Ad Familiares 13.44
Ad Familiares 13.44
Headnote
Cicero to M. Fadius Gallus (the same correspondent of the better-known Fam. 7.23 on the bust-buying), some months after the preceding letter (Fam. 13.43) and before Cicero’s exile of 58 BC. A two-sentence letter of commendation: he reminds Gallus of his earlier recommendation of L. Oppius and L. Egnatius, and asks him to do for them all that intimate friendship requires. Of literary interest mostly as one of a long stream of recommendation letters which dominate Ad Familiares book 13 and which together constitute a working manual for a Roman senator’s officium of patronage.
Though I have learnt from your letter and from the letter of L. Oppius, my close friend, that you have remembered my recommendation — and at this, given your highest goodwill toward me and our intimacy, I have not in the least wondered — yet again and again I commend to you L. Oppius in person and the affairs of L. Egnatius, my closest friend, in his absence. So great is my intimacy and friendship with him that, if it were my own affair, I should not labour more. Therefore you will do me the most pleasing thing, if you see to it that he understands that I am loved by you as much as I myself believe. Nothing can you do more pleasing to me, and I beg you earnestly to do this.
etsi ex tuis et ex L. Oppi, familiaris mei, litteris cognovi te memorem commendationi meae fuisse idque pro tua summa erga me benevolentia proque nostra necessitudine minime sum admiratus, tamen etiam atque etiam tibi L. Oppium praesentem et L. Egnati, mei familiarissimi, absentis negotia commendo. tanta mihi cum eo necessitudo est familiaritasque ut, si mea res esset, non magis laborarem. quapropter gratissimum mihi feceris, si curaris ut is intellegat me a te tantum amari quantum ipse existimo. hoc mihi gratius facere nihil potes, idque ut facias vehementer te rogo.