Letter 17

Your letter-carrier delivered two letters from you to me at Tarsus on July 17th. I shall respond to these in order, as you seem to wish. Concerning my successor, I have heard nothing, nor do I think anyone will be appointed. There is no reason why I should not leave by the appointed date, especially now that the Parthian threat has been removed. I do not think I shall linger anywhere for long. I expect I shall stop at Rhodes for the sake of my sons' education, though even that is not certain. I wish to reach the city as soon as possible, but my journey will be governed by the political situation and affairs in Rome. Your successor cannot possibly arrive soon enough for you to meet me in Asia. Regarding the submission of your accounts, it would not have been inconvenient for you to submit none, since you write that Bibulus grants you that option; but I hardly think you can do this under the Julian law, which Bibulus disregards for a particular reason of his own, though I strongly advise you to observe it. As for your writing that the garrison ought not to have been withdrawn from Apamea, I could see that others thought the same, and I was annoyed that ill-wishers had been making unfavorable talk about the matter. But apart from you, I see that no one doubts whether the Parthians have crossed over or not. And so I dismissed all the garrisons, which I had assembled in great strength, swayed by the unmistakable talk of people. It would not have been proper for me to send you my quaestor's accounts, nor were they yet completed. I was planning to deposit them at Apamea. As for my share of the spoils, apart from the city quaestors — that is, the Roman people — no one has touched or will touch a penny. I expect I shall accept sureties at Laodicea for all public funds, so that both I and the people are secured without the risk of transport. As for what you write to me about the 33,000 drachmas, there is nothing I can do to oblige anyone in that line. For all the money is handled as booty by the prefects, while the sum assigned to me is managed by the quaestor. As to your question about what I think of the legions that have been decreed for Syria: previously I was uncertain whether they would come; now I have no doubt that if word reaches them beforehand that there is peace in Syria, they will not come. I see that Marius, my successor, will be slow in arriving, because the senate decreed that he should go with the legions. I have answered one letter; I come to the other. You ask me to recommend you to Bibulus as warmly as possible. In this my goodwill is not lacking, but there seems to be occasion for complaining to you. For you alone of all those who are with Bibulus have never informed me how strongly Bibulus's disposition recoils from me without cause. Very many people have reported to me that when there was great alarm at Antioch and great hope placed in me and my army, he used to say he would rather endure anything than appear to have needed my help. I did not take it badly that you, motivated by your duty as quaestor, kept silent about your praetor, although I was hearing how you were being treated. He, however, while writing to Thermus about the Parthian war, never sent a single letter to me, to whom he understood the danger of that war pertained. He wrote to me only about the augurship of his son; in which matter I, moved by compassion and because I have always been a very close friend to Bibulus, took care to write to him as graciously as possible. If he is ill-disposed toward everyone, which I have never believed, I am less offended on my own account; but if he is particularly hostile to me, my letters will do you no good. For in the dispatches Bibulus sent to the senate, he claims solely for himself what was a shared achievement between us: he says he arranged for the public money to be exchanged at a profit to the people. What was properly my doing — that I refused to employ Transpadane auxiliary cavalry — he writes that he too remitted this to the people. But what was his alone, he shares with me: "when we demanded a greater supply of grain," he says, "from the auxiliary cavalry." And this is truly the mark of a petty spirit, mean and empty even in its malice: because the senate through my agency gave Ariobarzanes the title of king and commended him to me, Bibulus in his dispatches calls him not king but the son of King Ariobarzanes. Men of such a disposition only grow worse when asked for favors. But I have done as you wished: I have written a letter to him. When you receive it, you may do with it as you please.

