HermitshCicero by Claude

Letter · 11 May 43 BC · Romae

Ad Familiares 10.13

Ad Familiares 10.13

Headnote

Cicero to Plancus, written from Rome around 11 May 43 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. Romae circ. v Id. Mai. a. 711 (43). A short covering note for a senatorial decree in Plancus’s honour. News of the victory at Mutina (21 April) has reached the city; Antony has been driven back across the Alps; Plancus, governor of Transalpine Gaul, has put his army in motion and written to the Senate of his loyalty. Cicero, who has been the architect of the senatorial campaign against Antony since the previous September, drafts the motion of thanks himself and reports back to Plancus that it has passed in a full house with overwhelming support.

The second section delivers the political point under the compliment: Plancus must not slacken. The war is not over when Antony is beaten; the war is over when Antony is finished. Cicero reaches for Homer to make the case — Ulysses, not Ajax or Achilles, is the [Greek: ptolipor\=thion], the sacker of cities, because it was Ulysses who delivered the final stroke. The flattery is calculated: Plancus is being told he can be the Ulysses of this war if he closes it now.

The moment the power was given me of advancing your standing, I omitted nothing in your honour that could be set down either as a reward of valour or as a tribute in words. You will be able to see this from the senatorial decree itself: for it is written out exactly as I delivered the motion from a prepared text; and a crowded Senate followed me with the highest enthusiasm and an overwhelming consensus.
ut primum potestas data est augendae dignitatis tuae, nihil praetermisi in te ornando, quod positum esset aut in praemio virtutis aut in honore verborum. id ex ipso s. c. poteris cognoscere ita enim est perscriptum, ut a me de scripto dicta sententia est; quam senatus frequens secutus est summo studio magnoque consensu.
Although from your letters which you sent me I had perceived clearly enough that you take more pleasure in the judgement of good men than in the outward marks of glory, still I thought we had to consider, even if you yourself were asking for nothing, how much was owed to you by the state. You will join the last stage of the work to the first. For whoever crushes Marcus Antonius will have finished the war; and so it was not Ajax, not Achilles, but Ulysses whom Homer called ptoliporthion — “sacker of cities.”
ego quamquam ex tuis litteris, quas mihi misisti perspexeram te magis iudicio bonorum quam insignibus gloriae delectari, tamen considerandum nobis existimavi, etiam si tu nihil postulares, quantum tibi a re p. deberetur. tu contexes extrema cum primis. qui enim M. Antonium oppresserit, is bellum confecerit; itaque Homerus non Aiacem nec Achillem sed Ulixem appellavit ptolipo/rqion.

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Ad Familiares 10.13

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