Ad Familiares 16.21
Ad Familiares 16.21
Headnote
Marcus Cicero the younger from Athens to Tiro, mid-summer 44 BC, per the Perseus dateline inter ex. m. Quint. et ex. Oct. a.~710 (44) — between late Quintilis and late October, here taken at the early end of that window. The sender is the orator’s son, then in his early twenties and studying philosophy at Athens; the salutation CICERO F. TIRONI SVO DVLCISSIMO S. marks him as filius (the son), not the great Cicero. The letter is by some distance the longest extant piece in young Marcus’s hand, and gives the fullest surviving picture of his Athens year.
The letter reports on the son’s studies in eight short sections: he is intimate with the philosopher Cratippus, lives next door to the rhetor Bruttius (whose support he is helping out of his own narrow means), declaims daily in Greek with Cassius and in Latin with Bruttius, and keeps company with the circle Cratippus brought from Mytilene and with Epicrates and Leonides at Athens. He has dismissed his old teacher Gorgias on his father’s explicit instructions. He also responds to Tiro’s news of a country purchase, and asks for a Greek copyist to relieve him of transcribing his philosophical notebooks.
The voice is studious-anxious and a little performatively grown-up — the young Cicero writing to his father’s freedman with a slightly theatrical seriousness about his progress, his “errors of youth” now firmly behind him, and his desire that Tiro be “trumpeter of his reputation.” The letter is studded with Greek phrases (philologia, suz\=et\=esis, diarrh\=ed\=en, hupomn\=emata, sumphilologein) in the manner of a student steeped in Greek lectures. The closing commendation of Anteros (presumably a slave or freedman) is the warm Tironian sign-off he has learned from his father.
I had been waiting eagerly for the letter-carriers day after day, and at last they came — on the forty-sixth day after they left you. Their arrival was the most welcome thing in the world; for though I had taken the greatest delight in the letter from my kind, dearest father, your own letter, my sweet Tiro, brought my joy to its full measure. So I no longer regretted the pause in my writing; on the contrary, I was glad of it. For from the silence of my pen I have reaped a great harvest of your kindness. So I am profoundly glad that you accepted my excuse without question.
Cum vehementer tabellarios exspectarem cotidie, aliquando venerunt post diem quadragesimum et sextum quam a vobis discesserant. quorum mihi fuit adventus exoptatissimus; nam cum maximam cepissem laetitiam ex humanissimi et carissimi patris epistula, tum vero iucundissimae tuae litterae cumulum mihi gaudi attulerunt. itaque me iam non paenitebat intercapedinem scribendi fecisse sed potius laetabar; fructum enim magnum humanitatis tuae capiebam ex silentio mearum litterarum. vehementer igitur gaudeo te meam sine dubitatione accepisse excusationem.
The reports about me that reach you are agreeable and welcome to you — of that I have no doubt, my sweetest Tiro — and I shall make good on it and strive that this nascent good opinion of me may every day be doubled and doubled again. So when you promise to be the trumpeter of my reputation, you may do so with a firm and steady mind. For the errors of my youth have brought me such pain and torment that not only does my mind shrink from those acts, but my very ears recoil from any mention of them. That you have shared in that distress and that pain I know for certain, and have proof of it; nor is it any wonder, since you wanted everything to turn out well for my sake — and so also for your own; for I have always wanted you to be partner in my fortunes.
gratos tibi optatosque esse qui de me rumores adferuntur non dubito, mi dulcissime Tiro, praestaboque et enitar ut in dies magis magisque haec nascens de me duplicetur opinio. qua re, quod polliceris te bucinatorem fore existiluationis meae, firmo id constantique animo facias licet; tantum enim mihi dolorem cruciatumque attulerunt errata aetatis meae, ut non solum animus a factis sed aures quoque a commemoratione abhorreant. cuius te sollicitudinis et doloris participem fuisse notum exploratumque est mihi, nec id mirum; nam cum omnia mea causa velles mihi successa tum etiam tua; socium enim te meorum commodorum semper esse volui.
Since then you suffered through me, I shall now make sure that your joy through me is doubled. Let me tell you: with Cratippus I am bound not as a pupil to his teacher but as a son to his father; for I take pleasure in hearing him lecture, and I am also caught up in the personal charm of the man. I spend whole days with him, and often a good part of the night; I beg him to dine with me as often as he can. With this habit once introduced, he often slips in unannounced while we are at dinner, and, laying aside the gravity of philosophy, he jokes with us in the most genial way. So make every effort to come and see this remarkable man, so delightful and so distinguished, as soon as you possibly can.
quoniam igitur tum ex me doluisti, nunc ut duplicetur a tuum ex me gaudium praestabo. Cratippo me scito non ut discipulum sed ut filium esse coniunctissimum; nam cum audio illum libenter tum etiam propriam eius suavitatem vehementer amplector. sum totos dies cum eo noctisque saepe numero partem; exoro enim ut mecum quam saepissime cenet. hac introducta consuetudine saepe inscientibus nobis et cenantibus obrepit sublataque severitate philosophiae humanissime nobiscum iocatur. qua re da operam ut hunc talem, tam iucundum, tam excellentem virum videas quam primum.
