Ad Familiares 10.21
Ad Familiares 10.21
Headnote
L. Munatius Plancus to Cicero, written from camp shortly before the Ides of May 43 BC according to the Perseus dateline Scr. in castris pnd. Id. Mai. a. 711 (43); but the events the letter narrates — the Isara bridge and the warning from Laterensis — belong to the days immediately preceding Lepidus’s defection on 29 May, so a dating in late May or the very beginning of June is what the contents require.
The letter is the apologia for an alliance that fell apart in Plancus’s hands. He had written confidently two days earlier that Lepidus was a good man and the war would be conducted by joint counsel; this letter unwrites that. The Isara has been bridged in a single day on Lepidus’s urging; an orderly then arrives with a fresh dispatch telling Plancus not to come — Lepidus, Plancus suspects, wants to keep the glory to himself. Plancus’s tone is candidly self-incriminating about this — “I will lay bare my rash plan to you” — and the candour is part of the self-defence. Then comes the letter of Laterensis, the upright Senate-appointee inside Lepidus’s camp, warning that Lepidus’s good faith is gone and that he, Laterensis, considers his own pledge to vouch for it discharged. The mutinous shout from Lepidus’s troops — “we want peace, we will not fight” — which Lepidus neither punishes nor cures, is the proof. Plancus pulls back, keeps the army intact, and asks Cicero to hurry an army up from Italy. The closing imperatives — send the army quickly, before the enemy gather and our side falter — are the operative request the letter is built to deliver.
I would be ashamed of the inconsistency of my letters, if it did not depend on another man’s fickleness. I did everything to ensure that, with Lepidus joined to me in the defence of the state, I might withstand desperate men with less anxiety on your part; I accepted everything from him when he asked, and made promises to him of my own accord besides, and wrote to you two days ago that I was confident I should find Lepidus a good man and should conduct the war by a shared strategy. I trusted his autograph letters, and the assurance of Laterensis on the spot, who at the time was with me and begged me to be reconciled to Lepidus and to trust him. I was not allowed to hope well of him any longer; but this at least I have guarded against, and shall guard against: that the supreme interests of the state shall not be betrayed by my credulity.
puderet me inconstantiae mearum litterarum, si non haec ex aliena levitate penderent. omnia feci qua re Lepido coniuncto ad rem p. defendendam minore sollicitudine vestra perditis resisterem; omnia ei et petenti recepi et ultro pollicitus sum scripsique tibi biduo ante confidere me bono Lepido esse usurum communique consilio bellum administraturum. credidi chirographis eius, adfirmationi praesentis Laterensis, qui tum apud me erat reconciliaremque me Lepido fidemque haberem orabat. non licuit diutius bene de eo sperare; illud certe cavi et cavebo ne mea credulitate rei p. summa fallatur.
When I had thrown a bridge across the river Isara in a single day and led the army over — applying speed to match the magnitude of the matter, because Lepidus himself had asked by letter that I hasten my coming — his orderly was at hand with a despatch in which he ordered me not to come; he could finish the business by himself; meanwhile I should wait at the Isara. I will lay bare my rash plan to you: I had nonetheless decided to go on, supposing that he was trying to dodge a partner in his glory. I imagined I could both refrain from skimming any of the credit from a man hungry for it, and yet have my forces close at hand, so that if anything went harder than expected I could come up swiftly in support.
Cum Isaram flumen uno die ponte effecto exercitum traduxissem pro magnitudine rei celeritatem adhibens, quod petierat per litteras ipse ut maturarem venire, praesto mihi fuit stator eius cum litteris, quibus ne venirem denuntiabat; se posse per se conficere negotium; interea ad Isaram exspectarem. indicabo temerarium meum consilium tibi: nihilo minus ire decreram existimans eum socium gloriae vitare. putabam posse me nec de laude ieiuni hominis delibare quicquam et subesse tamen propinquis locis, ut, si durius aliquid esset, succurrere celeriter possem.
