History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0249/02499.txt

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$Title{Letters Of Cicero
Part IV}
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$Author{Cicero, Marcus Tullius}
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$Subject{even
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$Date{65bc}
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Title:       Letters Of Cicero
Author:      Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Date:        65bc
Translation: Shuckburg, E.S.

Part IV

Letter 15: To P. Lentulus Spinther (in Cilicia), Rome, October, 54 B.C.

     M. Cicero desires his warmest regards to P. Lentulus, imperator. Your
letter was very gratifying to me, from which I gather that you fully
appreciated my devotion to you: for why use the word "kindness," when even the
word "devotion" itself, with all its solemn and holy associations, seems too
weak to express my obligations to you? As for your saying that my services to
you are gratefully accepted, it is you who in your overflowing affection make
things, which cannot be omitted without criminal negligence, appear deserving
of even gratitude. However, my feelings towards you would have been much more
fully known and conspicuous, if, during all this time that we have been
separated, we had been together, and together at Rome. For precisely in what
you declare your intention of doing - what no one is more capable of doing,
and what I confidently look forward to from you - that is to say, in speaking
in the senate, and in every department of public life and political activity,
we should together have been in a very strong position (what my feelings and
position are in regard to politics I will explain shortly, and will answer the
questions you ask), and at any rate I should have found in you a supporter, at
once most warmly attached and endowed with supreme wisdom, while in me you
would have found an adviser, perhaps not the most unskillful in the world, and
at least both faithful and devoted to your interests. However, for your own
sake, of course, I rejoice, as I am bound to do, that you have been greeted
with the title of imperator, and are holding your province and victorious army
after a successful campaign. But certainly, if you had been here, yo, would
have enjoyed to a fuller extent and more directly the benefit of the services
which I am bound to render you. Moreover, in taking vengeance on those whom
you know in some cases to be your enemies, because you championed the cause of
my recall, in others to be jealous of the splendid position and renown which
that measure brought you, I should have done you yeoman's service as your
associate. However, that perpetual enemy of his own friends, who, in spite of
having been honoured with the highest compliments on your part, has selected
you of all people for the object of his impotent and enfeebled violence, has
saved me the trouble by punishing himself. For he has made attempts, the
disclosure of which has left him without a shred, not only of political
position, but even of freedom of action. And though I should have preferred
that you should have gained your experience in my case alone, rather than in
your own also, yet in the midst of my regret I am glad that you have learnt
what the fidelity of mankind is worth, at no great cost to yourself, which I
learnt at the price of excessive pain. And I think that I have now an
opportunity presented me, while answering the questions you have addressed to
me, of also explaining my entire position and view. You say in your letter
that you have been informed that I have become reconciled to Caesar and
Appius, and you add that you have no fault to find with that. But you express
a wish to know what induced me to defend and compliment Vatinius. In order to
make my explanation plainer I must go a little farther back in the statement
of my policy and its grounds.

