Letters to his Friends

​

Cicero The Letters to his Friends   with an English translation by W. Glynn Williams, M.A. Formerly Scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge   In Three Volumes I     London William Heineman Ltd Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press MCMLVIII

This collection of Cicero's "Letters to his Friends" was preserved and edited by his secretary Tiro. The collection is inadequately entitled, as it includes several letters, some of them of profound interest, from his friends to Cicero. There are 426 letters, divided into sixteen books, not arranged in any sort of order,^[1] chronological or otherwise, except that letters from or to particular correspondents are generally grouped together; the third book, for instance, consists exclusively of letters from Cicero to Appius Claudius Pulcher, and the eighth book of letters from Marcus Caelius Rufus to Cicero.

The earliest letter is one from Cicero to Pompey (x. 7) dated 62 B.C., the year after Cicero's consulship; the latest is one from him to Cassius (xii. 10) written in 43 B.C., the year after the assassination of Caesar, and a few months before his own.

These nineteen years from 62 to 43 B.C. cover a period of supreme importance in the history of the Roman Republic—a period more minutely described and vividly illustrated in these letters, giving us as they do the different points of view of various correspondents, than even in the "Letters to Atticus," written by Cicero alone.

​The Letters vary greatly in interest and style; while many of them contain matter of the highest literary or historical value—as, for instance, Cicero's explanation of his political change of front (i. 9), Sulpicius Rufus's letter of condolence to Cicero on the death of his daughter Tullia (iv. 5) and Matius's defence of his friendship for Caesar (xi. 28)—others are no more than merely formal documents.

The text is based on that of Nobbe (1849); but where there was an obvious call for emendation in that text I have not hesitated to adopt other readings, always with due acknowledgement.

Such universally accepted orthographical corrections as cum for quum, consili for consilii, and causa for caussa I have made as a matter of course.

To Tyrrell and Purser's exhaustive (it has rightly been described as "monumental") Commentary on the Correspondence of Cicero^[2] I have made constant reference, and owe more than I can tell; I have depended upon it, too, for the dates of the letters, Watson's Select Letters (with the recently revised edition by Mr. W. W. How), and Pritchard and Bernard's Selected Letters for the use of Schools have been of invaluable assistance to me, and I have freely consulted the admirable translations of all or some of the letters by E. S. Shuckburgh, G. E. Jeans, and S. H. Jeyes.

To all the above distinguished Ciceronians I acknowledge with gratitude my very deep indebtedness.

The oldest and soundest ms. of the Epistulae ad Familiares is the Codex Mediceus 49. 9, now in the Laurentian Library at Florence. This is known as M. Other Mss., each giving some of the letters, are:

Of these M alone contains all the Epistulae ad Familiares, G, R, and T giving different portions of Bks. I. to VIII., and H, F, and D of Bks. IX. to XVI.

§1 . Cicero, being now consul, successfully opposes the agrarian law of the tribune P. Servilius Rullus, which was in the interests of Caesar and Crassus, and ​intended to check the growing power of Pompey. Caesar is elected Pontifex Maximus. Cicero carries in the Senate the proposal of a supplicatio of unusual length to Pompey in honour of his eastern triumphs.

§2. Having conciliated his colleague C. Antonius by resigning to him the governorship in 62 of the rich province of Macedonia, Cicero felt himself able in the autumn of 63 to oppose the treasonable designs of L. Sergius Catilina, of which he had full information from the spy, L. Curius. In the consular elections for 62 Catiline was again defeated. On October 21 Cicero foretold the rising of the Catilinarian Manlius in Etruria on the 27th. Martial law was proclaimed, and the conspirators failed in an attempt to seize Praeneste on November 1, and another plot to murder Cicero was exposed. But Catiline had the audacity to appear in the Senate on November 8, when Cicero so crushingly denounced him that he left Rome to take command of the insurgents in Etruria.

§3. Certain envoys of the Allobroges, having been approached by the conspirators to supply Catiline with cavalry, were arrested, and on the strength of incriminating letters found upon them the following five conspirators were seized and imprisoned—P. Lentulus Sura (praetor), C. Cethegus (senator), L. Statilius, P. Gabinius Cimber, and M. Caeparius; and at a meeting of the Senate on December 5, mainly at the instance of M. Cato, though Caesar, then praetor elect, was opposed to it, a decree was carried that the five conspirators arrested should be put to death, and that same evening they were strangled under Cicero's supervision.

