Ad Familiares 6.4
Ad Familiares 6.4
Headnote
Cicero to A. Manlius Torquatus, written at Rome before the middle of January 45 BC (Perseus: Romae ante med.~m. Ian.). It is the longest and most personally pitched of the Torquatus condolence cluster: the Spanish war is still open, the engagement at Munda is some weeks off, and the prospect under consideration in §1 — that, whichever side wins, the victory will not look very different to the defeated — is the prospect from which everything else in the letter is written. Torquatus is in Athens, still under uncertain clemency, and the boys in §3 are the children Cicero elsewhere acknowledges as the proper object of his last efforts on his friend’s behalf (Fam.~6.1.7).
The philosophical centre is §2: that the consciousness of upright intention — conscientia rectae voluntatis — is the greatest consolation for adverse circumstances, and that there is no great evil except guilt. The doctrine, Stoic in form, is one Cicero leans on across the consolatory writing of these months; the formula here is among the most compressed in the corpus. The personal disclosure of §4 is striking: Cicero, speaking now in his own voice rather than as consoler, brings to bear the same triple resource he had offered Torquatus in Fam.~6.1 — to be without fault is to be without the worst evil; a man whose life is nearly complete need not fear what nature is anyway leading him to; and given who has already fallen in this war, refusing the same fortune, if the case demanded it, would be shameless. The pivot to the consoler becoming the consoled is unannounced and characteristic of the cluster.
The valedictory in §5 notes that Servius Sulpicius Rufus, on whose company Cicero had counted for Torquatus in Fam.~6.1.6, has now left Athens (this is the spring that will end with Servius writing to Cicero on the death of Tullia); the closing concession — that Cicero will imitate Torquatus’s goodwill but not match his services — is the formula of an old friendship under the strain of unequal fortunes.
I had no news to write you, and even had there been any, I knew you were in the habit of being kept informed by your own people. As for the future, although it is always difficult to speak of it, still one can sometimes come closer by conjecture, when the matter is of a kind whose outcome can be foreseen. At present we seem to understand only this much: that the war will not be a long one — though there are some to whom even this seems otherwise. For my part, as I write this, I supposed something to have been done already, \ not because of anything, but because the conjecture was difficult. For while the whole Mars of war is shared, and the issues of battles are always uncertain, at this present time the forces on both sides are said to be so great, and so prepared to fight it out, that, whichever of them conquers, it will be no marvel. The opinion grows stronger among men day by day that, even though there is some difference between the causes of the war, between the victories there will not be much. The one side we have now nearly tried out; of the other, there is no one who does not turn it over how greatly an angry victor in arms is to be feared.
Novi quod ad te scriberem nihil erat, et tamen, si quid esset, sciebam te a tuis certiorem fieri solere; de futuris autem rebus etsi semper difficile est dicere, tamen interdum coniectura possis propius accedere, cum est res eius modi cuius exitus provideri possit. nunc tantum videmur intellegere, non diuturnum bellum; etsi id ipsum non nullis videmur secus. equidem, cum haec scribebam, aliquid iam actum putabam, †non quo, sed quod difficilis erat coniectura. nam cum omnis belli Mars communis et cum semper incerti exitus proeliorum sunt, tum hoc tempore ita magnae utrimque copiae, ita paratae ad depugnandum esse dicuntur, ut, utercumque vicerit, non sit mirum futurum. illa in dies singulos magis magisque opinio hominum confirmatur, etiam si inter causas armorum aliquantum intersit, tamen inter victorias non multum interfuturum. alteros prope modum iam sumus experti, de altero nemo est quin cogitet quam sit metuendus iratus victor armatus.
If, on this point, I seem to be increasing the grief which I ought, by consoling, to lighten, I confess that, for the common evils, I can find no consolation except that one which, if you can take it up, is the greatest of all, and of which I make more and more use every day: that the consciousness of upright intention is the greatest consolation for adverse circumstances, and that there is no great evil except guilt. From which since we are so far that we have even thought our best, and the outcome rather than the counsel of our plan is censured, and since we performed what we owed, let us bear with moderation what has come about. But for myself I do not take it upon me to console you about our common miseries, which need a greater talent for consoling and a singular virtue for bearing; to show why above all others you have no business of grieving is a thing easy enough for anyone. For of the man who has been slower in lightening your case than we had thought he would be, my judgement on your safety is not in doubt; and of those others, I do not suppose you are waiting to hear what I think.
hoc loco si videor augere dolorem tuum, quem consolando levare debeam, fateor me communium malorum consolationem nullam invenire praeter illam, quae tamen, si possis eam suscipere, maxima est, quaque ego cotidie magis utor, conscientiam rectae voluntatis maximam consolationem esse rerum incommodarum nec esse ullum magnum malum praeter culpam. A qua quoniam tantum absumus, ut etiam optime senserimus eventusque magis nostri consili quam consilium reprehendatur, et quoniam praestitimus quod debuimus, moderate quod evenit feramus. sed hoc mihi tamen non sumo, ut te consoler de communibus miseriis, quae ad consolandum maioris ingeni et ad ferendum singularis virtutis indigent; illud cuivis facile est docere cur praecipue tu dolere nihil debeas. eius enim, qui tardior in te levando fuit quam fore putaremus, non est mihi dubia de tua salute sententia, de illis autem non arbitror te exspectare quid sentiam.
