Ad Familiares 4.13
Ad Familiares 4.13
Headnote
Cicero to P. Nigidius Figulus, written from Rome at the beginning of August 46 BC — the Perseus dateline reads Scr. Romae ui. in. Sext. a. 708 (46), vi.\ in.\ Sext.\ marking it as the early days of Sextilis (August). Nigidius, a learned senator and once praetor (58 BC), the author of a vast body of work on grammar, theology, and natural philosophy, had taken the Pompeian side in the civil war and was now in exile, his estates confiscated. Caesar had not yet recalled him; he would in fact die in exile in 45 without seeing Rome again. Cicero himself, recently received back at Rome under Caesar’s clemency after Pharsalus, is writing from a position of restored personal safety without restored political freedom, and the letter is conscious throughout of that asymmetry.
The letter is structured as a writer’s diagnosis of his own writer’s block. The opening sections work through, and reject in turn, the available kinds of letter — the cheerful letter that the times have stripped away, the promise of practical aid that Cicero in his own diminishment cannot make, the gossiping letter about shared friends now ruined or in flight — before settling on the only kind left, the consolatio, which he proceeds to address to a man who is himself a master of the genre. The catalogue of Nigidius’s resources — “what your gravity, the elevation of your spirit, the life you have led, your studies, the arts in which you have flourished since boyhood demand of you” — gives a sense of the man, and the closing pledge to “force my way into the company of the man himself, which my own self-respect has hitherto barred to me” acknowledges that even mere access to Caesar is now a thing Cicero has not yet brought himself to attempt. The promised intervention bore no fruit in Nigidius’s lifetime.
I have been asking myself for a long while now what I might best write to you, and not only does no definite matter come to mind, but not even any familiar kind of letter at all. Of the kinds of letter I used to employ in better days, the time has stripped one whole class from me: fortune has so contrived it that I can neither write anything of that sort nor even conceive it. What is left is a kind of letter mournful and miserable and consonant with the present times. That kind too fails me, since in such a letter there should be either the promise of some assistance or the consolation of your grief. The promise was beyond my power; for I, struck down by a like fortune, was myself sustaining my own reverses on the supports of others; and it more often came to my mind to complain that I went on living so, than to rejoice that I went on living at all.
quaerenti mihi iam diu, quid ad te potissimum scriberem, non modo certa res nulla, sed ne genus quidem litterarum usitatum veniebat in mentem. unam enim partem et consuetudinem earum epistularum, quibus secundis rebus uti solebamus, tempus eripuerat, perfeceratque fortuna, ne quid tale scribere possem aut omnino cogitare. relinquebatur triste quoddam et miserum et his temporibus consentaneum genus litterarum. id quoque deficiebat me, in quo debebat esse aut promissio auxili alicuius aut consolatio doloris tui. quod pollicerer, non erat; ipse enim pari fortuna †adiectus aliorum opibus casus meos sustentabam, saepiusque mihi veniebat in mentem queri, quod ita viverem, quam gaudere, quod viverem.
For although no signal injury has fallen upon me as a private person, and nothing has even come into my mind at such a time to wish for that Caesar has not unprompted bestowed on me, still I am consumed by these cares, so that the very fact that I remain alive I count for a fault in myself. For I am bereft of many of my closest intimates — some of whom death snatched from me, others flight has put far away — and of all those friends whose goodwill the state’s defence, with you once my partner in it, had won me through my own doing. I move about amid their shipwrecks and the plundering of their goods; and I do not merely hear of it — which would itself be wretched — but I see it, than which nothing is bitterer: the fortunes of those men ruined, with whose help we once put out that conflagration; and in that city in which we lately flourished in influence, in standing, in glory, in that city we now lack every one of those things. We have, indeed, Caesar’s own utmost humanity towards us, but it cannot prevail against the violence and the upheaval of all things and times.
quamquam enim nulla me ipsum privatim pepulit insignis iniuria nec mihi quicquam tali tempore in mentem venit optare, quod non ultro mihi Caesar detulerit, tamen non nihil eis conficior curis, ut ipsum, quod maneam in vita, peccare me existimem. careo enim cum familiarissimis multis, quos aut mors eripuit nobis aut distraxit fuga, tum omnibus amicis, quorum benevolentiam nobis conciliarat per me quondam te socio defensa res publica, versorque in eorum naufragiis et bonorum direptionibus nec audio solum, quod ipsum esset miserum, sed etiam id ipsum video, quo nihil est acerbius, eorum fortunas dissipari, quibus nos olim adiutoribus illud incendium exstinximus, et, in qua urbe modo gratia, auctoritate, gloria floruimus, in ea nunc his quidem omnibus caremus; obtinemus ipsius Caesaris summam erga nos humanitatem, sed ea plus non potest quam vis et mutatio omnium rerum atque temporum.
And so, stripped of all those things to which nature and inclination and habit had accustomed me, I am out of favour with the rest, as it seems to me at least, and out of favour above all with myself. Born to be always doing something worthy of a man, I now have no way open to me not only for doing but even for thinking; and I, who in earlier days could come to the aid of unknown men or even of guilty ones, can now not even make a kindly promise to P. Nigidius, the most learned and the most upright man living, once of the very highest influence and a most loyal friend to me. So this kind of letter too has been taken from me.
itaque orbus iis rebus omnibus quibus et natura me et voluntas et consuetudo adsuefecerat, cum ceteris, ut quidem videor, tum mihi ipse displiceo. natus enim ad agendum semper aliquid dignum viro nunc non modo agendi rationem nullam habeo, sed ne cogitandi quidem et, qui antea aut obscuris hominibus aut etiam sontibus opitulari poteram, nunc P. Nigidio, uni omnium doctissimo et sanctissimo et maxima quondam gratia et mihi certe amicissimo, ne benigne quidem polliceri possum. ergo hoc ereptum est litterarum genus.
