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Epistulae ad Familiares, II. xiii.

XIII

M. T. Cicero, imperator, to the same

Laodicea, early in May,[1] 50 B.C.

1 The letters I get from you are few and far between (perhaps they do not reach me), but they are charming; to take only the last I got, how shrewd it was, how packed with kindness and good advice! Though I had already decided that I should have to act in every respect as you advise, I am none the less fortified in my intentions by the feeling that men of discernment and my faithful counsellors hold the same views.

2 For Appius,[2] as I have often remarked in my conversations with you, I have a profound regard, and as soon as we buried the hatchet I felt that I had begun to win his regard. When consul he was prompt to do me honour, as a friend he is charming, and he takes an interest in what interests me. That I, on the other hand, never failed in my good services to him, you yourself can testify; and now I think I have the added testimony of Phania,[3] turning up like the witness in the denouement of a comedy[4]; and, on my honour, I thought all the more highly of him because I felt that he was devoted to you. You know that I am now all for Pompey, and you understand that I am fond of Brutus. What reason is there why it should not be one of my particular desires to take to my heart one so illustriously blessed with youth, affluence, public honours,[5] ability, children,[6] relatives, connexions, and friends,

  1. ↑ This letter was written some weeks before, and not after, Letter XII.
  2. ↑ Appius Claudius Pulcher, who succeeded Cicero as governor of Cilicia in 53 B.C.
  3. ↑ Phania seems to have been an intimate friend of Cicero and an intermediary between him and Appius. Cicero mentions him again in this connexion in iii. 1. 1.
  4. ↑ One who, for instance, identifies a long lost child. Cf. Shakespeare, Lear, I. ii. 146, "pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy."
  5. ↑ Appius was consul in 54 B.C.
  6. ↑ Of his three daughters, the eldest married Pompey's eldest son, the second Brutus, and the third Cornelius Lentulus.
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