Ad Familiares 3.7
Ad Familiares 3.7
Headnote
Cicero to Appius Claudius Pulcher, his predecessor as governor of Cilicia, written hastily from Laodicea around the Ides of February 50 BC (Perseus dateline: Scr. Laudiceae circiter Id. Febr. a. 704 (50)). The Apamean ambassadors had brought Cicero a long letter of complaint from Appius: that Cicero had stopped the Apameans’ building work with one of his letters, that he had forbidden them to collect their tributes before he could investigate, and — in a private aside relayed by Lentulus’s freedman Pausanias — that Cicero had snubbed his predecessor by failing to come out to meet him on the road into Iconium.
Cicero replies in three movements. He defends the order about the tributes as fair (and as exactly what the Apameans themselves were asking for); he gives the practical narrative of the missed meeting at Iconium, where he had sent both Varro and Lepta out to intercept Appius on the two roads, only for Appius to slip past; and he refuses, in the most studied way, Appius’s recital of how every Claudius and Lentulus came out to meet every other Claudius and Lentulus. “Do you suppose any Appietas or Lentulitas weighs with me more than the ornaments of virtue?” is the centre of the letter — a Stoic point made politely. Cicero closes with a Greek tag from the Iliad (Achilles to the embassy), and signs off with the assurance that the goodwill he has shown is “taken up on settled judgment” and will be maintained as long as Appius wishes. The dossier of patching-up in the Cilicia handover.
The ambassadors of the Apameans delivered to me a volume from you full of the most unjust complaint, that I had hindered their building by my letter. In the same letter, moreover, you were asking that I release them as soon as possible, lest they run into winter, for the purpose of building; and at the same time you complained, very sharply, that I had forbidden them to exact the tributes before I had myself, with the matter investigated, given permission — for this had been, you said, a kind of obstruction, since I could not investigate the matter until I had withdrawn from
legati Appiani mihi volumen a te plenum querelae iniquissimae reddiderunt, quod corum aedificationem litteris meis impedissem. eadem autem epistula petebas ut cos quam primum, ne in hiemem inciderent, ad facultatem aedificandi liberarem, et simul peracute querebare, quod eos tributa exigere vetarem prius quam ego re cognita permisissem; genus enim quoddam fuisse impediendi, cum ego cognoscere non possem, nisi cum ad hiemem me ex
Cilicia toward winter. Take, then, my answer to all this, and recognise the fairness of your expostulation. First: when I had been approached by men who said that intolerable tributes were being exacted of them, what unfairness was there in my writing to your people not to do so, before I had investigated the matter and the case? Not before winter, I take it; for so you write — as though, indeed, I ought to have gone to them, rather than they to me, for the investigation. “So far away?” you say. Well? When you were giving them the letter through which you pressed me not to obstruct them from building before winter, did you not think that they would come to me? Although in that they did make themselves ridiculous: the letter they were carrying, that they might do the work in summer, they delivered to me after the winter solstice. But you should know, both that there are far more men who refuse the tributes than who wish them to be exacted, and that I, all the same, shall do what I take to be your wish. Of the Apameans, enough.
Cilicia recepissem. ad omnia accipe et cognosce aequitatem expostulationis tuae. primum, cum ad me aditum esset ab iis, qui dicerent a se intolerabilia tributa exigi, quid habuit iniquitatis me scribere, ne facerent, ante quam ego rem causamque cognossem? non poteram, credo, ante hiemem; sic enim scribis. quasi vero ad cognoscendum ego ad illos, non illi ad me venire debuerint. ’ tam longe?’ inquis. quid? cum dabas iis litteras, per quas mecum agebas, ne eos impedirem, quo minus ante hiemem aedificarent, non eos ad me venturos arbitrabare? tametsi id quidem fecerunt ridicule; quas enim litteras adferebant, ut opus aestate facere possent, eas mihi post brumam reddiderunt. sed scito et multo pluris esse, qui de tributis recusent, quam qui exigi velint, et me tamen, quod te velle existimem, esse facturum. de Appianis hactenus.
From Pausanias, the freedman of Lentulus, my orderly, I heard, when he was telling me that you had complained to him that I had not come out to meet you. I despised you, no doubt! No man can be more arrogant than I! When your boy had come to me at about the second watch and had announced that you would be coming to me at Iconium before daylight, and it was uncertain by which road — there being two — I sent Varro, your closest friend, by one and Quintus Lepta, my chief of engineers, by the other to meet you. I charged each of them that they should run back to me in time for me to come out and meet you. Lepta came running and brought word that you had already passed beyond the camp. At once I went to Iconium. The rest you know already. Was I to fail to come out and meet you? First, Appius Claudius; next, an imperator; next, in accordance with the custom of our ancestors; next — the chief point — a friend! When in matters of that kind I am wont to act with rather more ceremonious eagerness even than my office and my standing require. But enough of this.
