Ad Atticum 4.15
Ad Atticum 4.15
Headnote
Cicero to Atticus, written from Rome on the sixth day before the Kalends of Sextilis — 27 July 54 BC. Atticus is in the East on the journey to Asia that 4.14 had assumed; Cicero, back in town after a circuit out to Reate and the Velinus drainage country, is writing the long Roman bulletin Atticus had asked for. The first three sections handle private business — the manumission of Eutychides, paralleled to Atticus’s earlier freeing of Dionysius; a tease about Atticus lingering in Greek company; the working explanation for why earlier letters never arrived. Then, at section 4, the dispatch from the Forum begins.
The middle and back half of the letter is one of the sharpest contemporary pictures we have of the 54 BC consular campaign collapsing into open corruption: Sufenas and Cato acquitted, Procilius condemned, and a jury of “thrice-honoured Areopagites” who care, in Cicero’s accounting, about nothing except domestic murder. Memmius has Caesar’s money behind him; the sitting consuls have secretly cut Domitius into the same syndicate (Cicero will not put the terms in writing); Pompey backs Scaurus but no one knows whether sincerely; Messalla is sinking under the consuls’ combine. The Homeric tag sēma de toi ere\=o (“and I will tell you the sign,” from Iliad 23.326) introduces, with mock grandeur, the index of corruption that interest rates have gone from 4 to 8 percent in a fortnight as cash is hoovered up for bribes. The closing sections itemize Cicero’s own defense work — Messius now, Drusus and Scaurus next — and end with the standing anxiety: Quintus is now somewhere in Britain with Caesar’s army, and the household waits for word.
About Eutychides — a kindness. With his old praenomen and your new nomen, he will be T. Caecilius, just as out of me and you Dionysius has been compounded into M. Pomponius. By Hercules, I am genuinely grateful that Eutychides has come to know your good will toward me, and that his own fellow-feeling sympatheian in my time of grief was neither hidden from me at the time nor ungratefully received afterward.
de Eutychide gratum qui vetere praenomine, novo nomine T. erit Caecilius, ut est ex me et ex te iunctus Dionysius M. Pomponius. valde me hercule mihi gratum est Eutychidem tuam erga me benevolentiam cognosse et suam illam in meo dolore συμπάθειαν neque tum mihi obscuram neque post ingratam fuisse.
Your journey to Asia, I take it, was one you had to undertake; for you would never have wanted, without the most justified cause, to be so far away from so many people and things that are most dear and pleasant to you. But your humanity and your love for your own will be made clear by the speed of your return. Yet I fear that you may be kept longer by the charm of the praetor Clodius, and of Pituanius, a man very learned, as they say, and just now devoted to Greek letters. But if you mean to behave like a human being, take yourself back to us by the time you fixed. With those others you can live at Rome too, once they have come home safe. You write that you are eager to receive some sort of letter from me.
iter Asiaticum tuum puto tibi suscipiendum fuisse; numquam enim tu sine iustissima causa tam longe a tot tuis et hominibus et rebus carissimis et suavissimis abesse voluisses. sed humanitatem tuam amoremque in tuos reditus celeritas declarabit. sed vereor ne lepore suo detineat diutius praetor Clodius et homo pereruditus, ut aiunt, et nunc quidem deditus Graecis litteris Pituanius. sed si vis homo esse, recipe te ad nos ad quod tempus confirmasti. cum illis tamen cum salvi venerint Romae vivere licebit. avere te scribis accipere aliquid a me litterarum.
I have sent letters, and on many subjects, written out day by day hēmerolegdon from start to finish; but as I conjecture, since you do not seem to me to have been long in Epirus, I judge they were not delivered to you. The general kind of letter I write to you is such, however, that one does not care to entrust it to just anyone, but only to a man one has tested and knows will deliver it to you.
dedi ac multis quidem de rebus ἡμερολεγδὸν perscripta omnia; sed ut conicio, quoniam mihi non videris in Epiro diu fuisse, redditas tibi non arbitror. genus autem mearum ad te quidem litterarum eius modi fere est ut non libeat cuiquam dare nisi de quo exploratum sit tibi eum redditurum.
Now for the news from Rome. On the fourth day before the Nones of Quintilis, Sufenas and Cato were acquitted, Procilius condemned. From which it has been understood that our thrice-honoured Areopagites trisareiopagitas do not care a straw for electoral bribery, the elections, the interregnum, treason — in short, for the commonwealth in any form; but that we are not, all the same, to allow a head of a household to be murdered in his own home — and even on that point, not overwhelmingly so; for twenty-two voted to acquit, twenty-eight to condemn. Publius, with a really eloquent peroration accusing me, had stirred the minds of the jurors. Hortalus performed in that case in his usual style. I said not a word; for my little one, who is now in poor health, was afraid I would offend Publius’s feelings.
nunc Romanas res accipe. A. d. iiii Nonas Quintilis Sufenas et Cato absoluti, Procilius condemnatus. ex quo intellectum est τρισαρειοπαγίτασ ambitum, comitia, interregnum, maiestatem, totam denique rem publicam flocci non facere, debemus patrem familias domi suae occidi nolle, neque tamen id ipsum abunde; nam absolverunt xxii, condemnarunt xxviii. Publius sane diserto epilogo criminans me mentis iudicum commoverat. Hortalus in ea causa fuit cuius modi solet. nos verbum nullum; verita est enim pusilla, quae nunc laborat, ne animum Publi offenderem.
