Ad Familiares 12.27
Ad Familiares 12.27
Headnote
Cicero to Q. Cornificius, governor of Africa Vetus, from Rome in the spring of 43 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. Romae vere a. 711 (43). A very short commendatio for Sex. Aufidius — one of the Roman business men whose name also appears among the heirs of Q. Turius in Fam. 12.26, to which this letter is essentially a companion piece. The two letters read as a matched pair: the Turian-estate group commendation, and now the individual recommendation singling out Aufidius for particular attention. The note’s value, beyond Aufidius himself, is the warmth of the closing direct address (“mi Cornifici”), which marks the personal pitch the recommendation is asked to carry.
Sex. Aufidius, in the attentiveness with which he cultivates me, is among my closest; in distinction he yields to no Roman knight; and in character he is so well-tempered and so balanced that the strictest gravity is joined with the highest cultivation. His affairs in Africa I commend to you with such force that I could not commend them with greater zeal or more from the heart. You will do me a very great kindness if you take pains that he may understand my letter to have had with you the very greatest weight. This, my dear Cornificius, I ask of you most earnestly.
Sex. Aufidius et observantia qua me colit accedit ad proximos et splendore, equiti Romano nemini cedit; est autem ita temperatis moderatisque moribus ut summa severitas summa cum humanitate iungatur. cuius tibi negotia quae sunt in Africa ita commendo ut maiore studio magisve ex animo commendare non possim. pergratum mihi feceris, si dederis operam ut is intellegat meas apud te litteras maximum pondus habuisse. hoc te vehementer, mi Cornifici, rogo.