XVII. M. CICERO IMP. S. D. CANINI SALLUSTIO PRO Q Tarsi; c. xv Kal. Sext. 50 Litteras a te mihi [binas] stator tuus reddidit Tarsi a. d. XVI Kal. Sext. his ego ordine, ut videris velle, respondebo. De successore meo nihil audivi neque quemquam fore arbitror. Quin ad diem decedam nulla causa est, praesertim sublato metu Parthico. Commoraturum me nusquam sane arbitror. Rhodum Ciceronum causa puerorum accessurum puto, neque id tamen certum. Ad urbem volo quam primum venire; sed tamen iter meum rei publicae et rerum urbanarum ratio gubernabit. Successor tuus non potest ita maturare ullo modo ut tu me in Asia possis convenire. De rationibus referendis, non erat incommodum te nullam referre, quam tibi scribis a Bibulo fieri potestatem; sed id vix mihi videris per legem Iuliam facere posse, quam Bibulus certa quadam ratione non servat, tibi magno opere servandam censeo. Quod scribis Apamea praesidium deduci non oportuisse, videbam item ceteros existimare molesteque ferebam de ea re minus commodos sermones malevolorum fuisse. Sed Parthi transierint necne praeter te video dubitare neminem. Itaque omnia praesidia, quae magna et firma paraveram, commotus hominum non dubio sermone dimisi. Rationes mei quaestoris nec verum fuit me tibi mittere nec tamen erant confectae. Eas nos Apameae deponere cogitabamus. De praeda mea praeter quaestores urbanos, id est populum Romanum, terruncium nec attigit nec tacturus est quisquam. Laodiceae me praedes accepturum arbitror omnis pecuniae publicae, ut et mihi et populo cautum sit sine vecturae periculo. Quod scribis ad me de drachmum CCCIccc, nihil est quod in isto genere cuiquam possim commodare. Omnis enim pecunia ita tractatur ut praeda a praefectis, quae autem mihi attributa est a quaestore curetur. Quod quaeris quid existimem de legionibus quae decretae sunt in Syriam, antea dubitabam venturaene essent; nunc mihi non est dubium quin, si antea auditum erit otium esse in Syria, venturae non sint. Marium quidem successorem tarde video esse venturum, propterea quod senatus ita decrevit ut cum legionibus iret. Uni epistulae respondi; venio ad alteram. Petis a me ut Bibulo te quam diligentissime commendem. In quo mihi voluntas non deest, sed locus esse videtur tecum etulandi. Solus enim tu ex omnibus qui cum Bibulo sunt certiorem me numquam fecisti quam valde Bibuli voluntas a me sine causa abhorreret. Permulti enim ad me detulerunt, cum magnus Antiocheae metus esset et magna spes in me atque in exercitu meo, solitum dicere quidvis se perpeti malle quam videri eguisse auxilio meo. Quod ego officio quaestorio te adductum reticere de praetore tuo non moleste ferebam, quamquam quem ad modum tractarere audiebam. Ille autem, cum ad Thermum de Parthico bello scriberet, ad me litteram numquam misit, ad quem intellegebat eius belli periculum pertinere. Tantum de auguratu fili sui scripsit ad me; in quo ego misericordia commotus, et quod semper amicissimus Bibulo fui, dedi operam ut ei quam humanissime scriberem. Ille si in omnis est malevolus, quod numquam existimavi, minus offendor in me; sin autem a me est alienior, nihil tibi meae litterae proderunt. Nam ad senatum quas Bibulus litteras misit, in iis, quod mihi cum illo erat commune sibi soli attribuit; se ait curasse ut cum quaestu populi pecunia permutaretur. Quod autem meum erat proprium, ut alariis Transpadanis uti negarem, id etiam populo se remisisse scribit. Quod vero illius erat solius id mecum communicat: 'equitibus auxiliariis' inquit 'cum amplius frumenti postularemus.' Illud vero pusilli animi et in ipsa malevolentia ieiuni atque inanis, quod Ariobarzanem, quia senatus per me regem appellavit mihique commendavit, iste in litteris non regem sed regis Ariobarzanis filium appellat. Hoc animo qui sunt deteriores fiunt rogati. sed tibi morem gessi, litteras ad eum scripsi. quas cum acceperis, facies quod voles.