Accord Cæsar, and I was present when it was bestowed. ingly his name is now P. Cornelius. And when, on account of certain infamous persons who used to sell grants from him, Cæsar ordered the tablet containing the names of those who had received citizenship to be taken down, he told the same Dolabella in my hearing that he had nothing to fear as to Megas, and that his grant to him held good. I wished you to know this in order that you might reckon him as a Roman citizen; and in all other respects I commend him to you with an earnestness beyond which I have not gone with respect to anyone. You will do me the very greatest favour if you shew him by your treatment of him that my recommendation has been greatly to his honour. DCLXXXVI (F XIII, 37) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME I RECOMMEND Hippias, son of Philoxenus, of Calacta, to you with more than common earnestness. His property, as the matter has been reported to me, is held by the state for a debt which is not properly his, contrary to the laws of the Calactini. If that is so, even without any recommendation from me, the merits of the case itself ought to secure him your assistance. But however the matter stands, I beg you as a compliment to me to expedite his case, and both in this and in all other matters to oblige him as far as your honour and position will allow. It will be doing me a very great favour. DCLXXXVII (F XIII, 38) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME L. BRUTTIUS a Roman knight, a young man of every sort of accomplishment, is among my most intimate friends, and shews me very constant attention. I have had a great friendship with his father from the time of my Sicilian quæstorship. In point of fact Bruttius is at this moment staying with me at Rome: still I recommend his house, his property, and his agents to you with an earnestness beyond which I cannot go in such a recommendation. You will exceedingly oblige me if you take the trouble to let Bruttius feel, as I have assured him will be the case, that my recommendation has been of great assistance to him. DCLXXXVIII (F XIII, 39) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME An old connexion grew up between the Titurnian family and myself. Of this family the last survivor is M. Titurnius Rufus, whom I am bound to protect with every possible care and attention. It is then in your power to make him think that he has a sufficient protector in me. Wherefore I recommend him to you with more than common earnestness, and I beg you to make him feel that this recommendation has been of great assistance to him. You will very greatly oblige me by doing so. DCLXXXIX (F XVI, 18) TO TIRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (DECEMBER) WHAT do you say? Ought it not be so? I think it ought for my part. The word suo ought also to be added. But, if you please, let us avoid exciting prejudice, which however I have myself often neglected.' I am glad the sweating has done you good. If only Tusculum has done so also, good heavens! what a charm that would add to the place in my eyes! But if you love me, as you do, or make a very pretty imitation of doing-an imitation which quite answers its purpose-well, however that may be, nurse your health now, to which, while devoting yourself to my service, you have not been devoted enough. You know what it requiresgood digestion, freedom from fatigue, moderate walking, friction of the skin, easy operation of the bowels. Be sure you come back looking well. That would make me still fonder of Tusculum as well as of you. Stir up Parhedrus to hire the garden for himself: by doing so you will keep the actual gardener up to the mark. That utter scoundrel Helico used to pay a thousand sesterces, when there was no hot-bed, no water turned on, no wall, no garden-shed. Is he to have the laugh of us, after we have spent all that money? 3 'This seems to have no reference which we can now hope to explain. Tiro had apparently objected to some phrase in a writing of Cicero's, partly at any rate on grammatical grounds. 2 These words are given in Greek, as medical terms usually were. 3 It is impossible to be sure of the state of things to which allusion is made. Tiro seems to have complained that the gardener Helico at Tusculum wasn't doing well. Cicero says, "Get Parhedrus to take it— supplying what is wanted in the house as part rent-he will keep the workman up to his work. Helico is a great rascal not to do better by the garden, for he has had it at a small rent, never raised in spite of all the improvements which I have made. Parhedrus will pay more, and also be more satisfactory." 3 Warm the fellow up, as I do Motho' and so get plenty of flowers. What arrangement is being made about the Crabra,3 though now indeed we have enough water and to spare, I should yet wish to know. I will send the sun-dial and books, if the weather is dry. But have you no books with you, or are you composing in the Sophoclean vein? Mind you have something to shew for your labour. Cæsar's friend Aulus Ligurius is dead: he was a good man and a good friend to me. Let me know when we are to expect you. Take great care of youself. Good-bye. DCXC (F XVI, 20) TO TIRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (DECEMBER) 5 UPON my life, my dear Tiro, your health makes me very uneasy. But I feel confident that if you continue to take the same care as you have begun to do, you will soon be strong. Arrange the books, get the catalogue made when it pleases Metrodorus, since you have to live according to his orders. Settle with the gardener as you think right. You can go to see the gladiators on the first, and return home next day. And I think that is what you had better do. But as you please. Take great care of yourself, if you love Good-bye. me. 1 Perhaps Motho is the town gardener-as we know there was a garden at Cicero's town house. A supply of flowers there would be specially needed for parties, festivals, etc. 2 Reading itaque abundo coronis. 3 The Crabra was the name of the conduit supplying Tusculum with water, for which Cicero paid a rate to the municipality (De leg. Agr., iii. § 8). 4 Vol. i., p. 331; supra, p. 24. 5 The physician. DCXCI (F VII, 30) This momentous year opened apparently without any special signs of danger. Cicero was employed in finishing his Tusculan Disputations, B.C. 44, æt. 62. M. Emilius Lepidus II. C. Octavius non Cn. Domitiusinierunt. M. Antonius. P. Cornelius Dolabella. and we have practically only one letter from him before the Ides of March (the others being mere letters of introduction of the usual formal kind). But in the one addressed to Curius, he takes occasion to shew his discontent at the régime. He seems to have been specially annoyed at the disparagement of the consular dignity involved in Cæsar appointing Rebilus to that office for one day, the last of the year, in order to reward him by the rank of a consular. This calm was suddenly interrupted by the murder of Cæsar, and Cicero immediately threw himself into politics again with the idea that the republic was restored. He soon found however that the regnum had not ended with the death of the rex, and that Antony had no intention of sinking into the position of a mere constitutional magistrate, to say nothing of the claims of the young Octavius-whom Cicero at first hoped to play off against Antony. From about June to the end of August therefore Cicero again avoided politics by visiting his villas and devoting himself to literature, intending also to visit his son at Athens. The de Natura Deorum, de Divinatione, de Fato, de Senectute, de Amicitia, de Gloria, de Officiis, and Topica, were all finished in this year, and probably in the first half of it. After the beginning of September he was engaged heart and soul in the leadership of the senatorial party against Antony. The first four speeches against Antony (Phil. i.-iv.) were written and three of them delivered before the end of the year. The last letter to Atticus is written in December of this year. TO MANIUS CURIUS (AT PATRÆ) ROME (JANUARY) No, I now neither urge nor ask you to return home. Nay, I am longing myself to fly away and to arrive somewhere, where "I may hear neither the name nor the deeds of the Pelopida." You could scarcely believe how disgraceful my conduct appears to me in countenancing the present state of things. Truly, I think you foresaw long ago what was 1 1 For this quotation, see p. 100. |