I have often intended to speak to you about the subject of this letter, and have always been restrained by a certain awkward bashfulness. But a letter will not blush; I can make my request at a distance. It is this: I am incredibly eager, and, after all, there is nothing disgraceful in my eagerness, that the history which you are writing should give prominence to my name, and praise it frequently. You have often given me to understand that I should receive that honour, but you must pardon my impatience to see it actually conferred. I have always expected that your work would be of great excellence, but the part which I have lately seen exceeds all that I had imagined, and has inflamed me with the keenest desire that my career should at once be celebrated in your records. What I desire is not only that my name should go down to future ages, but also that even while I live I may see my reputation endorsed by your authority and illumined by your genius.
Of course, I know very well that you are sufficiently occupied with the period on which you are engaged. But, realising that your account of the Italian and Marian civil wars is almost completed, and that you are already entering upon our later annals, I cannot refrain from asking you to consider whether it would be better to weave my career into the general texture of your work, or to mould it into a distinct episode. Several Greek writers have given examples of the latter method; thus Callisthenes, Timaeus, and Polybius, treating respectively of the Trojan war, and of the wars of Pyrrhus and of Numantia, detached their narratives of these conflicts from their main treatises; and it is open to you, in a similar way, to treat of the Catiline conspiracy independently of the main current of your history.
In suggesting this course, I do not suppose that it will make much difference to my reputation; my point is rather that my desire to appear in your work will be satisfied so much the earlier if you proceed to deal with my affairs separately and by anticipation, instead of waiting until they arise as elements in the general course of affairs. Besides, by concentrating your mind on one episode and on one person, your matter will be much more detailed and your treatment of it far more elaborate.
I am conscious, of course, that my request is not exactly a modest one. It is to lay a task on you which your occupations may well justify you in refusing; and, again, it is to ask you to celebrate actions which you may not think altogether worthy of so much honour. But having already passed beyond the bounds of modesty, I may as well show myself boldly shameless. Well, then, I implore you repeatedly, not only to praise my conduct more warmly than may be justified by your feeling with regard to it, but even, if necessary, to transgress the laws of history. One of your prefaces indicates, most acceptably and plainly, your personal amity; but just as Hercules, according to Xenophon, was incorruptible by pleasure, so you have made a point of resisting the influence of private feeling. I ask you not to resist this partiality; to give to affection somewhat more than truth can afford.
If I can prevail upon you to fall in with my proposal, I am confident that you will find the subject not unworthy of your genius and of your eloquence. The period from the rise of Catiline's conspiracy to my return from banishment should furnish a memoir of moderate size, and the story of my fortunes would supply you with a variety of incident, such as might be made, in your hands, a work of great charm and interest. For these reasons you will best meet my wishes if you determine to make a separate book out of the drama of my life and fortunes.
To Marcus Marius
B.C. 55
If it was ill-health that kept you from coming up to town for the games, I must set down your absence to fortune and not to your own wisdom. But if it was because you despise these shows which the world admires so much, then I congratulate you on your health and your good sense alike. You were left almost alone in your charming country, and I have no doubt that on mornings when the rest of us, half asleep, were sitting out stale farces, you were reading in your library.
The games were magnificent, but not what you would have cared for. At least, they were far from my taste. In honour of the occasion, certain veteran actors returned to the stage, which they had left long ago, as I imagined, in the interests of their own reputation. My old friend Aesop, in particular, had failed so much that no one could be sorry he had retired; his voice gave way altogether. AS for the rest of the festival, it was not even so attractive as far less ambitious shows generally are; the pageants were on such an enormous scale that light-hearted enjoyment was out of the question. You need not mind having missed them. There is no pleasure, for instance, in seeing six hundred mules at once in "Clytaemnestra," or a whole army of gaily-dressed horse and foot engaged in a theatrical battle. These spectacular effects delight the crowd, but not you. If you were listening to your reader Protogenes, you had greater pleasure than fell to any of us. The big-game hunts, continued through five days, were certainly magnificent. Yet, after all, how can a person of any refinement enjoy seeing a helpless man torn by a wild beast of enormous strength, or a noble animal dying under a spear thrust? If there is anything worth seeing in exhibitions of that kind, you have often seen it; there was nothing new to me in all I saw. On the last day the elephants were brought out, and though the populace were mightily astonished they were not by any means pleased. On the contrary, a wave of pity went through them, and there was a general impression that these great creatures have something in common with man.