Ad Atticum 6.1
Ad Atticum 6.1
Headnote
Cicero to Atticus, written from Laodicea on the sixth day before the Kalends of March (24 February) 50 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. Laodiceae vi K. Mart. a. 704 (50)). The opening letter of Ad Atticum book 6, and the longest and most substantial of Cicero’s surviving despatches from his proconsular year in Cilicia. He has come down from the late-summer campaign on the Amanus to winter in Laodicea, where the regional assizes occupy him through the spring; the date of the letter is fixed in its first sentence to five days before the Terminalia. The letter answers, in order, an unusually full bulletin from Atticus, and discharges the major accumulated business of the governorship at one sitting.
The substantive heart of the letter — sections five through seven — is Cicero’s first detailed handling of the Salaminian-loan affair, which becomes a leitmotif of his correspondence for the rest of the proconsulship. M. Iunius Brutus, behind the proxies M. Scaptius and P. Matinius, had lent money to the city of Salamis on Cyprus at four percent per month compounded — forty-eight percent a year — under a senatorial dispensation procured to evade the Lex Gabinia’s twelve-percent ceiling. The predecessor Appius Pulcher had given Scaptius a prefecture and squadrons of cavalry to enforce collection, with which he had besieged the Salaminian senate in their own council-house until five of them starved to death. Cicero, holding himself to twelve percent uniformly across the province by his own edict, has refused to endorse the higher rate, refused the prefecture to Scaptius as a man of business (per a standing exception Atticus had himself negotiated), and withdrawn the squadrons. He is now writing to Atticus to set out the moral and legal accounting of the choice — and to brace him for the certainty that Brutus, whose moneylending Cicero had not understood to be personal until the affair began, will be displeased. The tone is dry, organised, almost legal, broken by flashes of indignation at Scaptius and of weary irony at his own situation as the trustee of an honour he had not realised he was being asked to underwrite.
Around this core the letter ranges across the whole field of Cicero’s current preoccupations: the contrast between his administration and Appius’s (section two), the financial straits of the king Ariobarzanes and the disproportionate share Pompey is extracting from him (section three), the praetextate education of the two Cicero boys at Laodicea (section twelve), the impending Parthian invasion and the auxiliaries of Deiotarus (section fourteen), the two-part structure of his own provincial edict (also section fourteen), his handling of the publicans (section sixteen), the antiquarian quibbles raised by Atticus about the statue of Africanus and the calendar of Cn. Flavius (sections seventeen and eighteen), the domestic question of Tullia’s marriage (section ten), the news of Vedius’s baggage and the five portraits of married ladies it contained (section twenty-five), and a last whimsical thought about building a propylaeum for the Academy at Athens to match Appius’s at Eleusis (section twenty-six). The political backdrop is the deferral of the great question — the consular provinces, the Parthian command, the standing of Caesar — to the Kalends of March, the day after this letter is written, with Cicero acutely afraid that his own command will be extended and his return to Italy prevented. The Greek-tag scaffolding is dense and intimate throughout, in the inside-Atticus voice; the closing date-formula — “the seven hundred and sixty-fifth day after the battle of Leuctra” — is the kind of antiquarian flourish the two of them exchange for amusement.
I received your letter at Laodicea on the fifth day before the Terminalia; and I read it with the greatest pleasure, full as it was of affection, of courtesy, of attentiveness, of care. To it, then, I shall reply — not gold for bronze (for so you require) — nor shall I set up my own economy of arrangement: I shall keep to yours. You say that the most recent letter of mine you have is the one sent from Cybistra on the eleventh day before the Kalends of October, and you wish to know which of yours I have received. Almost all of those you mention, except those you say you handed to the slaves of Lentulus and at Equus Tuticus and at Brundisium. So your industry has not gone for nothing, as you fear: it is splendidly invested, if at any rate your aim was to give me pleasure. For nothing has ever pleased me more.
accepi tuas litteras a. d. quintum Terminalia Laodiceae; quas legi libentissime plenissimas amoris, humanitatis, offici, diligentiae. iis igitur respondebo non χρύσεα χαλκείων (sic enim postulas) nec οἰκονομίαν meam instituam, sed ordinem conservabo tuum. recentissimas a Cybistris te meas litteras habere ais a. d. xi Kalendas Octobris datas et scire vis tuas ego quas acceperim. omnis fere quas commemoras, praeter eas quas scribis Lentuli pueris et Equotutico et Brundisio datas. qua re non οἴχεται tua industria quod vereris sed praeclare ponitur, si quidem id egisti ut ego delectarer. nam nulla re sum delectatus magis.