     Well, Lentulus! At first - after the success of your efforts for my
recall - I looked upon myself as having been restored not alone to my friends,
but to the Republic also; and seeing that I owed you an affection almost
surpassing belief, and every kind of service, however great and rare, that
could be bestowed on your person, I thought that to the Republic, which had
much assisted you in restoring me, I at least was bound to entertain the
feeling which I had in old times shewed merely from the duty incumbent on all
citizens alike, and not as an obligation incurred by some special kindness to
myself. That these were my sentiments I declared to the senate when you were
consul, and you had yourself a full view of them in our conversations and
discussions. Yet from the very first my feelings were hurt by many
circumstances, when, on your mooting the question of the full restoration of
my position, I detected the covert hatred of some and the equivocal
attachment of others. For you received no support from either in regard to my
monuments, or the illegal violence by which, in common with my brother, I had
been driven from my house; nor, by heaven, did they shew the good will which I
had expected in regard to those matters which, though necessary to me owing to
the shipwreck of my fortune, were yet regarded by me as least valuable - I
mean as to indemnifying me for my losses by decree of the senate. And though I
saw all this - for it was not difficult to see - yet their present conduct did
not affect me with so much bitterness as what they had done for me did with
gratitude. And therefore, though according to your own assertion and testimony
I was under very great obligation to Pompey, and though I loved him not only
for his kindness, but also from my own feelings, and, so to speak, from my
unbroken admiration of him, nevertheless, without taking any account of his
wishes, I abode by all my old opinions in politics. With Pompey sitting in
court, upon his having entered the city to give evidence in favour of Sestius,
and when the witness Vatinius had asserted that, moved by the good fortune and
success of Caesar, I had begun to be his friend, I said that I preferred the
fortune of Bibulus, which he thought a humiliation, to the triumphs and
victories of everybody else; and I said during the examination of the same
witness, in another part of my speech, that the same men had prevented Bibulus
from leaving his house as had forced me from mine: my whole cross -
examination, indeed, was nothing but a denunciation of his tribuneship; and in
it I spoke throughout with the greatest freedom and spirit about violence,
neglect of omens, grants of royal titles. Nor, indeed, in the support of this
view is it only of late that I have spoken: I have done so consistently on
several occasions in the senate. Nay, even in the consulship of Marcellinus
and Philippus, on the 5th of April the senate voted on my motion that the
question of the Campanian land should be referred to a full meeting of the
senate on the 15th of May. Could I more decidedly invade the stronghold of his
policy, or shew more clearly that I forgot my own present interests, and
remembered my former political career? On my delivery of this proposal a great
impression was made on the minds not only of those who were bound to have been
impressed, but also of those of whom I had never expected it. For, after this
decree had passed in accordance with my motion, Pompey, without shewing the
least sign of being offended with me, started for Sardinia and Africa, and in
the course of that journey visited Caesar at Luca. There Caesar complained a
great deal about my motion, for he had already seen Crassus at Ravenna also,
and had been irritated by him against me. It was well known that Pompey was
much vexed at this, as I was told by others, but learnt most definitely from
my brother. For when Pompey met him in Sardinia, a few days after leaving
Luca, he said: "You are the very man I want to see; nothing could have
happened more conveniently. Unless you speak very strongly to your brother
Marcus, you will have to pay up what you guaranteed on his behalf." I need not
go on. He grumbled a great deal: mentioned his own services to me: recalled
what he had again and again said to my brother himself about the "acts" of
Caesar, and what my brother had undertaken in regard to me; and called my
brother himself to witness that what he had done in regard to my recall he had
done with the consent of Caesar: and asked him to commend to me the latter's
policy and claims, that I should not attack, even if I would not or could not
support them. My brother having conveyed these remarks to me, and Pompey
having, nevertheless, sent Vibullius to me with a message, begging me not to
commit myself on the question of the Campanian land till his return, I
reconsidered my position and begged the state itself, as it were, to allow me,
who had suffered and done so much for it, to fulfil the duty which gratitude
to my benefactors and the pledge which my brother had given demanded, and to
suffer one whom it had ever regarded as an honest citizen to shew himself an
honest man. Moreover, in regard to all those motions and speeches of mine
which appeared to be giving offence to Pompey, the remarks of a particular set
of men, whose names you must surely guess, kept on being reported to me; who,
while in public affairs they were really in sympathy with my policy, and had
always been so, yet said that they were glad that Pompey was dissatisfied with
me, and that Caesar would be very greatly exasperated against me. This in
itself was vexatious to me: but much more so was the fact that they used,
before my very eyes, so to embrace fondle, make much of, and kiss my enemy -
mine do I say? rather the enemy of the laws, of the law courts, of peace, of
his country, of all loyal men! - that they did not indeed rouse my bile, for I
have utterly lost all that, but imagined they did. In these circumstances,
having, as far as is possible for human prudence, thoroughly examined my whole
position, and having balanced the items of the account, I arrived at a final
result of all my reflexions, which, as well as I can, I will now briefly put
before you.

