Scr. in Formiano XIII K. Apr. a. 705
Legeram tuas litteras XIII K., cum mihi epistula adfertur a Lepta circumvallatum esse Pompeium, ratibus etiam exitus portus teneri. Non medius fidius prae lacrimis possum reliqua nec cogitare nec scribere. Misi ad te exemplum. Miseros nos! cur non omnes fatum illius una exsecuti sumus? Ecce autem a Matio et Trebatio eadem, quibus Menturnis obvii Caesaris tabellarii. Torqueor infelix, ut iam illum Mucianum
many years since I chose you two men for my special respect, and to be my closest friends, as you are. So I ask you, or rather beseech and entreat you with all urgency, that in spite of all your anxieties you may devote some time to considering how I may be enabled by your kindness to be what decency and gratitude, nay good-feeling, require, in remembering my great debt to Pompey. If this only mattered to myself, I should yet hope to obtain my request; but to my mind it touches your honour and the public weal that I, a friend of peace and of both of you, should be so supported by you that I may be able to work for peace between you and peace amongst our fellow-citizens. I thanked you formerly in the matter of Lentulus, for having saved him, as he had saved me. Yet on reading the letter he has sent me full of thankfulness for your generous kindness, I feel that his safety is my debt as much as his. If you understand my gratitude to him, pray give me the opportunity of showing my gratitude to Pompey too.
XII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Formiae, March 20, B.C. 49
I had just read your letter on the 20th, when an epistle was brought to me from Lepta announcing that Pompey was blockaded and that even escape from the harbour was cut off by a fleet. Upon my honour tears prevent me from thinking or writing anything else. I send you a copy of the letter. Wretches that we are, why did we not all follow his fortunes together? See now, here are Matius and Trebatius with the same tidings. Caesar's letter-carriers met them at Menturnae. I am tortured with
exitum exoptem. At quam honesta, at quam expedita tua consilia, quam evigilata tuis cogitationibus qua itineris, qua navigationis, qua congressus sermonisque cum Caesare! Omnia cum honesta tum cauta. In Epirum vero invitatio quam suavis, quam liberalis, quam fraterna!