Gaius Iulius Caesar

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 1.13 §3 Caesar has sent his wife notice of divorce

  Caesar divorced Pompeia, in whose house (his, as praetor and pontifex maximus) the rite was held and with whom Clodius was rumoured to have an intrigue, with the remark that Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.

• Ad Atticum 2.18 §3 By Caesar I am very generously invited into that legation: to be his legate

  Caesar, with Gaul before him, offered Cicero a post as one of his legates (deputy commanders) on the staff. The appointment carried official protection but would tie Cicero to Caesar; he holds onto it as insurance but means not to use it.

• Ad Atticum 3.18 §1 the letter he was waiting for from Caesar

  Pompey would not move on Cicero's recall without Caesar's agreement; Caesar was campaigning in Gaul and his correspondence governed the timing. Cicero's fate hinged on the alignment of the two dynasts.

• Ad Atticum 5.6 §2 I press you about Caesar's debt --- leave the business settled

  Cicero had lent money to Caesar (or borrowed against him) and wants the account closed before leaving for his province; he repeatedly urges Atticus to wind up this obligation while Caesar is solvent and well-disposed.

• Ad Atticum 6.8 §2 Caesar will on no account dismiss his army

  The central crisis of 50-49 BC: the Senate demanded Caesar lay down his Gallic command before standing for the consulship, while he refused to disband his legions; his keeping the army was the act that precipitated the crossing of the Rubicon.

• Ad Atticum 6.9 §4 Caesar reaches Placentia with four legions

  Placentia (modern Piacenza) on the Po was a key town of Cisalpine Gaul; Caesar's moving four legions there in October 50 BC brought his army to the edge of Italy, an ominous prelude to the crossing of the Rubicon in January 49.

• Ad Atticum 7.1 §1 what your letter brought about Caesar's legions

  Late in 50 BC the dispute over Caesar's surrender of his Gallic legions and command was the flashpoint of the looming civil war; Atticus's news of troop movements alarmed Cicero on his way home.

• Ad Atticum 7.1 §4 that he should disband his army

  The senate's demand that Caesar lay down his command and stand for the consulship in person (rather than in absentia) was the formal issue; Cicero, as a returning proconsul awaiting a triumph, would be asked to vote on it.

• Ad Atticum 7.1 §4 asked by him in person at Ravenna over the tribune Caelius

  Ravenna lay in Cisalpine Gaul, Caesar's province, where he wintered; Cicero recalls helping Caesar in the affair of the tribune C. Caelius, putting himself under obligation to Caesar.

• Ad Atticum 7.4 §3 the man on whom even his enemies have bestowed a second consulship

  Caesar's first consulship was 59 BC; the "second" he sought for 48 was the issue of the day, since standing for it in absentia without disbanding his army was the legal crux that precipitated the civil war.

• Ad Atticum 7.6 §2 concede to Caesar what he demands

  Caesar's demand was to stand for the consulship of 48 BC in absentia while retaining his Gallic army and provinces until he could enter office, so as never to be a private citizen liable to prosecution; the Senate's hardliners wanted him to lay down his command first.

• Ad Atticum 8.12 §2 conferring the consulship and the triumph of a fellow under arms

  Among the peace terms Pompey was prepared to grant Caesar the consulship and a triumph; Cicero's pointed phrasing stresses that both parties were already armed, so the offer was made under threat rather than in concord.

• Ad Atticum 8.14 §1 spurs the troops' speed on with their daily rations

  Cicero marvels at the pace of Caesar's march; the obscure phrase (the Latin text is corrupt) seems to refer to driving the men on by their daily issue of rations. Caesar's celebrated speed was already proverbial by this point in the war.

• Ad Atticum 8.16 §2 delighted by this man's insidious clemency

  Caesar's policy of sparing his defeated opponents (clementia), shown at Corfinium, won him goodwill across Italy; Cicero calls it insidiosa, a trap that disarms resistance more effectively than terror. The judgement anticipates the later view of the clementia Caesaris as a tool of autocracy.

• Ad Atticum 9.3 §2 the man's generosity had reached the ears of the ship-owners

  "The man" is Caesar, whose reputation for clemency and largesse (his clementia campaign of these months) was winning over even the ship-owners. Postumus expects this goodwill to secure him a passage where Cicero doubts he will find crews.

• Ad Atticum 9.18 §1 ``Come, then,'' he said, ``and act for peace.''

