HermitshCicero by Claude

Letter · 25 June 46 BC · Romae

Ad Familiares 9.6

Ad Familiares 9.6

Headnote

Cicero to Varro, written at Rome between the twelfth and the seventh day before the Kalends of Quintilis (= July) 46 BC (Perseus: Romae inter xii et vii K.~Quint.~a.~708 (46)), that is, in the last week of June, with Caesar’s return from the African campaign now expected at any moment. The letter opens as a piece of practical intelligence — where to prepare hospitality for the dictator: he had written that he would come to his villa at Alsium, but Hirtius, Balbus, and Oppius have advised him to land at Ostia instead, and Cicero passes this on so that Varro can have a guest-room ready in either place. The naming of the three Caesarian intimates is itself the point of the passage. Cicero is careful to record both that he is on familiar terms with them and that they have shown themselves friends of Varro; he is mapping, in the simplest possible terms, the channel through which two ex-Pompeians of consular and senatorial rank now communicate with the regime.

The middle of the letter is the most candid statement Cicero ever made about his own retrospective judgment of the war. “It is not the same thing,” he says, “to bear what must be borne and to approve what is not to be approved”; and then, with a remarkable concession: he no longer even knows what he would now disapprove of, beyond the war’s beginnings, “for those were a matter of will.” Our friends, he says, wanted the war; Caesar did not so much want it as not fear it. He was always with Varro, he adds, in dreading that the extreme of all evils was a victory in a civil war, whichever side won — and he confesses he had feared even the victory of the side to which they had come, since the most idle of them were making cruel threats. The end of the letter is the manifesto of Fam.~9.2 brought back in different language: in tempests like these, Varro stands almost alone in port; his Tusculan days are “the very pattern of a life”; and since studies, in the verdict of great men, carry a kind of furlough from public duty, with the commonwealth’s leave they will draw on them to the full.

