following your advice and still staying at Thessalonica in hope of the advantages you mention and of letters. When I get some news, I shall be able to shape my course of action. If you started from Rome on the first of June, as you say, I shall very soon see you. I have sent you the letter I wrote to Pompey.
Thessalonica, 13 June.
X
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Thessalonica, June 17. B.C. 58
Your letter has posted me up in political news to May 25: and I am awaiting the course of events at Thessalonica, as you suggest. When I hear more, I shall know where to be. For if there is any excuse, if anything is being done, if I see a ray of hope, I shall either wait here or pay you a visit: but if, as you say in your letter, those hopes have vanished into air I shall look for something else. At present you do not give me the least hint of anything except the disagreement of those friends of yours: and they are quarrelling about anything rather than me, so I do not see what good it will do me. But, as long as you wish me to hope, I will bow to your wishes. You frequently reproach me strongly for weak-heartedness: but I should like to know if I have been spared any hardship in my misfortune. Did anyone ever fall from such a high estate in such a good cause, especially when he was so well endowed with genius and good sense, so popular and so strongly supported by all honest men? Can I forget what I was? Can I help feeling what I am? Can I help missing my honour and fame, my children, my fortune and my brother? That is a fresh misfortune for you to contemplate.
ipsum semperque fecissem, vitavi ne viderem, ne aut illius luctum squaloremque aspicerem aut me, quem ille florentissimum reliquerat, perditum illi adflictumque offerrem. Mitto cetera intolerabilia; etenim fletu impedior. Hic utrum tandem sum accusandus, quod doleo, an quod commisi, ut haec aut non retinerem, quod facile fuisset, nisi intra parietes meos de mea pernicie consilia inirentur, aut certe vivus non amitterem?
Haec eo scripsi, ut potius relevares me, quod facis, quam ut castigatione aut obiurgatione dignum putares, eoque ad te minus multa scribo, quod et maerore impedior et, quod exspectem istinc, magis habeo, quam quod ipse scribam. Quae si erunt allata, faciam te consilii nostri certiorem. Tu, ut adhuc fecisti, quam plurimis de rebus ad me velim scribas, ut prorsus ne quid ignorem.
Data XIIII Kal. Quintiles Thessalonicae.
XI
CICERO ATTICO SAL.
Scr. Thessalonicae IV K. Quint. a. 696