Ad Familiares 13.40
Ad Familiares 13.40
Headnote
Cicero to Quintus Ancharius, proconsul of Macedonia 55–54 BC: a single-section recommendation for the brothers Lucius and Gaius Aurelius, on whose behalf the recommendation is most warm. Ancharius (praetor 56 BC) had succeeded the disgraced L. Piso Caesoninus in the Macedonian command — the very Piso who is the subject of In Pisonem, delivered a few months earlier in this same year. The letter is therefore the practical inverse of the speech: where Piso failed, Cicero expects Ancharius to give a friendly hand to friends.
Lucius and Gaius Aurelius, sons of Lucius — with whom themselves, and with their father, an excellent man, I am on most familiar terms — I commend to you most warmly: young men adorned with all the best accomplishments, my closest friends, most worthy of your friendship. If any commendation of mine has ever availed with you (which I know many have very greatly availed), let this one prevail, I ask. If you should treat them honourably and generously, you will both have attached to yourself most grateful and excellent young men, and you will have done me a most welcome service.
L. et C. Aurelios L. filios, quibus et ipsis et patre eorum, viro optimo, familiarissime utor, commendo tibi maiorem in modum, adulescentis omnibus optimis artibus ornatos, meos pernecessarios, tua amicitia dignissimos. si ulla mea apud te commendatio valuit (quod scio multas plurimum valuisse), haec ut valeat rogo. quod si eos honorifice liberaliterque tractaris, et tibi gratissimos optimosque adulescentis adiunxeris et mihi gratissimum feceris.