X
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Near Rome, Jan. 17 or 18, B.C. 49
I have suddenly determined to leave town before daybreak, so that I may escape sightseers and gossips, especially with my bay-decked lictors. For the rest, what to do now or later, upon my word, I do not know: I am so upset by our rash and lunatic policy. What advice can I offer you, when it is to you I look for advice? I know not what plan Pompey has made or is making: so far he is cooped up in the towns, paralysed. If he makes his stand in Italy, we shall all be together: if he retires, it will be a matter for debate. So far certainly, unless I have lost my wits, his policy has been rash and foolish. Please write to me often, just what comes into your head.
XI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
In Campania, Jan. 17-22, B.C. 49
What in the name of wonder is this? What is happening? I am in the dark. People say, "Cingulum is ours, Ancona is lost, Labienus has deserted from Caesar." Are we talking of a Roman officer or of Hannibal? Wretched madman never to have seen the shadow even of right! Yet all this, he says, is done to support his honour. Can there be honour without honesty: and is it honest to retain an army without sanction, to seize the cities of your country that you may strike the better at her heart, to contrive abolition of debts, the restoration of exiles, and scores of other crimes,
τὴν θεῶν μεγίστην ὥστ' ἔχειν τυραννίδα——;