Once these matters were dispatched, the people of Reate took me off to their own Tempe Tempē, so that I might plead their case against the people of Interamna before the consul and the ten commissioners — the question being that the Lacus Velinus, drained off by M’. Curius through a mountain cut, flows down into the Nar; from which drainage that famous Rosian plain has been dried out, though still moderately moist. I lived with Axius, who also took me to the Seven Waters.
his rebus actis Reatini me ad sua Τέμπη duxerunt ut agerem causam contra Interamnatis apud consulem et decem legatos, quod lacus Velinus a M’. Curio emissus interciso monte in Nar defluit; ex quo est illa siccata et umida tamen modice Rosia. vixi cum Axio, qui etiam me ad Septem Aquas duxit.
I came back to Rome on Fonteius’s behalf on the seventh day before the Ides of Quintilis. I went into the theatre, first off, to a great and steady round of applause. But never mind that; how silly of me to have written it. Then I attended to Antiphon. He had been manumitted before he was brought on. Not to keep you in suspense any longer, he carried off the prize; but nothing so undersized, nothing so voiceless, nothing so — well, keep this between us. In the Andromacha, however, he was taller than Astyanax; in the rest he had no equal. You ask now about Arbuscula; she gave great satisfaction. The games were magnificent and well received; the wild-beast hunt has been postponed to another time.
redii Romam Fontei causa a. d. vii Idus Quint. veni in spectaculum primum magno et aequabili plausu. sed hoc ne curaris; ego ineptus qui scripserim. deinde Antiphonti operam. is erat ante manu missus quam productus. ne diutius pendeas, palmam tulit; sed nihil tam pusillum, nihil tam sine voce, nihil tam verum haec tu tecum habeto. in Andromacha tamen maior fuit quam Astyanax, in ceteris parem habuit neminem. quaeris nunc de Arbuscula; valde placuit. ludi magnifici et grati; venatio in aliud tempus dilata.
Now follow me into the Campus. Electioneering is on fire; “and I will tell you the sign” sēma de toi ereō: interest has gone from a third to two-thirds since the Ides of Quintilis. You will say, “Well, that does not trouble me.” What a man! What a citizen! Memmius is being shored up by all of Caesar’s resources. The consuls have joined Domitius to him — on what terms I dare not commit to a letter. Pompey roars, complains, throws his support to Scaurus — but whether on his face or in his mind, no one can tell. There is no preeminence exochē in anyone; money is leveling everyone’s standing. Messalla is flagging — not for any want of spirit or of friends, but the consuls’ compact and Pompey stand against him. I think these elections are going to be postponed. The tribunician candidates have sworn to canvass under Cato’s arbitration. With him each has deposited 500,000 sesterces, on terms that any one of them whom Cato condemns shall forfeit his sum, and it shall be paid over to his competitors.
sequere nunc me in campum. ardet ambitus; σῆμα δέ τοι ἐρέω; faenus ex triente Idibus Quintilibus factum erat bessibus. dices istuc quidem non moleste fero. o virum! o civem! Memmium Caesaris omnes opes confirmant. cum eo Domitium consules iunxerunt, qua pactione epistulae committere non audeo. Pompeius fremit, queritur, Scauro studet, sed utrum fronte an mente dubitatur. ἐξοχὴ in nullo est; pecunia omnium dignitatem exaequat. Messalla languet, non quo aut animus desit aut amici sed coitio consulum et Pompeius obsunt. ea comitia puto fore ut ducantur. tribunicii candidati iurarunt se arbitrio Catonis petituros. apud eum HS quingena deposuerunt ut qui a Catone damnatus esset id perderet et competitoribus tribueretur.
I am writing this the day before the elections are thought to be held. But on the fifth day before the Kalends of Sextilis I will write the whole election out for you, if it has come off and the courier has not yet set out. If, as they expect, it goes uncorrupted, Cato single-handed will have done more than all the laws and all the courts put together.
haec ego pridie scribebam quam comitia fore putabantur. sed ad te, quinto Kal. Sextil. si facta erunt et tabellarius non erit profectus, tota comitia perscribam. quae si, ut putantur, gratuita fuerint, plus unus Cato potuerit quam omnes leges omnesque iudices.
I was defending Messius, recalled from his commission — for Appius had attached him to Caesar as legate. Servilius issued an edict that he should appear. He has three tribes: Pomptina, Velina, Maecia. The fight is sharp; the case, all the same, goes well enough. Next I free myself up for Drusus, then for Scaurus. Splendid title-pages are being readied for my speeches. Perhaps the consuls-designate will be added to my list as well. If Scaurus is not among them, he will be in serious trouble at this trial.
Messius defendebatur a nobis de legatione revocatus; nam eum Caesari legarat Appius. Servilius edixit ut adesset. tribus habet Pomptinam, Velinam, Maeciam. pugnatur acriter; agitur tamen satis. deinde me expedio ad Drusum, inde ad Scaurum. parantur orationibus indices gloriosi. fortasse accedent etiam consules designati. in quibus si Scaurus non fuerit, in hoc iudicio valde laborabit.
From my brother Quintus’s letter I suspect he is now in Britain. With suspense in my heart I wait to hear what he is doing. This much we have at least secured, and can judge by many great signs: that we are exceedingly dear and exceedingly welcome to Caesar. Be so good as to give Dionysius my greeting, and to ask and urge him to come as soon as possible, so that he may go on educating my Cicero — and me, as well.
ex Quinti fratris litteris suspicor iam eum esse in Britannia. suspenso animo exspecto quid agat. illud quidem sumus adepti, quod multis et magnis indiciis possumus iudicare, nos Caesari et carissimos et iucundissimos esse. Dionysium velim salvere iubeas et eum roges et hortere ut quam primum veniat, ut possit Ciceronem meum atque etiam me ipsum erudire.