HermitshCicero by Claude

Letter · 8 April 56 BC · proficiscens in Anagninum

Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.5

Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.5

Headnote

Cicero to Quintus, written before daylight on 8 April 56 BC at the start of the journey out from Rome that would take him through T. Titius’s house in the Anagnine country to Laterium, then to Arpinum, the Pompeian and the Cuman estates, returning to Rome the day before the Nones of May for Milo’s trial. Section 2 is missing in the manuscript tradition; the letter survives in three sections, the loss falling between the building-site visit (§1) and the building-site account (§3).

The news is the betrothal of Tullia to Furius Crassipes (her second marriage — her first husband, C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, had died in 57 BC during Cicero’s exile). The betrothal-feast was on 6 April; the engagement formal date was 4 April. Three pieces of public news fill out the body: the senatorial corn-decree of 5 April giving Pompey the cura annonae 40 million sesterces; the same-day contio-like dispute over the Campanian land (the second great political fault-line of 56 BC, which would force the post-Luca about-face); and the casting-out of M. Furius Flaccus from the college of the Capitolini and Mercuriales, with the man lying at each member’s feet in vain. The visit to Pompey in his gardens, after dinner at Crassipes’s, has the practical errand — get Quintus released from Sardinia quickly — and the practical reply: Pompey was to embark for Sardinia on 11 April from Labro or Pisa.

The chronology of the letter is one of its great documentary uses: it is the latest fixed-date letter before the conference at Luca (15–16 April), at which Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus would reset the political terms. Cicero in this letter knows nothing of any such meeting; Pompey is simply “going to Sardinia.” The casual mention of the corn authority and the route via Pisa places Pompey within fifty miles of Luca; the Senate’s recriminations on the Campanian land are the very stalking-horse Caesar would use at Luca to compel the post-Luca compact.

The closing note — “come as soon as possible” (quam primum venias) — belongs to the running theme of Q. fr. book 2: Cicero needing his brother home, the political climate having turned, and the family business (Tullia’s marriage, the boy’s health, Pomponia’s complaints, two house-building sites) all wanting Quintus’s hand on the ground. He would return at midsummer, in time for the post-Luca debate.

I had sent you a letter earlier in which it was written that our Tullia had been betrothed to Crassipes on the day before the Nones of April [4 April]; and I had written out the rest, both public and private. Since then these things have been done. On the Nones of April [5 April], by decree of the Senate, money was decreed to Pompey for the corn-supply up to forty million sesterces; but on the same day vehement debate was held about the Campanian land, with the Senate’s shouting almost as in a contio. The shortage of money and the dearness of corn made the case the more bitter. I shall not pass over even this: the Capitolines and the Mercuriales threw M. Furius Flaccus, a Roman knight and a worthless man, out of their college, with him present and lying at the feet of every one of them. As I was about to leave on the eighth before the Ides of April [6 April], I gave the betrothal-feast to Crassipes. From which dinner the excellent boy, your Quintus and mine, was missing, having been a little out of sorts. On the seventh before the Ides [7 April] I came to Quintus and saw him plainly recovered, and he had much and very humane conversation with me about the disagreements of our women. What more? — nothing more amusing. Pomponia, however, even complained of you; but these things we shall handle face to face. When I had left the boy, I came to your building-site.
dederam ad te litteras antea quibus erat scriptum Tulliam nostram Crassipedi pr. non. April. esse desponsam, ceteraque de re publica privataque perscripseram. postea sunt i5 haec acta: non. Apr. senatus consulto Pompeio pecunia decreta in rem frumentariam ad HS CCCC sed eodem die vehementer actum de agro Campano clamore senatus prope contionali. acriorem causam inopia pecuniae faciebat et annonae caritas. non praetermittam ne illud quidem M. Furium Flaccum, equitem Romanum, hominem nequam, Capitolini et Mercuriales de conlegio eiecerunt praesentem ad pedes unius cuiusque iacentem. exiturus a. d. viii Idus Aprilis sponsalia Crassipedi praebui. huic convivio puer optimus, Quintus tuus meusque, quod perleviter commotus fuerat, defuit A. d. vii Idus Aprilis veni ad Quintum eumque vidi plane integrum, multumque is mecum sermonem habuit et perhumanum de dis cordus mulierum nostrarum. quid quaeris? nihil festivius. Pomponia autem etiam de te questa est; sed haec coram agemus. A puero ut discessi, in aream tuam veni.
The work was being done by many builders. I urged on the contractor Longilius. He gave me his word that he wished to please us. The house will be excellent; for now more could be made out than we used to judge from the plan. Our own [house] too was being built quickly. On that day I dined at Crassipes’s; after dinner I was carried in a litter to the gardens to Pompey. I had not been able to meet him in the morning, as he had been away. I wanted to see him, however, because I was to leave Rome the next day and because he had a journey into Sardinia. I met the man and asked him to send you back to us as soon as possible. He said at once. He was about to go, as he said, on the third before the Ides of April [11 April], to embark either at Labro or at Pisa. You, my brother, the moment he has come, do not let pass the first sailing, provided that the weather be suitable.
res agebatur multis structoribus. Longilium redemptorem cohortatus sum. fidem mihi faciebat se velle nobis placere. domus erit egregia; magis enim cerni iam poterat quam quantum ex forma iudicabamus; itemque nostra celeriter aedificabatur. eo die cenavi apud Crassipedem; cenatus in hortos ad Pompeium lectica latus sum. Luci eum convenire non potueram quod afuerat; videre autem volebam quod eram postridie Roma exiturus et quod ille in Sardiniam iter habebat. hominem conveni et ab eo petivi ut quam primum te nobis redderet. statim dixit. erat autem iturus, ut aiebat, a. d. III id. April. ut aut Labrone aut Pisis conscenderet. tu, mi frater, simul et ille venerit, primam navigationem, dum modo idonea tempestas sit, ne omiseris.
On the sixth before the Ides of April [8 April], before light, I wrote this letter; and I was on the road, to lodge that day at T. Titius’s house in the Anagnine country, and to be the day after at Laterium, and from there, when I had been at Arpinum five days, to go on to the Pompeian estate, then on the way back to look in at the Cuman estate, so that, since the Nones of May has been the day proclaimed for Milo, I might be at Rome the day before the Nones, and might see you, my dearest and sweetest brother, by that day, as I hoped. The building at Arcanum, I thought, should be held off until your arrival. See, my brother, that you keep well, and come as soon as possible.
A. d. vi Idus Apr. A. ante lucem hanc epistulam conscripsi eramque in itinere ut eo die apud T. Titium in Anagnino manerem, postridie autem in Laterio cogitabam, inde, cum in Arpinati qumque dies fuissem, ire in Pompeianum, rediens aspicere Cumanum ut, quoniam in Nonas Maias Miloni dies prodicta est, pridie Nonas Romae essem teque, mi carissime et suavissime frater, ad eam diem, ut sperabam, viderem. aedificationem Arcani ad tuum adventum sustentari placebat. fac, mi frater, ut valeas quam primuinque venias.

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Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.5

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