  This is the famous interview between Cicero and Caesar at Cicero's Formian villa on 28 March 49 BC; Caesar pressed Cicero to come to Rome and lend his voice to a peace settlement, and Cicero, refusing to disown Pompey's cause, declined. The letter reports the exchange almost verbatim.

• Ad Atticum 11.15 §1 he, it seems, has so taken Alexandria in hand

  Caesar was pinned down in the Alexandrian War (winter 48-47 BC), embroiled in the dynastic quarrel of Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII. His prolonged absence left Cicero unable to obtain a settlement of his own position and stranded at Brundisium.

• Ad Atticum 11.18 §1 his departure from Alexandria

  The unnamed "he" is Caesar, detained in Egypt after the Alexandrian War of 48–47 BC; his return westward was the event on which Cicero's release from Brundisium depended. Cicero habitually avoids naming Caesar in these anxious letters.

• Ad Atticum 11.25 §2 he has set out from Alexandria

  The unnamed "he" is Caesar, whose long-awaited departure from Egypt — after the Alexandrian War and his sojourn with Cleopatra — was the precondition of Cicero's release from Brundisium. A first faint rumour was now being confirmed by later messengers.

• Ad Atticum 12.3 §1 that debt of mine from Caesar

  A sum Caesar owed Cicero (or a credit standing in Caesar's name), which Cicero is trying to realise without loss. The three options that follow are ways of recovering or assigning the debt, a recurring financial worry of these years.

• Ad Atticum 12.48 §1 your house will be worth more with Caesar for a neighbour

  Caesar's pleasure-gardens lay across the Tiber, and his presence as a neighbour raised the value of nearby property; the same district held the gardens Cicero was hunting for Tullia's shrine. The remark is half a compliment to Atticus's house, half a wry note on how Caesar's proximity now governed the property market.

• Ad Atticum 12.51 §2 The letter to Caesar I see meets with your approval for sending

  A draft letter of political advice to Caesar (a so-called sumbouleutikon) that Cicero wanted vetted first by Caesar's intimates Balbus and Oppius. He insisted it not be sent unless they genuinely approved, treating any feigned approval as a rejection.

• Ad Atticum 13.1 §3 the letter to Caesar

  Cicero had drafted a letter of political advice to Caesar and was anxiously awaiting the verdict of Caesar's confidants (Balbus and Oppius, "those people") before sending it.

• Ad Atticum 13.31 §3 About the letter to Caesar

  Cicero had been pressed to send Caesar a letter of political advice; here he reports his decision (kekrika, "I have decided") to drop the project. The pretext is that Caesar will postpone his planned Parthian campaign until the state is settled, so the advice is moot.

• Ad Atticum 13.35 §1 Your kinsman is enlarging the city

  The "kinsman" is Caesar, here mocked for his grandiose scheme to enlarge Rome; Atticus, like Caesar, belonged to plebeian families that claimed remote common descent. Cicero's tone is contemptuous of the upstart's pretensions.

• Ad Atticum 13.37 §2 the king knows

  "The king" (rex) is Cicero's bitter shorthand for Caesar the dictator; the word carried for Romans the deepest opprobrium, and Cicero uses it to mark Caesar's autocracy.

• Ad Atticum 13.50 §3 About Caesar's coming

  Caesar's expected progress through Campania after his return from Spain in 45 BC, which Cicero and his neighbours anxiously track; it culminates in the famous visit narrated in 13.52.

• Ad Atticum 14.1 §1 the Ides of March

  The Ides (the 13th or, in March, the 15th) of March 44 BC, the day Caesar was murdered; Cicero uses the date as shorthand for the assassination itself, the pivotal event of the whole post-Ides correspondence.

• Ad Atticum 14.4 §1 the Ides of March are a consolation

  "The Ides of March" stands for the killing of Caesar on 15 March 44 BC; even amid his fears Cicero takes comfort that the deed was done.

• Ad Atticum 14.5 §1 that conspiracy of Caesar's freedmen

  Caesar's wealthy and powerful freedmen (imperial-style household agents) were rumoured to be intriguing; Cicero thinks Antony could easily crush them if he chose.

• Ad Atticum 14.5 §2 you see, all the same, the tyrant's hangers-on holding commands

  The "tyrant" is the assassinated Caesar; Cicero laments that Caesar's partisans still hold the provincial commands, armies, and the loyalty of the veterans, leaving the Liberators honoured but powerless.

