Letter 16

Your letter would have caused me great pain had not reason itself already driven away all distresses and my mind, through long despair over affairs, grown hardened against new grief. But still, I do not know why anything in my earlier letters should have led you to suspect what you write. For what was in them besides a complaint about the times, which ought to trouble your mind no less than mine? For I have not found your intellect so dull that I would think you fail to see what I myself see. What surprises me is that you could have been led — you who ought to know me thoroughly — to believe either that I was so imprudent as to desert a rising fortune for one in decline and nearly prostrate, or so inconstant as to squander the goodwill I had accumulated with a man at the height of his power, to abandon my own cause, and to involve myself in civil war — the very thing I have fled from the beginning and always. What, then, is this grim plan of mine? Perhaps to withdraw into some solitude. For you know the disgust not only of my temperament — you once had a similar one — but also of my eyes at the insolence of arrogant men. There is also the burdensome parade of my lictors and this title of "Imperator" by which I am addressed. If I were free of that burden, I would be content with even the smallest hiding places in Italy. But this laurel of mine catches not only the eyes but now even the spiteful whispers of the malicious. Yet even so, I have never contemplated departure without your approval. But you know my small properties; I must stay on them so as not to be a burden to friends. And because I am most often at the seaside, I arouse in some the suspicion that I wish to sail away — something I would perhaps not be unwilling to do, if it were for a life of leisure. But to join a war — how would that be fitting? Especially against a man whom I hope I have satisfied, and on behalf of one who can by no means ever be satisfied. Furthermore, you could have perceived my views most easily from that time when you came to meet me at Cumae. For I did not conceal from you the conversation with Titus Ampius. You saw how I recoiled from the idea of leaving Rome when I heard it. Did I not affirm to you that I would endure anything rather than leave Italy for a civil war? What, then, has happened to make me change my plan? Has not everything rather conspired to keep me in my resolve? I would have you believe this — and I think you do believe it — that from these miseries I seek nothing else than that people should eventually understand that I desired nothing more than peace, and that when peace was lost, I fled nothing so much as civil arms. I think I shall never regret this constancy. For I remember that our friend Quintus Hortensius used to boast in this vein, that he had never taken part in civil war. Our glory in this will be more distinguished, because his was attributed to cowardice — I do not think the same can be supposed of us. Nor am I frightened by the threats you set before me out of the most loyal and affectionate concern. For there is no bitterness that does not seem to hang over everyone in this upheaval of the whole world. I would most gladly have redeemed the republic from my own private and domestic misfortunes — even from the very dangers you warn me to guard against. For my son, whom I am glad you hold dear — if there will be any republic, I shall leave him a rich enough patrimony in the memory of my name; but if there will be none, nothing will befall him separately from the rest of the citizens. As for your request that I look after my son-in-law, that excellent young man so dear to me — can you doubt, knowing how much I value both him and my Tullia, that this concern weighs on me most heavily? And all the more because amid our common miseries I took comfort in this hope: that my Dolabella — or rather ours — would be freed from the troubles his generosity had brought upon him. I wish you would inquire what days he endured in the city while he was there — how bitter for him, how far from honorable for me, his father-in-law. And so I am not waiting for the outcome in Spain, about which I am as certain as you write, nor am I scheming anything cunning. If there is ever a republic again, there will surely be a place for us; but if there is not, you yourself, I think, will come to those same solitudes where you will hear that I have settled. But perhaps I am prophesying, and all these things will turn out better. For I recall the despair of those who were old men when I was young. Perhaps I am now imitating them and indulging in the fault of age. I wish it may be so — but still. I think you have heard that I wove a purple-bordered toga for Oppius; for our friend Curtius is planning a double-dyed one, but the dyer is holding him up. I sprinkled this in so you would know that even in my irritation I still manage to laugh. As for what I wrote about Dolabella, I urge you to look into it as if it were your own affair. This will be my final word: I shall do nothing rash, nothing reckless. But I implore you, wherever on earth I may be, to protect me and my children as our friendship and your good faith demand.