What is left is for me to console you and bring forward considerations by which I may try to draw you off from your distresses. But that faculty, of consoling yourself or another, is in you supreme, if it ever was in any man. I shall therefore not touch that side of the matter which proceeds from any refined method or learning — I leave it all to you. What is worthy of a brave and a wise man, what your gravity, the elevation of your spirit, the life you have led, your studies, the arts in which you have flourished since boyhood demand of you — this you shall see for yourself. What I, being at Rome and looking attentively about me, can understand and feel, this I affirm to you: that in those distresses in which you are at this time, you will not be much longer, but in those in which we too are, perhaps you will always be.
reliquum est, ut consoler et adferam rationes, quibus te a molestiis coner abducere. at ea quidem facultas vel tui vel alterius consolandi in te summa est, si umquam in ullo fuit. itaque eam partem, quae ab exquisita quadam ratione et doctrina proficiscitur, non attingam, tibi totam relinquam. quid sit forti et sapienti homine dignum, quid gravitas, quid altitudo animi, quid acta tua vita, quid studia, quid artes, quibus a pueritia floruisti, a te flagitent, tu videbis; ego, quod intellegere et sentire, quia sum Romae et quia curo attendoque, possum, id tibi adfirmo, te in istis molestiis, in quibus es hoc tempore, non diutius futurum, in iis autem, in quibus etiam nos sumus, fortasse semper fore.
I think I can see, first, that the disposition of the man himself, who can do most, is well inclined to your restoration. I do not write this without reason; the less close my acquaintance with him is, the more carefully I am at work to discover it. The slower he has so far been to free you from this trouble, the easier it is for him to give a stern answer to those with whom he is more angry. His intimates, and indeed those that are most welcome to him, speak and feel about you wonderfully well. To this is added the goodwill of the people at large, or rather the consensus of everyone. There is the further consideration of the republic — which, however little it can do at this moment, is bound to be able to do something: whatever it shall have in the way of strength, it shall in a short time, believe me, extort on your behalf from the very men by whom it is now held.
videor mihi perspicere primum ipsius animum, qui plurimum potest, propensum ad salutem tuam. non scribo hoc temere; quo minus familiaris sum, hoc sum ad investigandum curiosior. quo facilius, quibus est iratior, respondere tristius possit, hoc est adhuc tardior ad te molestia liberandum; familiares vero eius, et ii quidem, qui illi iucundissimi sunt mirabiliter de te et loquuntur et sentiunt. accedit eodem vulgi voluntas vel potius consensus omnium. etiam illa, quae minimum nunc quidem potest, sed possit necessest, res publica, quascumque viris habebit, ab iis ipsis, a quibus tenetur, de te propediem, mihi crede, impetrabit.
I come back, then, to this point: that I now promise you something as well, which at first I had passed over. For I shall both embrace those most intimate with him who are deeply attached to me and spend much time with me, and shall force my way into the company of the man himself — which my own self-respect has hitherto barred to me — and shall certainly follow up every avenue by which I judge that we can arrive at what we want. In this whole undertaking I shall do more than I dare to write. As to other things, which I know for certain that many men are ready to provide for you, from me they are most ready of all. There is nothing of mine in our household goods which I would not rather were yours than mine. About this, and about this whole subject, I write more sparingly, because I would rather you hoped — as I myself trust — that you will have the use of your own.
redeo igitur ad id, ut iam tibi etiam pollicear aliquid, quod primo omiseram. nam et complectar eius familiarissimos, qui me admodum diligunt multumque mecum sunt, et in ipsius consuetudinem, quam adhuc meus pudor mihi clausit, insinuabo et certe omnis vias persequar, quibus putabo ad id, quod volumus, pervenire posse. in hoc toto genere plura faciam quam scribere audeo. cetera, quae tibi a multis prompta esse certo scio, a me sunt paratissima. nihil in re familiari ni ea est, quod ego meum malim esse quam tuum. hac de re et de hoc genere toto hoc scribo parcius, quod te id, quod ipse confido, sperare malo, te esse usurum tuis
The last point is this: that I beg and entreat you to be of the greatest spirit, and to remember not only those lessons which you have received from the other great men, but also those which you have brought forth yourself by your own talent and study. If you gather these together, you will both hope for the best in everything and bear with wisdom whatever shall happen, of whatever sort it may be. But all this you know better than anyone, and best of all men. For my part, in everything I understand to concern you, I will most zealously and most carefully see to all of it, and I shall preserve, in this saddest time of my own, the memory of your services to me.
extremum illud est, ut te orem et obsecrem, animo ut maximo sis nec ea solum memineris, quae ab aliis magnis viris accepisti, sed illa etiam, quae ipse ingenio studioque peperisti. quae si conliges, et sperabis omnia optime et quae accident, qualiacumque erunt, sapienter feres. sed haec tu melius vel optime omnium; ego, quae pertinere ad te intellegam, studiosissime omnia diligentissimeque curabo tuorumque tristissimo meo tempore meritorum erga me memoriam conservabo.