• Ad Atticum 14.10 §1 all of Caesar's acts, writings, sayings, promises, and intentions

  The dead dictator's acta, ratified wholesale by the Senate on 17 March; Cicero's bitter complaint is that even Caesar's mere unwritten "intentions" are now treated as binding law.

• Ad Atticum 14.11 §1 the king once killed

  Cicero calls the assassinated Caesar a "king" (rex), the charge the Liberators used to justify the killing; his bitter point is that Caesar is dead yet Rome is still not free.

• Ad Atticum 14.13 §6 his forged notebooks

  Antony was producing measures he claimed to find in Caesar's papers (the acta Caesaris); Cicero charges that these commentarii were forged, smuggling through decisions the living Caesar would never have countenanced.

• Ad Atticum 14.22 §1 the man whom our Brutus wounded

  A pointed periphrasis for the dead dictator Julius Caesar, struck down at the Ides; "our Brutus" is Marcus Brutus the Liberator.

• Ad Atticum 15.3 §2 About Caesar's chair --- well done by the tribunes

  The gilded ceremonial chair (sella) voted to the deified Caesar; the tribunes had blocked its display at games, and Cicero applauds the snub, just as he does their barring of honours at the 'fourteen rows.'

• Ad Atticum 15.20 §1 I heard that tyrant called, in the public assembly

  The 'tyrant' is the murdered Caesar; Cicero is dismayed that, even after the Ides, he could be hailed in a public meeting (contio) as 'the most illustrious of men,' a sign of how the Caesarian tide was turning.

• Ad Atticum 16.10 §1 they say he travels with the speed of Caesar

  A reference to the famous rapidity of the late dictator Julius Caesar's marches; the rumour was that Antony moved just as fast, hence Cicero's caution.

• Ad Atticum 16.14 §1 the acts of the tyrant

  Julius Caesar, the dictator assassinated on the Ides of March 44 BC; Cicero calls him "the tyrant." His official acts (the acta Caesaris) had been confirmed by the Senate after his death, and their further entrenchment would damage the assassins' cause.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.14 §2 on the Ides of March, when you drove out slavery from your fellow citizens

  The Ides of March (15 March 44 BC) was the date of Julius Caesar's assassination in the Theatre of Pompey by the Liberators led by Marcus Brutus and Cassius; Cicero uses it as the benchmark against which Brutus's coming service to Rome must be measured.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.15 §4 your memorable Ides of March

  15 March 44 BC, when Julius Caesar was stabbed in the Theatre of Pompey by the Liberators; Cicero uses "memorabiles" (memorable) with pointed irony given that he is about to argue the conspirators left too much undone.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.16 §1 the despotism has not been abolished, only the master changed

  Brutus's core charge: Cicero opposed Julius Caesar's dictatorship and applauded the Ides of March, yet now courts Octavian with the same deference, proving that the regime has merely changed its personnel without losing its monarchic character.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.16 §3 Caesar's lust for kingship

  Brutus's analysis of the political dynamic: collective spinelessness first enabled Julius Caesar's monarchy, then allowed Antony to try to fill Caesar's place, and now has elevated Octavian — the same cycle of servility producing successive tyrants.

• Ad M. Brutum 2.4 §5 the temper of the Caesarian party (as the party is even now called)

  Cicero's parenthetical remark is significant: even eighteen months after Caesar's murder, his faction retained its identity and name, illustrating how deeply Caesarian loyalties were embedded in Roman politics.

• Ad Familiares 1.7 §10 pay was decreed for Caesar, and ten legates

  Among the measures the triumvirs forced through the Senate after the Luca conference: state pay for Caesar's army and ten senatorial legati to assist him --- both extending and entrenching his Gallic command.

• Ad Familiares 2.17 §2 the Julian law

  The lex Iulia de repetundis of 59 BC (Caesar's consulship), which among other provisions regulated the submission of provincial accounts; Bibulus was apparently allowing his staff to skip the formal accounting, while Cicero insists on strict compliance.

• Ad Familiares 4.1 §1 the man who was asking me to imitate your example

  The unnamed "man" is Caesar, who in spring 49 was pressing Cicero to attend the Senate and lend his prestige to the new regime. Cicero, like Servius, wished to stay neutral; he ultimately left Italy to join Pompey rather than legitimize Caesar's position.

