Ad Familiares 3.10
Ad Familiares 3.10
Headnote
Cicero to Appius Claudius Pulcher, written from Laodicea in April 50 BC (Perseus dateline: Scr. Laudiceae m. April a. 704 (50)). This is the longest of the Appius letters, written while the maiestas prosecution was still in prospect — some weeks before the acquittal celebrated in Ad Familiares 3.11. Cicero has had two communications from Appius about the gathering case: the short note delivered by Q. Servilius (“too long for me,” Cicero says, “because I felt I was being wronged in being asked at all”), and a further letter listing the marks of zeal being shown for Appius by the orders at Rome. The present letter is Cicero’s full reply: a pledge of total support, a defence of his own conduct in the province against the suspicions Appius’s letter had let fall, and a long demonstration — almost a forensic brief — of why it would be psychologically absurd to suppose Cicero his enemy.
Section 1 sets out the case in high register and gives the letter its memorable formula. The most rightful triumph, Cicero says, has indeed been taken from Appius by the conspiracy of the envious; but if he bears the prosecution as he should, “as victor you will conduct, out of the grief of your enemies, the most rightful triumph of all” (triumphum iustissimum ex inimicorum dolore). Cicero promises to play four roles for him at once: deprecator (intercessor), propinquus (kinsman by zeal), auctoritas cari hominis (a dear man’s authority among the communities), and the gravitas of a sitting commander. Sections 3 through 5 fill out the immediate context. Pomptinus, Cicero’s lieutenant, had been on the point of sailing from Ephesus when news of Appius’s trouble reached him, and turned back to Laodicea on Appius’s account. The “young man” of section 5 is the prosecutor Dolabella, whom Cicero himself had twice defended in capital trials and whose folly in taking on Appius’s enmities Cicero finds astounding.
Sections 6 through 9 are the defensive heart of the letter. Appius’s note had carried a hint of suspicion — that Cicero, by certain provisions of his proconsular edict, had been less than friendly to the embassies being sent on Appius’s behalf. Cicero demolishes the suggestion in a piece of close reasoning: the only intervention he had made on the embassies was to suggest, not order, that their expenses be reckoned by the Cornelian law; the accounts of the communities are the witnesses. To paint him as cunning is incoherent — a cunning man would not choose for his perfidy the very point that would declare hatred plainest and inflict damage least. Section 10 closes the demonstration with the great peroration on Pompey: Cicero values Pompey alone, as he ought, most of all — “quem unum ex omnibus facio, ut debeo, plurimi” — and since Pompey’s son is now Appius’s son-in-law (the marriage of the elder Pompey’s son to Appius’s daughter Claudia is meant), the adfinitas alone makes any other posture toward Appius impossible. The letter closes in section 11 with the hope that Appius will soon hold the censorship, the duties of which Cicero pointedly says will require more careful pondering on Appius’s part than the labour Cicero is putting in for him at Rome.
Note: works.yaml carried this letter at year-precision November 50 BC, which is wrong. Perseus’s dateline puts it in April, and the internal references (the trial still in prospect, Pomptinus turning back from Ephesus, the censorship still “hoped for”) confirm April. The corpus date should be -0050-04, place Laodicea, ordered before Ad Familiares 3.11.
When the news was brought to us of the recklessness of those who were stirring up trouble for you — although at the first report I was deeply shaken, in that nothing could have happened more against my expectation — still, once I had collected myself, the rest seemed to me the easiest thing in the world; for I held the highest hope in yourself and a great hope in your people, and many things came into my mind on account of which I judged that this very labour would even bring you honour. One thing, plainly, I took hard: that I saw the most assured and most rightful triumph wrenched from you by this conspiracy of the envious. But this, if you take it at the value at which I have always judged it must be taken, you will take wisely, and as victor you will conduct, out of the grief of your enemies, the most rightful triumph of all. For I see plainly that, by your sinews, your resources, your wisdom, it will come to pass that your enemies will keenly regret their own want of restraint. Of my own part, calling all the gods to witness, I promise and confirm to you that for your standing (I prefer to put it so, rather than “for your safety”), in this province over which you presided, I will take upon myself the duties and the role of an intercessor by my pleading, of a kinsman by my labour, of a man dear — I hope — by his authority among the communities, of a commander by his weight. I want you to demand and to expect everything from me; I shall outdo your imaginings by my services.
