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Epistulae ad Familiares, I. ix.

IX

M. Cicero to P. Lentulus, imperator^[1]

Rome, December, 54 B.C.

¹ I was very much pleased with your letter, which made me realize that you fully appreciate my devotion to you; for why should I say "my goodwill" when even that term "devotion" itself, most solemn and sacred as it is, does not seem to me impressive enough to describe my obligation to you? But when you write that you are grateful to me for my exertions on your behalf, by a sort of overflow of affection you represent those acts, which could not be omitted without perpetrating an atrocious crime, as actually deserving of gratitude. My feelings towards you, however, would have been better recognized and more marked, if all this time during which we have been separated we had been together and at Rome.

² For in that very line of action you plainly declare that you will adopt—no man is better qualified to do so, and I eagerly look to you to do so—I mean in speaking in the Senate, and in every sphere of public life and political administration, we should have made our mark (what is my own feeling and position in politics I shall explain a little later, and at the same time reply to your questions); at any rate I should have found in you a supporter most kindly and most wise, and you in me a counsellor

↑ This celebrated letter, which teems with interest for the student of Cicero's political life, was written in 54 B.C., when, as Mr. How puts it, "Pompey still ruled Rome as best he could, and Cicero acquiesced in his supremacy, still unconscious that it might be hereafter challenged by Caesar. His complete acceptance of the position is show by his laboured defence of his conduct" in this letter.

It is an ἀπολογία for his change of political front rather than a παλινῳδία, for that had already appeared either in his speech De provinciis consularibus, or else in some more direct communication to Caesar of which we have no record.

As to his personal relations to the Triumvirate, he had always been a friendly admirer of Pompey, he was drawn closer to Caesar by the latter's generosity to himself and intimacy with his brother Quintus, now on Caesar's staff, and he had even become reconciled, superficially at least, with the triumvir he had always hated, M. Crassus.

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[1] This celebrated letter, which teems with interest for the student of Cicero's political life, was written in 54 B.C., when, as Mr. How puts it, "Pompey still ruled Rome as best he could, and Cicero acquiesced in his supremacy, still unconscious that it might be hereafter challenged by Caesar. His complete acceptance of the position is show by his laboured defence of his conduct" in this letter.

It is an ἀπολογία for his change of political front rather than a παλινῳδία, for that had already appeared either in his speech De provinciis consularibus, or else in some more direct communication to Caesar of which we have no record.

As to his personal relations to the Triumvirate, he had always been a friendly admirer of Pompey, he was drawn closer to Caesar by the latter's generosity to himself and intimacy with his brother Quintus, now on Caesar's staff, and he had even become reconciled, superficially at least, with the triumvir he had always hated, M. Crassus.

[1]