Ad Familiares 3.8
Ad Familiares 3.8
Headnote
Cicero to Appius Claudius Pulcher, his predecessor as governor of Cilicia, written from camp in the territory of Mopsuhestia on the 8th of October 51 BC (Perseus dateline: Scr. in castris in agro Mopsuhestiae a. d. viii Id. Oct. a. 703 (51)). It is the long and sharply controlled letter in which Cicero finally expostulates with Appius for the whole sequence of failed meetings, broken promises of contact, and now the imputation — circulated by “ill-disposed men” and politely conveyed in Appius’s last letter — that Cicero has shown by expression and silence that he is no friend of his predecessor. It is the second great Appius confrontation in the correspondence, the first being the run of letters in which Cicero traced the successive places at which Appius had failed to meet him on the road. Here the patience has thinned.
The substantive complaint Cicero answers is Appius’s: that Cicero’s edict on the conduct of the province has been read as a deliberate frustration of the embassies of thanks being sent to Rome on Appius’s behalf, that those embassies have been deprived by Cicero of their proper expenses, and that Cicero’s public manner toward Appius has been less than friendly. Cicero answers in three movements. First (sections 2–5), the procedural defence: he composed the edict at Rome, copied a clause from Appius’s own edict at the tax-farmers’ request, and limited the expenses of embassies only at the express request of the communities themselves — communities driven to ruin by exactions their own magistrates had piled up. Second (section 6), the courteously violent reminder: “do you think nothing has ever been said to me about you?” Cicero crossed into the province expecting a meeting at Iconium; Appius was at Tarsus. While Cicero held his assize at Apamea, Synnada, and Philomelium, Appius was holding his at Tarsus on the same days. The reproach is not made for its own sake, Cicero says, but to make the point that it is the listener who hears the detraction, as much as the speaker, who is at fault. Third (sections 7–8), the principled distinction: Cicero will not be drawn into the small currency of counter-detraction. His liberality, he concedes, has been narrower than Appius’s — but in the lighter times of Appius’s first year. In the hardened later year, Cicero ends with the quotation that he must be bitter to the provincials in order to be sweet to himself: “med esse acerbum sibi, uti sim dulcis mihi.” The letter closes with practical business: a renewed request that Hortensius withdraw an unwelcome biennial proposal, the report of Cicero’s own march toward Mount Amanus, and the assurance that the Parthian alarm appears for now to be over. The Appius correspondence will continue, but the bottom of the relationship has been reached here.
Although, so far as I could gather from your letter, I could see that you would be reading this when you were near the city — by which time the very trivial talk of the provincials would already have cooled — still, since you had written to me at such length about the talk of ill-disposed men, I thought I ought to send a short answer to your letter.
etsi, quantum ex tuis litteris intellegere potui, videbam te hanc epistulam, cum ad urbem esses, esse lecturum refrigerato iam levissimo sermone hominum provincialium, tamen cum tu tam multis verbis ad me de improborum oratione scripsisses, faciendum mihi putavi ut tuis litteris brevi responderem.
But the first two heads of your letter must in a way be passed over by me in silence; for they contain nothing defined or definite, except that, by my expression and my silence, I had given you to understand that I was not your friend, and that this could be seen when something was being transacted on the tribunal, and at certain dinners. This whole thing I can see to be nothing; but, since it is nothing, I cannot even see what is being said. This much I do know: that many talks of mine, illustrious ones, held from a higher place and from level ground alike, with the highest praise of you and with the warmest demonstration of our intimacy, could truly have been reported to you. As for the matter of the embassies, what could have been done by me more decorously or more justly than to reduce the expenditure of the most destitute communities without any diminution of your dignity — especially since the communities themselves were asking for it? For the whole class of embassies setting out in your name was not known to me. When I was at Apamea, the leading men of many communities reported to me that excessive expenses were being voted to ambassadors at a moment when the communities were not solvent. Here at once I weighed many things together.
sed prima duo capita epistulae tuae tacita mihi quodam modo relinquenda sunt; nihil enim habent, quod definitum sit aut certum, nisi me vultu et taciturnitate significasse tibi non esse amicum, idque, pro tribunali cum aliquid ageretur, et non nullis in conviviis intellegi potuisse. hoc totum nihil esse possum intellegere; sed, cum sit nihil, ne quid dicatur quidem intellego; illud quidem scio, meos multos et inlustris et ex superiore et ex aequo loco sermones habitos cum tua summa laude et cum magna sollicitudine significatione nostrae familiaritatis ad te vere potuisse deferri. nam quod ad legatos attinet, quid a me fieri potuit aut elegantius aut iustius quam ut sumptus egentissimarum civitatum minuerem sine ulla imminutione dignitatis tuae, praesertim ipsis civitatibus postulantibus? nam mihi totum genus legationum tuo nomine proficiscentium notum non erat. Apameae cum essem, multarum civitatum principes ad me detulerunt sumptus decerni legatis nimis magnos, cum solvendo civitates non essent. hic ego multa simul cogitavi.