• Ad Familiares 4.3 §2 Caesar himself judges you as he does

  Written when Caesar, victorious in the civil war, was effectively master of Rome. Cicero reassures Servius that even the dictator esteems his integrity, a delicate compliment given that Servius had supported the losing Pompeian side and now held a post under Caesar.

• Ad Familiares 4.4 §2 the soul of moderation

  "The victor" praised for clemency is Caesar, whose famous policy of clementia (sparing defeated enemies) Cicero acknowledges even while lamenting the loss of free speech; he carefully blames "the nature of victory" rather than the man himself.

• Ad Familiares 4.6 §3 governed entirely by the will of one man --- a man of prudence, of generous bearing

  The unnamed 'one man' is Julius Caesar, by 45 BC sole master of the Roman state. Cicero's guarded, almost coded language --- praising Caesar's clemency while lamenting that life must be lived merely 'by his concession and favour' --- reflects both genuine gratitude for his own pardon and the careful self-censorship of correspondents under a dictatorship.

• Ad Familiares 4.7 §3 the man in whose hands the power lies

  Caesar, now dictator and sole master of the state. Cicero hints (without naming him) that Caesar's only hesitation about recalling Marcellus is the fear that the exile would refuse to regard a pardon as a favour; Cicero adds that his own acceptance of clemency shows the way.

• Ad Familiares 4.8 §2 what place is empty of this tyranny?

  Cicero names Caesar's regime a dominatus (tyranny/sole rule). His point is bleakly pragmatic: since Caesar's power reaches everywhere, fleeing abroad buys no real liberty, so one may as well live at home.

• Ad Familiares 4.8 §2 even the man who holds all things looks kindly upon talent

  Caesar ("the man who holds all things") is here credited with genuine regard for ability, nobility, and rank — a calculated nod to his clementia, the famous policy of clemency toward pardoned opponents that underlay the recall of Marcellus.

• Ad Familiares 4.9 §2 Everything is referred to one man

  A frank statement of the new political reality under Caesar's dictatorship: all decisions now rest with one man, who takes counsel from no one — not even his own intimates. Cicero uses this to argue that staying away changes nothing, since power is concentrated regardless.

• Ad Familiares 4.11 §1 until your letter brought it about that the counsel I followed was, before all else, yours and his

  "How the affair was managed" alludes to the Senate session of September 46 BC, when Caesar, moved by the appeals of C. Marcellus and the whole house, granted his pardon — the moment that prompted Cicero's speech of thanks, the Pro Marcello.

• Ad Familiares 4.13 §5 the disposition of the man himself, who can do most

  The unnamed 'man himself, who can do most' is Caesar the dictator, on whose sole goodwill the recall of exiled Pompeians like Nigidius now depended; Cicero delicately avoids naming him here as the arbiter of his friend's fate.

• Ad Familiares 5.10a §1 Caesar

  Gaius Iulius Caesar, dictator in early 44 BC, who as Vatinius's patron controls whether his Dalmatian victories are reported to the Senate; Vatinius complains Caesar is withholding the report that would win him his honours.

• Ad Familiares 5.10b §1 Caesar

  Gaius Iulius Caesar (100–44 BC), dictator at this date; Vatinius asks Cicero to advance his cause with Caesar, on whom a triumph and further command depended.

• Ad Familiares 5.21 §2 he whom you never loved

  An unnamed reference to Julius Caesar, whose envy (invidia) Cicero blames for thwarting the concord of the orders he had built. The periphrasis spares Cicero from naming the man now master of the state.

• Ad Familiares 6.1 §2 the man who up to now has been more unjust to you than your dignity called for

  Caesar, unnamed but unmistakable: he had not yet granted Torquatus's petition for restoration, though Cicero detects signs that Caesar's hostility was softening. The circumlocution is characteristic of the dangerous candour of these private consolation letters.

• Ad Familiares 6.4 §2 of the man who has been slower in lightening your case than we had thought he would be

  Caesar again, unnamed: despite earlier signs of clemency toward Torquatus (cf. Fam. 6.1.2), by January 45 his formal pardon had still not come. Caesar's clementia was a programmatic policy but its application was uneven and sometimes deliberately delayed as a form of political leverage.

