Formiae, Feb. 24, B.C. 49
What disgrace, and therefore what misery! For I feel disgrace to be the crown of misery, or indeed the only real misery. Pompey treated Caesar as his protégé, began suddenly to fear him, declined terms of peace, made no preparation for war, quitted Rome, lost Picenum by his own fault, got himself blocked in Apulia, went off to Greece without a word, leaving us in ignorance of a plan so important and unusual. Then all of a sudden Domitius' letter to Pompey and Pompey's letter to the consuls. It seemed to me that the Right had flashed upon his gaze, and that he, the old heroic Pompey, cried:
"What subtle craft they will let them devise,
And work their wiliest in my despite.
The right is on my side."[67]
[67] A fragment of Euripides parodied by Aristophanes, Acharnians, 659-661.
At ille tibi πολλὰ χαίρειν τᾷ καλᾷ dicens pergit Brundisium. Domitium autem aiunt re audita et eos, qui una essent, se tradidisse. O rem lugubrem! Itaque intercludor dolore, quo minus ad te plura scribam. Tuas litteras exspecto.
IX
CICERO ATTICO SAL.
Scr. in Formiano V K. Mart. a. 705
Epistulam meam quod pervulgatam scribis esse, non fero moleste, quin etiam ipse multis dedi describendam. Ea enim et acciderunt iam et impendent, ut testatum esse velim, de pace quid senserim. Cum autem ad eam hortarer eum praesertim hominem, non videbar ullo modo facilius moturus, quam si id, quod eum hortarer, convenire eius sapientiae dicerem. Eam si "admirabilem" dixi, cum eum ad salutem patriae hortabar, non sum veritus, ne viderer adsentari, cui tali in re lubenter me ad pedes abiecissem. Quod autem est "aliquid inpertias temporis," non est, de pace, sed de me ipso et de meo officio ut aliquid cogitet. Nam, quod testificor me expertem belli fuisse, etsi id re perspectum est, tamen eo scripsi, quo in suadendo plus auctoritatis haberem; eodemque pertinet, quod causam eius probo.