person
Balbus
also: Balbo
L. Cornelius Balbus, a Spaniard of Gades whose citizenship was secured by Pompey and ratified at Rome in the case Cicero defended in 56 BC. He served as Caesar's confidential adviser and praefectus fabrum, was the first non-Italian to become consul (40 BC), and is Cicero's intimate correspondent throughout the 50s and 40s (Ad fam. 7.5-7; Ad Att. passim).
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 2.3 §3 I mean Balbus, Caesar's intimate
L. Cornelius Balbus of Gades, Caesar's confidential agent and man of business, who came sounding out Cicero on Caesar's behalf; Cicero clarifies which "Cornelius" he means.
- Ad Atticum 8.9 §4 the younger Balbus came to me
The "younger Balbus" is the nephew of L. Cornelius Balbus of Gades, Caesar's chief agent and Cicero's correspondent; he was carrying Caesar's overtures to the consul Lentulus, while the "elder Balbus" wrote separately to reassure Cicero.
- Ad Atticum 8.15 §2 you might grieve on my behalf, when you saw me being made a laughingstock
L. Cornelius Balbus, Caesar's chief agent, kept writing to Cicero in a coaxing, flattering vein to keep him neutral; Cicero forwards the letter to Atticus as evidence of the humiliating courtship he was subjected to. He resented being handled by Caesar's intermediaries.
- Ad Atticum 9.5 §3 because of Balbus's letters and conversations
L. Cornelius Balbus, Caesar's intimate agent writing from Rome, was working to keep Cicero neutral and reconciled to Caesar. Cicero says it was Balbus's reports that finally convinced him Caesar's real aim was Pompey's destruction.
- Ad Atticum 10.11 §4 Is even Balbus thinking of coming into the Senate?
L. Cornelius Balbus was a Gades-born financier and Caesar's chief political agent; the wonder is partly that a man of provincial origin should sit among the senators. The Senate was the council of former magistrates that had been the steering body of the Republic, now being reshaped under Caesar's ascendancy.
- Ad Atticum 10.18 §3 From the conversation Balbus had with you, I do not approve about Malta
L. Cornelius Balbus was Caesar's confidential agent, working to keep Cicero neutral and inside Italy. His discouraging Cicero's idea of retiring to Malta confirmed Cicero's fear that Caesar's men counted him an enemy.
- Ad Atticum 11.8 §1 through Balbus and Oppius above all
Lucius Cornelius Balbus and Gaius Oppius were Caesar's two most trusted civilian agents, running his affairs and correspondence in his absence. Cicero relied on them as the channel through which Caesar's goodwill toward him could be maintained.
- Ad Atticum 11.12 §1 the younger Balbus Cornelius
Cicero distinguishes the elder L. Cornelius Balbus, Caesar's powerful Spanish-born confidant and agent, from his nephew of the same name. Balbus and Oppius managed Caesar's correspondence and were Cicero's chief channels for sounding out Caesar's mood.
- Ad Atticum 11.14 §2 he has written to Balbus and Oppius
L. Cornelius Balbus and C. Oppius were the two trusted equestrians who ran Caesar's affairs in Italy during his absence. Cicero treats them as the men through whom Caesar's intentions toward him would be signalled.
- Ad Atticum 12.2 §2 But Balbus is building
L. Cornelius Balbus the elder, a Gades-born financier and Caesar's confidential agent; his lavish building is Cicero's shorthand for the new men profiting under the regime. The Greek tag that follows means "what does he care?"
- Ad Atticum 12.12 §1 Balbus's terms for assigning the debt are princely
L. Cornelius Balbus, Caesar's chief financial agent, has made generous terms for the legal transfer ("delegatio") of a debt owed to Cicero, redirecting it to a new payer. "Princely" (regia) marks how lavish the offer is.
