Ad Familiares 4.4
Ad Familiares 4.4
Headnote
Cicero to Servius Sulpicius Rufus, in Achaia, written at Rome at the very end of September or the beginning of October 46 BC — Perseus dateline: Romae ex. m. Sept. aut in. Oct. a. 708 (46). This is the second of Cicero’s surviving letters to Sulpicius from the autumn of 46 (after 4.3 in August) and together with 4.7 it sits at the centre of the Marcellus business. M. Marcellus, Sulpicius’s consular colleague of 51 BC, had been in self-imposed exile at Mytilene since Pharsalus; in a Senate session of September, on a motion that began with L. Piso’s reference to Marcellus and culminated in C. Marcellus prostrating himself at Caesar’s feet, Caesar unexpectedly restored him. Cicero’s response, delivered when his turn came to speak, was the speech we now read as Pro Marcello — his first public oratory after a near two-year silence.
The letter opens with a piece of literary banter — Sulpicius has excused his repetitive letters as “poverty of style,” paupertate orationis, and joked that Cicero has “riches of style”; Cicero will not let either compliment stand, and the exchange runs into two Greek tags playing on eir\=oneia. The political body of the letter is the account of Marcellus’s restoration: “that day seemed to me so beautiful that I felt I was seeing some image, as it were, of a state coming back to life” — speciem aliquam viderer videre quasi reviviscentis rei publicae — the famous line that records the moment, and the moment that gave Cicero the warrant to break his silence. The closing sections balance two ironies. Cicero has parted with his “honorable leisure” and fears he may now be drawn into speaking on other matters too; and his advice to Sulpicius, who is asking whether to stay in Achaia or come home, is that he should stay — not because Rome is intolerable, but because at Rome only one’s own family can give pleasure, and of the public business one would rather hear than see.
I accept the excuse you have made for sending me a number of letters in the same wording: but I accept it only in the part where you say that it is owing to the carelessness or the bad faith of those who receive the letters that they do not reach us. The other part of the excuse — where you write that, from your “poverty of style,” as you call it, you have sent the same letters several times in the same words — I neither recognize nor approve; and I myself, whom you say in jest (so I take it) to have “riches of style,” do recognize that I am not so very destitute of words, for there is no need to play the ironist eironeuesthai; but I yield, all the same (and not by ironizing eironeuomenos either), to the subtlety and elegance of your writing.
accipio excusationem tuam, qua usus es, cur saepius ad me litteras uno exemplo dedisses, sed accipio ex ea parte, quatenus aut neglegentia aut improbitate eorum, qui epistulas accipiant, fieri scribis ne ad nos perferantur; illam partem excusationis, qua te scribis orationis paupertate’ (sic enim appellas) isdem verbis epistulas saepius mittere, nec nosco nec probo, et ego ipse, quem tu per iocum (sic enim accipio) divitias orationis ’ habere dicis, me non esse verborum admodum inopem agnosco ( ei)rwneu/esqai enim non necesse est),. sed tamen idem (nec hoc ei)rwneuo/menos facile cedo tuorum scriptorum subtilitati et elegantiae.
As for the plan by which, as you write, you have not refused this commission in Achaia: I had always approved it, but I approved it far more when I had read your last letter. For all the reasons you mention are most just, and most worthy both of your authority and of your prudence. That you reckon the outcome to have fallen out differently from what you had supposed — on that I in no way agree with you; but because there is so great a confusion and overthrow of affairs, and everything lies so beaten down and laid low by this most foul war, that each man thinks the place where he himself is the most wretched, and himself the most wretched of all, you are dissatisfied with your own plan, and we who are at home seem to you the fortunate ones; and to us in turn you seem — not without your share of troubles, certainly, but, as compared with us, fortunate. And in this very point your case is better than ours: that you dare to write what pains you, whereas we cannot even do that with safety; and not by any fault of the victor, who is the soul of moderation, but by the very nature of victory, which in civil wars is always overbearing.
consilium tuum, quo te usum scribis hoc Achaicum negotium non recusavisse, cum semper probavissem, tum multo magis probavi lectis tuis proximis litteris; omnes enim causae, quas commemoras, iustissimae sunt tuaque et auctoritate et prudentia dignissimae. quod aliter cecidisse rem existimas atque opinatus sis, id tibi nullo modo adsentior; sed quia tanta perturbatio et confusio est rerum ita perculsa et prostrata foedissimo bello iacent omnia ut is cuique locus, ubi ipse sit, et sibi quisque miserrimus esse videatur, propterea et tui consili paenitet te, et nos, qui domi sumus, tibi beati videmur, at contra nobis non tu quidem vacuus molestiis, sed prae nobis beatus. atque hoc ipso melior est tua quam nostra condicio, quod tu, quid doleat, scribere audes, nos ne id quidem tuto possumus, nec id victoris vitio, quo nihil moderatius, sed ipsius victoriae, quae civilibus bellis semper est insolens.
