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Just as I had written these last words--which are by my own
hand--your boy came in to dine with me, as Pomponia was dining
out. He gave me your letter to read, which he had received shortly
before--a truly Aristophanic mixture of jest and earnest, with
which I was greatly charmed. He gave me also your second letter,
in which you bid him cling to my side as a mentor. How delighted
he was with those letters! And so was I. Nothing could be more
attractive than that boy, nothing more affectionate to me !--This, to
explain its being in another handwriting, I dictated to Tiro while at
dinner.

Your letter gratified Annalis very much, as shewing that you took
an active interest in his concerns, and yet assisted him with
exceedingly candid advice. Publius Servilius the elder, from a
letter which he said he had received from Caesar, declares himself
highly obliged to you for having spoken with the greatest kindness
and earnestness of his devotion to Caesar. After my return to Rome
from Arpinum I was told that Hippodamus had started to join you.
I cannot say that I was surprised at his having acted so
discourteously as to start to join you without a letter from me: I
only say that, that I was annoyed. For I had long resolved, from an
expression in your letter, that if I had anything I wished conveyed
to you with more than usual care, I should give it to him: for, in
truth, into a letter like this, which I send you in an ordinary way, I
usually put nothing that, if it fell into certain hands, might be a
source of annoyance. I reserve myself for Minucius and Salvius
and Labeo. Labeo will either be starting late or will stay here
altogether. Hippodamus did not even ask me whether he could do
anything for me. T. Penarius sends me a kind letter about you: says
that he is exceedingly charmed with your literary pursuits,
conversation, and above all by your dinners. He was always a
favourite of mine, and I see a good deal of his brother. Wherefore
continue, as you have begun, to admit the young man to your
intimacy.

From the fact of this letter having been in hand during many days,
owing to the delay of the letter-carriers, I have jotted down in it
many various things at odd times, as, for instance, the following:
Titus Anicius has mentioned to me more than once that he would
not hesitate to buy a suburban property for you, if he found one. In
these remarks of his I find two things surprising: first, that when
you write to him about buying a suburban property, you not only
don't write to me to that effect, but write even in a contrary sense;
and, secondly, that in writing to him you totally forget his letters
which you shewed me at Tusculum, and as totally the rule of
Epicharmus, "Notice how he has treated another": in fact, that you
have quite forgotten, as I think, the lesson conveyed by the
expression of his face, his conversation, and his spirit. But this is
your concern. As to a suburban property, be sure to let me know
your wishes, and at the same time take care that that fellow doesn't
get you into trouble. What else have I to say? Anything? Yes, there
is this: Gabinius entered the city by night on the 27th of
September, and today, at two o clock, when he ought to have
appeared on his trial for lŠse niajest‚, in accordance with the edict
of C. Alflus, he was all but crushed to the earth by a great and
unanimous demonstration of the popular hatred. Nothing could
exceed his humiliating position. However, Piso comes next to him.
So I think of introducing a marvellous episode into my second
book--Apollo declaring in the council of the gods what sort of
return that of the two commanders was to be, one of whom had
lost, and the other sold his army. From Britain I have a letter of
Qesar's dated the 1st of September, which reached me on the 27th,
satisfactory enough as far as the British expedition is concerned, in
which, to prevent my wondering at not getting one from you, he
tells me that you were not with him when he reached the coast. To
that letter I made no reply, not even a formal congratulation, on
account of his mourning. Many, many wishes, dear brother, for
your health.

XV

To P. LENTTJLUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA)

ROME (OCTOBER)