First, I judged that you, a man not only of wisdom but, as we now say, of urbanity, were not pleased with embassies of that sort, and I think I argued at length on the matter from the tribunal at Synnada: first, that Appius Claudius had been commended to the Senate and People of Rome not by the testimony of the men of Midaeum (for the topic had come up in that town), but by his own merit; next, that I had seen this happen in many cases, that embassies came to Rome on people’s behalf, but I did not recall any time or place being allowed to those embassies in which they might deliver their praise; that I was pleased with the people’s eagerness, in that they were grateful to you for the services you had done; that the whole plan seemed to me by no means necessary; but that if they wished to demonstrate their dutifulness, I would praise the man who performed his duty at his own expense, would permit the one who did it at the legal amount, and would not permit the one who did it at an unlimited rate. What can be censured in this? Unless it is what you add, that to certain people my edict has seemed framed as it were on purpose to obstruct these embassies. By now those who advance these notions do not seem to me to do an injustice so much as those whose ears lie open to such notions.
primum te, hominem non solum sapientem, verum etiam, ut nunc loquimur, urbanum, non arbitrabar genere isto legationum delectari, idque me arbitror Synnadis pro tribunali multis verbis disputavisse, primum Ap. Claudium senatui populoque Romano non Midaeensium testimonio (in ea enim civitate mentio facta est), sed sua sponte esse laudatum; deinde me ista vidisse accidere multis, ut eorum causa legationes Romam venirent, sed iis legationibus non meminisse ullum tempus laudandi aut locum dari; studia mihi corum placere, quod in te bene merito grati essent; consilium totum videri minime necessarium; si autem vellent declarare in eo officium suum, laudaturum me, si qui suo sumptu functus esset officio, concessurum, si legitimo, non permissurum, si infinito. quid enim reprehendi potest? nisi quod addis visum esse quibusdam edictum meum quasi consulto ad istas legationes impediendas esse accommodatum. iam non tantum mihi videntur iniuriam facere ii qui haec disputant, quam si cuius aures ad hanc disputationem patent.
I composed the edict at Rome; I added nothing, except that, when the tax-farmers came to me at Samos, they asked me to copy across one head of your edict word for word into my own. The head bearing on the reduction of the expenses of the communities was most carefully written; and in that head are certain new measures, salutary for the communities, with which I am much pleased. But the head out of which the suspicion has arisen that I sought out something in which I might offend you is one of the standard provisions. For I was not so witless as to think that men were going on an embassy for a private matter, when they were being sent — not to you in private station, and not on a matter that was theirs privately but publicly — not in a private council, but in the public council of the world, that is, in the Senate, to give thanks; nor, when I issued an edict that no one should set out without my orders, did I shut out those who were unable to follow me into camp and across the Taurus. For that is exactly the laughable thing in your letter. What reason had they to follow me into camp or to cross the Taurus, when from Laodicea as far as Iconium I so made my way that the magistrates and embassies of all those dioceses on this side of the Taurus, and of all their communities, met me?
Romae composui edictum; nihil addidi, nisi quod publicani me rogarunt, cum Samum ad me venissent, ut de tuo edicto totidem verbis transferrem in meum. diligentissime scriptum caput est, quod pertinet ad minuendos sumptus civitatum. quo in capite sunt quaedam nova salutaria civitatibus, quibus ego magno opere delector; hoc vero, ex quo suspicio nata est me exquisisse aliquid in quo te offenderem, tralaticium est. neque enim eram tam desipiens, ut privatae rei causa legari putarem, qui et tibi non privato et pro re non privata sua, sed publica, non in privato, sed in publico orbis terrae consilio, id est in senatu, ut gratias agerent, mittebantur; neque, cum edixi ne quis iniussu meo proficisceretur, exclusi eos, qui me in castra et qui trans Taurum persequi non possent. nam id est maxime in tuis litteris inridendum. quid enim erat, quod me persequerentur in castra Taurumve transirent, cum ego Laudicea usque ad Iconium iter ita fecerim, ut me omnium illarum dioecesium, quae eis Taurum sunt, omniumque carum civitatum magistratus legationesque convenirent?