That you approve my depth of judgement in dealing with Appius, and my generosity even towards Brutus, I am very glad of; though I had thought it would go a little otherwise. For Appius had sent me, twice or three times from his journey, letters in a tone of faint grumbling, because I was rescinding certain things he had settled. It is as if a physician, when his patient has been handed over to another physician, were to be angry at his successor for changing whatever he himself had prescribed in the treatment. So Appius, having tended the province by subtraction — having drawn its blood, having stripped off whatever could be stripped, having delivered it to me half-dead — does not gladly see it being fed back up by me, but is now angry, now grateful. Nothing whatever is done by me to insult him; only the unlikeness of my method rubs the man the wrong way. For what could be more unlike than that under his command the province was drained dry by expenditures and exactions, while under mine not a single coin has been disbursed, either privately or publicly? What shall I say of his prefects, his suite, even his legates? Of the rapine, the lusts, the insults? Whereas now, by Hercules, no household is managed with such design or such discipline, or is so modest, as our whole province. This certain friends of Appius interpret ridiculously: they suppose I want to be well spoken of so that he may be ill spoken of, and that I am acting rightly not for the sake of my own credit but to disgrace him. But if Appius, as the letter of Brutus he sent on to you indicated, is grateful to me, I am not sorry for it; though all the same, on the very day I was writing this before dawn, I was meditating the cancellation of many of his iniquitous arrangements and acts.
quod meam βαθύτητα in Appio tibi, liberalitatem etiam in Bruto probo, vehementer gaudeo; ac putaram paulo secus. Appius enim ad me ex itinere bis terve ὑπομεμψιμοίρουσ litteras miserat quod quaedam a se constituta rescinderem. ut si medicus, cum aegrotus alii medico traditus sit, irasci velit ei medico qui sibi successerit si quae ipse in curando constituerit mutet ille, sic Appius, cum ἐξ ἀφαιρέσεωσ provinciam curarit, sanguinem miserit, quicquid potuit detraxerit, mihi tradiderit enectam, προσανατρεφομένην eam a me non libenter videt sed modo suscenset, modo gratias agit. nihil enim a me fit cum ulla illius contumelia; tantum modo dissimilitudo meae rationis offendit hominem. quid enim potest esse tam dissimile quam illo imperante exhaustam esse sumptibus et iacturis provinciam, nobis eam obtinentibus nummum nullum esse erogatum nec privatim nec publice? quid dicam de illius praefectis, comitibus, legatis etiam? de rapinis, de libidinibus, de contumeliis? nunc autem domus me hercule nulla tanto consilio aut tanta disciplina gubernatur aut tam modesta est quam nostra tota provincia. haec non nulli amici Appi ridicule interpretantur qui me idcirco putent bene audire velle ut ille male audiat, et recte facere non meae laudis sed illius contumeliae causa. sin Appius, ut Bruti litterae quas ad te misit significabant, gratias nobis agit non moleste fero, sed tamen eo ipso die quo haec ante lucem scribebam, cogitabam eius multa inique constituta et acta tollere.
Now I come to Brutus, whom on your urging I embraced with all eagerness, whom I had even begun to love — but at once recalled myself, lest I should offend you. For do not suppose there was anything I wanted more than to satisfy his charges, nor that I have taken more pains over any matter. He gave me a little memorandum of his commissions, and you also had spoken to me of the same things. I have followed up every item with the utmost diligence. First, with Ariobarzanes I pressed it so that the talents he was promising me he should give to him. So long as the king was with me, the matter stood in a very good way; afterwards he began to be pressed hard by six hundred agents of Pompey. Pompey, however, both is, on every other count, more powerful by himself than all the rest together, and is also reckoned about to come for the Parthian war. To him, even so, the king now pays at this rate: every thirtieth day thirty-three Attic talents, and that out of the tribute. Even so, that does not make enough for the monthly interest. But our Gnaeus bears it mildly; he forgoes the principal, and contents himself with the interest — and not even that in full. To anyone else he neither pays nor can pay: he has no treasury, no revenue. After Appius’s institution he imposes tribute. That scarcely makes up what suffices for Pompey’s interest. Two or three friends of the king are extremely rich, but they keep their own as carefully as you or I do. Still, I do not cease to importune the king by letter — urging, persuading, reproaching.
nunc venio ad Brutum quem ego omni studio te auctore sum complexus, quem etiam amare coeperam; sed ilico me revocavi, ne te offenderem. noli enim putare me quicquam maluisse quam ut mandatis satis facerem nec ulla de re plus laborasse. mandatorum autem mihi libellum dedit, isdemque de rebus tu mecum egeras. omnia sum diligentissime persecutus. primum ab Ariobarzane sic contendi ut talenta quae mihi pollicebatur illi daret. quoad mecum rex fuit, perbono loco res erat; post a Pompei procuratoribus sescentis premi coeptus est. Pompeius autem quom ob ceteras causas plus potest unus quam ceteri omnes, tum quod putatur ad bellum Parthicum esse venturus. ei tamen sic nunc solvitur, tricesimo quoque die talenta Attica xxxiii et hoc ex tributis. nec inde satis efficitur in usuram menstruam. sed Gnaeus noster clementer id fert; sorte caret, usura nec ea solida contentus est. alii neque solvit cuiquam nec potest solvere; nullum enim aerarium, nullum vectigal habet. Appi instituto tributa imperat. ea vix in faenus Pompei quod satis sit efficiunt. amici regis duo tresve perdivites sunt sed ii suum tam diligenter tenent quam ego aut tu. equidem non desino tamen per litteras rogare, suadere, accusare regem.
