HermitshCicero Entire

Letter · 28 April 49 BC · in Cumano

Ad Familiares 5.19

Ad Familiares 5.19

Headnote

Cicero to M. Mescinius Rufus, written from the villa at Cumae around 28 April 49 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in Cumano circ. iv K. Mai. a. 705 (49). The salutation CICERO RVFO is the same as that of Fam. 5.20 and of the earlier letters in this block; the recipient is Cicero’s quaestor of 51–50, with whom he has just finished settling provincial accounts (Fam. 5.20), and not (as the manuscript heading sometimes suggests) Manius Curius. Cicero is now in Campania, three weeks before he will sail to join Pompey, and the question consuming him is exactly the question Sulpicius raised in Fam. 4.1: whether and how to leave Italy.

Mescinius has written to say that, free now of any obligation owed to a governor in office, he is more devoted to Cicero than ever, and ready to follow him in whatever course he takes. Cicero seizes the offer with a Stoic frame: “what is right is plain; what is expedient is dark, though even so, if we are worthy of our studies and our writings, we cannot doubt that those courses are most useful which are most right” — quid rectum sit apparet, quid expediat obscurum est. He accepts the offer, but with care: if you can’t come, fear made you say one thing and your decency the other, and I will forgive you. The decision he refers to (taken “now for some time”) is to join Pompey in Epirus, which he will do by mid-June. The letter is the most directly Stoic of the April correspondence; Cicero is rehearsing publicly, to a friend, the calculation he has already made privately.

Though I have never had a doubt that I was very dear to you, I see it more plainly every day, and what you had given me to understand in certain of your letters is now coming out: that you would prove still more devoted in cultivating me than you had been in the province (though, in my judgement, nothing can be added to your service there), since now your judgement could be freer. Your earlier letter, then, gave me great pleasure — one in which I could see how affectionately you had awaited my arrival, and how greatly, when the affair fell out otherwise than you had thought, you rejoiced at the counsel I had taken; and from this last letter I have taken a great profit, both from your judgement and from your sense of duty: of judgement, in that I see you think — as all brave and honest men should — that nothing is useful which is not also right and honourable; of duty, in that you promise to be at my side, whatever counsel I take. Nothing could be more welcome to me, nor, as I judge, more honourable for you.
etsi mihi numquam dubium fuit quin tibi essem carissimus, tamen cotidie magis id perspicio, exstatque id, quod mihi ostenderas quibusdam litteris, hoc te studiosiorem in me colendo fore quam in provincia fuisses (etsi meo iudicio nihil ad tuum provinciale officium addi potest), quo liberius iudicium esse posset tuum. itaque me et superiores litterae tuae admodum delectaverunt, quibus et exspectatum meum adventum abs te amanter videbam et, cum aliter res cecidisset ac putasses, te meo consilio magno opere esse laetatum, et ex his proximis litteris magnum cepi fructum et iudici et offici tui, iudici, quod intellego te, id quod omnes fortes ac boni viri facere debent, nihil putare utile esse nisi quod rectum honestumque sit, offici, quod te mecum, quodcumque cepissem consili, polliceris fore; quo neque mihi gratius neque, ut ego arbitror, tibi honestius esse quicquam potest.
My counsel has been taken now for some time; about which I have not written to you earlier — not because you were to be kept in the dark, but because the sharing of a plan at such a moment looks something like a kind of admonition of duty, or rather a demand that one join in the partnership of the danger or the labour. But since this is your wish, your decency, your goodwill toward me, I gladly embrace such a feeling; only on this condition, though (for I will not lay aside my reserve in asking): if you do what you signify, I shall be greatly grateful; if you do not, I shall forgive, and I shall judge that fear has made you say one thing, and your inability to refuse me the other. For the matter is, in truth, the greatest. What is right is plain; what is expedient is dark — though even so, in such a way that if we are the men we ought to be, that is, worthy of our studies and our writings, we cannot doubt that those courses are most useful which are most right. So, if you approve the same thing, come to me at once; if you approve the same conclusion and the same destination, but cannot come continuously, I will see to it that you know everything. Whatever you decide, I will judge you my friend; if what I hope for, I will judge you my closest friend.
mihi consilium captum iam diu est; de quo ad te, non quo celandus esses, nihil scripsi antea, sed quia communicatio consili tali tempore quasi quaedam admonitio videtur esse offici vel potius efflagitatio ad coeundam societatem vel periculi vel laboris. Cum vero ea tua sit voluntas, humanitas, benevolentia erga me, libenter amplector talem animum, sed ita (non enim dimittam pudorem in rogando meum): si feceris id, quod ostendis, magnam habebo gratiam, si non feceris, ignoscam et alterum timori, alterum mihi te negare non potuisse arbitrabor. est enim res profecto maxima. quid rectum sit apparet, quid expediat obscurum est, ita tamen, ut si nos ii sumus, qui esse debemus, id est studio digni ac litteris nostris, dubitare non possimus quin ea maxime conducant, quae sunt rectissima. qua re tu, si simul placebit, statim ad me venies; sin idem placebit atque eodem, nec continuo poterit, omnia tibi ut nota sint faciam. quicquid statueris, te mihi amicum, sin id, quod opto, etiam amicissimum iudicabo.

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Ad Familiares 5.19

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