Unless perhaps they began to send embassies after I had crossed the Taurus; which is certainly not so. For when I was at Laodicea, at Apamea, at Synnada, at Philomelium, at Iconium — in all of which towns I stayed — all embassies of that kind had already been formed. This too I want you to know: that on the question of reducing or remitting the expense of these embassies I decreed nothing except what the leading men of the communities had asked of me, that there should not be added, to the auctioning-off of the tributes and that most bitter exaction of the poll-tax and the door-tax, which is not unknown to you, expenses by no means necessary. For my part, since I had taken up this task moved not only by justice but by pity, that I might lighten the miseries of communities driven to ruin, and driven to ruin chiefly by their own magistrates, I could not afford to be careless about expenditure of that unnecessary kind. You, if reports of this character were brought to you about me, ought not to have believed them; but if you take pleasure in this trick — of attributing to others what comes into your own head — you are introducing into friendship a manner of talk by no means liberal. As for me, if I had ever in the province thought of detracting from your reputation, I would not have referred matters to your freedman at Brundisium nor to your chief of engineers at Corcyra, asking to what place you wished me to come. Wherefore you can, on the authority of the most learned writers, whose books on the conduct of friendship are most admirable, do away with this whole manner of speech: “they were arguing — I, on the contrary, was contending; they were saying — I was denying.”
nisi forte postea coeperunt legare quam ego Taurum transgressus sum; quod certe non ita est. Cum enim Laudiceae, cum Apameae, cum Synnadis, cum Philomeli, cum Iconi essem, quibus in oppidis omnibus commoratus sum, omnes iam istius generis legationes crant constitutae. atque hoc tamen te scire volo, me de isto sumptu legationum aut minuendo aut remittendo decrevisse nil nisi quod principes civitatum a me postulassent, ne in venditionem tributorum et illam acerbissimam exactionem, quam tu non ignoras, capitum atque ostiorum inducerentur sumptus minime necessarii. ego autem, cum hoc suscepissem non solum iustitia, sed etiam misericordia adductus, ut levarem miseriis perditas civitates et perditas maxime per magistratus suos, non potui in illo sumptu non necessario neglegens esse. tu, si istius modi sermones ad te delati de me sunt, non debuisti credere; si autem hoc genere delectaris, ut, quae tibi in mentem veniant, aliis attribuas, genus sermonis inducis in amicitiam minime liberale. ego, si in provincia de tua fama detrahere umquam cogitassem, non tuum libertum Brundisi neque ad praefectum fabrum Corcyrae, quem in locum me venire velles, rettulissem. qua re potes doctissimis hominibus auctoribus, quorum sunt de amicitia gerenda praeclarissime scripti libri, genus hoc totum orationis tollere: ’ disputabant, ego contra disserebam; dicebant, ego negabam.’
Or do you think nothing has ever been said to me about you? Not even this — that, when you had wished me to come to Laodicea, you yourself crossed the Taurus? That on the same days my assize was being held at Apamea, at Synnada, at Philomelium, and yours at Tarsus? I will say no more, lest I should seem to imitate the very thing I am reproaching you with. This I will say, as I feel: if those things which you say others are saying, you yourself feel, the fault is wholly yours; but if others say these things in your presence, even so the fault is not nothing in you, because you hear them. My own course, in the whole of our friendship, will be found steady and serious. As for anyone who pictures me as more cunning — what could be more cunning than this: that when I was always defending you in your absence, particularly because I did not think it would come to pass that I, too, in my absence should need to be defended by you, I should now commit myself in such a way that you, with the best right, could desert me in my absence?
an mihi de te nihil esse dictum umquam putas? ne hoc quidem, quod, cum me Laudiceam venire voluisses, Taurum ipse transisti? quod isdem diebus meus conventus crat Apameae, Synnade, Philomeli, tuus Tarsi? non dicam plura, ne, in quo te obiurgem, id ipsum videar imitari; illud dicam ut sentio: si ista, quae alios loqui dicis, ipse sentis, tua summa culpa est; sin autem alii tecum haec loquuntur, tua tamen, quod audis, culpa non nulla est. mea ratio in tota amicitia nostra constans et gravis reperietur. quod si qui me astutiorem fingit, quid potest esse callidius quam, cum te absentem semper defenderem, cum praesertim mihi usu venturum non arbitrarer, ut ego quoque a te absens defendendus essem, nunc committere, ut tu iure optimo me absentem deserere posses?
