Ad Familiares 11.28
Ad Familiares 11.28
Headnote
C. Matius to Cicero, from Rome, a little after the preceding letter (11.27) — the Perseus dateline places it Scr. Romae paulo post ep. 27, so that the meta year-placeholder is here corrected to 44 BC. This is Matius’s reply to Cicero’s defense of their friendship: the complaint that Trebatius had carried to Cicero, and that Cicero had answered, now draws from Matius himself a full and deliberate response. Matius was an old equestrian friend of both men and a devoted personal intimate of Julius Caesar; after the Ides he had taken on the management of the ludi Victoriae Caesaris for Octavian and was widely reported to be the leading Caesarian voice in private conversation at Rome.
The letter is Matius’s celebrated apologia. Point by point he takes up the charges laid against him — that he grieves openly for a murdered man, that he superintended Octavian’s games, that he frequents Antony’s house — and he answers each not by political argument but by an appeal to the constancy of private friendship: it was a friend he followed in the civil dissension, not Caesar’s cause, of which he says he disapproved and which he strove to smother at its birth. He claims for himself the right, granted even to slaves, to grieve at his own discretion, and turns the language of the “authors of liberty” against them. The prose is built with great care — balanced, proud, wounded but unfailingly courteous — and the result is one of the most admired letters in the whole correspondence: the finest surviving statement from antiquity of personal loyalty held steady above political faction, and the dignified counterweight to Cicero’s own casuistry in 11.27.
I took great pleasure from your letter, because I learned that you hold the opinion of me that I had hoped and wished for; and although I had no doubt of it, still, because I valued it most highly, I was anxious that it should remain unspoiled. I was conscious, moreover, that nothing had been done by me that could offend the feeling of any good man. So much the less could I believe that you, adorned with so many and such excellent accomplishments, could have been persuaded of anything rashly — and least of all about a man toward whom my goodwill had been, and still was, ready and unbroken. Since I know that this is as I wished it, I will answer the charges which you, as was fitting given your singular kindness and our friendship, have so often resisted on my behalf.
magnam voluptatem ex tuis litteris cepi, quod quam speraram atque optaram habere te de me opinionem cognovi; de qua etsi non dubitabam, tamen, quia maximi aestimabam ut incorrupta maneret laborabam. conscius autem mihi eram nihil a me commissum esse quod boni cuiusquam offenderet animum. eo minus credebam plurimis atque optimis artibus ornato tibi temere quicquam persuaderi potuisse, praesertim in quem mea propensa et perpetua fuisset atque esset benevolentia. quod quoniam ut volui scio esse, respondebo criminibus, quibus tu pro me, ut par erat tua singulari bonitate et amicitia nostra, saepe restitisti.
For I know well what they have brought against me since Caesar’s death. They count it against me as a fault that I take hard the death of a man who was bound to me, and that I am indignant that a man I loved has perished; for they say that one’s country is to be set above friendship — as though they had already proved that his death was useful to the commonwealth. But I will not argue cunningly: I confess that I have not arrived at that pitch of wisdom. For it was not Caesar I followed in the civil dissension, but a friend; and though I was offended by the cause, still I did not desert him; nor did I ever approve of the civil war, or even of the ground of the dissension, which I strove with all my might to smother while it was still being born. And so, when a man bound to me had won, I was caught by no sweetness of office or of money — rewards which others, who had less weight with him than I, abused without measure. Indeed my own estate was diminished by a law of Caesar’s, by whose benefit very many of those who rejoice at Caesar’s death have remained in the state. I labored for sparing the conquered citizens as much as for my own preservation.
nota enim mihi sunt quae in me post Caesaris mortem contulerint. vitio mihi dant quod mortem hominis necessari graviter fero atque eum quem dilexi perisse indignor; aiunt enim patriam amicitiae praeponendam esse, proinde ac si iam vicerint obitum eius rei p. fuisse utilem. sed non agam astute; fateor me ad istum gradum sapientiae non pervenisse; neque enim Caesarem in dissensione civili sum secutus sed amicum; quamquam re offendebar, tamen non deserui, neque bellum umquam civile aut etiam causam dissensionis probavi, quam etiam nascentem exstingui summe studui. itaque in victoria hominis necessari neque honoris neque pecuniae dulcedine sum captus, quibus praemiis reliqui, minus apud eum quam ego cum possent, immoderate sunt abusi. atque etiam res familiaris mea lege Caesaris de minuta est, cuius beneficio plerique, qui Caesaris morte laetantur remanserunt, in civitate. civibus victis ut parceretur aeque ac pro mea salute laboravi.
Can I, then, who wished all men safe and sound, fail to be indignant that the man through whom this was obtained has perished? — especially when the very same men were both his envy and his ruin. “You will be punished, then,” they say, “since you dare to disapprove of our deed.” What unheard-of arrogance! That some may glory in a crime, while others may not so much as grieve unpunished! Yet these things have always been free even to slaves: that they might fear, rejoice, grieve at their own discretion rather than another’s — the very things which now, as those men keep proclaiming, the “authors of liberty” are trying to wring from us by fear.
possum igitur qui omnis voluerim incolumis eum a quo id impetratum est perisse non indignari? cum praesertim idem homines illi et invidiae et exitio fuerint. ’ plecteris ergo’ inquiunt ’quoniam factum nostrum improbare audes.’ O superbiam inauditam alios in facinore gloriari, aliis ne dolore quidem impunite licere! at haec etiam servis semper libera fuerunt, ut timerent, gauderent, dolerent suo potius quam alterius arbitrio; quae nunc, ut quidem isti dictitant, ’libertatis auctores’ metu nobis extorquere conantur.