Deiotarus also told me he had sent envoys to him on Brutus’s business; that they had brought back the reply that the man had not the means. And by Hercules I judge so myself: nothing is more stripped than that kingdom, nothing more destitute than the king. So I am considering either abdicating the guardianship, or, as Scaevola did in place of Glabrio, refusing both interest and principal. I have nevertheless conferred those prefectures I had promised Brutus through you on M. Scaptius and L. Gavius, who were managing Brutus’s affairs in the kingdom; for they were not trafficking in my province. You will remember that we agreed he should take as many prefectures as he wished, provided not for a man of business. So I had granted him two more besides. But the men for whom he had asked had left the province.
Deiotarus etiam mihi narravit se ad eum legatos misisse de re Bruti; eos sibi responsum rettulisse illum non habere. et me hercule ego ita iudico, nihil illo regno spoliatius, nihil rege egentius. itaque aut tutela cogito me abdicare aut ut pro Glabrione Scaevola faenus et impendium recusare. ego tamen quas per te Bruto promiseram praefecturas, M. Scaptio, L. Gavio, qui in regno rem Bruti procurabant, detuli; nec enim in provincia mea negotiabantur. tu autem meministi nos sic agere ut quot vellet praefecturas sumeret, dum ne negotiatori. itaque duas ei praeterea dederam. sed ii quibus petierat de provincia decesserant.
Now learn about the Salaminians — a matter, I see, that has come upon you no less new than on me. For I had never heard from him that the money was his own; on the contrary, I have a memorandum of his in which it stands written, “The Salaminians owe money to M. Scaptius and P. Matinius, friends of mine.” He commends them to me; he even adds and (as it were) applies the spur, saying that he had gone surety for them in a large sum. I had settled it that they should pay at twelve percent compounded over two years, with renewal each year. But Scaptius demanded forty-eight. I was afraid, if he obtained that, you yourself would cease to love me; for I should have departed from my own edict, and should have utterly ruined a community that had been placed under the protection of Cato and of Brutus himself and adorned with my favours.
nunc cognosce de Salaminiis, quod video tibi etiam novum accidisse tamquam mihi. numquam enim ex illo audivi illam pecuniam esse suam; quin etiam libellum ipsius habeo, in quo est, Salaminii pecuniam debent M. Scaptio et P. Matinio, familiaribus meis. eos mihi commendat; adscribit etiam et quasi calcar admovet intercessisse se pro iis magnam pecuniam. confeceram ut solverent centesimis bienni ductis cum renovatione singulorum annorum. at Scaptius quaternas postulabat. metui, si impetrasset, ne tu ipse me amare desineres; nam ab edicto meo recessissem et civitatem in Catonis et in ipsius Bruti fide locatam meisque beneficiis ornatam funditus perdidissem.
And at this very moment Scaptius thrusts upon me a letter to the effect that Brutus’s money is in the affair at his own risk — a thing Brutus had never said either to me or to you — and asking further that I confer a prefecture upon Scaptius. But that was the very thing we had excepted through you — not for a man of business; if for anyone, then certainly not for this man. For he had been Appius’s prefect; and what is more, he had had squadrons of cavalry with which he had besieged the Salamis senate, penned in the senate-house, until five senators died of starvation. So on the day I touched the province — when the Cyprian envoys had come to meet me at Ephesus — I sent letters that the cavalry should at once leave the island. For these reasons, I imagine, Scaptius wrote something less than fair about me to Brutus. Yet I am of this mind: if Brutus is going to think that I ought to have decreed forty-eight percent — when I was upholding twelve percent throughout the whole province, and had so edicted, and that was approved even by the most bitter usurers; if he complains that a prefecture was refused to a man of business — a thing I refused our Torquatus in the case of your Laenius, and Pompey himself in the case of Sex. Statius, and which they accepted from me; if he takes it ill that the cavalry were withdrawn: I shall feel pain indeed at his being angry with me, but much greater pain that he is not the man I had supposed.
atque hoc tempore ipso impingit mihi epistulam Scaptius Bruti rem illam suo periculo esse, quod nec mihi umquam Brutus dixerat nec tibi, etiam ut praefecturam Scaptio deferrem. id vero per te exceperamus ne negotiatori; quod si cuiquam, huic tamen non. fuerat enim praefectus Appio et quidem habuerat turmas equitum quibus inclusum in curia senatum Salamine obsederat, ut fame senatores quinque morerentur. itaque ego, quo die tetigi provinciam, cum mihi Cyprii legati Ephesum obviam venissent, litteras misi ut equites ex insula statim decederent. his de causis credo Scaptium iniquius de me aliquid ad Brutum scripsisse. sed tamen hoc sum animo. si Brutus putabit me quaternas centesimas oportuisse decernere, cum tota provincia singulas observarem itaque edixissem idque etiam acerbissimis faeneratoribus probaretur, si praefecturam negotiatori denegatam queretur, quod ego Torquato nostro in tuo Laenio, Pompeio ipsi in Sex. Statio negavi et iis probavi, si equites deductos moleste feret, accipiam equidem dolorem mihi illum irasci sed multo maiorem non esse eum talem qualem putassem.