M. CICERO desires his warmest regards to P. Lentulus, imperator.
Your letter was very gratifying to me, from which I gathered that
you fully appreciated my devotion to you: for why use the word
kindness, when even the word "devotion" itself, with all its solemn
and holy associations, seems too weak to express my obligations to
you? As for your saying that my services to you are gratefully
accepted, it is you who in your overflowing affection make things,
which cannot be omitted without criminal negligence, appear
deserving of even gratitude. However, my feelings towards you
would have been much more fully known and conspicuous, if,
during all this time that we have been separated, we had been
together, and together at Rome. For precisely in what you declare
your intention of doing--what no one is more capable of doing, and
what I confidently look forward to from you--that is to say, in
speaking in the senate, and in every department of public life and
political activity, we should together have been in a very strong
position (what my feelings and position are in regard to politics
I will explain shortly, and will answer the questions you ask), and
at any rate I should have found in you a supporter, at once most
warmly attached and endowed with supreme wisdom, while in me
you would have found an adviser, perhaps not the most unskilful in
the world, and at least both faithful and devoted to your interests.
However, for your own sake, of course, I rejoice, as I am bound to
do, that you have been greeted with the title of imperator, and are
holding your province and victorious army after a successful
campaign. But certainly, if you had been here, you would have
enjoyed to a fuller extent and more directly the benefit of the
services 1which I am bound to render you. Moreover, in taking
vengeance on those whom you know in some cases to be your
enemies, because you championed the cause of my recall, in others
to be jealous of the splendid position and renown which that
measure brought you, I should have done you yeoman's service as
your associate. However, that perpetual enemy of his own friends,
who, in spite of having been honoured with the highest
compliments on your part, has selected you of all people for the
object of his impotent and enfeebled violence, has saved me the
trouble by punishing himself. For he has made attempts, the
disclosure of which has left him without a shred, not only of
political position, but every of freedom of action. And though I
should have preferred that you should have gained your experience
in my case alone, rather than in your own also, yet in the midst of
my regret I am glad that you have learnt what the fidelity of
mankind is worth, at no great cost to yourself, which I learnt at the
price of excessive pain. And I think that I have now an opportunity
presented me, while answering the questions you have addressed
to me, of also explaining my entire position and view. You say in
your letter that you have been informed that I have become
reconciled to Cmesar and Appius, and you add that you have no
fault to find with that. But you express a wish to know what
induced me to defend and compliment Vatinius. In order to make
my explanation plainer I must go a little farther back in the
statement of my policy and its grounds.

Well, Lentulus! At first--after the success of your efforts for my
recall--I looked upon myself as having been restored not alone to
my friends, but to the Republic also; and seeing that I owed you an
affection almost surpassing belief, and every kind of service,
however great and rare, that could be bestowed on your person, I
thought that to the Republic, which had much assisted you in
restoring me, I at least was bound to entertain the feeling which I
had in old times shewed merely from the duty incumbent on all
citizens alike, and not as an obligation incurred by some special
kindness to myself. That these were my sentiments I declared to
the senate when you were consul, and you had yourself a full view
of them in our conversations and discussions. Yet from the very
first my feelings were hurt by many circumstances, when, on your
mooting the question of the full restoration of my position, I
detected the covert hatred of some and the equivocal attachment of
others. For you received no support from either in regard to my
vexatious to me: but much more so was the fact that they used,
before my very eyes, so to embrace, fondle, make much of, and
kiss my enemy mine do I say? rather the enemy of the laws, of the
law courts, of peace, of his country, of all loyal men ! that they did
not indeed rouse my bile, for I have utterly lost all that, but
imagined they did. In these circumstances, having, as far as is
possible for human prudeuce, thoroughly examined my whole
position, and having balanced the items of the account, I arrived at
a final result of all my reflexions, which, as well as I can, I will
now briefly put before you.

