Ad Familiares 14.2
Ad Familiares 14.2
Headnote
Cicero to Terentia, Tullia, and the boy Marcus, written from Thessalonica on the third day before the Nones of October (5 October) 58 BC — the second surviving letter to the family from exile, after the Brundisium letter Fam. 14.4 of late April. The opening half is the bearing-up of his own grief through Tullia’s husband Piso, and the calculation about the new tribunes (Pompey willing, Crassus to be feared still). §2 carries one of the most painful incidents of the surviving correspondence: Cicero has just learned, through a letter from P. Valerius, that Terentia had been hauled from the precinct of Vesta to the bankers’ Tabula Valeria in the Forum — a public humiliation, possibly to make her account for property forfeit under the Clodian law. The line is Cicero’s: “you, my light, my heart’s longing, the one to whom all used to look for help.” §3 is the tug between his fear that Terentia will throw the last of her own dos into the cost of recovering the Palatine house, and his recognition that “everything is in you.” He begs her to spare her health.
Do not suppose that I write longer letters to anyone, except when someone has written more at length to me, whom I think it right to write back to; for I have nothing to write of, and at this time I do nothing with more difficulty. To you and to our little Tullia I cannot write without floods of tears. For I see you to be the most miserable, whom I always wanted to be the most happy: this I should have made good, and, had we not been so timid, I should have made it good. Our Piso I love most — as is his deserving.
noli putare me ad quemquam longiores epistulas scribere, nisi si quis ad me plura scripsit, cui puto rescribi oportere; nec enim habeo quid scribam nec hoc tempore quicquam difficilius facio; ad te vero et ad nostram Tulliolam non queo sine plurimis lacrimis scribere; vos enim video esse miserrimas, quas ego beatissimas semper esse volui, idque praestare debui et, nisi tam timidi fuissemus, praestitissem. Pisonem nostrum merito eius amo plurimum.
Him, as I could, I have urged on by letter, and given him thanks as I should. Among the new tribunes of the plebs, I gather you have hope. That will be firm, if Pompey’s will is for it; but I fear Crassus, for all that. From you indeed I see that all things are being done with the highest courage and the highest love — and I do not wonder. But I grieve that the case is such that my own miseries are lightened by your great miseries. For P. Valerius — a kind, attentive man — wrote to me (and I read it with the freest weeping) of how you had been taken from the temple of Vesta to the Valerian Table. Ah — my light, my heart’s longing, the one to whom all used to look for help! That you, my Terentia, should now be so harried, lie now in such tears and in such squalor, and that this should be done by my own fault, who saved everyone else, that we ourselves should perish!
Eum, ut potui, per litteras cohortatus sum gratiasque egi, ut debui. in novis tr. pl. intellego spem te habere. id erit firmum, si Pompei voluntas erit; sed Crassum tamen metuo. A te quidem omnia fieri fortissime et amantissime video nec miror, sed maereo casum eius modi ut tantis tuis miseriis meae miseriae subleventur. nam ad me P. Valerius, homo officiosus, scripsit, id quod ego maximo cum fletu legi, quem ad modum a Vestae ad tabulam Valeriam ducta esses. hem, mea lux, meum desiderium, unde omnes opem petere solebant! te nunc, mea Terentia, sic vexari, sic iacere in lacrimis et sordibus, idque fieri mea culpa, qui ceteros servavi, ut nos periremus!
As to what you write of the house — I mean the site — I in truth shall feel myself restored at last only when that has been restored to us. But these things are not in our hand. What I grieve at is this: that out of the cost which has to be borne, you, in your wretchedness and stripped of all you have, must bear the share. If the business is brought through, we shall recover everything; if the same fortune presses us, will you, poor woman, fling away even the remains? I beg you, my life — as for the cost, let others bear it, those who can if they will; and that weak health of yours, if you love me, do not strain. Day and night you stand before my eyes; I see you taking on every labour; I fear you will not bear it. But I see that everything is in you. So, that we may obtain what you hope and what you work for, look to your health.
quod de domo scribis, hoc est de area, ego vero tum denique mihi videbor restitutus, si illa nobis erit restituta. verum haec non sunt in nostra manu; illud doleo, quae impensa facienda est, in eius partem te miseram et despoliatam venire. quod si conficitur negotium, omnia consequemur; sin eadem nos fortuna premet, etiamne reliquias tuas misera proicies? obsecro te, mea vita, quod ad sumptum attinet, sine alios, qui possunt si modo volunt, sustinere et valetudinem istam infirmam, si me amas, noli vexare. nam mihi ante oculos dies noctesque versaris; omnis labores te excipere video; timeo ut sustineas. sed video in te esse omnia. qua re, ut id quod speras et quod agis consequamur, servi valetudini.
I do not know to whom to write, except to those who write to me, or to those of whom you yourselves write me something. Further off, since it pleases you so, I shall not move; but I should like you to send letters as often as you can, especially if there is anything firmer for us to hope. Farewell, my dear ones, my heart’s longings, farewell. Sent the third day before the Nones of October, from Thessalonica.
ego ad quos scribam nescio, nisi ad eos qui ad me scribunt, aut ad eos de quibus ad me vos aliquid scribitis. longius, quoniam ita vobis placet, non discedam; sed velim quam saepissime litteras mittatis, praesertim si quid est firmius quod speremus. valete, mea desideria, valete. D. a. d. iii Non. Oct. Thessalonica.