This, at least, Scaptius will admit: that while I was administering justice, by my own edict he had it in his power to carry off the whole sum of money. I add also a thing which I am afraid even you may scarcely approve. The interest ought to have stopped — the rate which was in my edict. They wanted to deposit it: I prevailed on the Salaminians to keep quiet about it. They indeed pardoned me; but what is to become of them if Paulus comes out here? But the whole of this I gave to Brutus, who has written most courteously about me to you, while to me, even when he asks something, he is in the habit of writing stiffly, arrogantly, without any sense of fellow-feeling. But I should be glad if you would write to him about these things, so that I may know how he takes it; for you will let me know. And I had written all this carefully to you in an earlier letter, but I plainly wished you to understand that I had not forgotten what you had once written me in a certain letter — that if I brought home from this province nothing but his good will, that would be enough for me. So be it, since that is what you wish; but with this proviso, I trust — that it happens without any fault on my part. So by my decree the matter stands settled for Scaptius. How right that is, you will judge; I shall not even appeal to Cato.
illud quidem fatebitur Scaptius, me ius dicente sibi omnem pecuniam ex edicto meo auferendi potestatem fuisse. addo etiam illud quod vereor tibi ipsi ut probem. consistere usura debuit quae erat in edicto meo. deponere volebant: impetravi a Salaminiis ut silerent. veniam illi quidem mihi dederunt, sed quid iis fiet, si huc Paulus venerit? sed totum hoc Bruto dedi; qui de me ad te humanissimas litteras scripsit, ad me autem, etiam cum rogat aliquid, contumaciter, adroganter, ἀκοινονοήτωσ solet scribere. tu autem velim ad eum scribas de his rebus, ut sciam quo modo haec accipiat; facies enim me certiorem. atque haec superioribus litteris diligenter ad te per scripseram sed plane te intellegere volui mihi non excidisse illud quod tu ad me quibusdam litteris scripsisses, si nihil aliud de hac provincia nisi illius benevolentiam deportassem, mihi id satis esse. sit sane, quoniam ita tu vis, sed tamen cum eo credo quod sine peccato meo fiat. igitur meo decreto soluta res Scaptio stat. quam id rectum sit tu iudicabis; ne ad Catonem quidem provocabo.
But do not suppose that I have cast aside those exhortations of yours, which cleave to my very vitals. In tears you commended my reputation to me; and what letter of yours is there in which you do not mention it? So let anyone who wishes be angry; I shall bear it. For the good is sufficient — the more so since with six books, as it were as sureties, I have bound myself, books which I am glad to hear you approve of so warmly. As to one historical point you raise about Gn. Flavius, son of Annius: he was not, however, before the decemvirs, seeing that he was a curule aedile, a magistracy instituted many years after the decemvirs. What good, then, did he do by publishing the calendar? They suppose that the table was for some time kept hidden, so that the days for business had to be sought from a few. Nor indeed are the authorities few who say that the scribe Gn. Flavius published the calendar and drew up the forms of legal action — lest you suppose this an invention of mine, or rather of Africanus (for it is he who speaks). It did not escape you, that point about the actor’s gesture. You suspect maliciously; I wrote it in simplicity. As to my being saluted Imperator, you write that you have learned of it from a letter of Philotimus; but I believe that by now, since you are in Epirus, you have received two letters of mine on every topic — one from the capture of Pindenissus, the other from Laodicea — both handed to your slaves. On these matters, because of the chances of a sea voyage, I sent the public despatch to Rome by two pairs of couriers.
sed noli me putare ἐγκελεύσματα illa tua abiecisse quae mihi in visceribus haerent. flens mihi meam famam commendasti; quae epistula tua est in qua non eius mentionem facias? itaque irascatur qui volet; patiar. τὸ γὰρ εὖ praesertim cum sex libris tamquam praedibus me ipse obstrinxerim, quos tibi tam valde probari gaudeo. e quibus unum ἱστορικὸν requiris de Cn. Flavio, Anni filio. ille vero ante decemviros non fuit quippe qui aedilis curulis fuerit, qui magistratus multis annis post decemviros institutus est. quid ergo profecit quod protulit fastos? occultatam putant quodam tempore istam tabulam, ut dies agendi peterentur a paucis. nec vero pauci sunt auctores Cn. Flavium scribam fastos protulisse actionesque composuisse, ne me hoc vel potius Africanum (is enim loquitur) commentum putes. οὐκ ἔλαθέ σε illud de gestu histrionis. tu sceleste suspicaris, ego ἀφελῶσ scripsi. de me imperatore scribis te ex Philotimi litteris cognosse; sed credo te, iam in Epiro cum esses, binas meas de omnibus rebus accepisse, unas a Pindenisso capto, alteras Laodicea, utrasque tuis pueris datas. quibus de rebus propter casum navigandi per binos tabellarios misi Romam publice litteras.
About my Tullia I agree with you, and have written to her and to Terentia that the arrangement has my approval. For you had written to me about it before, and I should be glad if you returned yourself to your own old flock. With the Memmian letter corrected there was no trouble at all; for I much prefer this man from Pontidia to that one from Servilia. So you will draw in our Saufeius too, a man always loving toward me, now I think the more so because he must also have inherited his brother Appius’s affection for me along with the rest of the estate; and he showed what regard he had for me both often and especially in the matter of Bursa. You will have relieved me from a great anxiety.
de Tullia mea tibi adsentior scripsique ad eam et ad Terentiam mihi placere. tu enim ad me iam ante scripseras, ac vellem te in tuum veterem gregem rettulisses. correcta vero epistula Memmiana nihil negoti fuit; multo enim malo hunc a Pontidia quam illum a Servilia. qua re adiunges Saufeium nostrum, hominem semper amantem mei, nunc credo eo magis quod debet etiam fratris Appi amorem erga me cum reliqua hereditate crevisse; qui declaravit quanti me faceret cum saepe tum in Bursa. ne tu me sollicitudine magna liberaris.