I, no bad man myself, was suspecting this much. But Laterensis, a man of the most upright character, sends me by his own hand a letter despairing only too deeply of himself, of the army, of Lepidus’s good faith, complaining that he had been abandoned, in which he openly warns me to look out lest I be deceived; his own pledge was discharged; I was not to fail the state. I have sent a copy of his autograph to Titius; the autographs themselves — all of them, both those I believed and those I judged should not be trusted — I shall give to Laevus Cispius to carry through, who was party to the whole affair.
ego a non malus homo hoc suspicabar. at Laterensis, vir sanctis simus suo chirographo mittit mihi litteras nimisque desperans de se, de exercitu, de Lepidi fide querensque se destitutum, in quibus aperte denuntiat videam ne fallar; suam fidem solutam esse; rei p. ne desim. exemplar eius chirographi Titio misi; ipsa chirographa omnia, et ea quibus credidi, et ea quibus fidem non habendam putavi, Laevo Cispio dabo perferenda, qui omnibus iis interfuit rebus.
On top of this it happened that Lepidus’s soldiers, while he was haranguing them — corrupt of themselves and further corrupted by their officers, men of the Canidius and Rufrenus stamp and the rest, whose names you shall know when occasion serves — shouted with one voice that they, like good men, wanted peace and would not fight against any party, now that two consuls of exceptional quality had been killed, so many citizens lost in the cause of their country, all the enemy declared public enemies at last and their goods confiscated; and Lepidus neither punished this nor cured it.
accessit eo ut milites eius, cum Lepidus contionaretur, improbi per se, corrupti etiam per eos qui praesunt, Canidios Rufrenosque et ceteros quos cum opus erit scietis, conclamarent viri boni pacem se velle neque esse cum ullis pugnaturos duobus iam consulibus singularibus occisis, tot civibus pro patria amissis, hostibus denique omnibus iudicatis bonisque publicatis; neque hoc aut vindicarat Lepidus aut sanarat.
To advance into this and to throw a most loyal army, the greatest of auxiliary forces, the chiefs of Gaul, an entire province, into the path of two armies joined together — I saw this would be the height of folly and recklessness; and that for me, if I were so crushed and betrayed the state along with myself, there would be lacking, in death, not only honour but even pity. So I am about to fall back, and I shall not allow such great prizes to be handed over to desperate men.
hoc me venire et duobus exercitibus coniunctis obicere exercitum fidelissimum, auxilia maxima, principes Galliae, provinciam cunctam summae dementiae et temeritatis esse vidi, mihique, si ita oppressus essem remque publicam mecum prodidissem, mortuo non modo honorem sed misericordiam quoque defuturum. itaque rediturus sum nec tanta munera perditis hominibus dari posse sinam.
I shall take pains to hold the army in suitable positions, to protect the province even if that other army has defected, and to keep everything intact, until you send up reinforcements and with matching good fortune vindicate the state on your end. No man has been readier to fight to the finish, if occasion offers, to be besieged, if it must be, to die, if it falls so, for your sake. Therefore I urge you, my Cicero, to see to it that that army is sent across as quickly as possible, and to hasten it on, before the enemy gather more strength and our side fall into confusion. If speed is applied to this, the state will remain in possession of victory and the criminals will be destroyed. Take care to keep well, and to hold me in your affection.
ut exercitum locis habeam opportunis, provinciam tuear, etiam si ille exercitus descierit, omniaque integra servem dabo operam, quoad exercitus hoc summittatis parique felicitate rem p. hic vindicetis. nec depugnare, si occasio tulerit, nec obsideri, si necesse fuerit, nec mori, si casus inciderit, pro vobis paratior fuit quisquam. qua re hortor te, mi Cicero, exercitum hoc traiciendum quam primum cures et matures, prius quam hostes magis conroborentur et nostri perturbentur. in quo si celeritas erit adhibita, res p. in possessione victoriae deletis sceleratis permanebit. fac valeas meque diligas.