The Letters of Cicero Part 49

CLXVII (F II, 2)

TO C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO (IN ASIA)

ROME (? FEBRUARY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 53, aeT. 53]

I have been deprived of a strong witness to my extreme affection for you in the person of your most ill.u.s.trious father: who would have been fortunate above the common lot, both in his own memorable achievements and in the possession of such a son as yourself, had it been granted him to see you before his departure from life. But I hope our friends.h.i.+p stands in no need of witnesses. Heaven bless your inheritance to you!

You will at least have in me one to whom you are as dear and as precious as you have been to your father.

CLXVIII (F II, 3)

TO C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO (IN ASIA)

ROME (? FEBRUARY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 53, aeT. 53]

Rupa[697] was not backward in his wish to promise an exhibition of gladiators in your name, but neither I nor any of your friends approved of anything being done in your absence which would tie your hands when you returned. For my part, I will either write you my opinion at greater length later on, or, to give you no opportunity of preparing an answer to it, I will take you unprepared and state my view by word of mouth against yours. I shall thus either bring you over to my opinion, or at least leave in your mind a record of my view, so that, if at any time (which heaven forbid!) you may see cause to repent of your decision, you may be able to recall mine. Briefly, be a.s.sured that your return will find the state of things to be such, that you may gain the highest possible honours in the state more easily by the advantages with which you are endowed by nature, study, and fortune, than by gladiatorial exhibitions. The power of giving such things stirs no feeling of admiration in anyone; for it is wholly a question of means, and not of character; and there is n.o.body who is not by this time sick and tired of them. But I am not acting as I said I would do, for I am embarking on a statement of the reasons for my opinion. So I will put off this entire discussion to your arrival. Believe me, you are expected with the greatest interest, and hopes are entertained of you such as can only be entertained of the highest virtue and ability. If you are as prepared for this as you ought to be--and I feel certain you are--you will be bestowing on us, your friends, on the whole body of your fellow citizens, and on the entire state, the most numerous and most excellent of exhibitions. You will certainly become aware that no one can be dearer or more precious than you are to me.

[Footnote 697: A freedman and agent of Curio's. The question is of funeral games and an exhibition of gladiators in honour of Curio's father. Curio gave them, and involved himself in huge debt in consequence.]

CLXIX (F VII, 12)

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL)

ROME (? FEBRUARY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 53, aeT. 53]

I was wondering what had made you cease writing to me. My friend Pansa[698] has informed me that you have become an Epicurean! What a wonderful camp yours must be! What would you have done if I had sent you to Tarentum[699] instead of Samobriva? I was already a little doubtful about you, when I found you supporting the same doctrine as my friend Selius![700] But on what ground will you support the principles of civil law, if you act always in your own interest and not in that of your fellow citizens? What, too, is to become of the legal formula in cases of trust, "as should be done among honest men"? For who can be called honest who does nothing except on his own behalf? What principle will you lay down "in dividing a common property," when nothing can be "common" among men who measure all things by their own pleasure?[701]

How, again, can you ever think it right to swear by _Iupiter lapis_, when you know that Iupiter cannot be angry with anyone?[702] What is to become of the people of Ulubrae,[703] if you have decided that it is not right to take part in civic business? Wherefore, if you are really and truly a pervert from our faith, I am much annoyed; but if you merely find it convenient to humour Pansa, I forgive you. Only _do_ write and tell us how you are, and what you want me to do or to look after for you.

[Footnote 698: C. Vibius Pansa had been in Gaul, and was now home to stand for the tribunes.h.i.+p, which he obtained for B.C. 52-51.]

[Footnote 699: Where he would have been in luxury.]

[Footnote 700: A follower of the new academy, with which Cicero was more in sympathy than with the Epicurean ethics, but apparently only partly so. The leading doctrine was the denial of the possibility of knowledge, and, applied to ethics, this might destroy all virtue.]