The proviso of Furnius I do not like; for I fear no other date than the very one he alone excepts. But I should write more about this to you if you were at Rome. That you place all hope of peace in Pompey, I do not wonder. So it is, and I think we ought to disabuse him of his pretence of indifference. But indeed if my economy of arrangement is rather disordered, charge it to yourself; for I am following you, who improvise.
Furni exceptio mihi non placet; nec enim ego ullum aliud tempus timeo nisi quod ille solum excipit. sed scriberem ad te de hoc plura, si Romae esses. in Pompeio te spem omnem oti ponere non miror. ita res est removendumque censeo illud dissimulantem. sed enim οἰκονομία si perturbatior est, tibi adsignato. te enim sequor σχεδιάζοντα.
The boys, the Ciceros, love each other, take their exercise, and study; but, as Isocrates said of Ephorus and Theopompus, one of them needs the bridle, the other the spur. Quintus I am thinking of investing with the plain toga at the Liberalia; for so his father has charged me. That day I shall keep as though there were no intercalation. Dionysius is, for my part, in my affections; the boys, however, say he gets furiously angry; yet a man more learned, more pure-living, or more devoted to you and me there cannot be.
Cicerones pueri amant inter se, exercentur, sed discunt, alter, uti dixit Isocrates in Ephoro et Theopompo, frenis eget, alter calcaribus. Quinto togam puram Liberalibus cogitabam dare; mandavit enim pater. ea sic observabo quasi intercalatum non sit. Dionysius mihi quidem in amoribus est; pueri autem aiunt eum furenter irasci; sed homo nec doctior nec sanctior fieri potest nec tui meique amantior.
What you hear of Thermus and Silius being praised is true. They behave very honourably. Add M. Nonius, Bibulus, myself, if you like. I wish Scrofa now had a province where he could show what he is, for he is a polished piece of business. The others weaken Cato’s political programme. That you commend my cause to Hortensius is very pleasing. About Amianus, Dionysius thinks there is no hope. Of Terentius I caught no trace. Moeragenes has certainly perished. I made my road through his estate, on which not a living creature is left. These things I did not know when I was speaking with your Democritus. I have ordered the Rhosian ware. But ho there! what are you thinking of? On dishes of fernwork and most splendid baskets you are accustomed to feed me on a few pot-herbs; what am I to suppose you will set before me on earthenware? A horn has been ordered for Phemius; it will be found, provided only he plays something worthy of it.
Thermum, Silium vere audis laudari. valde honeste se gerunt. adde M. Nonium, Bibulum, me, si voles. iam Scrofa vellem haberet ubi posset; est enim lautum negotium. ceteri infirmant πολίτευμα Catonis. Hortensio quod causam meam commendas valde gratum. de Amiano spei nihil putat esse Dionysius. Terenti nullum vestigium adgnovi. Moeragenes certe periit. feci iter per eius possessionem in qua animal reliquum nullum est. haec non noram tum, cum Democrito tuo cum locutus sum. Rhosica vasa mandavi. sed heus tu! quid cogitas? in felicatis lancibus et splendidissimis canistris holusculis nos soles pascere; quid te in vasis fictilibus appositurum putem? κέρασ Phemio mandatum est; reperietur, modo aliquid illo dignum canat.
A Parthian war is upon us. Cassius sent foolish letters, and Bibulus’s had not yet come in. When these are read out, I think the Senate will at last be stirred. For my part I am in great perturbation of mind. If, as I hope, our command is not prolonged, I have June and July to fear. So be it; for two months Bibulus will hold out. But what is to become of the man I leave behind, especially if it is my brother? And what of me, if I do not get away as quickly? It is a great tangle. Yet I have arranged with Deiotarus that he should be in my camp with all his forces. He has thirty cohorts of four hundred men each in our armament, and two thousand cavalry. They will be enough for holding out until Pompey comes; he indicates in the letter he sends me that that business will be his. The Parthians are wintering in our province; Orodes himself is expected. What more? It is a sizable piece of business. Of Bibulus’s edict there is nothing new except that exception of his you wrote me about, with too heavy a prejudice against our order. I, however, have one of equivalent force but more cautiously worded, derived from the Asiatic edict of Q. Mucius P. f.: “unless the business has been so transacted that one ought not in good faith to stand by it.” And I have followed many things of Scaevola’s, among them the point in which the Greeks consider their liberty granted them — that the Greeks should adjudicate among themselves by their own laws. My edict is brief on account of this division of mine, in that I thought it should be issued in two kinds. One is the provincial portion, in which there is matter about the accounts of communities, about debt, about interest, about contracts — and in the same portion everything about the publicans. The other — what cannot be conveniently transacted without an edict — concerns inheritance possessions, the possession, sale, and management of estates, things that are wont both to be sought and to be done from the edict. A third part, on the rest of judicial business, I have left unwritten. I have said that in this kind I shall accommodate my own decrees to the urban edicts. So I attend to it, and so far satisfy everyone. The Greeks indeed exult that they have foreign judges. “Worthless ones at that,” you will say. What does it matter? They suppose themselves to have got self-government. For yours, I take it, hold weighty fellows like the cobbler Turpio and the contractor Vettius.