A Pausania, Lentuli liberto, accenso meo, audivi, cum diceret te secum esse questum, quod tibi obviam non prodissem. scilicet contempsi te, nec potest fieri me quicquam superbius! Cum puer tuus ad me secunda fere vigilia venisset isque te ante lucem Iconium mihi venturum nuntiasset, incertumque, utra via, cum essent duae, altera Varronem, tuum familiarissimum, altera Q. Leptam, praefectum fabrum meum, tibi obviam misi. mandavi utrique eorum, ut tante ad me excurrerent, ut tibi obviam prodire possem. currens Lepta venit mihique nuntiavit te iam castra praetergressum esse. confestim Iconium veni. cetera iam tibi nota sunt. an ego tibi obviam non prodirem, primum Ap. Claudio, deinde imperatori, deinde more maiorum, deinde, quod caput est, amico, cum in isto genere multo etiam ambitiosius facere soleam, quam honos meus et dignitas postulat? sed haec hactenus.
Pausanias also told me this — that you had said: “Why not? Appius came out to meet Lentulus; Lentulus came out to meet Ampius; Cicero would not come out to meet Appius?” Tell me: do even you go in for these trivialities — a man, in my judgment, of the highest prudence, of much learning besides, of the greatest practical experience, and (I add) of urbanity, which is a virtue, as the Stoics most rightly hold? Do you suppose any “Appius-ness” or “Lentulus-ness” weighs with me more than the ornaments of virtue? Even when I had not yet attained those things which in men’s opinion are the highest, still I never marvelled at those names of yours; I judged the men who had bequeathed them to you to be great. But after I both took up and discharged the greatest commands in such a way that I judged there was nothing further for me to acquire either for honour or for glory, I hoped that I had been made, not your superior — certainly not — but your equal. And, by Hercules, I have not seen Gnaeus Pompey, whom I rank above all who have ever been, or Publius Lentulus, whom I rank above myself, judge otherwise. If you judge otherwise, you will not go far wrong if you turn your attention a little more diligently — so as to understand what eugeneia (good birth), what nobility is — to what Athenodorus, son of Sandon, says on these matters.
illud idem Pausania dicebat te dixisse: ’ quidni? Appius Lentulo, Lentulus Ampio processit obviam, Cicero Appio noluit?’ quaeso, etiamne tu has ineptias, homo mea sententia summa prudentia, multa etiam doctrina, plurimo rerum usu, addo urbanitatem, quae est virtus, ut Stoici rectissime putant? ullam Appietatem aut Lentulitatem valere apud me plus quam ornamenta virtutis existimas? Cum ea consecutus nondum eram, quae sunt hominum opinionibus amplissima, tamen ista vestra nomina numquam sum admiratus; viros eos, qui ea vobis reliquissent, magnos arbitrabar. postea vero quam ita et cepi et gessi maxima imperia, ut mihi nihil neque ad honorem neque ad gloriam adquirendum putarem, superiorem quidem numquam, sed parem vobis me speravi esse factum. nec mehercule aliter vidi existimare vel Cn. Pompeium, quem omnibus, qui umquam fuerunt, vel P. Lentulum, quem mihi ipsi antepono; tu si aliter existimas, nihil errabis, si paulo diligentius, ut, quid sit eu)ge/neia, quid sit nobilitas, intellegas, Athenodorus, Sandonis filius, quid de his rebus dicat, attenderis.
But to return to the point: I should like you to think me not only your friend, but your closest friend. By all my services I shall surely bring it about that you can truly so judge. If, however, what you are aiming at is to seem to owe me less, while I am away, than I have laboured on your behalf, I let you off that concern: “par’ emoige kai alloi hoi ke me timesousi, malista de metieta Zeus” (with me are others too who will honour me, and chief among them Zeus the counsellor). But if by nature you are philaitios (fond of fault-finding), this you will not achieve — you will not make me wish you less well; this much you will compass: that you take it less to heart in whatever way you receive it. I have written to you the more freely, relying on the consciousness of my own good service and goodwill, which, having been taken up by me on settled judgment, I shall keep up so long as you wish.
sed ut ad rem redeam, me tibi non amicum modo, verum etiam amicissimum existimes velim. profecto omnibus officiis meis efficiam, ut ita esse vere possis iudicare. tu autem si id agis, ut minus mea causa, dum ego absim, debere videaris, quam ego tua laborarim, libero te ista cura; pa/r’ e)/moige kai\ a)/lloi oi(/ ke/ me timh/sousi, ma/lista de\ mhti/eta *zeu/s. si autem natura es filai/tios, illud non perficies, quo minus tua causa velim; hoc adsequere, ut, quam in partem tu accipias, minus laborem. haec ad te scripsi liberius fretus conscientia offici mei benevolentiaeque, quam a me certo iudicio susceptam, quoad tu voles, conservabo.