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Epistulae ad Familiares, III. viii.

I fail to understand even what the statement in question is. Of this I am sure, that many distinctly laudatory speeches of mine have been delivered both on and off the bench, which were highly complimentary to you, and showed my great anxiety to demonstrate our intimacy, and that those speeches might well have been correctly reported to you. As far as the legates[1] are concerned, what could have been in better taste or more equitable than my action in reducing the expenses of the most impecunious states, and that without in any way impairing your dignity, especially when it was done at the urgent request of the states themselves? For I was not aware at the time of the general scale of the deputations which were going to Rome on your account. When I was at Apamea, the leading men of many states reported to me that the amount of money decreed for the expenses was excessive, and that although the states were insolvent.

3 Upon that, many thoughts suggested themselves to me at once. In the first place, I never supposed that you, a man not only of common-sense, but also (to use the modern phrase) of "culture," derived any pleasure from that sort of deputation; and, if I mistake not, I argued at some length to that effect when on the bench at Synnada, pointing out firstly, that Appius Claudius had won credit in the eyes of the Senate and Roman people not on the strength of the testimony of the inhabitants of Midaeum (that was the state in which the matter was mentioned), but by doing what his nature prompted him to do;[2] in the next place, that this is what I had seen happening to many ex-governors—deputations had come to Rome on their behalf, but I had no recollection of

  1. ↑ It was customary in the provinces to send legates to Rome to commend (laudare) an ex-governor, and press his claims to a triumph. The expense was borne by the provincial states, and the practice became an intolerable burden upon them. This was now the case with the Cilicians, who, though willing to send legates to Rome to "commend Appius," found the cost to great, and complained to Cicero. He ordered that any such legates should pay their own expenses, and that the towns should not be taxes for the purpose. To this order Appius naturally objected.
  2. ↑ "By his own personality." Tyrrell. "But in the natural course of things." Shuckburgh.
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