And what shall I say of Bruttius? I never let him leave my side. His way of life is frugal and strict, and at the same time his company is the most agreeable in the world; for in him a sense of fun is not divorced from philologia (the love of letters) and our daily suzētēsis (joint inquiry). I have rented a place for him in the immediate neighbourhood, and as best I can, out of my own narrow means, I help him keep up his slender resources.
nam quid ego de Bruttio dicam? quem nullo tempore a me patior discedere; cuius cum frugi severaque est vita tum etiam iucundissima convictio non est enim seiunctus iocus a filologi/a| et cotidiana suzhth/sei. huic ego locum in proximo conduxi et, ut possum, ex meis angustiis illius sustento tenuitatem.
Besides this, I have started to declaim in Greek with Cassius, and I want to do my Latin exercises with Bruttius. I keep up daily, intimate company with the friends Cratippus brought with him from Mytilene, learned men whose worth he himself thoroughly approves. Epicrates, too, the leading man of Athens, is very often with me, and Leonides, and the rest of that circle. ta men oun kath’ hēmas tade (so much, then, for things on our side here).
praeterea declamitare Graece apud Cassium institui, Latine autem apud Bruttium exerceri volo. utor familiaribus et cotidianis convictoribus, quos secum Mitylenis Cratippus adduxit, hominibus et doctis et illi probatissimis. multum etiam mecum est Epicrates, princeps Atheniensium, et Leonides et horum ceteri similes. ta\ me ou)=n kaq’ h(ma=s ta/de.
As for what you write me about Gorgias: he was indeed useful in daily declamation, but I have put everything else aside in order to obey my father’s instructions; for he had written diarrhēdēn (in so many words) that I should dismiss the man at once. I did not want to drag my heels, lest excessive eagerness on my part should raise some suspicion in his mind; and besides, it also struck me that it would be a serious thing for me to pass judgement on my father’s judgement.
de Gorgia autem quod mihi scribis, erat quidem ille in cotidiana declamatione utilis, sed omnia postposui, dum modo praeceptis patris parerem; diarrh/dhn enim scripserat ut eum dimitterem statim. tergiversari nolui, ne mea nimia modo praeceptis patris parerem; diarrh/dhn spoudh\ suspicionem ei aliquam importaret; deinde illud etiam mihi succurrebat, grave esse me de iudicio patris iudicare.
Still, your concern and your advice are gratifying and welcome to me. The excuse you offer for the shortness of your time I accept; I know how busy you usually are. I am profoundly glad you have bought an estate, and I hope the thing turns out happily for you. (Do not be surprised that I should congratulate you at this point: you wrote and told me of your purchase at much the same point in your letter.) There it is: you must lay aside your city airs; you have become a Roman countryman. How clearly I can see you now before my eyes, the picture of you at your most delightful — I seem to be watching you buying farm gear, talking with the bailiff, saving fruit-seeds from the second course in a corner of your cloak. But as for the matter that touches the heart of it: I grieve no less than you do that I was unable to help you at the time. But do not doubt, my dear Tiro, that I shall lift you out of it, if only fortune lifts me — especially since I know that this estate has been bought for the two of us in common.
tuum tamen studium et consilium gratum acceptumque est mihi. excusationem angustiarum tui temporis accipio; scio enim quam soleas esse occupatus. emisse te praedium vehementer gaudeo feliciterque tibi rem istam evenire cupio (hoc loco me tibi gratulari noli mirari; eodem enim fere loco tu quoque emisse te fecisti me certiorem). habes; deponendae tibi sunt urbanitates; rusticus Romanus factus es, quo modo ego mihi nunc ante oculos tuum iucundissimum conspectum propono; videor enim videre ementem te rusticas res, cum vilico loquentem, in lacinia servantem ex mensa secunda semina. sed quod ad rem pertinet, me tum tibi defuisse aeque ac tu doleo. sed noli dubitare, mi Tiro, quin te sublevaturus sim, si modo fortuna me, praesertim cum sciam communem nobis emptum esse istum fundum.
I am grateful for the trouble you have taken over my commissions; but I beg you to have a copyist sent to me as quickly as possible, a Greek one above all; for I lose a great deal of labour in transcribing my hupomnēmata (notebooks). Above everything else, please look after your health, so that we may be able to do our sumphilologein (joint study) together. I commend Anteros to you.
de mandatis quod tibi curae fuit est mihi gratum; sed peto a te ut quam celerrime mihi librarius mittatur, maxime quidem Graecus; multum enim mihi eripitur operae in exscribendis hypomnematis. tu velim in primis cures ut valeas, ut una sumfilologei=n possimus. Anterum tibi commendo.