     If I had seen the Republic in the hands of bad or profligate citizens, as
we know happened during the supremacy of Cinna, and on some other occasions, I
should not under the pressure, I don't say of rewards, which are the last
things to influence me, but even of danger, by which, after all, the bravest
men are moved, have attached myself to their party, not even if their services
to me had been of the very highest kind. As it is, seeing that the leading
statesman in the Republic was Pompey, a man who had gained this power and
renown by the most eminent services to the state and the most glorious
achievements, and one of whose position I had been a supporter from my youth
up, and in my praetorship and consulship an active promoter also, and seeing
that this same statesman had assisted me, in his own person by the weight of
his influence and the expression of his opinion, and, in conjunction with you,
by his counsels and zeal, and that he regarded my enemy as his own supreme
enemy in the state - I did not think that I need fear the reproach of
inconsistency, if in some of my senatorial votes I somewhat changed my
standpoint, and contributed my zeal to the promotion of the dignity of a most
distinguished man, and one to whom I am under the highest obligations. In this
sentiment I had necessarily to include Caesar, as you see, for their policy
and position were inseparably united. Here I was greatly influenced by two
things - the old friendship which you know that I and my brother Quintus have
had with Caesar, and his own kindness and liberality, of which we have
recently had clear and unmistakable evidence both by his letters and his
personal attentions. I was also strongly affected by the Republic itself,
which appeared to me to demand, especially considering Caesar's brilliant
successes, that there should be no quarrel maintained with these men, and
indeed to forbid it in the strongest manner possible. Moreover, while
entertaining these feelings, I was above all shaken by the pledge which Pompey
had given for me to Caesar, and my brother to Pompey. Besides, I was forced to
take into consideration the state maxim so divinely expressed by our master
Plato - "Such as are the chief men in a republic, such are ever wont to be the
other citizens." I called to mind that in my consulship, from the very 1st of
January, such a foundation was laid of encouragement for the senate, that no
one ought to have been surprised that on the 5th of December there was so much
spirit and such commanding influence in that house. I also remember that when
I became a private citizen up to the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, when
the opinions expressed by me had great weight in the senate, the feeling among
all the loyalists was invariable. Afterwards, while you were holding the
province of hither Spain which imperium and the Republic had no genuine
consuls, but mere hucksters of provinces, mere slaves and agents of sedition,
an accident threw my head as an apple of discord into the midst of contending
factions and civil broils. And in that hour of danger, though a unanimity was
displayed on the part of the senate that was surprising, on the part of all
Italy surpassing belief, and of all the loyalists unparalleled, in standing
forth in my defence, I will not say what happened - for the blame attaches to
many, and is of various shades of turpitude - I will only say briefly that it
was not the rank and file, but the leaders, that played me false. And in this
matter, though some blame does attach to those who failed to defend me, no
less attaches to those who abandoned me: and if those who were frightened
deserve reproach, if there are such, still more are those to be blamed who
pretended to be frightened. At any rate, my policy is justly to be praised for
refusing to allow my fellow citizens (preserved by me and ardently desiring to
preserve me) to be exposed while bereft of leaders to armed slaves, and for
preferring that it should be made manifest how much force there might be in
the unanimity of the loyalists, if they had been permitted to champion my
cause before I had fallen, when after that fall they had proved strong enough
to raise me up again. And the real feelings of these men you not only had the
penetration to see, when bringing forward my case, but the power to encourage
and keep alive. In promoting which measure - I will not merely not deny, but
shall always remember also and gladly proclaim it - you found certain men of
the highest rank more courageous in securing my restoration than they had been
in preserving me from my fall: and, if they had chosen to maintain that frame
of mind, they would have recovered their own commanding position along with my
salvation. For when the spirit of the loyalists had been renewed by your
consulship, and they had been roused from their dismay by the extreme firmness
and rectitude of your official conduct; when, above all, Pompey's support had
been secured; and when Caesar, too, with all the prestige of his brilliant
achievements, after being honoured with unique and unprecedented marks of
distinction and compliments by the senate, was now supporting the dignity of
the house, there could have been no opportunity for a disloyal citizen of
outraging the Republic.

