Ad Familiares 7.1
Ad Familiares 7.1
Headnote
Cicero to M. Marius, written at Rome in October 55 BC, just after the lavish dedication-games of Pompey’s stone theatre — the first permanent theatre at Rome, on the Campus Martius. The literary friend at Pompeii, ill of body but happy in his bedroom-window-cut-to-Stabiae, has stayed home from the games. Cicero writes the letter that has stayed with this friendship in literary history: a wry account of the games for the man who was right not to come.
The first half is the games themselves: Sp. Maecius Tarpa’s stage-plays (a forgivable sin against Marius’s taste, since the elderly Aesopus’s voice failed him in the oath si sciens fallo), the six hundred mules in Accius’s Clytaemnestra, the three thousand mixing-bowls in the revival of the Equus Troianus, the gladiatorial shows on which (Pompey himself confessed) “both his pains and his oil were lost,” and the dual-five-day beast-hunts. Cicero’s most famous comment closes section 3: on the last day’s elephants, “a kind of pity followed, and the impression that there is some kind of fellowship between that beast and the human race” — the locus classicus of Roman compassion for the elephants of the games (cf. Pliny NH 8.21).
The second half is the moral. Cicero almost burst himself defending Caninius Gallus, a maiestas case; the law’s yoke, and the inability to say no when good friends ask, are the present grievances. He looks forward to true leisure — to visit Marius’s villa with him on the litter, and to learn from the man who has long studied nothing else what it is to live as a human being. The closing pun is Cicero at his lightest: Marius half-invited him to write so as to not regret missing the games, and now Marius will have to come to the games next time — because his absence cannot expect another such letter.
If some pain of the body, or some weakness of your health, has held you back from coming to the games, I assign it more to fortune than to your wisdom. But if those things which the rest wonder at, you have judged contemptible — and if, when by your health you could come, you yet did not wish to — at each I rejoice: both that you have been without bodily pain, and that you were strong of mind, when you neglected things which others wonder at without cause; provided only that the fruit of your leisure has stood you in good stead. Of which you could enjoy yourself wonderfully, since you were left almost alone in that lovely place. Nor do I doubt that, in that bedroom of yours from which you have pierced through and laid open the gulf of Stabiae, through those days you spent the morning hours in little readings, while those who left you in the country, half-asleep, were watching the public mimes. The rest of the parts of the day you spent in the delights you had prepared for yourself at your own pleasure. We, however, had to endure those things which Spurius Maecius had approved.
si te dolor aliqui corporis aut infirmitas valetudinis tuae tenuit quo minus ad ludos venires, fortunae magis tribuo quam sapientiae tuae; sin haec, quae ceteri mirantur, contemnenda duxisti et, cum per valetudinem posses, venire tamen noluisti, utrumque laetor, et sine dolore corporis te fuisse et animo valuisse, cum ea, quae sine causa mirantur alii, neglexeris, modo ut tibi constiterit fructus oti tui; quo quidem tibi perfrui mirifice licuit, cum esses in ista amoenitate paene solus relictus. neque tamen dubito quin tu in illo cubiculo tuo, ex quo tibi Stabianum perforasti et patefecisti sinum, per eos dies matutina tempora lectiunculis consumpseris, cum illi interea, qui te istic reliquerunt, spectarent communis mimos semisomni. reliquas vero partis dici tu consumebas iis delectationibus, quas tibi ipse ad arbitrium tuum compararas; nobis autem erant ea perpetienda, quae Sp. Maecius probavisset.
On the whole, if you ask, the games were of the most lavish equipment, but not to your taste — for I conjecture from my own. For first, by way of the honour, those had returned to the stage who, by way of the honour, I had supposed had withdrawn from the stage. As for your favourite, our Aesopus, he was such that everyone agreed he ought to retire. When he had begun to take an oath, his voice failed him at this place: “si sciens fallo” (“if I knowingly deceive”). Why should I tell you of the rest? You know the other games. Which had not even that much grace which middling games are wont to have. For the spectacle of the equipment took away all the cheer; with which equipment, of course, I do not doubt that you have done without it with the most equal mind. For what delight is there in six hundred mules in Clytaemnestra, or three thousand mixing-bowls in the Trojan Horse, or various armour of foot and horse in some battle? Things which had popular wonder would have brought you no delight at all.
omnino, si quaeris, ludi apparatissimi, sed non tui stomachi; coniecturam enim facio de meo. nam primum honoris causa in scaenam redierant ii quos ego honoris causa de scaena decessisse arbitrabar. deliciae vero tuae, noster Aesopus, eius modi fuit ut ei desinere per omnis homines liceret. is iurare cum coepisset, vox eum defecit in illo loco: ’ si sciens fallo.’ quid tibi ego alia narrem? nosti enim reliquos ludos; qui ne id quidem leporis habuerunt, quod solent mediocres ludi. apparatus enim spectatio tollebat omnem hilaritatem, quo quidem apparatu non dubito quin animo aequissimo carueris. quid enim delectationis habent sescenti muli in ’Clytaemestra’ aut in ’Equo Troiano’ creterrarum tria milia aut armatura varia peditatus et equitatus in aliqua pugna? quae popularem admirationem habuerunt, delectationem tibi nullam attulissent.