Parthicum bellum impendet. Cassius ineptas litteras misit, necdum Bibuli erant adlatae. quibus recitatis puto fore ut aliquando commoveatur senatus. equidem sum in magna animi perturbatione. si, ut opto, non prorogatur nostrum negotium, habeo Iunium et Quintilem in metu. esto; duos quidem mensis sustinebit Bibulus. quid illo fiet quem reliquero, praesertim si fratrem? quid me autem, si non tam cito decedo? Magna turba est. mihi tamen cum Deiotaro convenit ut ille in meis castris esset cum suis copiis omnibus. habet autem cohortis quadringenarias nostra armatura XXX, equitum cIↃ cIↃ. erit ad sustentandum quoad Pompeius veniat; qui litteris quas ad me mittit significat suum negotium illud fore. hiemant in nostra provincia Parthi; exspectatur ipse Orodes. quid quaeris? aliquantum est negoti. de Bibuli edicto nihil novi praeter illam exceptionem de qua tu ad me scripseras nimis gravi praeiudicio in ordinem nostrum. ego tamen habeo ἰσοδυναμοῦσαν sed tectiorem ex Q. Muci P. L edicto Asiatico, extra quam si ita negotium gestum est ut eo stari non oporteat ex fide bona, multaque sum secutus Scaevolae, in iis illud in quo sibi libertatem censent Graeci datam, ut Graeci inter se disceptent suis legibus. breve autem edictum est propter hanc meam διαίρεσιν quod duobus generibus edicendum putavi. quorum unum est provinciale in quo est de rationibus civitatum, de aere alieno, de usura, de syngraphis, in eodem omnia de publicanis; alterum, quod sine edicto satis commode transigi non potest, de hereditatum possessionibus, de bonis possidendis, vendendis, magistris faciendis, quae ex edicto et postulari et fieri solent. tertium de reliquo iure dicundo ἄγραφον reliqui. dixi me de eo genere mea decreta ad edicta urbana accommodaturum. itaque curo et satis facio adhuc omnibus. Graeci vero exsultant quod peregrinis iudicibus utuntur. nugatoribus quidem inquies. quid refert? tamen se αὐτονομίαν adeptos putant. vestri enim credo gravis habent Turpionem sutorium et Vettium mancipem.
About the publicans, you seem to ask what I am doing. I cherish them, indulge them, praise them in words, set them off; I contrive that they shall not be a nuisance to anyone. But the strangest thing — the interest on their contracts which they had written into the agreements, even Servilius respected. I do this. I appoint a date sufficiently liberal; if they pay before it, I declare I shall reckon at twelve percent; if they do not pay, by the contract. So the Greeks pay at a tolerable rate of interest, and to the publicans the thing is most welcome, since they have the other in full measure — the honour of words, frequent invitation. What more? They are all so much my intimates that each thinks himself the most so. Yet still let them get nothing from us — you know the rest.
de publicanis quid agam videris quaerere. habeo in deliciis, obsequor, verbis laudo, orno; efficio ne cui molesti sint. τὸ, usuras eorum quas pactionibus adscripserant servavit etiam Servilius. ego sic. diem statuo satis laxam, quam ante si solverint, dico me centesimas ducturum; si non solverint, ex pactione. itaque et Graeci solvunt tolerabili faenore et publicanis res est gratissima, si illa iam habent pleno modio, verborum honorem, invitationem crebram. quid plura? sunt omnes ita mihi familiares ut se quisque maxime putet. sed tamen μηδὲν αὐτοῖσ —scis reliqua.
About the statue of Africanus (O the muddle of it! — but that itself in your letter delighted me): do you really mean it? Does this Scipio Metellus not know his own great-grandfather was never censor? And yet that statue, which by you was set up in a lofty position near the temple of Ops, had nothing else inscribed on it but “consul.” But on the one that stands by the Hercules of Polycles, “consul” is inscribed; and that they are of the same man, the stance, the dress, the ring, the very likeness declare. By Hercules, when I had noticed in the troop of gilded equestrian statues which this Metellus set up on the Capitol that under the inscription to Serapio there was the likeness of Africanus, I supposed it was the workman’s blunder; now I see it was Metellus’s.
de statua Africani ( ὢ πραγμάτων! sed me id ipsum delectavit in tuis litteris) ain tu? Scipio hic Metellus proavum suum nescit censorem non fuisse? atqui nihil habuit aliud inscriptum nisi cos ea statua quae ad Opis †per te† posita in excelso est. in illa autem quae est ad Πολυκλέουσ Herculem inscriptum est consul; quam esse eiusdem status, amictus, anulus, imago ipsa declarat. at me hercule ego, cum in turma inauratarum equestrium quas hic Metellus in Capitolio posuit animadvertissem in Serapionis subscriptione Africani imaginem, erratum fabrile putavi, nunc video Metelli.