     But now notice, I beg, what actually ensued. First of all, that intruder
upon the women's rites, who had shewn no more respect for the Bona Dea than
for his three sisters, secured immunity by the votes of those men who, when a
tribune wished by a legal action to exact penalties from a seditious citizen
by the agency of the loyalists, deprived the Republic of what would have been
hereafter a most splendid precedent for the punishment of sedition. And these
same persons, in the case of the monument, which was not mine, indeed - for it
was not erected from the proceeds of spoils won by me, and I had nothing to do
with it beyond giving out the contract for its construction - well, they
allowed this monument of the senate's to have branded upon it the name of a
public enemy, and an inscription written in blood. That those men wished my
safety rouses my liveliest gratitude, but I could have wished that they had
not chosen to take my bare safety into consideration, like doctors, but, like
trainers, my strength and complexion also! As it is, just as Apelles perfected
the head and bust of his Venus with the most elaborate art, but left the rest
of her body in the rough, so certain persons only took pains with my head, and
left the rest of my body unfinished and unworked. Yet in this matter I have
falsified the expectation, not only of the jealous, but also of the downright
hostile, who formerly conceived a wrong opinion from the case of Quintus
Metellus, son of Lucius - the most energetic and gallant man in the world, and
in my opinion of surpassing courage and firmness - who, people say, was much
cast down and dispirited after his return from exile. Now, in the first place,
we are asked to believe that a man who accepted exile with entire willingness
and remarkable cheerfulness, and never took any pains at all to get recalled,
was crushed in spirit about an affair in which he had shewn more firmness and
constancy than anyone else, even than the pre-eminent M. Scaurus himself!
But, again, the account they had received, or rather the conjectures they were
indulging in about him, they now transferred to me, imagining that I should be
more than usually broken in spirit: whereas, in fact, the Republic was
inspiring me with even greater courage than I had ever had before, by making
it plain that I was the one citizen it could not do without; and by the fact
that while a bill proposed by only one tribune had recalled Metellus, the
whole state had joined as one man in recalling me - the senate leading the
way, the whole of Italy following after, eight of the tribunes publishing the
bill, a consul putting the question at the centuriate assembly, all orders and
individuals pressing it on, in fact, with all the forces at its command. Nor
is it the case that I afterwards made any pretension, or am making any at this
day, which can justly offend anyone, even the most malevolent: my only effort
is that I may not fail either my friends or those more remotely connected with
me in either active service, or counsel, or personal exertion. This course of
life perhaps offends those who fix their eyes on the glitter and show of my
professional position, but are unable to appreciate its anxieties and
laboriousness.

     Again, they make no concealment of their dissatisfaction on the ground
that in the speeches which I make in the senate in praise of Caesar I am
departing from my old policy. But while giving explanations on the points
which I put before you a short time ago, I will not keep till the last the
following, which I have already touched upon. You will not find, my dear
Lentulus, the sentiments of the loyalists the same as you left them -
strengthened by my consulship, suffering relapse at intervals afterwards,
crushed down before your consulship, revived by you: they have now been
abandoned by those whose duty it was to have maintained them: and this fact
they, who in the old state of things as it existed in our day used to be
called Optimates, not only declare by look and expression of countenance, by
which a false pretence is easiest supported, but have proved again and again
by their actual sympathies and votes. Accordingly, the entire view and aim of
wise citizens, such as I wish both to be and to be reckoned, must needs have
undergone a change. For that is the maxim of that same great Plato, whom I
emphatically regard as my master: "Maintain a political controversy only so
far as you can convince your fellow citizens of its justice: never offer
violence to parent or fatherland." He, it is true, alleges this as his motive
for having abstained from politics, because, having found the Athenian people
all but in its dotage, and seeing that it could not be ruled by persuasion, or
by anything short of compulsion, while he doubted the possibility of
persuasion, he looked upon compulsion as criminal. My position was different
in this: as the people was not in its dotage, nor the question of engaging in
politics still an open one for me, I was bound hand and foot. Yet I rejoiced
that I was permitted in one and the same cause to support a policy at once
advantageous to myself and acceptable to every loyalist. An additional motive
was Caesar's memorable and almost superhuman kindness to myself and my
brother, who thus would have deserved my support whatever he undertook; while
as it is, considering his great success and his brilliant victories, he would
seem, even if he had not behaved to me as he has, to claim a panegyric from
me. For I would have you believe that, putting you aside, who were the authors
of my recall, there is no one by whose good offices I would not only confess,
but would even rejoice, to have been so much bound.

