O rem difficilem planeque perditam! quam nihil praetermittis in consilio dando; quam nihil tamen, quod tibi ipsi placeat, explicas! Non esse me una cum Pompeio gaudes ac proponis, quam sit turpe me adesse, cum quid de illo detrahatur; nefas esse approbare. Certe; contra igitur? "Di," inquis, "averruncent!" Quid ergo fiet, si in altero scelus est, in altero supplicium? "Impetrabis," inquis, "a Caesare, ut tibi abesse liceat et esse otioso." Supplicandum igitur? Miserum. Quid, si non impetraro? "Et de triumpho erit," inquis, "integrum." Quid, si hoc ipso premar? accipiam? Quid foedius? Negem? Repudiari se totum, magis etiam quam olim in XX viratu, putabit. Ac solet, cum se purgat, in me
from you, still I suppose I ought to answer the shorter note, which you sent on the 4th on the eve of your attack. You say you are glad that I have stayed in Italy, and you write that you abide by your former view. But an earlier letter led me to think you had no doubt I ought to go, if Pompey embarked with a good following and the consuls crossed too. Have you forgotten this, or have I failed to understand you, or have you changed your mind? But I shall either learn your opinion from the letter I now await: or I shall extract another letter from you. From Brundisium so far there is no news.
IIa
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Formiae, March 8, B.C. 49
What a difficult and calamitous business! Nothing passed over in the advice you give, nothing revealed as to your real opinion! You are glad that I am not with Pompey, and yet you lay down how wrong it would be for me to be present when he is criticized: it were shameful to approve his conduct. Agreed. Should I then speak against him? "Heaven forbid," you say. So, what can happen, if one way lies crime, and the other punishment? You advise me to get from Caesar leave of absence and permission to retire. Must I then beg and pray? That would be humiliating: and suppose I fail? You say the matter of my triumph will not be prejudiced. But what if I am hampered by that very thing? Accept it? What dishonour! Refuse it? Caesar will think that I am repudiating him entirely, more even than when I declined a place among his twenty land commissioners.[81] And it is his way, when he excuses himself
[81] The vigintiviri for the distribution of Campanian land in 59 B.C. Cf. II, 19.
conferre omnem illorum temporum culpam. Ita me sibi fuisse inimicum, ut ne honorem quidem a se accipere vellem. Quanto nunc hoc idem accipiet asperius! Tanto scilicet, quanto et honor hic illo est amplior et ipse robustior. Nam, quod negas te dubitare, quin magna in offensa sim apud Pompeium hoc tempore, non video causam, cur ita sit hoc quidem tempore. Qui enim amisso Corfinio denique certiorem me sui consilii fecit, is queretur Brundisium me non venisse, cum inter me et Brundisium Caesar esset? Deinde etiam scit ἀπαρρησίαστον esse in ea causa querelam suam. Me putat de municipiorum imbecillitate, de dilectibus, de pace, de urbe, de pecunia, de Piceno occupando plus vidisse quam se. Sin, cum potuero, non venero, tum erit inimicus, quod ego non eo vereor ne mihi noceat (quid enim faciet?