Ad Familiares 5.17
Ad Familiares 5.17
Headnote
Cicero to Publius Sittius, written at Rome in late 57 BC. Sittius, a Roman knight from Nuceria, had gone to North Africa during the late 60s on a complicated trading and political mission and had been suspected of involvement with the Catilinarian conspiracy — whence the line “§2: in those first times, in which you, absent, were being called into hatred and into accusation, I defended you.” He had stayed in Mauretania and Numidia, serving the Mauretanian king Bocchus and building a private condottiere force; he would die in 44 BC, having joined Caesar at Thapsus. Cicero defended his son Publius after his own return from exile in autumn 57 BC, on a charge that did not stand. The letter is the formal consolatio after that trial: a declaration that Sittius’s courage is in his son, and that the wise are moved by shame and not by chance.
It was not from any forgetting of our friendship, nor from any breaking of my own custom, that in earlier times I sent you no letter, but because the earlier times lay in ruins of the commonwealth and of mine, and because the later times kept me back from writing by your most unjust and most bitter misfortunes. Since now an interval long enough has passed, and I have recalled to myself with greater care your courage and the greatness of your spirit, I did not think it foreign to my own ways to write you these things.
non oblivione amicitiae nostrae neque intermissione consuetudinis meae superioribus temporibus ad te nullas litteras misi, sed quod priora tempora in ruinis rei p. nostrisque iacuerunt, posteriora autem me a scribendo tuis iniustissimis atque acerbissimis incommodis retardarunt. Cum vero et intervallum iam satis longum fuisset et tuam virtutem animique magnitudinem diligentius essem mecum recordatus, non putavi esse alienum institutis meis haec ad te scribere.
I, P. Sittius, both in those first times, in which you, absent, were being called into hatred and into accusation, defended you; and when in the trial and the peril of your closest friend your own charge was being joined to it, I, as best I could, most carefully looked after you and your case. And lately, on my own recent return, when I found the matter set up other than I should have wished had I been there, still in nothing did I fail your safety; and at that time, when the unpopularity over the corn supply, the hostility not only of your enemies but even of your friends’, the unfairness of the whole court, and many other faults of the commonwealth, were of more weight than the cause itself and the truth, I failed your son Publius neither in work, nor counsel, nor labour, nor influence, nor testimony.
ego te, P. Sitti, et primis temporibus illis, quibus in invidiam absens et in crimen vocabare, defendi et, cum in tui familiarissimi iudicio ac periculo tuum crimen coniungeretur, ut potui accuratissime te tuamque causam tutatus sum et proxime recenti adventu meo, cum rem aliter institutam offendissem ac mihi placuisset, si adfuissem, tamen nulla re saluti tuae defui; cumque eo tempore invidia annonae, inimici non solum tui, verum etiam amicorum tuorum, iniquitas totius iudici multaque alia rei p. vitia plus quam causa ipsa veritasque valuissent, Publio tuo neque opera neque consilio neque labore neque gratia neque testimonio defui.
For which reason, with all the duties of friendship having been by me diligently and devoutly kept, I did not think this either should be passed over: to urge you and to ask of you that you remember that you are both a man and a citizen — that is, that you should bear wisely the common and uncertain stroke which none of us can either avoid or guarantee against, and resist your grief bravely and your fortune; and consider that, both in our state and in the other states which have come to power, such a stroke has fallen upon many of the bravest and best men by unjust trials. Would that I were not writing truly, that you are without that commonwealth in which no man of judgement can take any pleasure!
quam ob rem omnibus officiis amicitiae diligenter a me sancteque servatis ne hoc quidem praetermittendum esse duxi, te ut hortarer rogaremque, ut et hominem te et virum esse meminisses, id est ut et communem incertumque casum, quem neque vitare quisquam nostrum nec praestare ullo pacto potest, sapienter ferres et dolori fortiter ac fortunae resisteres cogitaresque et in nostra civitate et in ceteris, quae rerum potitae sunt multis fortissimis atque optimis viris iniustis iudiciis talis casus incidisse. illud utinam ne vere scriberem, ea te re p. carere, in qua neminem prudentem hominem res ulla delectet!
As for your son: I am afraid that, if I write nothing to you about him, I may seem not to have given the testimony due to his courage; but if I write out all that I feel, I am afraid I shall, by my letter, freshen up your longing and your grief. But still you will most prudently bring it about, if you reckon his devotion, his courage, his industry, wherever you are, to be your own and to be with you. For those things which we encompass in our mind are no less ours than those we look on with our eyes.
de tuo autem filio, vereor ne, si nihil ad te scripserim, debitum eius virtuti videar testimonium non dedisse, sin autem omnia, quae sentio, perscripserim, ne refricem meis litteris desiderium ac dolorem tuum. sed tamen prudentissime facies, si illius pietatem, virtutem, industriam, ubicumque eris, tuam esse, tecum esse duces; nec enim minus nostra sunt quae animo complectimur quam quae oculis intuemur.
Therefore his outstanding courage and his highest love for you ought to be a great consolation to you, as also we and the rest who esteem you not from fortune but from your own courage, and shall always so esteem you; and most of all the awareness of your own spirit, when you reflect that nothing has fallen upon you by your own deserving, and add this — that wise men are moved by shame, not by chance; by their own offence, not by another’s injury. I, prompted both by the memory of our old friendship and by the courage and devotion of your son, shall fail in no place either to console or to lighten your fortune. If by chance you shall write me anything, I shall bring it about that you do not think you wrote in vain.
quam ob rem et illius eximia virtus summusque in te amor magnae tibi consolationi debet esse et nos ceterique, qui te non ex fortuna, sed ex virtute tua pendimus semperque pendemus, et maxime animi tui conscientia, cum tibi nihil merito accidisse reputabis et illud adiunges, homines sapientis turpitudine, non casu et delicto suo, non aliorum iniuria commoveri. ego et memoria nostrae veteris amicitiae et virtute atque observantia fili tui monitus nullo loco dero neque ad consolandam neque ad levandam fortunam tuam. tu si quid ad me forte scripseris, perficiam ne te frustra scripsisse arbitrere.