Page:Loeb Classical Library L205N (1958).djvu/173

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
 
Epistulae ad Familiares, II. xv.

XV

M. T. Cicero, imperator, to the same

Sida, early in August, 50 B.C.

1 Nothing could have been more correct or sensible than your action in conjunction with Curio in the matter of my supplicatio[1]; and, really and truly, the business has been carried through to my entire satisfaction, not only in point of dispatch, but also because the man who was so angry, the candidate who opposed you and myself too at the polls,[2] concurred with the man who honoured my achievements with eulogies befitting a god. Be assured, therefore, that I am hopeful about the next step[3]; see that you make ready for it.

2 As for Dolabella, I am glad, firstly, that you speak well of him, secondly, that you are actually attached to him; for when you express a hope of his possible reformation by the discreet influence of my dear Tullia, I know what letter of yours[4] that is intended to counterbalance. What if you were to read the letter[5] I sent at the time, in consequence of your letter, to Appius? But what is one to do? Such is life. What is done, may the gods approve. I hope I shall find him a pleasant son-in-law; and there your kindheartedness will be a great help to me.

3 The political outlook causes me great anxiety. There's Curio—I am favourably disposed towards him; Caesar—I sincerely wish him all honour;

  1. ↑ A solemn thanksgiving decreed by the Senate, when a victory had been won. It was Cicero's second supplicatio, the first having been decreed him when he suppressed the Catilinarian conspiracy—the first instance of such an honor being conferred upon a civilian.
  2. ↑ Hirrus, who had been Cicero's competitor for the augurate, and Caelius's for the curule aedileship (cf. ii. 9 and 10).
  3. ↑ i.e., a triumph, to which Cato objected.
  4. ↑ Probably viii. 6. 2, alluding to Tullia's having left Dolabella, and the latter's injudicious talk. Such is the utter lack of chronological order in the ms. arrangement of these letters.
  5. ↑ No doubt he means the elaborate explanation he offered to Appius in iii. 12.
139
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.