     Having explained this matter to you, the questions you ask about Vatinius
and Crassus are easy to answer. For, since you remark about Appius, as about
Caesar, "that you have no fault to find," I can only say that I am glad you
approve my policy. But as to Vatinius, in the first place there had been in
the interval a reconciliation effected through Pompey, immediately after his
election to the praetorship, though I had, it is true, impugned his
candidature in some very strong speeches in the senate, and yet not so much
for the sake of attacking him as of defending and complimenting Cato. Again,
later on, there followed a very pressing request from Caesar that I should
undertake his defence. But my reason for testifying to his character I beg you
will not ask, either in the case of this defendant or of others, lest I
retaliate by asking you the same question when you come home: though I can do
so even before you return: for remember for whom you sent a certificate of
character from the ends of the earth. However, don't be afraid, for those same
persons are praised by myself, and will continue to be so. Yet, after all,
there was also the motive spurring me on to undertake his defence, of which,
during the trial, when I appeared for him, I remarked that I was doing just
what the parasite in the Eunuchus advised the captain to do:

     "As oft as she names Phaedria, you retort
     With Pamphila. If ever she suggest,
     'Do let us have in Phaedria to our revel;'
     Quoth you, 'And let us call on Pamphila
     To sing a song.' If she shall praise his looks,
     Do you praise hers to match them: and, in fine,
     Give tit for tat, that you may sting her soul."

So I asked the jurors, since certain men of high rank, who, had also done me
very great favours, were much enamoured of my enemy, and often under my very
eyes in the senate now took him aside in grave consultation, now embraced him
familiarly and cheerfully - since these men had their Publius, to grant me
another Publius, in whose person I might repay a slight attack by a moderate
retort. And, indeed, I am often as good as my word, with the applause of gods
and men. So much for Vatinius. Now about Crassus. I thought I had done much to
secure his gratitude in having, for the sake of the general harmony, wiped out
by a kind of voluntary act of oblivion all his very serious injuries, when he
suddenly undertook the defence of Gabinius, whom only a few days before he had
attacked with the greatest bitterness. Nevertheless, I should have borne that,
if he had done so without casting any offensive reflections on me. But on his
attacking me, though I was only arguing and not inveighing against him, I
fired up not only, I think, with the passion of the moment - for that perhaps
would not have been so hot - but the smothered wrath at his many wrongs to
me, of which I thought I had wholly got rid, having, unconsciously to myself,
lingered in my soul, it suddenly shewed itself in full force. And it was at
this precise time that certain persons (the same whom I frequently indicate by
a sign or hint), while declaring that they had much enjoyed my outspoken
style, and had never before fully realized that I was restored to the Republic
in all my old character, and when my conduct of that controversy had gained me
much credit outside the house also, began saying that they were glad both that
he was now my enemy, and that those who were involved with him would never be
my friends. So when their ill-natured remarks were reported to me by men of
most respectable character, and when Pompey pressed me as he had never done
before to be reconciled to Crassus, and Caesar wrote to say that he was
exceedingly grieved at that quarrel, I took into consideration not only my
circumstances, but my natural inclination: and Crassus, that our
reconciliation might, as it were, be attested to the Roman people, started for
his province, it might almost be said, from my hearth. For he himself named a
day and dined with me in the suburban villa of my son-in-law Crassipes. On
this account, as you say that you have been told, I supported his cause in the
senate, which I had undertaken on Pompey's strong recommendation, as I was
bound in honour to do.