​§ 4. On December 29 the tribune Q. Metellus Nepos vetoed Cicero's address to the people on going out of office, alleging that "he had put citizens to death without a trial"; but Cicero's declaration that he had thereby saved his country was received with applause. This Metellus was one of Pompey's officers and was probably instigated by his general, who was chagrined that Cicero, and not he, should have quelled the conspiracy.

§ 1. Catiline, making for Cisalpine Gaul with Manlius's army, is met by Metellus Celer and thrown back on the army of C. Antonius. In a battle near Pistoria the insurgents were utterly and finally defeated, and Catiline slain.

§ 2. Cicero resents Pompey's lukewarm appreciation of his services to the Republic (v. 7).

§ 3. In December P. Claudius Pulcher, commonly known as Clodius, "one of the most profligate characters of a profligate age," disguised as a female musician profaned the mysteries of the Bona Dea, which were being celebrated by Roman matrons at the house of Caesar. He was discovered and brought to trial in 61.

§ 1. Pompey, having returned from the east and disbanded his army in the preceding December, ​addressed the Roman people in January of this year, but failed to create a good impression. He disapproved of the bill for Clodius's prosecution, and being distrusted by the extremists in the Senate, found himself so isolated that he made overtures to Cicero.

§ 2. The consul Pupius Piso also opposed the bill for an inquiry into Clodius's affair, but the trial ultimately came on, with the result that by means of the grossest bribery Clodius was acquitted. Cicero had given evidence cancelling an alibi put up by Clodius, who swore to be avenged upon him, and proved to be a formidable foe, owing to his family connexions, and his influence over the city populace.

§ 1. Led by the consul Metellus Celer, now at enmity with Pompey for having divorced his half-sister Mucia, the Senate, by obstinately opposing Pompey's plans in Asia and grants of land to his veterans, completely alienated him, and by refusing all concessions to the publicani in Asia offended the equites from among whom the publicani were mainly drawn. Pompey was ultimately forced into a coalition with Caesar, who returned to Rome in June to canvass for the consulship, which by the aid of Pompey and Crassus he secured.

§ 2. The optimates, however, brought about by bribery the election as Caesar's colleague of ​M. Calpurnius Bibulus, a staunch aristocrat, but a fainéant consul.

§ 3. Caesar, having effected the reconciliation of Pompey and Crassus, now invited Cicero to join them, but he preferred to retain his independence, and the coalition (incorrectly called the first triumvirate) of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, to which he might have belonged, was established without him.

§ 1. Caesar, having failed to carry through the Senate an agrarian law providing inter alia for Pompey's veterans, brought another law before the assembly of the people distributing the ager Campanus among those veterans, and this law was carried despite the opposition of the consul Bibulus and some of the tribunes.

§ 2. P. Vatinius, one of the most unprincipled men of the time, was a humble hireling of Caesar, and now as tribune he carried the famous Lex Vatinia, which gave Caesar the command of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum with three legions for five years; and the Senate, on the motion of Pompey (now, by his marriage with Julia, Caesar's son-in-law), added Transalpine Gaul to his command, with a fourth legion.

§ 3. In March Cicero, in defending his former colleague C. Antonius, who was accused of extortion as proconsul of Macedonia, attacked the triumvirate, causing grave offence to Caesar, who immediately ​retaliated by sanctioning the adoption into a plebeian family of Cicero's enemy Clodius, thus making him eligible for the tribunate, where he would be in a stronger position to wreak his vengeance on Cicero.

§ 1. Clodius, who had been elected tribune in the preceding October, having carried some very popular measures in January, further established his position in February by promulgating a law assigning to the consuls on their going out of office the provinces they most desired—Syria to Gabinius, and Macedonia with Achaia to Piso,—but he made the law contingent upon the passing of two other measures which were subsequently carried—(1) a commission giving to Cato the annexation of Cyprus, and (2) an enactment "that anyone who had put Roman citizens to death without a trial should be forbidden fire and water."

