I
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Laterium, April 3, B.C. 49
Iliad XXII, 304
On the third of April coming to my brother's house at Laterium, I got your letter with some little relief, a thing which had not happened to me since this disaster began. For I attach very great weight to your approval of my firmness of mind and my action. As for your writing that it meets with the approval of my friend Sextus, I am as glad as if I fancied myself to have won the approval of his father, on whose judgement I always set the very highest value. I often call to mind how it was he who said to me on that famous December the 5th, when I asked him what we were to do next: "Let me not die a coward and shameful death, but greatly daring live in fame for aye." So his influence lives for me, and his son, who is very like him, has the same weight as he. Please give him my best compliments.
Your plan, it is true, you postpone for a very short time,—for I fancy by now that that venal peace-maker must have wound up his speech, and something must have been done in the session of Senators, for I don't consider it a Senate,—still you keep mine in suspense, but the less so because I have no doubt as to what you think we should do. For when you write that Flavius is offered a legion and Sicily, and that the matter is now in hand, just think what
partim parari iam et cogitari, partim ex tempore futura censes? Ego vero Solonis, popularis tui, ut puto, etiam mei, legem neglegam, qui capite sanxit, si qui in seditione non alterius utrius partis fuisset, et, nisi si tu aliter censes, et hinc abero et illim. Sed alterum mihi est certius, nec praeripiam tamen. Exspectabo tuum consilium et eas litteras, nisi alias iam dedisti, quas scripsi ut Cephalioni dares.
Quod scribis, non quo aliunde audieris, sed te ipsum putare me attractum iri, si de pace agatur, mihi omnino non venit in mentem, quae possit actio esse de pace, cum illi certissimum sit, si possit, exspoliare exercitu et provincia Pompeium; nisi forte iste nummarius ei potest persuadere, ut, dum oratores eant, redeant, quiescat. Nihil video, quod sperem aut quod iam putem fieri posse. Sed tamen hominis hoc ipsum probi est et magnum τι[119] τῶν πολιτικωτάτων σκεμμάτων, veniendumne sit in consilium tyranni, si is aliqua de re bona deliberaturus sit. Quare, si quid eius modi evenerit, ut arcessamur (quod equidem non credo.[120] Quid enim essem de pace dicturus, dixi; ipse valde repudiavit), sed tamen, si quid acciderit, quid censeas mihi faciendum, utique scribito. Nihil enini mihi adhuc accidit, quod maioris consilii esset.
[119] et magnum τι Wesenberg; magnum sit MSS.