• Ad Familiares 6.5 §3 this man in whose power we stand

  Caesar, named obliquely in the characteristic Ciceronian periphrasis that was both prudent and revealing: the phrase 'in whose power' (in potestate) acknowledges the revolution without naming it. In 46 BC Caesar was dictator for the second time.

• Ad Familiares 6.7 §2 not one who, even when he was sacrificing for some other reason, did not even at that moment pray that Caesar should be defeated as soon as possible

  Caecina argues that every Roman on the Pompeian side privately prayed for Caesar's defeat at every sacrifice, making his merely written complaint trivial by comparison; the argument turns on the universality of the sentiment Caesar chose to punish in Caecina alone.

• Ad Familiares 6.10 §2 almost all his closest familiars

  Cicero is careful not to name Caesar directly here; his claim to influence through Caesar's inner circle — men he had known for decades before the civil war — is a recurring theme in the consolation letters of Book 6.

• Ad Familiares 6.10 §5 he himself, who has the most power, seems to me daily to drift back toward equity

  Cicero's guarded way of saying Caesar is becoming more merciful over time; 'drift back toward equity and toward the nature of things' echoes Stoic vocabulary of natural order (rerum natura) and hints that arbitrary one-man rule is inherently unstable.

• Ad Familiares 6.13 §2 Caesar will not be too hard on you

  Caesar's policy after the civil war was clementia — ostentatious pardoning of former enemies — though he could delay these pardons as a form of continued pressure on the defeated Pompeian faction.

• Ad Familiares 6.14 §2 your brothers and kinsmen lay prostrate at his feet

  Prostration (supplicatio) before a powerful patron in a private petition was an accepted Roman gesture of pleading; that Caesar's reaction was 'gentle and generous' (mollis et liberalis) was the positive signal Cicero was reporting back to Ligarius.

• Ad Familiares 6.14 §3 not only Caesar but all his friends besides

  Cicero's strategy was to work Caesar's inner circle — men like Balbus and Oppius — as auxiliary channels of persuasion, a network he deployed systematically for Pompeian exiles throughout 46 BC.

• Ad Familiares 6.19 §2 the favour (if indeed he learns of you at all)

  Cicero articulates the asymmetry of favour under a monarchy: when the ruler gives an appointment, the obligation runs entirely toward him, and the recipient is in debt rather than creditor. The observation has a wry edge given Cicero's own situation.

• Ad Familiares 6.20 §2 If he comes back to himself in time

  The deliberately oblique 'ille' (he) refers to Caesar, whose return from Spain and receptiveness to petitions for pardon was the determining factor in Toranius's fate. Cicero avoids naming him, perhaps from caution.

• Ad Familiares 7.9 §1 on account of his grief

  Caesar's grief in late 54 BC was for his daughter Julia, Pompey's wife, who had died in childbirth that August; the marriage had been the personal bond between the two dynasts. Cicero's tact in not writing to the bereaved Caesar dates this letter.

• Ad Familiares 7.28 §3 the man in whose power everything stands

  A guarded periphrasis for Julius Caesar, dictator since 49 BC; Cicero avoids naming him while complaining that the whole state now rests in one man's hands.

• Ad Familiares 8.15 §2 the man sprung from Venus

  Caesar, whose patrician gens Iulia claimed descent from Venus through Aeneas's son Iulus; Caelius mockingly contrasts this divine pedigree with the slave Bellienus, 'born of Psecas.'

• Ad Familiares 8.16 §4 He is taking me with him to Spain

  Caelius, as Caesar's man, accompanied him on the Ilerda campaign of 49 BC; this is why he cannot detour to dissuade Cicero in person and resorts to this urgent letter.

• Ad Familiares 9.1 §1 we are pressed by so many and such great troubles that no one but a perfect fool ought to hope for any relief

  Written in late 47 or early 46 BC, after Caesar's victory at Pharsalus had ended the Republic that Cicero and Varro had served on Pompey's side; both men were pardoned but politically powerless under Caesar's emerging dictatorship, and this gloom over the state's ruin runs through the whole Varro correspondence.

• Ad Familiares 9.2 §2 those who pride themselves on the victory look at us as if we were the conquered

  Cicero and Varro had backed Pompey in the civil war; after Caesar's triumph the partisans of the winning side treated former Pompeians like himself and Varro as defeated enemies, which is why Cicero counsels keeping out of public view.

