If you and the army are well, all is well. About
your Dionysius, I have so far made out nothing — the less for the fact that the Dalmatian cold which drove me out of there has chilled me here as well; but I will not give up until at some point I dig him out. Even so, what you set me is hard going at every turn. About Catilius, you have written me I don’t know what kind of most painstaking plea for mercy. Out with it — you and our friend Sextus
Servilius too (for,
by Hercules, I am fond of him as well): are these the kinds of clients, are these the kinds of cases, you two are taking on? A man, the cruellest of all men, who has cut down so many freeborn citizens, mothers of households, Roman citizens; carried them off, scattered them, laid whole districts waste? A monkey, not even half a man, took up arms against me, and I took him in war. Even so,
my dear Cicero, what can I do? By Hercules, I want every single thing you set before me; the punishment, the death-sentence I was going to use on the man I had taken, I waive and make over to you. But what am I to answer to those who, on the strength of their goods looted, their ships boarded and stormed, their brothers and children and parents murdered, are demanding their day in court? If, by Hercules, I had the brass of
an Appius — in whose place I have been put as successor — even so I could not bear up under this. So what is it to be? I will see honestly to everything I know you want. He is being defended by
Quintus Volusius, your old pupil, if perchance the thing manages to put the other side to flight; in him our best hope lies. And me, if there is anything that needs doing at your end, you will defend.
Caesar is still doing me a wrong: he has so far made no report on
my thanksgivings and
my Dalmatian operations, as if I had not, in Dalmatia, fought campaigns worthy of
the most lawful of triumphs! For if we are to wait until I have finished off the whole war: there are twenty ancient towns of Dalmatia, and more than sixty that they have annexed to themselves — if I do not storm every one of them, and if I am not voted my thanksgivings, then I am on terms far other than the rest of our generals.
S. V. B. E. E. Q. V. De
Dionysio tuo adhuc nihil extrico, et eo minus, quod me frigus
Dalmaticum, quod illinc eiecit, etiam hic refrigeravit; sed tamen non desistam, quin illum aliquando eruam. Sed tamen omnia mihi dura imperas: de Catilio nescio quid ad me scripsisti deprecationis diligentissimae. Apage te cum nostro Sex. Servilio — nam
mehercule ego quoque illum amo —; sed huiuscemodi vos clientes, huiusmodi causas recipitis? hominem unum omnium crudelissimum, qui tot ingenuos, matresfamilias, cives Romanos occidit, abripuit, disperdidit, regiones vastavit? simius, non semissis homo, contra me arma tulit, et eum bello cepi. Sed tamen,
mi Cicero, quid facere possum? Omnia mehercule cupio, quae tu mihi imperas; meam animadversionem et supplicium, quo usurus eram in eum, quem cepissem, remitto tibi et condono: quid illis respondere possum, qui ob sua bona direpta, naves expugnatas, fratres, liberos, parentes occisos actiones expostulant? Si mehercules
Appii os haberem, in cuius locum suffectus sum, tamen hoc sustinere non possem. Quid ergo est? Faciam omnia sedulo, quae te sciam velle. Defenditur a Q. Volusio, tuo discipulo, si forte ea res poterit adversarios fugare; in eo maxima spes est. Nos, si quid erit istic opus, tu defendes:
Caesar adhuc mihi iniuriam facit; de meis
supplicationibus et rebus gestis Dalmaticis adhuc non refert, quasi vero non iustissimi
triumphi in Dalmatia res gesserim! nam, si hoc exspectandum est, dum totum bellum conficiam, viginti oppida sunt Dalmatiae antiqua, quae ipsi sibi asciverunt, amplius sexaginta: haec nisi omnia expugno, si mihi supplicationes non decernuntur, longe alia condicione ego sum ac ceteri imperatores.