Cum est ad nos adlatum de temeritate eorum, qui tibi negotium facesserent, etsi graviter primo nuntio commotus sum, quod nihil tam praeter opinionem meam accidere potuit, tamen, ut me conlegi, cetera mi facillima videbantur, quod et in te ipso maximam spem et in tuis magnam habebam, multaque mihi veniebant in mentem, quam ob rem istum laborem tibi etiam honori putarem fore; illud plane moleste tuli, quod certissimum et iustissimum triumphum hoc invidorum consilio esse tibi ereptum videbam. quod tu si tanti facies, quanti ego semper iudicavi faciendum esse, facies sapienter et ages victor ex inimicorum dolore triumphum iustissimum. ego enim plane video fore nervis, opibus, sapientia tua, vehementer ut inimicos tuos paeniteat intemperantiae suae. de me tibi sic contestans omnis deos promitto atque confirmo, me pro tua dignitate (malo enim dicere quam ’pro salute’) in hac provincia, cui tu praefuisti, rogando deprecatoris, laborando propinqui, auctoritate cari hominis, ut spero, apud civitates, gravitate imperatoris suscepturum officia atque partis. omnia volo a me et postules et exspectes; vincam meis officiis cogitationes tuas.
Q. Servilius delivered me a very short letter from you, which yet seemed to me too long; for I felt I was being wronged in being asked at all. I could wish the occasion had not arisen on which you could see clearly how much I valued you, how much Pompey — whom alone of all I value, as I ought, most of all — and how much Brutus (though in the daily intercourse of life you would have seen it, as you will see it); but, since it has arisen — if anything is omitted by me, I shall confess a crime committed and a disgrace incurred.
Q. Servilius perbrevis mihi a te litteras reddidit, quae mihi tamen nimis longae visae sunt; iniuriam enim mihi fieri putabam, cum rogabar. nollem accidisset tempus, in quo perspicere posses, quanti te, quanti Pompeium, quem unum ex omnibus facio, ut debeo, plurimi, quanti Brutum facerem (quamquam in consuetudine cotidiana perspexisses, sicuti perspicies); sed, quoniam accidit, si quid a me praetermissum erit, commissum facinus et admissum dedecus confitebor.
Pomptinus, whom you treated with outstanding and singular loyalty (a kindness of yours of which I am the witness), is paying back the memory and goodwill he owes you. For when, driven by his own most pressing affairs, he had taken his leave of me much against my will, still — as soon as he saw it concerned you — with the ship even now being boarded at Ephesus, he turned back to Laodicea. When I see that you will have innumerable acts of zeal like this, plainly I cannot doubt that that high standing of yours will be your due. If indeed you bring it about that censors are elected, and if you so conduct the censorship as you ought and can, I see that not only to yourself but to all your people you will be a sovereign protector for life. Of this one thing, fight and exert yourself: that nothing be added to my term out here, so that, when we have done enough for you in these parts, we may give our goodwill toward you scope to do its work where you are.
Pomptinus, qui a te tractatus est praestanti ac singulari fide, cuius tui benefici sum ego testis, praestat tibi memoriam benevolentiamque, quam debet. qui cum maximis suis rebus coactus a me invitissimo decessisset, tamen, ut vidit interesse tua, conscendens iam navem Epheso Laudiceam revertit. talia te cum studia videam habiturum esse innumerabilia, plane dubitare non possum quin tibi amplitudo ista sollicitudo futura sit; si vero efficis ut censores creentur, et si ita gesseris censuram, ut et debes et potes, non tibi solum, sed tuis omnibus video in perpetuum summo te praesidio futurum. illud pugna et enitere, ne quid nobis temporis prorogetur, ut, cum hic tibi satis fecerimus, istic quoque nostram in te benevolentiam navare possimus.