Oh, the shameful ignorance of history! For that matter about Flavius and the calendar, if it is otherwise, the mistake is a common one; you have neatly raised the difficulty, and we have followed something like the general view, as in many things among the Greeks. For who has not said that Eupolis, of the Old Comedy was, by Alcibiades on his voyage to Sicily, thrown into the sea? Eratosthenes refutes it; for he adduces the plays Eupolis put on after that time. Is Duris of Samos — a man careful in history — on that account derided, because in this one thing he erred along with many? Who has not said that Zaleucus wrote laws for the Locrians? Is Theophrastus, then, brought low if this is reproved by your friend Timaeus? But not to know that one’s own great-grandfather was not censor is shameful, especially when after his consulship no Cornelius in his lifetime was censor.
o ἀνιστορησίαν turpem! nam illud de Flavio et fastis, si secus est, commune erratum est et tu belle ἠπόρησασ et nos publicam prope opinionem secuti sumus, ut multa apud Graecos. quis enim non dixit Εὔπολιν τὸν τῆσ ἀρχαίασ ab Alcibiade navigante in Siciliam deiectum esse in mare? redarguit Eratosthenes; adfert enim quas ille post id tempus fabulas docuerit. num idcirco Duris Samius, homo in historia diligens, quod cum multis erravit, inridetur? quis Zaleucum leges Locris scripsisse non dixit? num igitur iacet Theophrastus si id a Timaeo tuo familiari reprensum est? sed nescire proavum suum censorem non fuisse turpe est, praesertim cum post eum consulem nemo Cornelius illo vivo censor fuerit.
About what you write of Philotimus and the discharge of 20,600 sesterces, I hear Philotimus came into the Chersonese about the Kalends of January. From him I have nothing as yet. The rest of my affairs Camillus writes that he has received. What these are I do not know, and am eager to know. But these things later, and perhaps more conveniently in person.
quod de Philotimo et de solutione HS X_X_DC scribis, Philotimum circiter Kal. Ianuarias in Chersonesum audio venisse. at mi ab eo nihil adhuc. reliqua mea Camillus scribit se accepisse. ea quae sint nescio et aveo scire. verum haec posterius et coram fortasse commodius.
One thing, my Atticus, in almost the final part of your letter, moved me. For you write thus: What is left? Then you most lovingly beseech me not to forget to be vigilant, and to mark what is going on. Is there something you have got wind of? Yet there is nothing of that sort. Far from it. For nothing has escaped me, nor will. But that admonition of yours, so carefully worded, seemed to me to signify I know not what.
illud me, mi Attice, in extrema fere parte epistulae commovit; scribis enim sic, τί λοιπόν; deinde me obsecras amantissime ne obliviscar vigilare et ut animadvertam quae fiant. num quid de quo inaudisti? etsi nihil eius modi est. πολλοῦ γε. nec enim me fefellisset nec fallet. sed ista admonitio tua tam accurata nescio quid mihi significare visa est.
About M. Octavius I now write you a second time that you answered him quite properly; I should have wished a little more confidently. For Caelius has sent his freedman to me, with a letter carefully written, both about panthers and about the levy on the communities. I replied that the one I take ill — if I were to lie hidden in darkness, and it were not to be heard at Rome that not a coin in my province is disbursed except for debt — and I showed that it is not lawful for me to raise the money, nor for him to take it; and I admonished him, a man I plainly love, that having accused others, he should live more cautiously. The other point I said was foreign to my reputation, that the people of Cibyra should hunt under my official authority on behalf of the state.
de M. Octavio iterum iam tibi rescribo te illi probe respondisse; paulo vellem fidentius. nam Caelius libertum ad me misit et litteras accurate scriptas et de pantheris et† a civitatibus. rescripsi alterum me moleste ferre, si ego in tenebris laterem nec audiretur Romae nullum in mea provincia nummum nisi in aes alienum erogari, docuique nec mihi conciliare pecuniam licere nec illi capere monuique eum quem plane diligo ut cum alios accusasset cautius viveret; illud autem alterum alienum esse existimatione mea, Cibyratas imperio meo publice venari.
Lepta exults with joy at your letter; for indeed it is finely written, and has set me in great favour with him. Your little daughter has done me a kindness in carefully bidding you add the salutation to me; a kindness too from Pilia, but hers is the more dutiful, since it is to a man whom for some time now she has never seen. So you in turn add the salutation from me to both. The date of dispatch of your letter — the day before the Kalends of January — brought a sweet recollection of that famous oath, which I had not forgotten. For Magnus I was on that day, in my boy’s-toga. There you have everything. I have not, as you required, made it gold for bronze, but matched it like for like.
Lepta tua epistula gaudio exsultat; etenim scripta belle est meque apud eum magna in gratia posuit. filiola tua gratum mihi fecit quod tibi diligenter mandavit ut mihi salutem adscriberes, gratum etiam Pilia, sed illa officiosius quod mihi quem iam pridem numquam vidit. igitur tu quoque salutem utrique adscribito. litterarum datarum dies pr. Kal. Ianuar. suavem habuit recordationem clarissimi iuris iurandi quod ego non eram oblitus. Magnus enim praetextatus illo die fui. habes ad omnia. non, ut postulasti, χρύσεα χαλκείων sed paria paribus respondimus.