     I have now told you with what motives I have supported each measure and
cause, and what my position is in politics as far as I take any part in them:
and I would wish you to make sure of this - that I should have entertained the
same sentiments, if I had been still perfectly uncommitted and free to choose.
For I should not have thought it right to fight against such overwhelming
power, nor to destroy the supremacy of the most distinguished citizens, even
if it had been possible; nor, again, should I have thought myself bound to
abide by the same view, when circumstances were changed and the feelings of
the loyalists altered, but rather to bow to circumstances. For the persistence
in the same view has never been regarded as a merit in men eminent for their
guidance of the helm of state; but as in steering a ship one secret of the art
is to run before the storm, even if you cannot make the harbour; yet, when you
can do so by tacking about, it is folly to keep to the course you have begun
rather than by changing it to arrive all the same at the destination you
desire: so while we all ought in the administration of the state to keep
always in view the object I have very frequently mentioned, peace combined
with dignity, we are not bound always to use the same language, but to fix our
eyes on the same object. Wherefore, as I laid down a little while ago, if I
had had as free a hand as possible in everything, I should yet have been no
other than I now am in politics. When, moreover, I am at once induced to adopt
these sentiments by the kindness of certain persons, and driven to do so by
the injuries of others, I am quite content to think and speak about public
affairs as I conceive best conduces to the interests both of myself and of the
Republic. Moreover, I make this declaration the more openly and frequently,
both because my brother Quintus is Caesar's legate, and because no word of
mine, however trivial, to say nothing of any act, in support of Caesar has
ever transpired, which he has not received with such marked gratitude as to
make me look upon myself as closely bound to him. Accordingly, I have the
advantage of his popularity, which you know to be very great, and his material
resources, which you know to be immense, as though they were my own. Nor do I
think that I could in any other way have frustrated the plots of unprincipled
persons against me, unless I had now combined with those protections, which I
have always possessed, the good will also of the men in power. I should, to
the best of my belief, have followed this same line of policy even if I had
had you here. For I well know the reasonableness and soberness of your
judgment: I know your mind, while warmly attached to me, to be without a tinge
of malevolence to others, but on the contrary as open and candid as it is
great and lofty. I have seen certain persons conduct themselves towards you as
you might have seen the same persons conduct themselves towards me. The same
things that have annoyed me would certainly have annoyed you. But whenever I
shall have the enjoyment of your presence, you will be the wise critic of all
my plans: you who took thought for my safety will also do so for my dignity.
Me, indeed, you will have as the partner and associate in all your actions,
sentiments, wishes - in fact, in everything; nor shall I ever in all my life
have any purpose so steadfastly before me as that you should rejoice more and
more warmly every day that you did me such eminent service.

     As to you request that I would send you any books I have written since
your departure, there are some speeches, which I will give Menocritus, not so
very many, so don't be afraid! I have also written - for I am now rather
withdrawing from oratory and returning to the gentler Muses, which now give me
greater delight than any others, as they have done since my earliest youth -
well, then, I have written in the Aristotelian style, at least that was my
aim, three books in the form of a discussion in dialogue "On the Orator,"
which, I think, will be of some service to your Lentulus. For they differ a
good deal from the current maxims, and embrace a discussion on the whole
oratorical theory of the ancients, both that of Aristotle and Isocrates. I
have also written in verse three books "On My Own Times," which I should have
sent you some time ago, if I had thought they ought to be published - for they
are witnesses, and will be eternal witnesses, of your services to me and of my
affection - but I refrained because I was afraid, not of those who might think
themselves attacked, for I have been very sparing and gentle in that respect,
but of my benefactors, of whom it were an endless task to mention the whole
list. Nevertheless, the books, such as they are, if I find anyone to whom I
can safely commit them, I will take care to have conveyed to you: and as far
as that part of my life and conduct is concerned, I submit it entirely to your
judgment. All that I shall succeed in accomplishing in literature or in
learning - my old favourite relaxations - I shall with the utmost cheerfulness
place before the bar of your criticism, for you have always had a fondness for
such things. As to what you say in your letter about your domestic affairs,
and all you charge me to do, I am so attentive to them that I don't like being
reminded, can scarcely bear, indeed, to be asked without a very painful
feeling. As to your saying, in regard to Quintus' business, that you could
not do anything last summer, because you were prevented by illness from
crossing to Cilicia, but that you will now do everything in your power to
settle it, I may tell you that the fact of the matter is that, if he can annex
this property, my brother thinks that he will owe to you the consolidation of
this ancestral estate. I should like you to write about all your affairs, and
about the studies and training of your son Lentulus (whom I regard as mine
also) as confidentially and as frequently as possible, and to believe that
there never has been anyone either dearer or more congenial to another than
you are to me, and that I will not only make you feel that to be the case, but
will make all the world and posterity itself to the latest generation aware of
it.