If I had seen the Republic in the hands of bad or profligate
citizens, as we know happened during the supremacy of Cinna, and
on some other occasions, I should not under the pressure, I don t
say of rewards, which are the last things to influence me, but even
of danger, by which, after all, the bravest men are moved, have
attached myself to their party, not even if their services to me had
been of the very highest kind. As it is, seeing that the leading
statesman in the Republic was Pompey, a man who had gained this
power and renown by the most eminent services to the state and
the most glorious achievements, and one of whose postion I had
been a supporter from my youth up, and in my praetorship and
consulship an active promoter also, and seeing that this same
statesman had assisted me, in his own person by the weight of his
influence and the expression of his opinion, and, in conjunction
with you, by his counsels and zeal, and that he regarded my enemy
as his own supreme enemy in the state I did not think that I need
fear the reproach of inconsistency, if in some of my senatorial
votes I somewhat changed my standpoint, and contributed my zeal
to the promotion of the dignity of a most distiii guished man, and
one to whom I am under the highest obligations. In this sentiment I
had necessarily to include Caesar, as you see, for their policy and
position were inseparably united. Here I was greatly influenced by
two things the old friendship which you know that I and my
brother Quintus have had with Caesar, and his own kindness and
liberality, of which we have recently had clear and mistakable
evidence both by his letters and his personal attentions. I was also
strongly affected by the Republic itself, which appeared to me to
demand, especially considering Caesar's brilliant successes, that
there should be no quarrel maintained with these men, and indeed
to forbid it in the strongest manner possible. Moreover, while
entertaining these feelings, I was above all shaken by the pledge
which Pompey had given for me to Caesar, and my brother to
Pompey. Besides, I was forced to take into consideration the state
maxim so divinely expressed by our master Plato--" Such as are
the chief men in a republic, such are ever wont to be the other
citizens." I called to mind that in my consulship, from the very 1st
of January, such a foundation was laid of encouragement for the
senate, that no one ought to have been surprised that on the 5th of
December there was so much spirit and such commanding
influence in that house. I also remember that when I became a
private citizen up to the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, when
the opinions expressed by me had great weight in the senate, the
feeling among all the loyalists was invariable. Afterwards, while
you were holding the province of hither Spain with imperiuni and
the Republic had no genuine consuls, but mere hucksters of
provinces, mere slaves and agents of sedition, an accident threw
my head as an apple of discord into the midst of contending
factions and civil broils. And in that hour of danger, though a
unanimity was displayed on the part of the senate that was
surprising, on the part of all Italy surpassing belief, and of all the
loyalists unparalleled, in standing forth in my defence, I will not
say what happened--for the blame attaches to many, and is of
various shades of turpitude--I will only say briefly that it was not
the rank and file, but the leaders, that played me false. And in this
matter, though some blame does attach to those who failed to
defend me, no less attaches to those who abandoned me: and if
those who were frightened deserve reproach, if there are such, still
more are those to be blamed who pretended to be frightened. At
any rate, my policy is justly to be praised for refusing to allow my
fellow citizens (preserved by me and ardently desiring to preserve
me) to be exposed while bereft of leaders to armed slaves, and for
preferring that it should be made manifest how much force there
might be in the unanimity of the loyalists, if they had been
permitted to champion my cause before I had fallen, when after
that fall they had proved strong enough to raise me up again. And
the real feelings of these men you not only had the penetration to
see, when bringing forward my case, but the power to encourage
and keep alive. In promoting which measure--I will not merely not
deny, but shall always remember also and gladly proclaim it--you
found certain men of the highest rank more courageous in securing
my restoration than they had been in preserving me from my fall:
and, if they had chosen to maintain that frame of mind, they would
have recovered their own commanding position along with my
salvation. For when the spirit of the loyalists had been renewed by
your consulship, and they had been roused from their dismay by
the extreme firmness and rectitude of your official conduct; when,
above all, Pompey's support had been secured; and when Caesar,
too, with all the prestige of his brilliant achievements, after being
honoured with unique and unprecedented marks of distinction and
compliments by the senate, was now supporting the dignity of the
house, there could have been no opportunity for a disloyal citizen
of outraging the Republic.

But now notice, I beg, what actually ensued. First of all, that
intruder upon the women's rites, who had shewn no more respect
for the Bona Dea than for his three sisters, secured immunity by
the votes of those men who, when a tribune wished by a legal
action to exact penalties from a seditious citizen by the agency of
the loyalists, deprived the Republic of what would have been
hereafter a most splendid precedent for the punishment of sedition.
And these same persons, in the case of the monument, which was
not mine, indeed--for it was not erected from the proceeds of
spoils won by me, and I had nothing to do with it beyond giving
out the contract for its construction--well, they allowed this
monument of the senate's to have branded upon it the name of a
public enemy, and an inscription written in blood. That those men
wished my safety rouses my liveliest gratitude, but I could have
wished that they had not chosen to take my bare safety into
consideration, like doctors, but, like trainers, my strength and
complexion also! As it is, just as Apelles perfected the head and
bust of his Venus with the most elaborate art, but left the rest of
her body in the rough, so certain persons only took pains with my
head, and left the rest of my body unfinished and unworked. Yet in
this matter I have falsified the expectation, not only of the jealous,
but also of the downright hostile, who formerly conceived a wrong
opinion from the case of Quintus Metellus, son of Lucius--the most
energetic and gallant man in the world, and in my opinion of
surpassing courage and firmness--who, people say, was much cast
down and dispirited after his return from exile. Now, in the first
place, we are asked to believe that a man who accepted exile with
entire willingness and remarkable cheerfulness, and never took any
pains at all to get recalled, was crushed in spirit about an affair in
which he had shewn more firmness and constancy than anyone
else, even than the preeminent M. Scaurus himself! But, again, the
account they had received, or rather the conjectures they were
indulging in about him, they now transferred to me, imagining that
I should be more than usually broken in spirit: whereas, in fact, the
Republic was inspiring me with even greater courage than I had
ever had before, by making it plain that I was the one citizen it
could not do without; and by the fact that while a bill proposed by
only one tribune had recalled Metellus, the whole state had joined
as one man in recalling me--the senate leading the way, the whole
of Italy following after, eight of the tribunes publishing the bill, a
consul putting the question at the centuriate assembly, all orders
and individuals pressing it on, in fact, with all the forces at its
command. Nor is it the case that I afterwards made any pretension,
or am making any at this day, which can justly offend anyone,
even the most malevolent: my only effort is that I may not fail
either my friends or those more remotely connected with me in
either active service, or counsel, or personal exertion. This course
of life perhaps offends those who fix their eyes on the glitter and
show of my professional position, but are unable to appreciate its
anxieties and laboriousness.

