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Epistulae ad Familiares, III. viii.

being dispatched to express their gratitude to you, but not as a private person, and not in their own private interests, but in those of the state, and not in a private place, but in the council chamber of the world—the Senate: and when I made an edict that nobody should set out for Rome without my permission, I did not extend my prohibition to those who were unable (as they said) to follow me all the way to camp or across the Taurus.[1] That is the most ridiculous passage in your letter; for what reason had they for following me to camp or crossing the Taurus, when I arranged my journey from Laodicea right up to Iconium for the very purpose of enabling the magistrates and legates of all those assize districts[2] which lie this side of Taurus, and of all the states there, to meet me? 5 Unless you mean to say that deputations did not begin to be sent until I had crossed the Taurus, and that is certainly not the case. For when I was at Laodicea, at Apamea, at Synnada, at Philomelium, and at Iconium (and I spent some time in each of those towns), all the deputations of that sort had already been constituted. And anyhow there is this also that I would have you know, that I made no decree respecting either the reduction or the repayment of the expenses of the deputations beyond what the leading men of the states demanded of me—that quite unnecessary expenses should not be piled upon the sale of the taxes[3] and that bitterly resented exaction (you know all about it) of the poll-tax and the door-tax. When, however, moved by a sense of justice and of compassion also, I had taken upon myself to relieve the

  1. ↑ What Cicero seems to mean is that, so far from wishing to inconvenience those who desired his "permit" by forcing a long journey upon them, he had made elaborate arrangements for meeting them at various places.
  2. ↑ The three "dioceses," Cibyra, Apamea, and Synnada, properly belonging to the province of Asia, but temporarily added to that of Cilicia. They were subsequently assigned to Asia.
  3. ↑ The letting of the tributum by the State to publicani, which occurred when the Cilicians, who normally collected their own taxes, fell into arrears; and the publicani were ever assiduous in their own interests.
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