face rather than his facetiousness[81 - "By the expression of his face rather than the force of his expressions" (Tyrrell).] that causes merriment: he takes practically no part in public business, and is quite alienated from the Optimates. You need expect no service to the state from him, for he has not the will to do any, nor fear any damage, for he hasn't the courage to inflict it. His colleague, however, treats me with great distinction, and is also a zealous supporter of the loyalist party. For the present their disagreement has not come to much; but I fear that this taint may spread farther. For I suppose you have heard that when the state function was being performed in Cæsar's house a man in woman's dress got in,[82 - See p. 27, note 2 (#x22_x_22_i74).] and that the Vestals having performed the rite again, mention was made of the matter in the senate by Q. Cornificius—he was the first, so don't think that it was one of us consulars—and that on the matter being referred by a decree of the senate to the [Virgins and] pontifices, they decided that a sacrilege had been committed: that then, on a farther decree of the senate, the consuls published a bill: and that Cæsar divorced his wife. On this question Piso, from friendship for P. Clodius, is doing his best to get the bill promulgated by himself (though in accordance with a decree of the senate and on a point of religion) rejected. Messalla as yet is strongly for severe measures. The loyalists hold aloof owing to the entreaties of Clodius: bands of ruffians are being got together: I myself, at first a stern Lycurgus, am becoming daily less and less keen about it: Cato is hot and eager. In short, I fear that between the indifference of the loyalists and the support of the disloyal it may be the cause of great evils to the Republic. However, your great friend[83 - Pompey.]—do you know whom I mean?—of whom you said in your letter that, "not venturing to blame me, he was beginning to be complimentary," is now to all appearance exceedingly fond of me, embraces me, loves and praises me in public, while in secret (though unable to disguise it) he is jealous of me. No good-breeding, no straightforwardness, no political morality, no distinction, no courage, no liberality! But on these points I will write to you more minutely at another time; for in the first place I am not yet quite sure about them, and in the next place I dare not intrust a letter on such weighty matters to such a casual nobody's son as this messenger.

The prætors have not yet drawn their lots for the provinces. The matter remains just where you left it. The description of the scenery of Misenum and Puteoli which you ask for I will include in my speech.[84 - Or, "inclose with my speech"; in both cases the dative orationi meæ is peculiar. No speech exists containing such a description, but we have only two of the previous year extant (pro Flacco and pro Archia Poeta). Cicero was probably sending it, whichever it was, to Atticus to be copied by his librarii, and published. Atticus had apparently some other works of Cicero's in hand, for which he had sent him some "queries."] I had already noticed the mistake in the date, 3rd of December. The points in my speeches which you praise, believe me, I liked very much myself, but did not venture to say so before. Now, however, as they have received your approval, I think them much more "Attic" than ever. To the speech in answer to Metellus[85 - Apparently the speech in the senate referred to in Letter XIV (#x4_pgepubid00055), p. 23 (#x4_x_4_i82), spoken on 1st January, b.c. 62. Metellus had prevented his contio the day before.] I have made some additions. The book shall be sent you, since affection for me gives you a taste for rhetoric. What news have I for you? Let me see. Oh, yes! The consul Messalla has bought Antonius's house for 3,400 sestertia (about £27,200). What is that to me? you will say. Why, thus much. The price has convinced people that I made no bad bargain, and they begin to understand that in making a purchase a man may properly use his friends' means to get what suits his position. The Teucris affair drags on, yet I have hopes. Pray settle the business you have in hand. You shall have a more outspoken letter soon.

27 January, in the consulship of M. Messalla and M. Piso.

XIX (a i, 14)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

Rome, 13 February

b.c. 61, æt. 45