HermitshCicero Entire

Letter · 53 BC · Romae

Ad Familiares 2.6

Ad Familiares 2.6

Headnote

Cicero to C. Scribonius Curio, written from Rome in March 53 BC (the manuscripts give the year only: Scr. Romae a. 701; the conventional date 11 March follows Shackleton Bailey’s reconstruction of the run-up to Curio’s return from quaestor-service in Asia). This is the substantive letter of the small Curio sub-correspondence preserved in book 2 of the Familiares. The frame is a campaign favour: T. Annius Milo, Cicero’s saviour-tribune of 57 and patron-in- return, is running for the consulship of 52, and Cicero is calling in every chip he holds with the young Curio. The exordium (section 1) is a textbook Ciceronian captatio: he is embarrassed to ask anything large of one to whom he is already so much in debt, because to ask would look like dunning a creditor; but Curio’s kindnesses to him — those performed during his exile and recall, the novitas meorum temporum — have been so signal and so much spoken of that to owe still more would only be generous. The whole paragraph is an ornament on a single rhetorical move: I will ask, and the asking will be a compliment.

The body (sections 3–4) lays out the case for Milo plainly. Cicero has staked everything on the consular campaign; he has the boni, won over by Milo’s tribunate; the plebs, won over by Milo’s games and openhandedness; the young and the well-connected on the voting rolls. What he lacks is a single great patron to be dux et auctor, a steersman for the winds already blowing. Curio, just returning from Asia, is being asked to be that man. The closing turn is striking: Cicero will owe more to Curio for backing Milo than he owes to Milo himself, because Milo only saved his life, whereas to back the saviour is the sweeter pious return. The reader who knows what is coming — Clodius dead on the Appian Way in January 52, Milo prosecuted and exiled, Curio bought by Caesar for the tribunate of 50 — reads this as a piece of careful, doomed political husbandry. The flattery is interested, and the patient courtship of a vain young patrician that runs through book 2 is here at its most concentrated.