Again, they make no concealment of their dissatisfaction on the
ground that in the speeches which I make in the senate in praise of
Caesar I am departing from my old policy. But while giving
explanations on the points which I put before you a short time ago,
I will not keep till the last the following, which I have already
touched upon. You will not find, my dear Lentulus, the sentiments
of the loyalists the same as you left them--strengthened by my
consulship, suffering relapse at intervals afterwards, crushed down
before your consulship, revived by you: they have now been
abandoned by those whose duty it was to have maintained them:
and this fact they, who in the old state of things as it existed in our
day used to be called Optiinates, not only declare by look and
expression of countenance, by which a false pretence is easiest
supported, but have proved again and again by their actual
sympathies and votes. Accordingly, the entire view and aim of
wise citizens, such as I wish both to be and to be reckoned, must
needs have undergone a change. For that is the maxim of that same
great Plato, whom I emphatically regard as my master: "Maintain a
political controversy only so far as you can convince your fellow
citizens of its justice: never offer violence to parent or fatherland."
He, it is true, alleges this as his motive for having abstained from
politics, because, having found the Athenian people all but in its
dotage, and seeing that it could not be ruled by persuasion, or by
anything short of compulsion, while he doubted the possibility of
persuasion, he looked upon compulsion as criminal. My position
was different in this: as the people was not in its dotage, nor the
question of engaging in politics still an open one for me, I was
bound hand and foot. Yet I rejoiced that I was permitted in one and
the same cause to support a policy at once advantageous to myself
and acceptable to every loyalist. An additional motive was Caesar's
memorable and almost superhuman kindness to myself and my
brother, who thus would have deserved my support whatever he
undertook; while as it is, considering his great success and his
brilliant victories, he would seem, even if he had not behaved to
me as he has, to claim a panegyric from me. For I would have you
believe that, putting you aside, who were the authors of my recall,
there is no one by whose good offices I would not only confess,
but would even rejoice, to have been so much bound.

Having explained this matter to you, the questions you ask about
Vatinius and Crassus are easy to answer. For, since you remark
about Appius, as about Caesar, "that you have no fault to find," I
can only say that I am glad you approve my policy. But as to
Vatinius, in the first place there had been in the interval a
reconciliation effected through Pompey, immediately after his
election to the praetorship, though I had, it is true, impugned his
candidature in some very strong speeches in the senate, and yet not
so much for the sake of attacking him as of defending and
complimenting Cato. Again, later on, there followed a very
pressing request from Caesar that I should undertake his defence.
But my reason for testifying to his character I beg you will not ask,
either in the case of this defendant or of others, lest I retaliate by
asking you the same question when you come home: though I can
do so even before you return: for remember for whom you sent a
certificate of character from the ends of the earth. However, don't
be afraid, for those same persons are praised by myself, and will
continue to be so. Yet, after all, there was also the motive spurring
me on to undertake his defence, of which, during the trial, when I
appeared for him, I remarked that I was doing just what the
parasite in the Eunuchus advised the captain to do:

"As oft as she names Phxdria, you retort
With Pamphila. If ever she suggest,
'Do let us have in Phudria to our revel:'
Quoth you, 'And let us call on Pamphila
To sing a song.' If she shall praise his looks,
Do you praise hers to match them: and, in fine,
Give tit for tat, that you may sting her soul."

