Minus multa ad te scripsi, quod exspectabam tuas litteras ad eas, quas pridie dederam. Exspectabam autem maxime de fano, non nihil etiam de Terentia. Velim me facias certiorem proximis litteris, Cn. Caepio, Serviliae Claudi pater, vivone patre suo naufragio perierit an mortuo, item Rutilia vivone C. Cotta, filio suo, mortua sit an mortuo. Pertinent ad eum librum, quem de luctu minuendo scripsimus.
XXI
CICERO ATTICO SAL.
Scr. Asturae XVI K. Apr. a. 709
Legi Bruti epistulam eamque tibi remisi sane non prudenter rescriptam ad ea, quae requisieras. Sed ipse viderit. Quamquam illud turpiter ignorat. Catonem primum sententiam putat de animadversione dixisse, quam omnes ante dixerant praeter Caesarem, et, cum ipsius Caesaris tam severa fuerit, qui tum praetorio loco dixerit, consularium putat leniores fuisse, Catuli, Servili, Lucullorum, Curionis, Torquati, Lepidi, Gelli, Volcaci, Figuli, Cottae, L. Caesaris, C. Pisonis, M'. Glabrionis, etiam Silani, Murenae, designatorum consulum. Cur ergo in sententiam Catonis? Quia verbis luculentioribus et pluribus rem eandem comprehenderat. Me autem hic laudat, quod rettulerim,
my grief. Can I do so better than by spending all my days in writing? Though I do it, not to hide, but rather to soften and to heal my feelings, still, if I do myself but little good, I certainly keep up appearances.
My letter is shorter than it might be, because I am expecting your answer to mine of yesterday. I am most anxious about the shrine and a little about Terentia too. Please let me know in your next letter whether Cn. Caepio, father of Claudius' wife Servilia, perished by shipwreck during his father's life or after his death, and whether Rutilia died before or after her son C. Cotta.[[59]] They concern the book I have written on the lightening of grief.
[59]. Cotta was a celebrated orator, and held the consulship in 75 B.C. His mother Rutilia survived him, according to Seneca (Consol. ad Helviam, 16, 7).
XXI
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Astura, March 17, B.C. 45
I have read Brutus' letter and am sending it back to you. It is not at all a sensible answer to the points in which you found him wanting. But that is his look out: though in one thing it shows disgraceful ignorance on his part. He thinks Cato was the first to deliver a speech for the punishment of the conspirators, though everybody except Caesar had spoken before him: and that, though Caesar's speech, delivered from the praetorian bench, was so severe, those of the ex-consuls, Catulus, Servilius, the Luculli, Curio, Torquatus, Lepidus, Gellius, Volcacius, Figulus, Cotta, L. Caesar, C. Piso, M'. Glabrio, and even the consuls elect Silanus and Murena, were milder. Why then was the division taken on Cato's proposal? Because he had summed up the same matter in clearer and fuller words. My merit according to Brutus lay in bringing the affair