     Appius used some time back to repeat in conversation, and afterwards said
openly, even in the senate, that if he were allowed to carry a law in the
comitia curiata, he would draw lots with his colleague for their provinces;
but if no curiatian law were passed, he would make an arrangement with his
colleague and succeed you: that a curiatian law was a proper thing for a
consul, but was not a necessity: that since he was in possession of a province
by a decree of the senate, he should have imperium in virtue of the Cornelian
law until such time as he entered the city. I don't know what your several
connexions write to you on the subject: I understand that opinion varies.
There are some who think that you can legally refuse to quit your province,
because your successor is named without a curiatian law: some also hold that,
even if you do quit it, you may leave someone behind you to conduct its
government. For myself, I do not feel so certain about the point of law -
although there is not much doubt even about that - as I do of this, that it is
for your greatest honour, dignity, and independence, which I know you always
value above everything, to hand over your province to a successor without any
delay, especially as you cannot thwart his greediness without rousing
suspicion of your own. I regard my duty as twofold - to let you know what I
think, and to defend what you have done.

     P.S. - I had written the above when I received your letter about the
publicani, to whom I could not but admire the justice of your conduct. I could
have wished that you had been able by some lucky chance to avoid running
counter to the interests and wishes of that order, whose honour you have
always promoted. For my part, I shall not cease to defend your decrees: but
you know the ways of that class of men; you are aware how bitterly hostile
they were to the famous Q. Scaevola himself. However, I advise you to
reconcile that order to yourself, or at least soften its feelings, if you can
by any means do so. Though difficult, I think it is, nevertheless, not beyond
the reach of your sagacity.

Letter 16: To C. Trebatius Testa (in Gaul), Rome, November, 54 B.C.

     In the "Trojan Horse," just at the end, you remember the words, "Too late
they learn wisdom." You, however, old man, were wise in time. Those first
snappy letters of yours were foolish enough, and then - ! I don't at all blame
you for not being overcurious in regard to Britain. For the present, however,
you seem to be in winter quarters somewhat short of warm clothing, and
therefore not caring to stir out:

"Not here and there, but everywhere,
Be wise and ware:
No sharper steel can warrior bear."

     If I had been by way of dining out, I would not have failed your friend
Cn. Octavius; to whom, however, I did remark upon his repeated invitations,
"Pray, who are you?" But, by Hercules, joking apart, he is a pretty fellow: I
could have wished you had taken him with you! Let me know for certain what you
are doing and whether you intend coming to Italy at all this winter. Balbus
has assured me that you will be rich. Whether he speaks after the simple Roman
fashion, meaning that you will be well supplied with money, or according to
the Stoic dictum, that "all are rich who can enjoy the sky and the earth," I
shall know hereafter. Those who come from your part accuse you of pride,
because they say you won't answer men who put questions to you. However, there
is one thing that will please you: they all agree in saying that there is no
better lawyer than you at Samarobriva!