[Footnote 701: All these jesting objections to a lawyer being an Epicurean are founded on the Epicurean doctrine that individual feeling is the standard of morals, and the _summum bonum_ is the good of the individual. The logical deduction that a man should therefore hold aloof from politics and social life, as involving social obligations and standards, was, of course, evaded in practice.]

[Footnote 702: For the Epicureans believed the G.o.ds to exist, but not to trouble themselves with the affairs of men. In taking an oath by _Iupiter lapis_ the swearer took a stone in his hand and said, "If I abide by this oath may he bless me: but if I do otherwise in thought or deed, may all others be kept safe, each in his own country, under his own laws, in enjoyment of his own goods, household G.o.ds, and tombs--may I alone be cast out, even as this stone is now." Then he throws down the stone. This pa.s.sage from Polybius (iii. 25) refers to treaties, but the same form seems to have been used in suits about land.]

[Footnote 703: Ulubrae--like other _municipia_--had a _patronus_ at Rome to look after its interests. If Trebatius (who was its _patronus_) would take no part in politics, he would be of no use to the Ulubrani.

p???te?es?a?, "to act as a citizen," "to act as a member of a political body."]

CLXX (F VII, 13)

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL)

ROME, 4 MARCH

[Sidenote: B.C. 53, aeT. 53]

Did you suppose me to be so unjust as to be angry with you from the idea that you were not sufficiently persevering and were too eager to return, and do you think that that is the reason of my long silence? I was certainly annoyed by the uneasiness of your spirits, which your first letters conveyed to me; but there was absolutely no other reason for the interruption of my own, except my complete ignorance of your address.

Are you still, at this time of day, finding fault with me, and do you refuse to accept my apology? Just listen to me, my dear Testa! Is it money that is making you prouder, or the fact that your commander-in-chief consults you? May I die if I don't believe that such is your vanity that you would rather be consulted by Caesar than gilded[704] by him! But if both reasons are true, who will be able to put up with you except myself, who can put up with anything? But to return to our subject--I am exceedingly glad that you are content to be where you are, and as your former state of mind was vexatious, so your present is gratifying, to me. I am only afraid that your special profession may be of little advantage to you: for, as I am told, in your present abode

"They lay no claim by joining lawful hands, But challenge right with steel."[705]

But you are not wont[706] to be called in to a.s.sist at a "forcible entry." Nor have you any reason to be afraid of the usual proviso in the injunction, "into which you have not previously made entry by force and armed men," for I am well a.s.sured that you are not a man of violence.

But to give you some hint as to what you lawyers call "securities," I opine that you should avoid the Treviri; I hear they are real _tresviri capitales_--deadly customers: I should have preferred their being _tresviri_ of the mint![707] But a truce to jesting for the present.

Pray write to me in the fullest detail of all that concerns you.

4 March.

[Footnote 704:

"I will make fast the doors and _gild_ myself With some more ducats."--SHAKESPEARE..

[Footnote 705: Ennius, _Ann._ 275. The phrase _manum consertum_ in legal language meant to make a joint claim by the symbolical act of each claimant laying a hand on the property (or some representation of it) in court. But it also meant "to join hands in war." Hence its equivocal use in this pa.s.sage. _Consertum_ is a supine, and some such word as _eunt_ must be understood before it.]

[Footnote 706: Reading _at tu non soles_. I cannot explain Prof.

Tyrrell's reading _et tu soles_ in connexion with what follows.]

[Footnote 707: This elaborate joke is founded on a pun upon the name of the Gallic _Treviri_ and the commissioners in Rome: (1) the _III viri capitales_, who had charge of prisons, executions, etc.; (2) the _III viri auro argento aeri flando feriundo_, "the commissioners for coining gold, silver, and bronze." Also there is a reference to the meaning of _capitalis_, "deadly," "affecting the life or citizens.h.i.+p."]

CLXXI (F VII, 14)

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL)

ROME (? MARCH)