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maintenance of your prestige—I had rather use that word than "safety"—in this province, of which you were governor, I will play the part and discharge the duties of an intercessor by my importunity, of a kinsman by my efforts, of a popular favourite, I hope, by my influence with the states, of a commander-in-chief by my authority. There is no limit to what I would have you demand or expect of me; I will make your anticipations fall short of my services.
2 Q. Servilius[1] has delivered me a very short letter from you, and yet it seemed to me longer than it need have been; I felt you did me an injustice in thinking a request necessary. I could have wished that the unhappy occasion had never arisen for your being able to understand what value I set upon you, upon Pompey, whom, as I ought, I esteem more highly than any other man on earth, and upon Brutus—although in our daily intercourse you might have understood this as you are sure to understand it—but since the occasion has arisen, if I leave anything undone, I shall confess to have committed a crime and covered myself with disgrace.
3 Pomptinus,[2] whom you have treated with remarkable and even extraordinary loyalty, a kindness to which I can myself testify, shows that he is as grateful and well-disposed towards you as he is in duty bound to be, for although he had been compelled by urgent private affairs to leave me much against my will, yet, when he saw it was to your interest, though in the act of embarking, he returned from Ephesus to Laodicea. Seeing that you are likely to meet with such acts of devotion in countless cases, I can have no doubt whatever that all this anxiety you are suffering will but enhance your ascendancy. If,