What you write to me of the zeal toward you of men and of all orders is something that surprises me not at all, but pleases me very much; and the same has been written to me in detail by my own intimates. So I take great pleasure in the fact, both that to you — whose friendship is to me not only ample but a delight — those tributes are being paid which are owed; and indeed that there should still remain in our state, by what is almost the consensus of all, those forms of zeal toward brave and industrious men which have been the one reward always paid to me too for my own labours and my own vigils.
quae de hominum atque ordinum omnium erga te studiis scribis ad me, minime mihi miranda et maxime iucunda acciderunt, eademque ad me perscripta sunt a familiaribus meis. itaque capio magnam voluptatem, cum tibi, cuius mihi amicitia non solum ampla sed etiam iucunda est, ea tribui, quae debeantur, tum vero remanere etiam nunc in civitate nostra studia prope omnium consensu erga fortis et industrios viros, quae mihi ipsi una semper tributa merces est laborum et vigiliarum mearum.
But this, indeed, struck me as truly astonishing: that there was so much rashness in that young man, whose own safety I defended in two capital trials with the utmost effort, that, in taking up enmities against you, he should forget almost everything of his own fortunes and reasonings — especially when you abounded in every ornament and every safeguard, and he himself (to put it most mildly) lacked many things. His foolish and childish talk had been already reported to me in detail by our intimate M. Caelius; and much of the same sort of talk has been written about by you. For my part, I would more readily have severed an old connection with the man who had taken up enmities against you than have brought a new one into being; for you ought not to doubt my zeal toward you, and there is no one in the province, nor was there at Rome, to whom this has been obscure.
illud vero mihi permirum accidit, tantam temeritatem fuisse in eo adulescente, cuius ego salutem in duobus capitis iudiciis summa contentione defendi, ut tuis inimicitiis suscipiendis oblivisceretur prope omnium fortunarum ac rationum suarum, praesertim cum tu omnibus vel ornamentis vel praesidiis redundares, ipsi, ut levissime dicam, multa dessent. cuius sermo stultus et puerilis erat iam ante ad me a M. Caelio, familiari nostro, perscriptus; de quo item sermone multa scripta sunt abs te. ego autem citius cum eo, qui tuas inimicitias suscepisset, veterem coniunctionem diremissem quam novam conciliassem; neque enim de meo erga te studio dubitare debes, neque id est obscurum cuiquam in provincia nec Romae fuit.
But there is signified, all the same, in your letter a certain suspicion and hesitation of yours, of which it is no time for me to expostulate with you about now, but only necessary for me to clear myself. For where have I ever been an obstacle to any embassy being sent to Rome to your praise? Or in what could I — if I openly hated you — have done less of what could harm you, or, if I hated you in secret, have shown my enmity more openly? But if I had been of that perfidy of which those are who report these things against me, still I would surely not have been of that stupidity — to add to my secret hatred openly declared enmities, or, in a matter in which I could harm you not at all, to display my supreme desire to harm. Certain men did come to me, I recall, from the Epictetus region, saying that excessive expenses were being decreed to the embassies. I did not so much order them, as recommend, that the expenses to the embassies be assessed as nearly as possible to the Cornelian law; and that I did not even hold to that, the accounts of the communities are themselves the witnesses: in which, as much as each community wished, was paid out to your ambassadors — and is on the books.
sed tamen significatur in tuis litteris suspicio quaedam et dubitatio tua, de qua alienum tempus est mihi tecum expostulandi, purgandi autem mei necessarium. Ubi enim ego cuiquam legationi fui impedimento, quo minus Romam ad laudem tuam mitteretur? aut in quo potui, si te palam odissem, minus quod tibi obesset facere, si clam, magis aperte inimicus esse? quod si essem ea perfidia, qua sunt ii, qui in nos haec conferunt, tamen ea stultitia certe non fuissem, ut aut in obscuro odio apertas inimicitias aut, in quo tibi nihil nocerem, summam ostenderem voluntatem nocendi. ad me adire quosdam memini, nimirum ex Epicteto, qui dicerent nimis magnos sumptus legatis decerni. quibus ego non tam imperavi quam censui sumptus legatis quam maxime ad legem Corneliam decernendos; atque in eo ipso me non perseverasse testes sunt rationes civitatum, in quibus, quantum quaeque voluit, legatis tuis datum. induxit.