• Ad Familiares 9.2 §4 while this triumphal congratulation is at its boil

  Cicero advises Varro to stay out of sight during the public celebrations of Caesar's victory; Caesar held a series of triumphs in 46 BC, and Cicero thought it unseemly for defeated Pompeians to be seen while the city rejoiced.

• Ad Familiares 9.3 §1 in the midst of such a conflagration of the state

  The 'conflagration' is the political crisis of 46 BC: the Republic in ruins after Pharsalus, Caesar's dictatorship consolidating, and the war against the surviving Pompeians still smouldering (Caesar would crush them at Thapsus in April 46). Cicero worries that he and Varro will be criticized for retiring to their books while the state burns.

• Ad Familiares 9.6 §1 Caesar's arrival is being looked for

  Written in mid-46 BC, the letter anticipates Caesar's return to Italy from the African campaign (the victory at Thapsus in April 46 had ended organized Pompeian resistance there). The question of where he would land --- Alsium or Ostia --- mattered because hosts along the coast would have to receive him and his entourage.

• Ad Familiares 9.7 §1 these men who are now masters

  Cicero refers to the Caesarian establishment in Rome in 46 BC; 'one must serve the time' (tempori serviendum est) is his rueful watchword for outward accommodation to the dictatorship while withholding inner approval.

• Ad Familiares 9.9 §3 given Caesar's humanity

  Dolabella appeals to Caesar's famous policy of clementia (clemency toward defeated opponents), which would indeed secure Cicero's pardon after Pharsalus; the orator's eventual safety owed much to Caesar's wish to conciliate moderate republicans.

• Ad Familiares 9.10 §3 Caesar's auction-spear may have cooled

  The hasta (spear) planted in the ground was the traditional sign of a public auction; Caesar used such auctions to sell off the confiscated estates of his defeated opponents. Cicero's grim joke is that with the great bidder P. Sulla dead, prices at Caesar's sales of the proscribed may fall off.

• Ad Familiares 9.13 §4 since Caesar in his generosity has granted them their lives

  Caesar's clementia had spared the lives of these defeated Pompeians, but they remained barred from returning home; Cicero argues that since their property is too small to be worth confiscating, only the long journey stands between them and their families, so Dolabella may safely secure their recall.

• Ad Familiares 9.15 §5 as long as our prefect of morals is here, I shall bow to your authority

  Caesar had assumed a praefectura morum (prefecture of morals, a censorial power over public conduct) and enacted a sumptuary law restricting extravagant dining. Cicero jokes that while Caesar (the 'prefect of morals') is in Rome he will observe the law, but when Caesar leaves he will indulge in Paetus's famous mushrooms.

• Ad Familiares 9.16 §2 winning over and gathering in the goodwill of those people

  Written in 46 BC, after Pharsalus and Caesar's victory, when Cicero (a pardoned Pompeian) had to cultivate the goodwill of the Caesarians to stay safe. The whole letter is shadowed by this anxiety: Paetus has warned him of some danger, and Cicero reassures him that he is courted by Caesar's circle.

• Ad Familiares 9.16 §3 the man in whose hand all power lies

  A guarded periphrasis for Caesar the dictator, whom Cicero does not name. The note that 'all things are uncertain once law has been departed from' and that everything 'rests on another's will, not to say his whim' is Cicero's veiled lament for the loss of republican legality under one-man rule.

• Ad Familiares 9.16 §4 Caesar, now that he has compiled whole volumes of sayings

  Caesar collected an anthology of apophthegmata (notable sayings, including Cicero's own bons mots); the Greek word is given in the text. Cicero boasts, half-anxiously, that Caesar's intimates report his daily quips back to the dictator, who weeds out the misattributed ones, so spurious jokes cannot be pinned on him.

• Ad Familiares 9.17 §2 the man through whose kindness I have come by it

  Caesar, unnamed, whose clemency (clementia) had spared Cicero after Pharsalus. Cicero says that since he counts continued life the finest of things, he cannot help feeling affection for the man who granted it — a strikingly ambivalent acknowledgement of dependence on the dictator's mercy.

• Ad Familiares 9.17 §3 We are slaves to him, he to circumstances.

  A bleak epigram on the autocracy of 46 BC: Romans are now slaves (servi) to Caesar, the 'chief man' (princeps), while he in turn is the servant of events he cannot fully control. Cicero's point is that not even Caesar can predict the future, so Paetus should hope for the best and bear whatever comes.