§ 2. Cicero, realizing that the enactment was aimed at himself, put on mourning and threw himself on the mercy of the people. The senators and equites also went into mourning, but were compelled by an edict of the consuls to dress as usual. Caesar stated in public that he thought Cicero had acted illegally in putting Lentulus Sura to death, and Pompey, on being appealed to, referred Cicero to the consuls, who had already shown their hostility. Finally Cicero, at the instance of his family and Hortensius, left Rome and went into exile at the end of March. He was immediately declared an outlaw by Clodius, ​and his house on the Palatine and villas at Formiae and Tusculum were pillaged and dismantled.

§ 3. Cicero went to Brundisium and thence to Thessalonica, where he sojourned for seven months at the house of his friend, the quaestor Cn. Plancius. As the year went on the situation at Rome became brighter for him; Clodius had offended Pompey by aiding the escape from Rome of the Armenian prince Tigranes whom Pompey had captured, by defeating the consul Gabinius in a street riot, and even forcing Pompey to shut himself up in his house. Moreover, Lentulus Spinther, one of the consuls elected, was personally devoted to Cicero, and the other, Metellus Nepos, a friend of Pompey; while among the new tribunes T. Annius Milo, T. Fadius, and P. Sestius strenuously advocated Cicero's recall. His son-in-law also, C. Calpurnius Piso, who had married Cicero's daughter Tullia in 63, and was now quaestor, exercised what influence he had in the interests of his father-in-law.

§ 1. No sooner had the consul Lentulus entered into office on January I than he brought before the Senate, with the approval of Pompey, the question of Cicero's recall; and despite the obstruction of two of the tribunes, the people, led by Fabricius and all the praetors (except Appius Claudius Pulcher, Clodius's brother), passed in their Assembly (the comitia centuriata) on January 23 a provisional decree recalling Cicero. The Senate thanked Cn. Plancius and others for sheltering Cicero in his ​banishment, and summoned the Italians to vote finally for his recall in the Assembly, and the bill was carried with enthusiastic unanimity on August 4, the voters being protected from Clodius and his armed ruffians by troops under the command of Milo.

§ 2. Cicero, who had come down to Dyrrachium in the preceding autumn, now crossed over to Brundisium, where he was informed by his brother Quintus of the passing of the decree for his recall, and, after a triumphal progress homeward, re-entered Rome amid universal rejoicings on September 4.

§ 3. Later on, on the motion of Cicero, Pompey is granted the imperium in the form of the control of the corn supply (curatio rei annonariae) for five years; and on the expiry of their terms of office Lentulus receives Cilicia, and Nepos Hither Spain, as his province.

§ 4. Ptolemy Auletes (the Flute-player), king of Egypt, father of Cleopatra, having been expelled by his subjects, comes to seek the assistance of Rome, and the Senate decrees that his restoration should be entrusted to the next governor of Cilicia, i.e. the then consul, Lentulus Spinther.

§ 1. In January the question of the restoration of Ptolemy Auletes is reopened and hotly debated in the Senate, and Cicero sends Lentulus, now proconsul of Cilicia, a full account of the voting. Pompey, ​though ostensibly supporting the claims of Lentulus to effect the restoration, was anxious to secure for himself a commission which would not only be highly lucrative, but would give him a fleet, an army, and a base in Egypt. Cicero felt bound to support his benefactor Lentulus, and the majority of the Senate were afraid or jealous of Pompey, when, very opportunely for them, the tribune C. Cato discovered a Sibylline oracle, forbidding the restoration of Ptolemy by anyone cum multitudine hominum ("with a host of men"). This is the religio referred to in Bk. i. 2 and 3. The wranglings in the Senate ended in no settlement, but Ptolemy was ultimately restored by A. Gabinius in 55.

§ 2. Clodius, who still lorded it in the streets of Rome, escaped being prosecuted by Milo by being elected curule aedile, and turned the tables on Milo by accusing him in February of vis (breach of the peace). Pompey, when defending Milo, was shouted down by Clodius's ruffians, who declared that Crassus, and not Pompey, should restore Ptolemy. This led Pompey to suspect that Crassus was aiding and abetting the rioters. The result of the trial was the closer alliance of Pompey and Milo, and the more definite support of Clodius by the extreme aristocrats—Curio, Bibulus, Favonius, and others.

