HermitshCicero by Claude

Letter · 9 May 44 BC · in Pompeiano

Ad Atticum 14.18

Ad Atticum 14.18

Headnote

Cicero to Atticus, written at the Pompeian villa on 9 May 44 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in Pompeiano vii Id. Mai. a. 710 (44). Atticus has been needling Cicero for praising Dolabella’s recent action (the dispersal of the Caesar-cult gathering at the Forum column) too lavishly, and Cicero half concedes the point: the praise was warm because Atticus’s own letters had set the temperature. But Dolabella is now estranged from Atticus on the same financial grounds that have made him Cicero’s bitterest creditor — the dowry of Tullia, owed since the Kalends of January and still unpaid, even after Dolabella has discharged his other enormous debts (through the convenient agency of Faberius, Antony’s secretary, and “aid from Ops,” that is, Caesar’s confiscated treasury). Cicero permits himself the pun opem ab Ope petierit — help sought from Ops, goddess of plenty, by way of her temple where the funds were stored — and signals that he is not quite undone by sending a barbed letter that Dolabella will struggle to face in person.

The rest is briskly elliptical: business with Atticus’s agents (the Albian and Patulcian debts, Eros’s failings, Montanus, Servius’s despair as he leaves for the East), and a political coda. If Brutus will not come to the Senate on the Kalends of June — the meeting Antony is convoking — Cicero cannot see what he is to do in the Forum either. The Ides of March, on the evidence now coming in, did not get the Liberators very far; and Cicero is thinking, more and more, of Greece. He plans to leave Pompeii on 10 May (vi Idus Mai.).

You keep at me now, again and again, that I seem to lift Dolabella’s exploit too high into the heavens. As for me — though I do indeed thoroughly approve of what he did — still, what drew me to praise him so warmly was your own letters, one and then a second. But Dolabella has now estranged himself wholly from you, and for the very same reason that has made him my own bitterest enemy as well. The shameless man! He owed it on the Kalends of January, and to this day he has not paid; and that after he had freed himself, by Faberius’s pen, from an enormous load of debt, and sought aid from Ops (opem ab Ope). I am allowed a joke — you mustn’t think I am altogether undone. As it happens, I had sent him a letter on the eighth before the Ides, in the early morning; and on the same day, in the evening, I received yours, here at the Pompeian villa — swiftly enough, two days out from you. But, as I wrote you that very same day, the letter I sent off to Dolabella has barbs enough on it; and if it produces nothing, I rather think he will not stand up to me face to face.
saepius me iam agitas quod rem gestam Dolabellae nimis in caelum videar efferre. ego autem, quamquam sane probo factum, tamen ut tanto opere laudarem adductus sum tuis et unis et alteris litteris. sed totum se a te abalienavit Dolabella ea de causa qua me quoque sibi inimicissimum reddidit. o hominem impudentem! Kal. Ian. debuit, adhuc non solvit, praesertim cum se maximo aere alieno Faberi manu liberarit et opem ab Ope petierit. licet enim iocari, ne me valde conturbatum putes. atque ego ad eum viii Idus litteras dederam bene mane, eodem autem die tuas litteras vesperi acceperam in Pompeiano sane celeriter tertio abs te die. sed, ut ad te eo ipso die scripseram, satis aculeatas ad Dolabellam litteras dedi; quae si nihil profecerint, puto fore ut me praesentem non sustineat
The Albian business you have, I take it, settled. As to the Patulcian debt — which has been, you tell me, †hung up† on my account — it is most welcome, and like everything you do. But I had thought I left Eros behind precisely to clear up that sort of thing; and on his side, not without much fault, the matter has wobbled. I shall see him myself, however.
Albianum te confecisse arbitror. de Patulciano nomine, quod mihi †suspendiatus est†, gratissimum est et simile tuorum omnium. sed ego Erotem ad ista expedienda factum mihi videbar reliquisse; cuius non sine magna culpa vacillarunt. sed cum ipso videro.
About Montanus, as I have written to you so often, do please take the whole affair into your charge. That Servius spoke with you despairingly as he set off does not surprise me in the least, and I concede him nothing on the despair.
de Montano, ut saepe ad te scripsi, erit tibi tota res curae. Servius proficiscens quod desperanter tecum locutus est minime miror neque ei quicquam in desperatione concedo.
Our Brutus, that singular man — if he is not to come into the Senate on the Kalends of June, I do not know what he is to do in the Forum. But that he himself knows better. For my part, from what I see being put in train, I judge that the Ides of March did not get us very far. And so I think more and more, day by day, of Greece. For my Brutus, who is meditating exile (so he writes himself), I do not see how I can be of much use. Leonides’s letter did not greatly please me. About Herodes I agree with you. I should have liked to read what Saufeius wrote. I was thinking of leaving the Pompeian villa on the sixth before the Ides of May.
Brutus noster, singularis vir, si in senatum non est Kal. Iuniis venturus, quid facturus sit in foro nescio. sed hoc ipse melius. ego ex iis quae parari video non multum Idibus Martiis profectum iudico. itaque de Graecia cotidie magis et magis cogito. nec enim Bruto meo exsilium, ut scribit ipse, meditanti video quid prodesse possim. Leonidae me litterae non satis delectarunt. de Herode tibi adsentior. Saufei legisse vellem. ego ex Pompeiano vi Idus Mai. cogitabam.

Cite this passage

Ad Atticum 14.18

Pick a format and click Copy. The permalink jumps any reader to this exact section.

Support this project

Free to read here. Buy the ebook to support the work.

Kindle