• Ad Familiares 10.31 §3 Caesar, however, for treating me --- newly known to him, in the midst of such fortune --- as one of his oldest intimates

  The dictator Julius Caesar (murdered March 44 BC), not the young Octavian; Pollio recalls the personal favour Caesar showed him during the civil war while distancing himself from any new "domination."

• Ad Familiares 10.33 §1 the veterans of Caesar's party

  Pollio means the seasoned soldiers of the old Caesarian cause, now ranged on both sides at Mutina; he laments that this hard core of veterans is being consumed in fighting itself rather than spent on the commonwealth.

• Ad Familiares 11.27 §8 if Caesar was a king

  The crux of the post-assassination debate: whether Caesar's dictatorship amounted to monarchy (regnum), which would justify the Liberators' "liberty of one's country above the life of a friend" against Matius's plea of personal loyalty.

• Ad Familiares 11.28 §2 my own estate was diminished by a law of Caesar's

  Matius means he suffered financially under one of Caesar's economic measures (probably the law on debts and interest of 49/48 BC), pointing out that he gained no material reward from Caesar's victory.

• Ad Familiares 11.29 §1 your closest friend preferred a different course

  The "closest friend" is Caesar, whom Oppius served; Cicero praises Oppius for advising him to follow his own honour (i.e. toward Pompey) even though Caesar wished otherwise.

• Ad Familiares 12.3 §1 TO A PARENT MOST WELL-DESERVING

  The inscription (Latin PARENTI OPTIME MERITO) styles Caesar the "parent" of his country; it implies that those who killed him are guilty of parricide, the murder of a father.

• Ad Familiares 12.16 §4 the death of Caesar

  The Latin de interitu Caesaris refers to a projected literary treatment of the dictator's assassination on 15 March 44 BC; Trebonius, himself a conspirator, asks to be given his share of the credit in any such account.

• Ad Familiares 13.4 §2 follow the lead of that man whose party and command you have followed to your own great honour

  Cicero diplomatically reminds Orca that he is a Caesarian officer bound to carry out Caesar's settled policy; since Caesar had already guaranteed Volaterrae's safety, dispossessing its citizens now would contradict Caesar's own wishes.

• Ad Familiares 13.5 §1 the will of Caesar, who has entrusted to you a great and difficult matter

  After his victory in the civil war, Caesar authorised a systematic redistribution of land in Campania and Etruria. Orca's assignment --- to parcel out confiscated territory in the Volaterran district --- was politically sensitive precisely because Caesar had previously exempted Volaterrae by law.

• Ad Familiares 13.7 §1 what you have from C. Caesar is a commission, not a discretion

  Cicero distinguishes between negotium (a commission, a specific task) and iudicium (discretionary judicial or administrative power): Cluvius has been sent to Gaul by Caesar to execute a defined task, not to exercise independent judgement, which limits what Cicero can ask of him.

• Ad Familiares 13.8 §2 Caesar wishes the Sullan sales and assignations to stand --- so that the firmer his own may be reckoned

  Cicero's political argument: Caesar had consistently upheld Sulla's property-sales of the 80s BC to legitimise his own post-civil-war confiscations and sales by analogy. Overturning Caesarian sales of Plotian land would by the same logic destabilise Sulla's earlier settlements, which Caesar wished to avoid.

• Ad Familiares 13.10 §3 he set out for Caesar from Brundisium at my instance, carrying letters and instructions from me

  This embassy to Caesar at Brundisium dates to 47 BC, when Cicero was waiting at Brundisium for Caesar's return from the Alexandrian campaign and authorisation to re-enter Italy; Terentius acted as Cicero's courier and go-between, demonstrating his personal loyalty.

• Ad Familiares 13.15 §1 CICERO CAESARI IMP. S.

  IMP. = Imperator, an honorific salutation acknowledging Caesar's military command; by 45 BC Caesar held this title as permanent commander-in-chief, making it a standard element of formal correspondence addressed to him.

• Ad Familiares 13.19 §1 we obtained from Caesar everything we wanted

  Caesar's clemency policy (clementia Caesaris) extended to provincial allies of his opponents; Cicero and other patrons successfully interceded to secure Lyso's property from confiscation, a result confirmed by a letter from Caesar to Servius.

• Ad Familiares 13.52 §1 I obtained his pardon from Caesar

  After the civil war Caesar exercised personal clementia, granting pardon to former Pompeians; Cicero, restored to favour, frequently brokered such pardons. Aristoteles had taken the senatorial side even longer than Cicero, which made the intercession the more delicate.

