HermitshCicero by Claude

Letter · 11 February 50 BC · foetasse Laudiceae

Ad Familiares 13.63

Ad Familiares 13.63

Headnote

Cicero to P. Silius Nerva, propraetor (probably of Bithynia and Pontus), written perhaps from Laodicea after the third day before the Ides of February (after 11 February) 50 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. foetasse Laudiceae post a. d. iii Id. Febr. a. 704 (50)). One of the warmer recommendations in book 13: the opening line — “I had not thought it possible that words should fail me” — is the orator’s joke, since he goes on to find a great many of them.

The beneficiary is M. Laenius, valued “beyond believing” by Cicero and by his brother Quintus alike, and only just released from Cicero’s staff in Cilicia. The ask is concrete: dispose of whatever business Laenius has in Silius’s province, advise him as a friend, and send him back solutum, liberum as quickly as possible. The joke recurs at the head of section 2 with a wry self-correction — the words Cicero claimed would fail him are already running long.

I had not thought it possible that words should fail me; but they do, in commending M. Laenius. So let me set the matter before you in a few words — yet still so that you may plainly see my wishes. It is past believing how highly we value M. Laenius, both I and my brother, dearest of men to me. So much do we value him, for many services of his and for the highest integrity and a singular modesty. I let him go from me most unwillingly: both for the intimacy and the pleasant company of his conversation, and because I freely made use of his good and loyal counsel.
non putavi fieri posse ut mihi verba dessent, sed tamen in M. Laenio commendando desunt. itaque rem tibi exponam paucis verbis, sed tamen ut plane perspicere possis voluntatem meam. incredibile est quanti faciamus et ego et frater meus, qui mihi carissimus est, M. Laenium. id fit cum plurimis eius officiis tum summa probitate et singulari modestia. Eum ego a me invitissimus dimisi cum propter familiaritatem et consuetudinis suavitatem tum quod consilio eius fideli ac bono libenter utebar.
But I am afraid you may already be thinking that those words I said would fail me are running long. I commend the man to you in such terms that you can see I have to commend a man of whom I have said what I have above; and I ask you, again and again most urgently, to clear up whatever business he has in your province, and to tell him yourself what you think is right. You will find him a man most easy to deal with and most generous. So I ask you that, with his affairs settled through your good offices, you send him back to me as quickly as may be, free and at his own disposal. In doing this you will do my brother and me the greatest favour.
sed vereor ne iam superesse mihi verba putes, quae dixeram defutura. commendo tibi hominem sic, ut intellegis me eum de quo ea supra scripserim debere commendare, a teque vehementer etiam atque etiam peto ut quod habet in tua provincia negoti expedias, quod tibi videbitur rectum esse ipsi dicas. hominem facillimum liberalissimumque cognosces. itaque te rogo ut eum solutum, liberum confectis eius negotiis per te quam primum ad me remittas. id mihi fratrique meo gratissimum feceris.

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Ad Familiares 13.63

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