§ 3. Later in February, Cicero, in defending P. Sestius, who had strongly favoured his recall, and was now accused of vis, made his speech (as Watson describes it) "a regular political manifesto," and converted his interrogatio (cross-examination) of P. Vatinius, now a witness for the prosecution, into a bitter attack upon him as the author of the Lex Vatinia in 59 (see 59 B.C., § 2). The acquittal ​of Sestius encouraged Cicero to hope for the restoration of the Republic, or at any rate the dissolution of the coalition, Pompey being still at feud with Crassus (§ 2) and jealous of Caesar.

§ 4. Cicero therefore, partly with a view of widening the breach between Pompey and Caesar, proposed the suspension of Caesar's law about the ager Campanus (see 59 B.C., § 1) on the grounds that the State could not afford any more allotments. This would not affect Pompey, whose veterans had already been provided for, whereas Caesar would be precluded from using the remaining land for his own veterans. He also saw that the repeal of the agrarian law would be followed by that of the Vatinian.

§ 5. Having therefore previously interviewed Crassus at Ravenna, Caesar took him with him to join Pompey at Luca, a town of Liguria in N. Italy; and here the coalition of 60 (see 60 B.C., § 3) was not only renewed but developed into an omnipotent triumvirate who could settle the affairs of the State at their own discretion.

§ 6. This to Cicero, the Republican, and lifelong advocate of concordia ordinum ("the harmony of the senatorial and equestrian orders"), was a crushing political calamity, but he had to bow to the inevitable, and the famous letter 9 in Bk. I. is his apologia for his change of front. Withdrawing his motion on the ager Campanus, he supported a motion in the Senate to provide pay for Caesar's troops and allowing him to appoint ten legati. This was followed by his brilliant speech De provinciis consularibus, practically a panegyric upon Caesar and his achievements in Gaul.

​§ 7. Clodius's turbulence in 56-57 had estranged Pompey, who now leaned to the side of Milo, but the extreme optimates (including M. Cato, who was indebted to Clodius for a commission to settle the affairs of Cyprus in 58) showed such fulsome partiality for Clodius, that Cicero, being earnestly requested by Caesar, whom he could not now disobey, to undertake the defence of Vatinius, whom he particularly detested, adroitly converted his predicament into a means of annoying the optimates saying that "if they coquetted with one Publius (viz. Clodius), he would coquet with another Publius (viz. Vatinius) by way of reprisal" (i. 9. 19).

§ 1. Crassus carries his Lex Licinia for the suppression of sodalicia ("political combinations"). Pompey opens his new theatre with shows of unparalleled magnificence, but his wholesale slaughter of elephants disgusts not only Cicero, but the people generally.

§ 2. Cicero finishes his De oratore. Crassus sets out for Syria, and his departure, together with the death of Pompey's wife Julia, Caesar's daughter, put an end to even the semblance of friendship between Pompey and Caesar.

§ 3. Gabinius marches into Egypt, occupies Alexandria, and restores the ex-king Ptolemy Auletes.

§ 1. Cicero helps to secure the acquittal of his former enemy, P. Vatinius, who requited his kindness after Pharsalia and later, and at Pompey's instance defends, though unsuccessfully, his former enemy, A. Gabinius; and also defends successfully his old friend Cn. Plancius, charged with ambitus, in his famous speech Pro Plancio.

§ 2. His brother, Q. Cicero, goes over from Pompey to Caesar as his legate, and serves him with distinction in Britain and Gaul; and this leads to a rapprochement between Cicero and Caesar.

Defeat and murder of M. Crassus in June, near Carrhae. Cicero is more deeply affected by the death, a little earlier, of M. Crassus's son, Publius (v. 8. 4). Cicero succeeds Crassus as augur, and supports Milo's candidature for the consulship, recommending him to C. Scribonius Curio, to whom he writes a series of letters (ii. 1-7)

About the middle of January Clodius is slain near Bovillae by the retainers of Milo: his body is burned by his supporters in the forum, when the senate-house caught fire and was destroyed; martial law ​is proclaimed, and finally Pompey is made sole consul, being allowed to retain the government of Spain, Milo is accused of vis and condemned. He goes into exile at Massilia.

Cicero goes to Cilicia as proconsul, succeeding Appius Claudius, who had succeeded Lentulus in 54, and M. Calpurnius Bibulus goes to Syria. Cicero is kept fully informed of what occurs in Rome by his friend M. Caelius Rufus (Bk. VIII of these Letters).