- Ad Atticum 13.22 §3 an unfinished one to Balbus
Cicero worries about which version of his text reaches whom: an outdated draft must not go to Brutus, nor an unfinished one to Balbus, Caesar's powerful agent who expected a finished copy.
- Ad Atticum 15.2 §3 I should be glad if Balbus could be lightened of public hatred
L. Cornelius Balbus, the Spanish-born financier who had been one of Caesar's chief private agents; widely resented, he could not believe Cicero's circle could rehabilitate him, and was looking to other expedients.
- Ad Atticum 15.6 §4 Balbus wrote to me
Lucius Cornelius Balbus, a Spanish-born financier who had been one of Caesar's most trusted private agents; Cicero relies on him for inside news of the Caesarian camp.
- Ad Atticum 16.3 §5 in writing rather openly to Balbus
L. Cornelius Balbus, a Spaniard from Gades and one of Caesar's chief financial agents and fixers; Cicero leans on his influence to keep his disputed debts from going wrong.
- Ad Familiares 6.8 §1 what Balbus and Oppius transacted in Caesar's absence is usually held by him to be ratified
L. Cornelius Balbus and C. Oppius were Caesar's two chief agents in Rome, managing his affairs and acting as informal gatekeepers to his clemency petitions during his campaigns; Cicero's remark confirms that their word was in practice equivalent to Caesar's own.
- Ad Familiares 7.7 §1 Balbus
L. Cornelius Balbus of Gades, the Spaniard whose Pompeian citizenship-grant Cicero had defended in 56 BC; in 54 BC effectively Caesar's chief of staff and Cicero's main channel for advancing Trebatius's career.
- Ad Familiares 8.11 §2 Cornelius Balbus
L. Cornelius Balbus of Gades, Caesar's chief financial and political agent at Rome; he leaned on Curio not to obstruct, warning that to do so would injure Caesar's interest.
- Ad Familiares 9.15 §4 the senatorial decrees are written up at the house of your admirer, my intimate
Senatus consulta were now drafted privately at the house of one of Caesar's agents (most likely L. Cornelius Balbus, Caesar's confidential man of business), with Cicero's name added as a witness or drafter without his knowledge. The complaint mocks the Senate's loss of real deliberation under the dictatorship.
- Ad Familiares 9.17 §1 you, who have had our friend Balbus staying at your house?
L. Cornelius Balbus of Gades, Caesar's confidential agent and man of business, was the best-informed man in Rome about the dictator's plans. Cicero teases Paetus that, with Balbus as his houseguest, he could have learned the fate of the townships 'either sober or, failing that, drunk' — and so should be the one informing Cicero, not the reverse.
- Ad Familiares 9.19 §1 ``Balbus was content with a slender spread''
L. Cornelius Balbus the elder, the Gaditane financier who was one of Caesar's two chief political agents in Rome (with Oppius). Paetus had evidently written that even the immensely powerful Balbus dined frugally with him --- a needling hint that Cicero, a mere consular, should be content with a modest table too.
- Ad Familiares 9.19 §1 I do not wonder at that, since he did not go to his own; what I wonder at is that he did not go to his lady's
Cicero reports cross-examining Balbus about his visit to Paetus. The teasing remark --- that on reaching Rome Balbus came straight to Cicero's house rather than to his own home, and stranger still, not to his mistress's --- is a piece of risque banter typical of the Paetus correspondence.
- Ad Familiares 9.19 §2 I ask you not to rate the Balbi --- the stutterers --- above good speakers
An untranslatable pun: the cognomen Balbus is also the Latin adjective balbus, 'stammering'. Cicero plays the 'Balbi/stammerers' against the diserti ('the eloquent'), warning Paetus not to value a good menu (the way to please a Balbus) over good conversation (the way to please an orator).
- Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.10 §4 he has written to Balbus
L. Cornelius Balbus of Gades, Caesar's chief confidential agent and man of business at Rome, who relayed letters between Caesar in Gaul and his friends in the city.