Page:Loeb Classical Library L205N (1958).djvu/127

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Cicero's Letters to his Friends

Book II

I

M. Cicero to C. Scribonius Curio^[1]

Rome, 53 B.C.

¹ Though I am sorry you should have suspected me on the score of "neglect," still I am more pleased that you missed my attentions than put out that you should accuse me of any remissness, especially since in so far as your charge went, I was in no sense to blame, while in so far as you implied that you longed for a letter from me, you openly avowed an affection for me, which, well as I knew it before, is none the less delightful and desirable. As a matter of fact I have not let a single carrier pass, if I thought he would reach you, without giving him a letter for you. Come now, who so indefatigable a correspondent as I? As for you, I have only

↑ The younger Scribonius Curio, now Quaestor to C. Clodius in Asia. He was "a kind of Roman Alcibiades," clever but utterly unscrupulous. He was ever a true friend to Cicero, whose part he took when the latter was in exile. Originally a Pompeian, he was bought over by Caesar, and Lucan says of him that he turned the scales in the civil war (Chron. Sum. for 50 B.C.). His career was not unlike that of his intimate friend M. Caelius Rufus, whom he also resembled in character. He was defeated and slain by Juba, king of Numidia, in 49 B.C.

93

[1] The younger Scribonius Curio, now Quaestor to C. Clodius in Asia. He was "a kind of Roman Alcibiades," clever but utterly unscrupulous. He was ever a true friend to Cicero, whose part he took when the latter was in exile. Originally a Pompeian, he was bought over by Caesar, and Lucan says of him that he turned the scales in the civil war (Chron. Sum. for 50 B.C.). His career was not unlike that of his intimate friend M. Caelius Rufus, whom he also resembled in character. He was defeated and slain by Juba, king of Numidia, in 49 B.C.

[1]