§ 1. Cicero, after a satisfactory tenure of office, quits his province, leaving C. Caelius Caldus, his quaestor, in charge, and reaches Rome in December. He is anxious about the honours due to his Cilician successes, having so far only had a supplicatio voted him, but no triumph; he is also embarrassed about the marriage of his daughter Tullia with P. Cornelius Dolabella, who was prosecuting for treason Appius Claudius Pulcher, with whom Cicero desired a reconciliation.

§ 2. A motion in the Senate, that Caesar's candidature for the consulship should be considered in his absence, having been rejected, the tribune Scribonius Curio demands the disbanding of Pompey's army, which the Senate would have passed but for ​the opposition of the consul Marcellus. Curio openly declares for Caesar, whom he joins at Ravenna, thus, according to Lucan, turning the scales against the Pompeian party (momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum).

The tribunes M. Antonius and Q. Cassius, accompanied by Caelius Rufus, leave Rome and join Caesar, who on January 11 crosses the Rubicon, and thereby declares war upon the Republic, and marching southwards finally besieges Pompey in Brundisium. On March 17 Pompey escapes to Dyrrachium, whither the consuls had gone with the bulk of his army on March 4. Cicero vacillates as to his future policy, but finally decides to throw in his lot with Pompey.

Cicero spends the first half of the year in Pompey's camp at Dyrrachium, where he conceives a poor opinion of Pompey's army; he is still there when he hears of the utter defeat of Pompey by Caesar near Pharsalus on August 7 and his flight to Egypt. Crossing with the Pompeians from Dyrrachium to Corcyra, Cicero is threatened with death by young Cn. Pompey for refusing to take the command as senior consular. In October he returns to Italy and settles in Brundisium.

§ 1. Though allowed to remain in Italy when all other Pompeians were driven out, Cicero was not happy; he had broken with his brother Quintus, and Terentia (he alleged) had mismanaged his financial affairs in his absence; while Dolabella, his son-in-law, was so notoriously unfaithful to Tullia as to make a divorce inevitable.

§ 2. He was consoled, however, by a reassuring letter from Caesar in Egypt, who permitted him to retain his lictors and the title of imperator; on Caesar's return Cicero met him and was cordially received, and being given leave to live wherever he liked, he chose Tusculum, so as to be near Rome.

§ 3. Dolabella, now tribune, agitating for the abolition of debts, is opposed by his colleague, Trebellius, and the ensuing riots had to be quelled by troops under M. Antonius.

§ 4. Towards the end of the year, through Caesar's influence, Q. Fufius Calenus and P. Vatinius are elected consuls.

§ 1. Caesar defeats the Pompeian army under Scipio at Thapsus in Africa, and M. Cato, preferring death to slavery, commits suicide at Utica. Returning to Rome and celebrating four triumphs in August ​for his victories in Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa, Caesar is made Dictator for the year.

§ 2. Cicero's letters now show a more cheerful spirit; he had now divorced Terentia, and after a short interval married his young and wealthy ward, Publilia; the marriage, however, was an unhappy one.

§ 3. Cicero wrote this year his Partitiones oratoriae, Brutus, and Orator.

§ 1. In February Tullia, shortly after her divorce from Dolabella, died in childbed. Cicero, who had loved her devotedly, refused to be comforted and sought refuge in the solitude of Astura.

§ 2. Caesar now openly aimed at monarchy, and Cicero especially resented, as an insult to the senatorial order, the election as consul for one day of Caninius Rebilus.

§ 1. Caesar, now consul for the fifth time and dictator for the fourth, had already by his arrogance and ill-concealed ambition aroused the opposition of the republicans, and a conspiracy had long been maturing which culminated in his assassination on March 15 at the foot of Pompey's statue in the senate-house. By his will he adopted C. Octavius and made him his chief heir.

§ 2. On the 17th, at a meeting of the Senate in the temple of Tellus, Cicero proposed an amnesty, which the Senate passed, but at the same time ratified all Caesar's acts. After this he retired into private life for six months.

​§ 3. He had already completed his Tusculan Disputations and De natura deorum, and during the remainder of the year composed his De amicitia, De senectute, De officiis, and several other works.