Ad Atticum 1.15
Ad Atticum 1.15
Headnote
Cicero to Atticus, written at Rome on the Ides of March 61 BC — a short note carrying news that Quintus Cicero, after his praetorship, has drawn Asia by lot as his proconsular province for the next year. The Iliad tag in the second sentence (§1, “be mindful of every kind of virtue”) is from Hector’s last appeal to Achilles in Book 22 — the proper note for a brother going east into the great wealth and the great temptations of an Asian command. The proper letter to Quintus on how to govern (Ad Quintum Fratrem 1.1, the small treatise on provincial administration) follows in 60 BC. Of his own affairs Cicero says nothing here; the substance will go in a letter Quintus himself will carry.
You have heard that Asia has fallen by lot to my brother Quintus, the sweetest of brothers. For I do not doubt that rumour has brought you the news more quickly than any letter of ours. Now, since we have always been most eager for praise and, beyond others, both are and are reckoned lovers of Greece, philellēnes, and have undertaken many men’s hatred and enmity for the commonwealth’s sake — “be mindful of every kind of virtue,” pantoiēs aretēs mimnēske (Iliad 22.268, Achilles to Hector), and take care and bring it about that we are praised and loved by all.
Asiam Quinto, suavissimo fratri, obtigisse audisti. non enim dubito quin celerius tibi hoc rumor quam ullius nostrum litterae nuntiarint. nunc quoniam et laudis avidissimi semper fuimus et praeter ceteros φιλέλληνεσ et sumus et habemur et multorum odia atque inimicitias rei publicae causa suscepimus, παντοίησ ἀρετῆσ μιμνήσκεο curaque et effice ut ab omnibus et laudemur et amemur.
On these matters I shall write more to you in the letter I shall give Quintus himself. Please inform me what you have done about my commissions, and also about your own business; for since you set out from Brundisium, no letter has been delivered to me from you. I am eager indeed to know what you are doing. The Ides of March.
his de rebus plura ad te in ea epistula scribam quam ipsi Quinto dabo. tu me velim certiorem facias quid de meis mandatis egeris atque etiam quid de tuo negotio; nam ut Brundisio profectus es, nullae mihi abs te sunt redditae litterae. valde aveo scire quid agas. Idibus Martiis