In one thing we have outdone you: we learned of the safety of Marcellus, your colleague, a little before you did, and, by Hercules, in the way the thing was managed we saw it as well. For this is how you must take it: ever since these miseries began — that is, ever since the question of public right began to be decided by arms — nothing has been done with so much dignity. For Caesar himself, after censuring the “bitterness” of Marcellus (so he called it) and praising in the most honorific terms both your fairness and your prudence, suddenly and beyond hope said that, when the Senate was making the request on Marcellus’s behalf, he would not refuse it, even for the sake of the omen. The Senate had managed it thus: when L. Piso had made mention of M. Marcellus, and C. Marcellus had thrown himself at Caesar’s feet, the whole body rose and went up in supplication to Caesar. Do not ask: that day seemed to me so beautiful that I felt I was seeing some image, as it were, of a state coming back to life.
uno te vicimus, quod de Marcelli, conlegae tui, salute paulo ante quam tu cognovimus, etiam me hercule quod, quem ad modum ea res ageretur, vidimus. nam sic fac existimes, post has miserias, id est postquam armis disceptari coeptum sit de iure publico, nihil esse actum aliud cum dignitate. nam et ipse Caesar accusata ’acerbitate’ Maricelli (sic enim appellabat) laudataque honorificentissime et aequitate tua et prudentia repente praeter spem dixit se senatui roganti de Marcello ne ominis quidem causa negaturum. fecerat autem hoc senatus, ut, cum a L. Pisone mentio esset facta de M. Marcello et C. Marcellus se ad Caesaris pedes abiecisset, cunctus consurgeret et ad Caesarem supplex accederet. noli quaerere; ita mihi pulcher hic dies visus est, ut speciem aliquam viderer videre quasi reviviscentis rei publicae.
And so, when all who were called on before me had given thanks to Caesar — except Volcacius, who said that, had he been in Marcellus’s place, he would not have done so — when I was called on, I changed my plan. For I had resolved, by Hercules, not from sluggishness but from longing for our former standing, to keep silent forever. That resolve was broken in me both by Caesar’s greatness of mind and by the Senate’s discharge of its duty; and so at some length I delivered my thanks to Caesar, and I am afraid that in other matters as well I have stripped myself of an honorable leisure, which was my one consolation in misery. Still, since I have escaped the displeasure of one who might perhaps suppose that I did not regard this as a commonwealth at all, if I were to keep silent forever, I shall do this in moderation, or even within moderation, so as to serve both his wish and my own pursuits. For though from my earliest youth every art and liberal learning, and most of all philosophy, has been my delight, this study grows weightier in me daily — both, I think, with the ripening of age into prudence, and with the vices of the times, since nothing else can ease the mind of its troubles.
itaque, cum omnes ante me rogati gratias Caesari egissent praeter Volcacium (is enim, si eo loco esset, negavit se facturum fuisse), ego rogatus mutavi meum consilium. nam statueram non me hercule inertia, sed desiderio pristinae dignitatis in perpetuum tacere. fregit hoc meum consilium et Caesaris magnitudo animi et senatus officium; itaque pluribus verbis egi Caesari gratias, meque metuo ne etiam in ceteris rebus honesto otio privarim, quod erat unum solacium in malis. sed tamen, quoniam effugi eius offensionem, qui fortasse arbitraretur me hanc rem publicam non putare, si perpetuo tacerem, modice hoc faciam aut etiam intra modum, ut et illius voluntati et meis studiis serviam. nam, etsi a prima aetate me omnis ars et doctrina liberalis et maxime philosophia delectavit, tamen hoc studium cotidie ingravescit, credo, et aetatis maturitate ad prudentiam et iis temporum vitiis, ut nulla res alia levare animum molestiis possit.
I gather from your letter that you are being drawn off from this study by your duties; but at any rate the nights will help you somewhat by now. Your Servius, or rather ours, attends on me with the deepest regard; and I take pleasure in him both for his complete uprightness and highest virtue and for his learning and his studies. He often talks over with me the question of your staying on or coming home. So far I am of this opinion: that we should do nothing except what Caesar will plainly most wish. The situation is such that, if you were at Rome, nothing could give you pleasure except your own family. As for the rest, nothing is better than Caesar himself; everything else is such that, if you must either hear of it or see it, you would rather hear. This counsel of ours is by no means a pleasing one to ourselves, who long to see you; but we are advising in your interest. Farewell.
A quo studio te abduci negotiis intellego ex tuis litteris, sed tamen aliquid iam noctes te adiuvabunt. Servius tuus vel potius noster summa me observantia colit; cuius ego cum omni probitate summaque virtute tum studiis doctrinaque delector. is mecum saepe de tua mansione aut decessione communicat. adhuc in hac sum sententia, nihil ut faciamus nisi quod maxime Caesar velle videatur. res sunt eius modi, ut, si Romae sis, nihil praeter tuos delectare possit. de reliquis nihil melius ipso est Caesare, cetera sunt eius modi, ut, si alterum utrum necesse sit, audire ea malis quam videre. hoc nostrum consilium nobis minime iucundum est, qui te videre cupimus, sed consulimus tibi. vale.