• Ad Familiares 13.66 §2 relying on the clemency of your colleague

  The 'colleague' is Julius Caesar, Servilius's fellow consul of 48 BC; only Caesar's clemency (clementia) could grant Caecina the full 'restoration' (salus) from his proscribed condition. Cicero hopes for it but in the meantime asks Servilius for protection in the province.

• Ad Familiares 13.68 §2 Caesar, our colleague, will see to it

  Julius Caesar, dictator from 49 BC, here called 'our colleague' as a fellow augur (and Servilius's consular colleague of 48 BC). Cicero's guarded hope that Caesar might leave Rome 'some sort of commonwealth' reflects the uneasy republicanism of his Caesarian-period letters.

• Ad Familiares 14.8 §1 you let me know so quickly about Caesar's letter

  After Pompey's defeat at Pharsalus, Cicero waited anxiously at Brundisium in 47 BC for word of his standing with the victorious Caesar. News of a letter from Caesar bore directly on whether Cicero would be pardoned.

• Ad Familiares 14.14 §1 If that man is going to enter Rome with restraint

  The unnamed 'that man' is Caesar, whose advance down Italy after crossing the Rubicon in January 49 BC is the crisis of the whole letter; Cicero is at Minturnae weighing whether his wife and daughter are safe in Rome.

• Ad Familiares 15.17 §2 fearing that the auction-spear has cooled off

  The hasta, a spear planted in the ground, marked a public auction. The joke is that Caesar, who profited from selling confiscated estates, will mourn the loss of P. Sulla, his most energetic bidder.

• Ad Familiares 15.19 §3 want for a buyer at his auctions

  The sector was the bidder at auctions of confiscated property; Cassius jokes grimly that Caesar's proscription-style sales will not lack a successor to P. Sulla once Sulla's son takes up the trade.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.10 §5 Don't take his joke about his own poverty lightly

  Caesar had jokingly pleaded poverty; Cicero replies in kind, teasing that Caesar may henceforth draw on the Ciceros' own strong-box --- a banter of intimacy between the two men.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.15 §5 what does Caesar say about our verses

  Cicero had sent Caesar a poem (probably his epic on his own consulship or on Britain); Caesar praised the opening as better than anything in Greek but called a stretch slack, and Cicero anxiously wants Quintus's candid report.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 3.8 §1 out of the goodwill of the best and most powerful man

  The 'best and most powerful man' is Caesar. Cicero reminds Quintus that the whole point of his serving as Caesar's legate in Gaul was to win Caesar's protective goodwill for the family's standing, not for petty gain.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 3.9 §6 (epic poem) addressed to Caesar

  Cicero had composed an epic poem in Caesar's honour (probably his lost De Expeditione Britannica or a related piece). He wants a trustworthy courier so it does not go astray as Quintus's Erigone had on the road out of Gaul.

• On Duties §2.2 the rule of one man

  Julius Caesar's dictatorship, established after the civil war; Cicero writes De Officiis in 44 BC in its shadow, lamenting the silencing of senatorial deliberation.

• On Duties §2.23 that tyrant

  Julius Caesar, assassinated in March 44 BC shortly before this book was written. Cicero calls him a tyrant whose hatred-bred death proves that fear cannot guard power.

• Against Catiline, Fourth Speech §7 Caesar

  C. Iulius Caesar, then praetor-elect, proposed instead lifelong imprisonment in Italian municipia and confiscation of property. Caesar's intervention is reported at length by Sallust as well as in this speech; it forced Cicero to mount the great defence of the senatorial death-sentence that follows.

• Second Philippic §5 the chieftainship from among his band of brigands

  Cicero sneers that Caesar ("the very victor") had given Antony command over his followers, casting Caesar's army as a band of robbers (latrones).

• Fifth Philippic §7 Caesar wished to drain the marshes

  Among Caesar's planned public works was the draining of the Pomptine marshes; Cicero contrasts this with Antony's claim to act "from Caesar's acts" while in fact overturning Caesar's better measures.

• Eighth Philippic §9 Caesar's auction-spear

  The spear (hasta) was planted to mark a public auction; here it stands for the confiscation and sale of property under Caesar and his heirs, which Cicero says enriched many scoundrels overnight and bred their appetite for more.