So I asked the jurors, since certain men of high rank, who, had also
done me very great favours, were much enamoured of my enemy,
and often under my very eyes in the senate now took him aside in
grave consultation, now embraced him familiarly and
cheerfully--since these men had their Publius, to grant me another
Publius, in whose person I might repay a slight attack by a
moderate retort. And, indeed, I am often as good as my word, with
the applause of gods and men. So much for Vatinius. Now about
Crassus. I thought I had done much to secure his gratitude in
having, for the sake of the general harmony, wiped out by a kind of
voluntary act of oblivion all his very serious injuries, when he
suddenly undertook the defence of Gabinius, whom only a few
days before he had attacked with the greatest bitterness.
Nevertheless, I should have borne that, if he had done so without
casting any offensive reflexions on me. But on his attacking tile,
though I was only arg-tling and not inveighing against him, I fired
up not only, I think, with the passion of the moment--for that
perhaps would not have been so hot--but the smothered wrath at
his many wrongs to me, of which I thought I had wholly got rid,
having, unconsciously to myself, lingered in my soul, it suddenly
shewed itself in full force, And it was at this precise time that
certain persons (the same whom I frequently indicate by a sign or
hint), while declaring that they had much enjoyed my outspoken
style, and had never before fully realized that I was restored to the
Republic in all my old character, and when my conduct of that
controversy had gained me much credit outside the house also,
began saying that they were glad both that he was now my enemy,
and that those who were involved with him would never be my
friends. So when their ill-natured remarks were reported to me by
men of most respectable character, and when Pompey pressed me
as he had never done before to be reconciled to Crassus, and
Caesar wrote to say that he was exceedingly grieved at that
quarrel, I took into consideration not only my circumstances, but
my natural inclination: and Crassus, that our reconciliation might,
as it were, be attested to the Roman people, started for his
province, it might almost be said, from my hearth. For he himself
named a day and dined with me in the suburban villa of my
son-in-law Crassipes. On this account, as you say that you have
been told, I supported his cause in the senate, which I had
undertaken on Pompey's strong recommendation, as I was bound
in honour to do.

I have now told you with what motives I have supported each
measure and cause, and what my position is in politics as far as I
take any part in them: and I would wish you to make sure of
this--that I should have entertamed the same sentiments, if I had
been still perfectly uncommitted and free to choose. For I should
not have thought it right to fight against such overwhelming
power, nor to destroy the supremacy of the most distinguished
citizens, even if it had been possible; nor, again, should I have
thought myself bound to abide by the same view, when
circumstances were changed and the feelings of the loyalists
altered, but rather to bow to circumstances. For the persistence in
the same view has never been regarded as a merit in men eminent
for their guidance of the helm of state; but as in steering a ship one
secret of the art is to run before the storm, even if you cannot make
the harbour; yet, when you can do so by tacking about, it is folly to
keep to the course you have begun rather than by changing it to
arrive all the same at the destination you desire: so while we all
ought in the administration of the state to keep always in view the
object I have very frequently mentioned, peace combined with
dignity, we are not bound always to use the same language, but to
fix our eyes on the same object. Wherefore, as I laid down a little
while ago, if I had had as free a hand as possible in everything, I
should yet have been no other than I now am in politics. When,
moreover, I am at once induced to adopt these sentiments by the
kindness of certain persons, and driven to do so by the injuries of
others, I am quite content to think and speak about public affairs as
I conceive best conduces to the interests both of myself and of the
Republic. Moreover, I make this declaration the more openly and
frequently, both because my brother Quintus is Caesar's legate, and
because no word of mine, however trivial, to say nothing of any
act, in support of Caesar has ever transpired, which lie has not
received with such marked gratitude, as to make me look upon
myself as closely bound to him. Accordingly, I have the advantage
of his popularity, which you know to be very great, and his
material resources, which you know to be immense, as though they
were my own. Nor do I think that I could in any other way have
frustrated the plots of unprincipled persons against me, unless I
had now combined with those protections, which I have always
possessed, the goodwill also of the men in power. I should, to the
best of my belief, have followed this same line of policy even if I
had had you here. For I well know the reasonableness and
soberness of your judgment: I know your mind, while warmly
attached to me, to be without a tinge of malevolence to others, but
on the contrary as open and candid as it is great and lofty. I have
seen certain persons conduct themselves towards you as you might
have seen the same persons conduct themselves towards me. The
same things that have annoyed me would certainly have annoyed
you. But whenever I shall have the enjoyment of your presence,
you will be the wise critic of all my plans: you who took thought
for my safety will also do so for my dignity. Me, indeed, you will
have as the partner and associate in all your actions, sentiments,
wishes--in fact, in everything; nor shall I ever in all my life have
any purpose so steadfastly before me, as that you should rejoice
more and more warmly every day that you did me such eminent
service.

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