But they accomplish nothing. By the terrors of no danger will I ever swerve from duty or from humanity; for I have never thought an honorable death to be shunned, but often even to be sought out. Yet why are they angry with me, if I wish that they may come to repent of their deed? For I desire that Caesar’s death be bitter to all. “But I ought, as a citizen, to wish the commonwealth safe.” That I do desire this — unless my past life and my remaining hope prove it while I am silent — I do not ask to win by speaking.
sed nihil agunt; nullius umquam periculi terroribus ab officio aut ab humanitate desciscam; numquam enim honestam mortem fugiendam, saepe etiam oppetendam putavi. sed quid mihi suscensent, si id opto ut paeniteat eos sui facti? cupio enim Caesaris mortem omnibus esse acerbam. ’ at debeo pro civili parte rem p. velle salvam.’ id quidem me cupere, nisi et ante acta vita et reliqua mea spes tacente me probat, dicendo vincere non postulo.
Therefore I ask you all the more earnestly to count the fact weightier than the argument, and to believe me, if you feel that to do right is to one’s advantage, that there can be no fellowship with the wicked. Or shall I now, with my age running headlong, change and unweave myself — I, who as a young man held to my course when I might even have erred with excuse? I will not do it, nor will I commit anything that could give offense, except that I grieve at the grievous fate of a man most closely joined to me and of a most distinguished person. But if I were otherwise minded, I would never deny what I was doing, lest I be judged both wicked in my wrongdoing and timid and false in concealing it.
qua re maiorem in modum te rogo ut rem potiorem oratione ducas mihique, si sentis expedire recte fieri, credas nullam communionem cum improbis esse posse. an quod adulescens praestiti, cum etiam errare cum excusatione possem, id nunc aetate praecipitata commutem ac me ipse retexam? non faciam neque quod displiceat committam, praeterquam quod hominis mihi coniunctissimi ac viri amplissimi doleo gravem casum. quod si aliter essem animatus, numquam quod facerem negarem, ne et in peccando improbus et in dissimulando timidus ac vanus existimarer.
“But I superintended the games which the young Caesar held for Caesar’s victory.” Yet that pertains to a private duty, not to the condition of the commonwealth; and it was a service which I owed to the memory and honor of a most beloved man, even now that he is dead, and which I could not refuse to a young man of the highest promise, most worthy of Caesar, when he asked it.
’ at ludos quos Caesaris victoriae Caesar adulescens fecit curavi.’ at id ad privatum officium, non ad statum rei p. pertinet; quod tamen munus et hominis amicissimi memoriae atque honoribus praestare etiam mortui debui et optimae spei adulescenti ac dignissimo Caesare petenti negare non potui.
I have also gone often to the house of the consul Antony to pay my respects; and those who think me too little a lover of my country you will find coming there in crowds, to ask for something or to carry off something. But what arrogance is this? Caesar never interfered to keep me from associating with whom I pleased, even with men he himself did not care for; yet those who have torn my friend from me try, by carping at me, to bring it about that I may not care for whom I please.
veni etiam consulis Antoni domum saepe salutandi causa; ad quem qui me parum patriae amantem esse existimant rogandi quidem aliquid aut auferendi causa frequentis ventitare reperies. sed quae haec est adrogantia, quod Caesar numquam interpellavit quin quibus vellem atque etiam quos ipse non diligebat tamen iis uterer, eos qui mihi amicum eripuerunt carpendo me efficere conari ne quos velim diligam?
But I have no fear either that the moderation of my life will hereafter prove too weak against false rumors, or even that those who do not love me on account of my constancy toward Caesar will not prefer to have friends like me rather than like themselves. For my part, if what I wish comes to pass, I shall spend what remains of my life in peace at Rhodes; but if some chance interrupts me, I shall be at Rome in such a way that I shall always wish what is rightly done. To our friend Trebatius I give great thanks, for laying open your sincere and friendly feeling toward me, and for making it that I should be the more rightly bound to esteem and respect a man whom I have always gladly loved. Farewell, and hold me dear.
sed non vereor ne aut meae vitae modestia parum valitura sit in posterum contra falsos rumores aut ne etiam ii, qui me non amant propter meam in Caesarem constantiam, non malint mei quam.sui similis amicos habere. mihi quidem si optata contingent, quod reliquum est vitae in otio Rhodi degam; sin casus aliquis interpellarit, ita ero Romae ut recte fieri semper cupiam. Trebatio nostro magnas ago gratias, quod tuum erga me animum simplicem atque amicum aperuit et quod eum, quem semper libenter dilexi, quo magis iure colere atque observare deberem fecit. bene vale et me dilige.