If during those days you gave attention to your Protogenes — provided that he read you anything rather than my speeches — surely you have had not a little more delight than any of us. For I do not think you missed the Greek or Oscan plays, especially since you can watch the Oscans even in your own town-council, and you so dislike the Greeks that you do not even go to your villa by the Greek way. Why should I think you missed the athletes, you who despised the gladiators? In which Pompey himself confesses that both his pains and his oil were lost. There are left the two beast-hunts in five days, magnificent, no one denies; but what delight can there be to a man of polish, when either a feeble man is torn by a most powerful beast, or a splendid beast is run through with the hunting-spear? Which yet, if they are to be seen, you have often seen; nor have we who watch these things seen anything new. The last day was of the elephants. There was great wonder of the crowd and of the throng, but no delight; rather, a kind of pity followed, and the impression that there is some kind of fellowship between that beast and the human race.
quod si tu per eos dies operam dedisti Protogeni tuo, dum modo is tibi quidvis potius quam orationes meas legerit, ne tu haud paulo plus quam quisquam nostrum delectationis habuisti. non enim te puto Graecos aut Oscos ludos desiderasse, praesertim cum Oscos vel in senatu vestro spectare possis, Graecos ita non ames ut ne ad villam quidem tuam via Graeca ire soleas. nam quid ego te athletas putem desiderare, qui gladiatores contempseris? in quibus ipse Pompeius confitetur se et operam et oleum perdidisse. reliquae sunt venationes binae per dies quinque, magnificae, nemo negat; sed quae potest homini esse polito delectatio, cum aut homo imbecillus a valentissima bestia laniatur aut praeclara bestia venabulo transverberatur? quae tamen, si videnda sunt, saepe vidisti; neque nos, qui haec spectamus, quicquam novi vidimus. extremus elephantorum dies fuit. in quo admiratio magna vulgi atque turbae, delectatio nulla exstitit; quin etiam misericordia quaedam consecuta est atque opinio eius modi, esse quandam illi beluae cum genere humano societatem.
I, however, on these days of the stage games — lest I should seem to you not only blessed but altogether free — almost burst myself in the trial of your friend Gallus Caninius. If I had as easygoing a people as Aesopus had, I should, by Hercules, gladly give up my craft, and live with you and with men like ourselves. For I was already weary even before, when both age and ambition urged me on, and when I was at last allowed not to defend whom I would not. But now indeed in this time there is no life. For I expect no fruit of my labour, and I am sometimes compelled to defend men who have not deserved best of me, at the asking of those who have deserved well.
his ego tamen diebus ludis scaenicis, ne forte videar tibi non modo beatus sed liber omnino fuisse, dirupi me paene in iudicio Galli Canini, familiaris tui. quod si tam facilem populum haberem quam Aesopus habuit, libenter me hercule artem desinerem tecumque et cum similibus nostri viverem. nam me cum antea taedebat, cum et aetas et ambitio me hortabatur, et licebat denique, quem nolebam, non defendere, tum vero hoc tempore vita nulla est. neque enim fructum ullum laboris exspecto et cogor non numquam homines non optime de me meritos rogatu eorum, qui bene meriti sunt defendere.
So I look at last for every reason of living at my own discretion; and your manner of leisure I both vehemently praise and approve; and that you visit us less, this I bear with the more equal mind because, even if you were at Rome, neither I should be allowed to enjoy your charm, nor you mine (if there is any in me), on account of my most troublesome occupations. From which if I shall relax (for to be entirely free I do not demand), I shall surely teach you, who for many years have studied nothing else, what it is to live as a human being. Only do you keep up and protect that weakness of yours of health, as you do, that you may visit our villas and run about with me on a little litter together.
itaque quaero causas omnis aliquando vivendi arbitratu meo teque et istam rationem oti tui et laudo vehementer et probo, quodque nos minus intervisis, hoc fero animo aequiore, quod, si Romae esses, tamen neque nos lepore tuo neque te, si qui est in me, meo frui liceret propter molestissimas occupationes meas. quibus si me relaxaro (nam, ut plane exsolvam, non postulo), te ipsum, qui multos annos nihil aliud commentaris, docebo profecto quid sit humaniter vivere. tu modo istam imbecillitatem valetudinis tuae sustenta et tuere, ut facis ut nostras villas obire et mecum simul lecticula concursare possis.
I have written you these things at greater length than I am wont, not from abundance of leisure but from love of you, because, by a certain letter of yours, you had — if you remember — half-invited me to write something of this kind, that you might less regret your missing the games. Which if I have attained, I rejoice; if not, this however I console myself with: that hereafter you will come to the games, and visit us, and you will not leave to my letters any hope of your delight.
haec ad te pluribus verbis scripsi quam soleo, non oti abundantia sed amoris erga te, quod me quadam epistula subinvitaras, si memoria tenes, ut ad te aliquid eius modi scriberem, quo minus te praetermisisse ludos paeniteret. quod si adsecutus sum, gaudeo; sin minus, hoc me tamen consolor, quod posthac ad ludos venies nosque vises neque in epistulis relinques meis spem aliquam delectationis tuae.