But you — with what lies have the most worthless of men loaded you down! That not only were the expenses cut off, but that they were even reclaimed and taken back from the agents of those who had already set out, and that this was the reason many at any rate had not gone! I would expostulate with you, and complain — did I not, as I wrote above, prefer at this moment of yours to clear myself than to accuse you, and judge that the more correct course. So I shall say nothing on your account, of what you have believed; on my own, of why you ought not to have believed it, a few words. For if you hold me established as a good man, as worthy of the studies and the learning to which I have given myself from boyhood, as of mind sufficiently great and of judgment not slight in the greatest matters, you ought to recognise in me not only nothing perfidious, treacherous, or false in friendship, but nothing even mean or paltry.
te autem quibus mendaciis homines levissimi onerarunt! non modo sublatos sumptus, sed etiam a procuratoribus eorum, qui iam profecti essent, repetitos et ablatos, eamque causam multis omnino non eundi fuisse. quererer tecum atque expostularem, ni, ut supra scripsi, purgare me tibi hoc tuo tempore quam accusare te mallem idque putarem esse rectius. itaque nihil de te, quod credideris, de me, quam ob rem non debueris credere, pauca dicam. nam si me virum bonum, si dignum iis studiis eaque doctrina, cui me a pueritia dedi, si satis magni animi, non minimi consili in maximis rebus perspectum habes, nihil in me non modo perfidiosum et insidiosum et fallax in amicitia, sed ne humile quidem aut ieiunum debes agnoscere.
But if it pleases you to picture me as cunning and secretive, what is there that could less fall in with a nature of that sort than either to scorn the goodwill of a man in his fullest flourishing, or to attack his standing in the very province whose praise of him one had defended at home, or in a matter in which one could do no harm to show an enemy’s mind, or to choose for one’s perfidy the very point on which it would be plainest in declaring hatred, slightest in inflicting harm? And what reason was there I should have been so implacable toward you, when I had learned from my brother that not even then, when it was almost a necessity for you to act the part, had you been my enemy? But when, indeed, each of us had sought our reconciliation, what in your consulship did you ask of me in vain that you wished me either to do or to think? What did you commission of me, when I escorted you to Puteoli, in which I did not surpass your expectations by my attentiveness?
sin autem me astutum et occultum libet fingere, quid est quod minus cadere in eius modi naturam possit quam aut florentissimi hominis aspernari benevolentiam aut eius existimationem oppugnare in provincia, cuius laudem domi defenderis, aut in ea re animum ostendere inimicum, in qua nihil obsis, aut id eligere ad perfidiam, quod ad indicandum odium apertissimum sit, ad nocendum levissimum? quid erat autem cur ego in te tam implacabilis essem, cum te ex fratre meo ne tunc quidem, cum tibi prope necesse esset eas agere partis, inimicum mihi fuisse cognossem? Cum vero reditum nostrum in gratiam uterque expetisset, quid in consulatu tuo frustra mecum egisti, quod me aut facere aut sentire voluisses? quid mihi mandasti, cum te Puteolos prosequerer, in quo non exspectationem tuam diligentia mea
But if this is what is most characteristic of the cunning man — to refer everything to his own advantage — what then was more useful to me, what better suited to my own interests, than connection with a man of the highest nobility and the highest honour, whose resources, talent, children, kin, and relations could be to me the greatest ornament or safeguard? All of which, however, I did pursue in seeking out your friendship not by any cunning, but by a certain wisdom. What of those bonds by which I am most gladly bound — how strong they are! the likeness of our pursuits, the pleasantness of our intercourse, the delight of life and of our way of living, the sharing of conversation, the deeper letters! And these are domestic things. What of those public matters: the illustrious return to goodwill, in which one cannot stray even by inadvertence without suspicion of perfidy; the most ample college of priests, in which not only was the violation of friendship in our ancestors’ time held impious, but it was not even permitted to co-opt as a priest anyone who was the enemy of any member of the college?
vicerim? quod si id est maxime astuti, omnia ad suam utilitatem referre, quid mihi tandem erat utilius, quid commodis meis aptius quam hominis nobilissimi atque honoratissimi coniunctio, cuius opes, ingenium, liberi, adfines, propinqui mihi magno vel ornamento vel praesidio esse possent? quae tamen ego omnia in expetenda amicitia tua non astutia quadam, sed aliqua potius sapientia secutus sum. quid? illa vincula, quibus quidem libentissime astringor, quanta sunt, studiorum similitudo, suavitas consuetudinis, delectatio vitae atque victus, sermonis societas, litterae interiores! atque haec domestica; quid illa tandem popularia, reditus inlustris in gratiam, in quo ne per imprudentiam quidem errari potest sine suspicione perfidiae, amplissimi sacerdota collegium, in quo non modo amicitiam violari apud maiores nostros fas non erat, sed ne coptari quidem sacerdotem licebat, qui cuiquam ex collegio esset inimicus?