What remains to gnaw at you is that you have been so long away from your own — a hard thing, especially from those boys, than whom nothing can be more delightful. But, as I wrote you before, the time is of such a kind that each man counts his own lot the most wretched of all, and least wants to be where he is. As for me, I count those of us who are at Rome the most wretched, not only because in evils of every kind it is more bitter to see than to hear, but also because we are more exposed to every chance of sudden danger than if we were away. And yet, in my own case, length of time has softened me — your consoler — not so much as those literary studies to which I have always devoted myself.
reliquum est ut te angat, quod absis a tuis tam diu. res molesta, praesertim ab iis pueris, quibus nihil potest esse festivius; sed, ut ad te scripsi antea, tempus est huius modi ut suam quisque condicionem miserrimam putet et, ubi quisque sit, ibi esse minime velit. equidem nos, qui Romae sumus, miserrimos esse duco, non solum quod in malis omnibus acerbius est videre quam audire, sed etiam quod ad omnis casus subitorum periculorum magis obiecti sumus quam si abessemus. etsi me ipsum consolatorem tuum non tantum litterae, quibus semper studui, quantum longinquitas temporis mitigavit.
You remember in what grief I was. In that grief the first consolation is this: that I saw further than the rest, when I was longing for peace on terms however unequal; and although this came of chance, not of any divination of mine, still in this empty credit for foresight I take delight. Then, in what is, for my consoling, a thing I share with you: that if I were called now to the close of life, I should not be torn away from a commonwealth for being parted from which I should have to grieve, the more so since this will come about without any perception. Age too helps, and a life already lived, which at once delights with its well-finished course, and forbids one to fear force in that to which nature herself has nearly led us already. Lastly, such a man — or rather such men — have fallen in this war, that it would seem shameless to refuse the same fortune if the case required it. As for me, I set every possibility before myself, and there is no evil so great that I do not think it threatens. But, since there is more evil in the fearing than in the very thing that is feared, I have done with fear, the more so since what threatens is a thing in which there will be not only no pain, but also an end of pain. But enough of this — or rather, more than was necessary; what makes my letters long, however, is not loquacity but goodwill.
quanto fuerim dolore meministi. in quo prima illa consolatio est, vidisse me plus quam ceteros, cum cupiebam quamvis iniqua condicione pacem; quod etsi casu, non divinatione mea factum est, tamen in hac mani prudentiae laude delector. deinde, quod mihi ad consolationem commune tecum est, si iam vocer ad exitum vitae, non ab ea re p. avellar, qua carendum esse doleam, praesertim cum id sine ullo sensu futurum sit. adiuvat etiam aetas et acta iam vita, quae cum cursu suo bene confecto delectat tum vetat in eo vim timere, quo nos iam natura ipsa paene perduxerit. postremo is vir vel etiam ii viri hoc bello occiderunt, ut impudentia videatur eandem fortunam, si res cogat, recusare. equidem mihi omnia propono, nec ullum est tantum malum quod non putem impendere. sed, cum plus in metuendo mali sit quam in ipso illo, quod timetur, desino, praesertim cum id impendeat, in quo non modo dolor nullus, verum finis etiam doloris futurus sit. sed haec satis multa, vel plura potius quam necesse fuit; facit autem non loquacitas mea, sed benevolentia longiores epistulas.
I was sorry to hear that Servius had left Athens. For I do not doubt that his daily meeting and conversation used to be a great relief to you, both as that of a closest friend and as that of a man at once excellent and most prudent. As for you — I should be glad if you would, as you ought and as you are wont, sustain yourself by your own virtue. As for myself, whatever I think you wish, and whatever I think bears on you and on yours, I shall attend to all of it with zeal and diligence. In so doing I shall be imitating your goodwill toward me; the services I shall not match. Farewell.
Servium discessisse Athenis moleste tuli; non enim dubito quin magnae tibi levationi solitus sit esse cotidianus congressus et sermo cum familiarissimi hominis tum optimi et prudentissimi viri. tu velim te, ut debes et soles, tua virtute sustentes. ego, quae te velle quaeque ad te et ad tuos pertinere arbitrabor, omnia studiose diligenterque curabo. quae cum faciam, benevolentiam tuam erga me imitabor, merita non adsequar. vale.