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Epistulae ad Familiares, III. viii.

although both of us have acted conscientiously, but have not both followed the same line, that man I am not anxious to have for my friend.

8 Your liberality, characteristic of so great a nobleman, covered a wider field in the province; if mine was more circumscribed (though your own openhanded and bountiful nature had to be somewhat modified in your second year of office,[1] owing to a certain unhappiness in the times), still, seeing that it has ever been my nature to fight shy of extravagance at the expense of others, and that the times have the same effect upon myself as upon others, men ought not to be surprised that

I give them gall to give my conscience honey.[2]

9 You have given me information about affairs in the City; that was not only gratifying to me in itself, but also because it showed that all my messages to you would have your attention. Among them is one to which I beg of you to give particular attention—to see to it that no addition is made to my duties here, in the way of either responsibility or length of tenure of office; and also to ask Hortensius, my fellow-augur and intimate friend, if he has ever either voted or done anything in my favour, to abandon also this proposal of his that I should hold office for two years; for nothing could be more unkind to me.

10 You wish to know about my affairs; well, I left Tarsus on October 7, and made for Amanus; I write this on the day following that on which I was encamped in the region of Mopsuhestia. If I succeed in doing anything, I shall write to you; and I shall never send a letter home to my people without adding one

  1. ↑ Lit. "though your second year of office filed something off your open-handed," etc.
  2. ↑ In other words "that I do my duty at the cost of my popularity to satisfy my own conscience." It is doubtless an iambic senarius, but hard to scan, unless we read uti for ut.
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