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Epistulae ad Familiares, III. ii.

II

To the same, when proconsul in Cilicia

Rome, 51 B.C.

¹ Though it has come about both against my inclinations and contrary to my expectations that I am obliged to set out for a province with imperium,^[1] amid my many and varied annoyances and reflections the one consolation that suggests itself to me is, that you could have no better friend than I am as your successor, and that I could take over the province from nobody who would be more anxious to hand it over to me in the best possible order and with all difficulties smoothed away. And if you, too, have the same hope as regards my goodwill towards you, you will assuredly never be disappointed in that hope. I beg and beseech you again and again with the greatest earnestness, in the name of our very close connexion,^[2] and of your own incomparable kindliness, in whatever respect you can (and you can in very many respects) to look ahead and take measures for the protection of my interests.

² You see that by a decree of the Senate I am obliged to take a province.^[3] If, so far as you find it feasible in the circumstances,^[4] you hand it over to me as unencumbered with difficulties as you can, it will be the easier for me to run the whole race (if I

↑ The governorship of a consular province carried with it the imperium—the command of imperial forces, military and naval.
↑ Both were members of the College of Augurs, and both wrote treatises on augural law.
↑ In 52 Pompey had carried, among other measures, a law de provinciis, providing that five years must at least elapse between holding office in Rome and taking up the government of a province. That Cicero had no desire for provincial government is shown by his resigning the chance of a province after his consulship in 63 (cf. v. 2. 3). In 51, however, the Senate decreed that all qualified ex-magistrates who had not yet governed a province must (apparently in order of seniority) accept such appointments; and Cicero was thus, twelve years after his consulship, compelled to draw lots for a consular province: he drew Cilicia, and his colleague in the consulship, Bibulus, soon after obtained Syria.
↑ Lit. "whatever of that (eius) you shall have been able to effect."

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[1] The governorship of a consular province carried with it the imperium—the command of imperial forces, military and naval.

[2] Both were members of the College of Augurs, and both wrote treatises on augural law.

[3] In 52 Pompey had carried, among other measures, a law de provinciis, providing that five years must at least elapse between holding office in Rome and taking up the government of a province. That Cicero had no desire for provincial government is shown by his resigning the chance of a province after his consulship in 63 (cf. v. 2. 3). In 51, however, the Senate decreed that all qualified ex-magistrates who had not yet governed a province must (apparently in order of seniority) accept such appointments; and Cicero was thus, twelve years after his consulship, compelled to draw lots for a consular province: he drew Cilicia, and his colleague in the consulship, Bibulus, soon after obtained Syria.

[4] Lit. "whatever of that (eius) you shall have been able to effect."

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