There is one class of talk I except, in which something is very often said of a sort that I should suppose you would not wish said — if anyone of your legates, or your prefects, or your military tribunes is being spoken ill of; but even this, by Hercules, has never yet happened in my hearing, that anyone has spoken more harshly, or against more men, than Clodius spoke to me at Corcyra, in the particular charge that you had been less fortunate, through the dishonesty of others. These talks, since they are many and, as I judge them, do not damage your reputation, I have never set going — but I have not strenuously repressed them either. If there is anyone who thinks no one can in good faith return to favour, he is not convicting our perfidy, he is betraying his own; and at the same time he is thinking no worse of me than of you. But if there is anyone whom my practices in the province do not please, and who thinks himself injured by some unlikeness of my practices to yours, when each of us has done rightly, but neither has followed the same line: that man I do not care to have as a friend.
unum genus excipio sermonis, in quo persaepe aliquid dicitur, quod te putem nolle dici, si aut legatorum tuorum quoipiam aut praefectorum aut tribunorum militum male dicitur; quod tamen ipsum non mehercule adhuc accidit, me audiente ut aut gravius diceretur aut in pluris, quam mecum Corcyrae Clodius est locutus, cum in eo genere maxime quereretur te aliorum improbitate minus felicem fuisse. hos ego sermones, quod et multi sunt et tuam existimationem, ut ego sentio, non offendunt, lacessivi numquam, sed non valde repressi. si quis est qui neminem bona fide in gratiam putet redire posse, non nostram is perfidiam coarguit, sed indicat suam, simulque non de me is peius quam de te existimat; sin autem quem mea instituta in provincia non delectant et quadam dissimilitudine institutorum meorum ac tuorum laedi se putat, cum uterque nostrum recte fecerit, sed non idem uterque secutus sit, hunc ego amicum habere non curo.
Your liberality, as that of a man of the highest nobility, has shown itself the more amply in the province; if ours is the more narrow (though something has been pared even from your generous and beneficent nature in the later year, on account of a certain harshness of the times), people ought not to be surprised, since by nature I was always more restrained in lavishing what was another’s, and since I am moved by those very same times by which others are moved — “that I should be bitter to them, that I might be sweet to myself.”
liberalitas tua ut hominis nobilissimi latius in provincia patuit; nostra si angustior est (etsi de tua prolixa beneficaque natura limavit aliquid posterior annus propter quandam tristitiam temporum), non debent mirari homines, cum et natura semper ad largiendum ex alieno fuerim restrictior et temporibus, quibus alii moventur, isdem ego movear, ’med esse acerbum sibi, uti sim dulcis mihi.’
As for the news of the city, that you have informed me of it — this in itself was pleasing to me, and the more so because you signified that all my commissions would be a concern to you. Of these I ask especially this one thing: that you take care nothing more of business or burden or time is added to me; and that you ask Hortensius, our colleague and friend, that, if ever he has felt or done anything for my sake, he should now withdraw from that biennial proposal — than which nothing can be more hostile to me.
de rebus urbanis quod me certiorem fecisti, cum per se mihi gratum fuit, tum quod significasti tibi omnia mea mandata curae fore. in quibus unum illud te praecipue rogo ut cures, ne quid mihi ad hoc negoti aut oneris accedat aut temporis, Hortensiumque, nostrum conlegam et familiarem, roges ut, si umquam mea causa quicquam aut sensit aut fecit, de hac quoque sententia bima decedat, qua mihi nihil potest esse inimicius.
As for our own affairs, since you wish to know: we set out from Tarsus toward Amanus on the Nones of October; I write this on the day after, when I am keeping camp in the territory of Mopsuhestia. If I do anything, I shall write to you; and I shall never send a letter home to my own people without adding one which I want delivered to you. As for what you ask about the Parthians, I take it there have been none; the Arabs who were there, in Parthian guise mingled in, are said to have all turned back; they say there is no enemy in Syria. I should like you to write to me as often as possible, about your own affairs, about mine, and about the whole state of the commonwealth; about which I am the more concerned because I have learned from your letter that our Pompey is going to Spain.
de nostris rebus quod scire vis, Tarso Nonis Octobribus ad Amanum versus profecti sumus; haec scripsi postridie eius dici, cum castra haberem in agro Mopsuhestiae si quid egero, scribam ad te neque domum umquam ad me litteras mittam, quin adiungam eas, quas tibi reddi velim. de Parthis quod quaeris, fuisse nullos puto; Arabes qui fuerunt admixto Parthico ornatu, dicuntur omnes revertisse; hostem esse in Syria negant ullum. tu velim ad me quam saepissime et de tuis rebus scribas et de meis et de omni rei publicae statu; de quo sum sollicitus eo magis, quod ex tuis litteris cognovi Pompeium nostrum in Hispaniam iturum.