Our friend Caninius, speaking in your name, has reminded me to write to you if there were anything I thought you should know. Well, then: Caesar’s arrival is being looked for, as you are no doubt aware. He had written, I believe, that he would come to his place at Alsium; but his people wrote back asking him not to — many would be a nuisance to him, and he to many; Ostia, they thought, would be a more convenient landing. I could not see what difference it made; but Hirtius told me that he and Balbus and Oppius had written advising it — men whom I have come to know as great friends of yours.
Caninius noster me tuis verbis admonuit, ut scriberem ad te, si quid esset quod putarem te scire oportere. est igitur adventus Caesaris scilicet in exspectatione, neque tu id ignoras. sed tamen, cum ille scripsisset, ut opinor, se in Alsiense venturum, scripserunt ad eum sui ne id faceret; multos ei molestos fore ipsumque multis; Ostiae videri commodius eum exire posse. id ego non intellegebam quid interesset; sed tamen Hirtius mihi dixit et se ad eum et Balbum et Oppium scripsisse ut ita faceret, homines, ut cognovi, amantis tui.
I wanted you to know this so that you might know where to prepare your hospitality — or rather, at both places (since it is uncertain what he will do) — and at the same time to give you some sign that I am on familiar terms with those men and party to their counsels. Why I should not be, I see no reason: it is not the same thing to bear what must be borne and to approve what is not to be approved. Though, for that matter, what I should now disapprove of I no longer know, beyond the beginnings of the business; for those were a matter of will. I saw with my own eyes, while you were absent, our friends wanting the war, and this man not so much wanting it as not fearing it. Those, then, were matters of choice; the rest was forced. And that one side or the other should win, that was unavoidable.
hoc ego idcirco nosse te volui, ut scires hospitium tibi ubi parares, vel potius ut utrubique (quid enim ille facturus sit incertum est), et simul ostentavi tibi me istis esse familiarem et consiliis eorum interesse. quod ego cur nolim nihil video; non enim est idem ferre, si quid ferendum est, et probare, si quid non probandum est. etsi quid non probem equidem iam nescio, praeter initia rerum; nam haec in voluntate fuerunt. vidi enim (nam tu aberas) nostros amicos cupere bellum, hunc autem non tam cupere quam non timere (ergo haec consili fuerunt, reliqua necessaria), vincere autem aut hos aut illos necesse esse.
I know that you were always with me in our mourning, when we saw both that vast evil — the destruction of one army or the other and of their commanders — and beyond that, that the very extremity of all evils was a victory in civil war. And I confess I feared even that victory from the side to which we had come: for the most disengaged of them were making cruel threats, and both your inclination and my talking were hateful to them. As things have turned out, had our side prevailed, they would have been wildly intemperate: they were furious with us, as though we had decided anything for our own safety that we had not equally counselled for theirs, or as though it were more useful to the commonwealth for them to flee even for help to wild beasts than either to die, or to live with some hope —
scio te semper mecum in luctu fuisse, cum videremus quom illud ingens malum, alterius utrius exercitus et ducum interitum, tum vero extremum malorum omnium esse civilis belli victoriam; quam quidem ego etiam illorum timebam, ad quos veneramus; crudeliter enim otiosissimi minabantur, eratque iis et tua invisa voluntas et mea oratio; nunc vero, si essent nostri potiti, valde intemperantes fuissent, erant enim nobis perirati; quasi quicquam de nostra salute decrevissemus, quod non idem illis censuissemus, aut quasi utilius rei p. fuerit eos etiam ad bestiarum auxilium confugere quam vel emori vel cum spe,
if not the best hope, at any rate some. “But we live in a disordered commonwealth.” Who denies it? Let those see to it who have laid up no resources for themselves against every condition of life: I have drifted further than I wished, but the way back to my point is this. As I have always counted you a great man, so now in these tempests you stand almost alone in port, and reap the greatest fruits that learning bears — that you turn your mind to, and handle in your hands, those things whose use and whose pleasure together are to be preferred to all the doings and all the pleasures of those people. For my part, these Tusculan days of yours seem to me the very pattern of a life; and I would gladly yield up to all men all advantages, if it were granted me, with no force breaking in, to live in that way.
si non optima, at aliqua tamen vivere. at in perturbata re p. vivimus. quis negat? sed hoc viderint ii, qui nulla sibi subsidia ad omnis vitae status paraverunt; huc enim ut venirem, superior longius quam volui fluxit oratio. Cum enim te semper magnum hominem duxi, tum quod his tempestatibus es prope solus in portu fructusque doctrinae percipis eos qui maximi sunt, ut ea consideres eaque tractes, quorum et usus et delectatio est omnibus istorum et actis et voluptatibus anteponenda. equidem hos tuos Tusculanensis dies instar esse vitae puto libenterque omnibus omnis opes concesserim, ut mihi liceat vi nulla interpellante isto modo vivere;
And we, as far as we can, imitate it; we take our rest most gladly in our studies. For who will not grant us this much: that, since our country either cannot or will not use our service, we should turn back to that life which many learned men, perhaps not rightly, but in any case many, have thought even preferable to the service of the state? Studies, then, which in the verdict of great men carry a kind of furlough from public duty: with the commonwealth’s leave, why not draw on them to the full?
quod nos quoque imitamur, ut possumus, et in nostris studiis libentissime conquiescimus. quis enim hoc non dederit nobis ut, cum opera nostra patria sive non possit uti sive nolit, ad eam vitam revertamur, quam multi docti homines fortasse non recte, sed tamen multi etiam rei p. praeponendam putaverunt? quae igitur studia magnorum hominum sententia vacationem habent quandam publici muneris, iis concedente re p. cur non abutamur?
But I am doing more than Caninius charged me with. He had asked, fairly enough, that if I knew anything you did not know, I should tell it to you — and here I am, narrating to you what you know better than I, the narrator, do. So I will do what I was asked: that you may know nothing of what belongs to the present hour, whatever I shall have learned of it I will report to you.
sed plus facio quam Caninius mandavit, †iure enim, si quid ego scirem, rogarat, quod tu nescires, ego tibi ea narro, quae tu melius scis quam ipse, qui narro. faciam ergo illud, quod rogatus sum, ut eorum, quae temporis huius sint, †quae tua audiero, ne quid ignores.

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Ad Familiares 9.6

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