But see here — another tiny letter, which I shall not leave without a response. By Hercules Lucceius could well have had the Tusculan, unless perhaps (as is his way) with his flute-player. And I should like to know what his position is. Lentulus, indeed, I hear has put up for sale everything except his Tusculan. I am eager to see these men cleared, eager also Sestius, add too Caelius if you like; in all of whom there is a sense of shame. About restoring Memmius, that Curio is considering it, I take it you have heard. Of the Egnatius Sidicinus account, I am in neither no hope nor great. Pinarius, whom you commend to me, Deiotarus is taking great care of, gravely ill though he is. I have answered the lesser letter as well.
ecce autem alia pusilla epistula quam non relinquam ἀναντιφώνητον. bene me hercule †potuit Lucceius Tusculanum, nisi forte (solet enim) cum suo tibicine†. et velim scire qui sit eius status. Lentulum quidem nostrum omnia praeter Tusculanum proscripsisse audio. cupio hos expeditos videre, cupio etiam Sestium, adde sis Caelium; in quibus omnibus est αἴδεσθεν μὲν de Memmio restituendo ut Curio cogitet te audisse puto. de Egnati Sidicini nomine nec nulla nec magna spe sumus. Pinarium quem mihi commendas diligentissime Deiotarus curat graviter aegrum. respondi etiam minori.
While I am at Laodicea — that is, until the Ides of May — I should like you to converse with me by letter as often as possible; and when you come to Athens (for by then we shall know about city matters, about the provinces, all of which have been deferred to the month of March), do, in particular, send your couriers to me.
tu velim dum ero Laodiceae, id est ad Idus Maias, quam saepissime mecum per litteras colloquare et cum Athenas veneris (iam enim sciemus de rebus urbanis, de provinciis, quae omnia in mensem Martium sunt conlata), utique ad me tabellarios mittas.
And ho there! Did you wring fifty Attic talents from Caesar through Herodes for the Genuarii? In which, as I hear, you have incurred great odium with Pompey. For he thinks that you have eaten up his money, and that Caesar will be more parsimonious in building at Nemus. This I heard from P. Vedius, a great rascal but still a friend of Pompey’s. This Vedius came to meet me with two chariots and a coach with horses harnessed, and a litter, and a great household, for which, if Curio carries the law, he will have to pay a hundred sesterces a head. Besides, there was a baboon in the chariot, and wild asses were not lacking. I have never seen a sorrier fellow. But hear the cap of it. He had been lodged at Laodicea with Pompeius Vindullus. There he deposited his effects when he set off to me. In the meantime Vindullus dies; the matter was thought to concern Pompeius Magnus. C. Vennonius came to Vindullus’s house. While he was sealing everything, he stumbled upon Vedius’s things. Among these were found five little portraits of married ladies, including the sister of your friend, a man who is brutish to make such use of it, and of that pleasant fellow who takes it so carelessly. This I wanted to pass on as a story to you. For we are both fairly curious.
et heus tu! †genuarios† a Caesare per Herodem talenta Attica L extorsistis? in quo, ut audio, magnum odium Pompei suscepistis. putat enim suos nummos vos comedisse, Caesarem in Nemore aedificando diligentiorem fore. haec ego ex P. Vedio, magno nebulone sed Pompei tamen familiari, audivi. hic Vedius mihi obviam venit cum duobus essedis et raeda equis iuncta et lectica et familia magna pro qua, si Curio legem pertulerit, HS centenos pendat necesse est. erat praeterea cynocephalus in essedo nec deerant onagri. numquam vidi hominem nequiorem. sed extremum audi. deversatus est Laodiceae apud Pompeium Vindullum. lbi sua deposuit cum ad me profectus est. moritur interim Vindullus; quae res ad Magnum Pompeium pertinere putabatur. C. Vennonius domum Vindulli venit. cum omnia obsignaret, in Vedianas res incidit. in his inventae sunt quinque imagunculae matronarum in quibus una sororis amici tui hominis bruti qui hoc utatur et illius lepidi qui haec tam neglegenter ferat. haec te volui παριστορῆσαι. sumus enim ambo belle curiosi.
One thing more I should like you to think over. I hear that Appius is making a propylaeum at Eleusis. Should we be silly if we too made one for the Academy? You will say so, I think. Then write me that very thing. For my part I am much in love with Athens herself. I want there to be some monument; I hate false inscriptions on other people’s statues. But as you please — and do let me know what day the Roman Mysteries fall on, and how you have wintered. Take care to be well. The seven hundred and sixty-fifth day after the battle of Leuctra.
unum etiam velim cogites. audio Appium πρόπυλον Eleusine facere. num inepti fuerimus si nos quoque Academiae fecerimus? puto inquies. ergo id ipsum scribes ad me. equidem valde ipsas Athenas amo. volo esse aliquod monumentum; odi falsas inscriptiones statuarum alienarum. sed ut tibi placebit, faciesque me in quem diem Romana incidant mysteria certiorem et quo modo hiemaris. cura ut valeas. post Leuctricam pugnam die septingentesimo sexagesimo quinto.