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Epistulae ad Familiares, II. xvi.

will be no exception to the common lot of his fellow-citizens.

When you ask me to keep an eye on the interests of my own son-in-law, excellent youth as he is, and very dear to me, can you, when you know how much both he, and, of course, my dear Tullia are to me, can you, I say, doubt that my solicitude for them causes me intense anxiety? And all the more so since, amid the universal misery, I had still this gleam of hope to comfort me, that my, or rather our Dolabella would be freed from those embarrassments in which his liberality had involved him. I should like you to inquire what sort of settling-days he faced when in Rome, how painful to himself, how far from creditable to myself, his father-in-law.

6 And so I am neither awaiting the issue of this affair in Spain,[1] of which I have satisfied myself that your letter gives a true account, nor have I any crafty policy in my head. If ever there is to be a state, there will surely be room in it for me; if not, you will yourself, I imagine, come to those same desolate regions in which you hear that I have settled down. But maybe I am only raving, and everything will turn out better than we expect. I call to mind the fits of despair to which those folks were subject who were old men when I was a lad: perhaps I am now following their example, and indulging the weakness of my age. I hope it may be so; and yet. . .

7 I expect you have been told that Oppius is having a toga praetexta[2] woven for him; for our friend Curtius has set his heart on a double-dyed robe[3]; but he finds his dyer's "job" takes time.[4] There's a pinch

  1. ↑ Where Pompey's legates, Afranius, Petreius, and Varro, were opposing Caesar, who after their defeat returned to Rome.
  2. ↑ The embroidered robe of a curule magistrate. Oppius was one of Caesar's most trusted agents.
  3. ↑ The trabea, a robe of purple and saffron, worn by an augur.
  4. ↑ Lit. "his dyer keeps him waiting." But inficere has the double meaning of "dyeing" and "corrupting," and Cicero insinuates that Caesar (the infector) had bribed Curtius to join him by the promise of an augurship—a promise he is now hesitating to fulfil. Jean's rendering is exceedingly clever—"but the person from whom he takes his colour is keeping him waiting."
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