HermitshCicero by Claude

Letter · 4 June 43 BC · Romae

Ad Familiares 11.21

Ad Familiares 11.21

Headnote

Cicero to D. Junius Brutus Albinus, imperator and consul-elect, from Rome on 4 June 43 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. Romae prid. Non. Iun. a. 711 (43). The political weather has just turned again. On 30 April the senate received the news of Antony’s defeat at Mutina; on 30 May, on Cicero’s motion, Lepidus was declared a public enemy after his junction with Antony in Gaul. The supplicationes for Mutina had been voted, but the honours and the practical follow-on — the planned board of ten to settle veterans’ lands, the four legions Brutus proposed to keep up, the relations between Brutus’s army and Octavian’s — were all live business in early June. Brutus is still in the field, advancing into Cisalpine Gaul to take up the pursuit of Antony; Cicero is in Rome, managing the senate.

The letter is a reply on four fronts. First, a piece of poisonous gossip retailed by one Segulius Labeo — a man Cicero had encountered before — to the effect that the veterans were murmuring against Brutus and Octavian because they had not been placed on the agrarian commission of ten. Cicero, who was on the commission, brushes the gossip aside: it was on his own motion that commanders in the field were exempted from the board, against the opposition of the usual obstructors. Second, Brutus has expressed personal anxiety for Cicero’s safety; Cicero releases him from it with a Stoic dignity he has earned the right to claim. Third, Brutus has urged him to keep his nerve — “do not let fear of fear push you into fear” — and Cicero accepts the counsel while gently turning it round: with Brutus’s resources and his prospective consulship, fear should have no foothold. Fourth, the concrete agenda — the four legions to be kept on the books, the lands to be assigned by Brutus and Octavian jointly — has Cicero’s energetic backing; he has personally beaten off a play by other senators to take the land commission for themselves, and offers to send sensitive matter back by a private courier. The closing date, Pr. Non. Iun., is 4 June.

A curse on Segulius from the gods, the worst man of all who are, who have been, or ever will be! What — do you suppose he said it to you alone, or to Caesar only? He has passed up no one he could get talking with, to whom he has not retailed those very same things. Still, my Brutus, I love you as I should, for wanting me to know that bit of nonsense, whatever it was; you have given a great sign of your affection.
dei isti Segulio male faciant, homini nequissimo omnium, qui sunt, qui fuerunt, qui futuri sunt! quid? tu illum tecum solum aut cum Caesare? qui neminem praetermiserit, quicum loqui potuerit, cui non eadem ista dixerit. te tamen, mi Brute, sic amo ut debeo, quod istud quicquid esset nugarum me scire voluisti; signum enim magnum amoris dedisti.
As for your saying that this same Segulius reports that the veterans are complaining because you and Caesar were not put on the board of ten — I wish I were not on it myself! What could be more vexing? But all the same, since it had been my view that the motion ought to bring in those who held armies, those same persons who always do raised the cry against it; and so you were even excepted, with me fighting hard against it. For which reason let us pay Segulius no mind — a man hunting after a fresh fortune, not because he has eaten through his old one (he never had one), but because he has devoured this very recent new one.
nam quod idem Segulius, veteranos queri, quod tu et Caesar in decem viris non essetis, utinam ne ego quidem essem! quid enim molestius? sed tamen, cum ego sensissem de iis qui exercitus haberent sententiam ferri oportere, idem illi qui solent reclamarunt; itaque excepti etiam estis me vehementer repugnante. Quocirca Segulium neglegamus qui res novas quaerit, non quo veterem comederit (nullam enim habuit) sed hanc ipsam recentem novam devoravit.
As for what you write — that, what you do not do for your own sake, you do for mine, in that you are afraid for me on some count — I free you, my Brutus, best of men and dearest to me, from every fear on my behalf; for in what can be guarded against I shall not be caught off guard, and over what does not admit of precaution I do not greatly trouble myself. I should be shameless indeed if I demanded more than can be granted to a man by the nature of things.
quod autem scribis te, quod pro te ipso non facias, id pro me, ut de me timeas aliquid, omni te, vir optime mihique carissime, Brute, de me metu libero; ego enim quae provideri poterunt non fallar in iis, quae cautionem non habebunt de iis non ita valde laboro. sim enim impudens, si plus postulem quam homini a rerum natura tribui potest.
As for your instructing me to take care that by being afraid I do not force myself to fear the more, you instruct me wisely and like a true friend; but I would have you persuaded that, while it is agreed you excel in this kind of virtue — that you never take fright, are never thrown into confusion — I come closest after you in this excellence of yours. So I fear nothing, and I shall take care over everything. But see to it, my Brutus, that the fault will not now be yours, if I am afraid of anything. With your resources and with your consulship, even if we were timid men, we should still cast off all fear, especially when it has been impressed on everyone, and on me above all, that we are loved by you above any other. With your proposals — about the four legions, and about the lands to be assigned by each of you — I am in vigorous agreement. And so, when certain of our colleagues were nibbling after the land-assignment commission for themselves, I broke up the affair and kept the whole thing intact for us. If there is anything more confidential and, as you write, “buried away,” I shall send one of my own men, so that the letter may be carried to you the more faithfully. The day before the Nones of June.
quod mihi praecipis ut caveam ne timendo magis timere cogar, et sapienter et amicissime praecipis; sed velim tibi persuadeas, cum te constet excellere hoc genere virtutis ut numquam extimescas, numquam perturbere, me huic tuae virtuti proxime accedere. quam ob rem nec metuo quicquam et cavebo omnia. sed vide ne tua iam, mi Brute, culpa futura sit, si ego quicquam timeam. tuis enim opibus et consulatu tuo, etiam si timidi essemus, tamen omnem timorem abiceremus, praesertim cum persuasum omnibus esset mihique maxime a te nos unice diligi. consiliis tuis, quae scribis de quattuor legionibus deque agris adsignandis ab utroque vestrum, vehementer adsentior. itaque cum quidam de conlegis nostris agrariam curationem ligurrirent, disturbavi rem totamque nobis integram reservavi. si quid erit occultius et, ut scribis, ’reconditum,’ meorum aliquem mittam, quo fidelius ad te litterae perferantur. Pr. non. Iun.

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Ad Familiares 11.21

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