It had not yet been heard that you were on your way to Italy when I sent Sex. Villius, a close friend of my Milo, to you with this letter. But since your arrival was thought to be approaching, and it was now established that you had set out from Asia on the road to Rome, the magnitude of the matter made me unafraid of sending it too soon, when I greatly wished it carried to you as quickly as possible. For my part, Curio, if my services to you were only as great as you yourself are accustomed to proclaim them — greater than I weigh them at myself — I should press my case with more reserve, were I asking some large thing of you; for it is a hard thing for a man of any shame to ask anything large from one whom he reckons himself to have served well, lest what he asks should look more like exacting a debt than making a request, and like reckoning the return as wages owed rather than as a kindness given.
nondum erat auditum te ad Italiam adventare, cum Sex. Villium, Milonis mei familiarem, cum his ad te litteris misi. sed tamen, cum adpropinquare tuus adventus putaretur, et te iam ex Asia Romam versus profectum esse constaret, magnitudo rei fecit, ut non vereremur ne nimis cito mitteremus, cum has quam primum ad te perferri litteras magno opere vellemus. ego, si mea in te essent officia solum, Curio, tanta, quanta magis a te ipso praedicari quam a me ponderari solent, verecundius a te, si quae magna res mihi petenda esset, contenderem; grave est enim homini pudenti petere aliquid magnum ab eo, de quo se bene meritum putet, ne id, quod petat, exigere magis quam rogare et in mercedis potius quam benefici loco numerare videatur.
But since your kindnesses to me — known to everyone, and rendered most signal and most great by the very novelty of my circumstances — have so stood out, and since it belongs to a generous spirit to wish to owe most to the one to whom one already owes much, I have not hesitated to ask of you by letter the thing that was of all the greatest and most necessary to me. For I have not been afraid that I could not bear up under even countless services from you, especially when I felt sure that there is no favour of yours which my heart could not either contain in the receiving, or in the requital amplify and bring to light.
sed, quia tua in me vel nota omnibus vel ipsa novitate meorum temporum clarissima et maxima beneficia exstiterunt, estque animi ingenui, cui multum debeas, eidem plurimum velle debere, non dubitavi id a te per litteras petere, quod mihi omnium esset maximum maximeque necessarium. neque enim sum veritus ne sustinere tua in me vel innumerabilia non possem, cum praesertim confiderem nullam esse gratiam tuam, quam non vel capere animus meus in accipiendo vel in remunerando cumulare atque inlustrare posset.
I have fixed and lodged every effort of mine, every exertion, care, industry, thought, every faculty of mind in Milo’s consular campaign, and I have resolved that in this matter I should seek not the reward of duty alone but the praise of devotion. Nor indeed do I think any man ever cared so much for his own well-being and fortunes as I care for his honour, in which I have decided that everything of mine is placed. To him you alone, if you will, I see can be of such help that nothing further need be sought by us. We have all the rest in hand: the goodwill of the good men, won over from his tribunate on my account, as I hope you understand; the favour of the common run of people, on account of the magnificence of his games and the openhandedness of his nature; the support of the young and of those with weight in the voting, on account of his own outstanding popularity or thoroughness in that domain; my own backing for him — if not powerful, then at any rate well-regarded, and just, and owed, and perhaps for that very reason carrying some weight.
ego omnia mea studia, omnem operam, curam, industriam, cogitationem, mentem denique omnem in Milonis consulatu fixi et locavi statuique in eo me non offici solum fructum sed etiam pietatis laudem debere quaerere; neque vero cuiquam salutem ac fortunas suas tantae curae fuisse umquam puto, quantae mihi sit honos eius, in quo omnia mea posita esse decrevi. huic te unum tanto adiumento esse, si volueris, posse intellego, ut nihil sit praeterea nobis requirendum. habemus haec omnia, bonorum studium conciliatum ex tribunatu propter nostram, ut spero te intellegere, causam, vulgi ac multitudinis propter magnificentiam munerum liberalitatemque naturae, iuventutis et gratiosorum in suffragiis studia propter ipsius excellentem in eo genere vel gratiam vel diligentiam, nostram suffragationem, si minus potentem, at probatam tamen et iustam et debitam et propterea fortasse etiam gratiosam.
What we need is a leader, a sponsor, and what I might call the steersman or pilot of the winds I have set out. If from all the world a single such man were to be chosen, we should have no one to set beside you. Therefore, if you can judge me from this very fact — that I am toiling so vehemently for Milo — to be a man who remembers, who is grateful, who is honest, and if you judge me, finally, worthy of your kindnesses, this is what I ask of you: come to the aid of this anxiety of mine, and lend your zeal to this object of my pride or — to put it more truly — almost to my safety. About T. Annius himself I promise you only this: that if you choose to embrace the man, you will have no one of greater spirit, gravity, constancy, and goodwill toward you; to me, in turn, you will have added so much grace and so much standing that I shall easily recognise in you the same friend in my fame whom I had in my preservation. Did I not know that you can see in what frame of mind I write this, how heavy the obligation I am bearing, with what effort I must labour in this candidature of Milo’s — not merely contending, but fighting on every front — I should write more; as it is, I commit and hand over to you the whole affair, the whole cause, and my whole self. One thing alone hold to be so: if I obtain this from you, I shall owe almost more to you than to Milo himself; for my safety, in which I was helped above all by him, was not so dear to me as the devotion of returning thanks for it will be sweet to me — and that, I am confident, I can attain by your zeal alone.
dux nobis et auctor opus est et eorum ventorum, quos proposui, moderator quidam et quasi gubernator. qui si ex omnibus unus optandus esset, quem tecum conferre possemus non haberemus. quam ob rem, si me memorem, si gratum, si bonum virum vel ex hoc ipso, quod tam vehementer de Milone laborem, existimare potes, si dignum denique tuis beneficiis iudicas, hoc a te peto, ut subvenias huic meae sollicitudini et huic meae laudi vel, ut verius dicam, prope saluti tuum studium dices. de ipso T. Annio tantum tibi polliceor, te maioris animi, gravitatis, constantiae benevolentiaeque erga te, si complecti hominem volueris, habiturum esse neminem; mihi vero tantum decoris, tantum dignitatis adiunxeris ut eundem te facile adgnoscam fuisse in laude mea, qui fueris in salute. ego ni te videre scirem, qua mente haec scriberem, quantum offici sustinerem, quanto opere mihi esset in hac petitione Milonis omni non modo contentione, sed etiam dimicatione elaborandum, plura scriberem; nunc tibi omnem rem atque causam meque totum commendo atque trado. unum hoc sic habeto, si a te hanc rem impetraro, me paene plus tibi quam ipsi Miloni debiturum; non enim mihi tam mea salus cara fuit, in qua praecipue sum ab illo adiutus, quam pietas erit in referenda gratia iucunda; eam autem unius tuo studio me adsequi posse confido.

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