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Epistulae ad Familiares, I. ix.

not entirely lacking, if I may say so, in knowledge of the world, and certainly loyal and well disposed. And yet on your account I rejoice, as I am bound to do, that you are now imperator^[1] and with your victorious army are holding your province after your successful operations; but undoubtedly you would have been able to enjoy the fruits of my indebtedness to you in richer abundance and to greater advantage had you been on the spot. Indeed, in the punishment of those whom you find in some cases to be your foes because you so valiantly fought for my recall, in others to be envious of you because you won so much honour and glory by that achievement, I should have proved myself a marvellously efficient coadjutor—though that never-failing foe of his own friends,^[2] who, though you honoured him by doing him the greatest kindnesses, concentrated upon you of all people his maimed and emasculated violence, has done our work for us and punished himself; his attempts have been such that their disclosure has left him for the rest of his life without a particle, I will not say of dignity, but even of independence.

³ Now though I should prefer that you had learned the lesson from my experience alone, and not from your own also, still I am glad that, annoyed as you must be, you have tested at not so very great a cost the worth of men's loyalty, which I had tested at the price of the bitterest anguish. But as to the significance of the whole affair, I think I have now an opportunity of so making my explanation as to reply at the same time to your questions.

⁴ You write that you have been informed by letter that I am on good terms with Caesar and with Appius, and add that you raise no objection to that:

↑ This title had been given him for some success over marauding tribes in his province, as it was afterwards given to Cicero himself, when proconsul of the same province.
↑ The person thus stigmatized is most probably the tribune, C. Cato, who had proposed Lentulus's recall from Cilicia, and otherwise behaved outrageously. It can hardly be Appius Claudius Pulcher, with whom just below (§ 4) Cicero records the renewal of his friendship, still less can it be Pompey, the whole letter being Cicero's defence of his reconciliation with the triumvirs.

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[1] This title had been given him for some success over marauding tribes in his province, as it was afterwards given to Cicero himself, when proconsul of the same province.

[2] The person thus stigmatized is most probably the tribune, C. Cato, who had proposed Lentulus's recall from Cilicia, and otherwise behaved outrageously. It can hardly be Appius Claudius Pulcher, with whom just below (§ 4) Cicero records the renewal of his friendship, still less can it be Pompey, the whole letter being Cicero's defence of his reconciliation with the triumvirs.

[1]

[2]