XVI. M. CICERO IMP. S. D. M. CAELIO in Cumano; vi vel v Non. Mai. 49 Magno dolore me adfecissent tuae litterae nisi iam et ratio ipsa depulisset omnis molestias et diuturna desperatione rerum obduruisset animus ad dolorem novum. Sed tamen qua re acciderit ut ex meis superioribus litteris id suspicarere quod scribis nescio. Quid enim in illis fuit praeter querelam temporum, quae non meum animum magis sollicitum haberent quam tuum? Nam non eam cognovi aciem ingeni tui quod ipse videam te id ut non putem videre. Illud miror, adduci potuisse te, qui me penitus nosse deberes, ut existimares aut me tam improvidum qui ab excitata fortuna ad inclinatam et prope iacentem desciscerem aut tam inconstantem ut collectam gratiam florentissimi hominis effunderem a meque ipse deficerem et, quod initio semperque fugi, civili bello interessem. Quod est igitur meum triste consilium? Ut discederem fortasse in aliquas solitudines. Nosti enim non modo stomachi mei, cuius tu similem quondam habebas, sed etiam oculorum in hominum insolentium indignitate fastidium. Accedit etiam molesta haec pompa lictorum meorum nomenque imperi quo appellor. Eo si onere carerem, quamvis parvis Italiae latebris contentus essem. Sed incurrit haec nostra laurus non solum in oculos sed iam etiam in voculas malevolorum. Quod cum ita esset, nil tamen umquam de profectione nisi vobis approbantibus cogitavi. Sed mea praediola tibi nota sunt; in his mihi necesse est esse, ne amicis molestus sim. Quod autem in maritimis facillime sum, moveo non nullis suspicionem velle me navigare. Quod tamen fortasse non nollem si possem ad otium. Nam ad bellum quidem, qui convenit? Praesertim contra eum cui spero me satis fecisse ab eo cui iam satis fieri nullo modo potest. Deinde sententiam meam tu facillime perspicere potuisti iam ab illo tempore cum in Cumanum mihi obviam venisti. Non enim te celavi sermonem T. Ampi. Vidisti quam abhorrerem ab urbe relinquenda, cum audissem. Nonne tibi adfirmavi quidvis me potius perpessurum quam ex Italia ad bellum civile exiturum? Quid ergo accidit cur consilium mutarem? Nonne omnia potius ut in sententia permanerem? Credas hoc mihi velim, quod puto te existimare, me ex his miseriis nihil aliud quaerere nisi ut homines aliquando intellegant me nihil maluisse quam pacem, ea desperata nihil tam fugisse quam arma civilia. Huius me constantiae puto fore ut numquam paeniteat. Etenim memini in hoc genere gloriari solitum esse familiarem nostrum Q. Hortensium, quod numquam bello civili interfuisset. Hoc nostra laus erit illustrior quod illi tribuebatur ignaviae, de nobis id existimari posse non arbitror. Nec me ista terrent quae mihi a te ad timorem fidissime atque amantissime proponuntur. Nulla est enim acerbitas quae non omnibus hac orbis terrarum perturbatione impendere videatur. Quam quidem ego a re publica meis privatis et domesticis incommodis libentissime, vel istis ipsis quae tu me mones ut caveam, redemissem. Filio meo, quem tibi carum esse gaudeo, si erit ulla res publica, satis amplum patrimonium relinquam in memoria nominis mei; sin autem nulla erit, nihil accidet ei separatim a reliquis civibus. Nam quod rogas ut respiciam generum meum, adulescentem optimum mihique carissimum, an dubitas, qui scias quanti cum illum tum vero Tulliam meam faciam, quin ea me cura vehementissime sollicitet et eo magis quod in communibus miseriis hac tamen oblectabar specula, Dolabellam meum, vel potius nostrum, fore ab iis molestiis quas liberalitate sua contraxerat liberum? Velim quaeras quos ille dies sustinuerit in urbe dum fuit, quam acerbos sibi, quam mihimet ipsi socero non honestos. Itaque neque ego hunc Hispaniensem casum exspecto, de quo mihi exploratum est ita esse ut tu scribis, neque quicquam astute cogito. Si quando erit civitas, erit profecto nobis locus; sin autem non erit, in easdem solitudines tu ipse, ut arbitror, venies in quibus nos consedisse audies. Sed ego fortasse vaticinor et haec omnia meliores habebunt exitus. Recordor enim desperationes eorum qui senes erant adulescente me. Eos ego fortasse nunc imitor et utor aetatis vitio. Velim ita sit; sed tamen. Togam praetextam texi Oppio puto te audisse; nam Curtius noster dibaphum cogitat, sed eum infector moratur. Hoc aspersi ut scires me tamen in stomacho solere ridere. [de] Dolabella quod scripsi suadeo videas tamquam si tua res agatur. Extremum illud erit: nos nihil turbulenter, nihil temere faciemus. Te tamen oramus, quibuscumque erimus in terris, ut nos liberosque nostros ita tueare ut amicitia nostra et tua fides postulabit.