But to leave aside those things, many and great as they are — whom has anyone ever valued, or could or should have valued, so highly as I have valued Gnaeus Pompey, your daughter’s father-in-law? For if services count, I think my country, my children, my safety, my standing, my very self restored to me through him; if the pleasantness of intercourse, what consular friendship in our state was ever more closely joined? if the marks of love and obligation, what did he not entrust to me, what did he not share with me, in what matter touching himself — when he himself was absent from the Senate — did he prefer business to be conducted through any other than me? in what dignities did he not wish me distinguished to the highest? with what ready good humour, with what humanity, did he bear my struggle on Milo’s behalf, opposing at times his own measures? with what zeal did he see to it that none of the odium of that time should touch me, when he sheltered me with his counsel, with his authority, and with his arms at the last? in which times indeed there was this gravity in him, this loftiness of mind: that he would not, not only to some Phrygian or Lycaonian (which is what you did with the legates), but not even to the malicious talk of the highest men against me, give any credit. Since, then, his son is your son-in-law, and since — besides this connection of adfinitas — I know how dear, how delightful you are to Gnaeus Pompey, with what mind at last ought I to be toward you? — especially since he has sent me letters of such a kind that, even if I were the enemy of yourself, to whom I am the closest friend, I would still be appeased, and would turn the whole of myself toward the will and the nod of that man who has so deserved of me.
quae ut omittam tam multa atque tanta, quis umquam tanti quemquam fecit aut facere potuit aut debuit quanti ego Cn. Pompeium, socerum tuae filiae? etenim si merita valent, patriam, liberos, salutem, dignitatem, memet ipsum mihi per illum restitutum puto, si consuetudinis iucunditas, quae fuit umquam amicitia consularium in nostra civitate coniunctior?. si illa amoris atque offici signa, quid mihi ille non commisit, quid non mecum communicavit, quid de se in senatu, cum ipse abesset, per quemquam agi maluit, quibus ille me rebus non ornatissimum voluit amplissime, qua denique ille facilitate, qua humanitate tulit contentionem meam pro Milone adversantem interdum actionibus suis, quo studio providit, ne quae me illius temporis invidia attingeret, cum me consilio, cum auctoritate, cum armis denique texit suis? quibus quidem temporibus haec in eo gravitas, haec animi altitudo fuit, non modo ut Phrygi alicui aut Lycaoni, quod tu in legatis fecisti, sed ne summorum quidem hominum malevolis de me sermonibus crederet. huius igitur filius cum sit gener tuus, cumque, praeter hanc coniunctionem adfinitatis quam sis Cn. Pompeio carus quamque iucundus, intellegam, quo tandem animo in te esse debeo? cum praesertim eas ad me litteras is miserit, quibus, etiam si tibi, cui sum amicissimus, hostis essem, placarer tamen totumque me ad eius viri ita de me meriti voluntatem nutumque converterem.
But enough of this; for these things have been written perhaps in more words than was necessary. Now learn what has been put in motion by me and is being prosecuted; and these things we are pursuing, and shall pursue, with regard rather to your standing than to your danger. For you, as I hope, we shall be hearing called censor any day now — whose duties of office, requiring as they do the highest spirit and the highest counsel, I think ought to be more carefully and more attentively pondered by you than what we ourselves are pursuing on your behalf.
sed haec hactenus; pluribus enim etiam fortasse verbis, quam necesse fuit, scripta sunt. nunc ea, quae a me profecta quaeque instituta sunt cognosce atque haec agimus et agemus magis pro dignitate quam pro periculo tuo. te enim, ut spero, propediem censorem audiemus, cuius magistratus officia, quae sunt maximi animi summique consili, tibi diligentius et accuratius quam haec, quae nos de te agimus, cogitanda esse censeo.