13 June 43 BCE: From Gaius Cassius Parmensis (in Cyprus) to Cicero (at Rome)
The latest update on Dolabella: he's doing badly
From Gaius Cassius,1 quaestor, to Marcus Cicero, greetings. If you are well, that is good; I am well.
I rejoice both in the safety and victory of the Republic, and in the renewal of your glory—as the greatest consular, you have surpassed your own record as the greatest consul,2 and I am delighted and cannot admire you enough. Your virtue has some fated gift, as we have now often found is the case. For your toga is more fortunate than all other men’s arms,3 and it has now snatched the Republic from the hands of its enemies, when it had almost been defeated, and returned it to us.
So now we shall live free; now I shall have you as a witness—you, who are the greatest citizen of all, and most dear to me, as you discovered during the Republic’s darkest hours—to my love for you and the Republic, which is so closely associated with you.
You often promised that you would remain quiet while we were slaves4 and speak about me when it would benefit me; for my part, my wish is less that you say these things than that you really feel they are true. For I would rather be worthy and deserving of your recommendation in your own good opinion than have you recommend me to the good opinion of everyone else.
I would have you judge my most recent actions as neither impulsive nor inconsistent, but aligned with the considerations that you yourself witnessed; and I would have you think that I should be advanced as an excellent prospect for our country, and no less for you yourself.
Marcus Tullius, you have children5 and relatives who are worthy of you and who deserve to be held most dear to you. Next to them in your affections ought to be those who emulate and rival your devotion to the Republic—and I hope you have many of these. But still, I do not think the crowd is so great that I am shut out, and that there is no room for you to receive me and advance me however you wish and think is right. Perhaps I have proved my courage to you; a long period of slavery has allowed my character, such as it is, to seem lesser.
I have launched all the ships I could from the sea-coast of the province of Asia and from the islands; I have held a levy of rowers quickly enough, despite the strong opposition of the city-states; I have pursued Dolabella’s fleet, which Lucius Figulus commands. He often gave us reason to hope that he would switch sides, while continuously drawing further away, and he has recently gone off to Corycus, blocked off the harbour, and remained there.
I left the fleet, because I thought it would be better to get to the camp, and because another fleet was in pursuit, which Tillius Cimber raised in Bithynia last year—the quaestor Turullius commands it. I made for Cyprus. I want to write to you and the Senate about the things I found out there as quickly as possible.
Just like the people of Tarsus—our worst allies—the people of Laodicea are even more out of their minds, and have invited Dolabella in voluntarily; he has put together something resembling an army from the number of Greek soldiers he got from both states. He has pitched his camp in front of the town of Laodicea, demolished part of the wall, and connected his camp to the town.
Our dear Cassius, with ten legions, twenty auxiliary cohorts, and four thousand cavalry, has pitched his camp twenty miles away at Paltus. He thinks he can win without a battle. For in Dolabella’s camp the price of grain is already twelve drachmae. Unless he gets a supply of it in Laodicean ships, he must soon starve to death. Cassius’ very large fleet, commanded by Sextilius Rufus, and the three fleets which I, Turullius, and Patiscus brought him, will easily make sure that Dolabella cannot get supplies.
So please, keep your hopes high and trust that, while you and the Senate are setting things right in Rome, for our part, we shall quickly be able to set things right here.
Goodbye.
Sent June 13th, from Crommyacris,6 Cyprus.
Latin text of ad Familiares 12.13 | Glossary | Historia Civilis video overview of 44-43 BCE
Footnote borrowed from Shackleton Bailey: ‘The writer is in all probability the poet Cassius Parmensis, author of elegies mentioned by Horace (Ep. 1.4.3) and by some identified (implausibly) with the C. Cassius of Att. 385 (XV.8).2. After Philippi he joined Sex. Pompeius, then Antony, and was put to death by Octavian's orders after Actium. That he was one of Caesar's assassins, the last to die, rests on the statement of Velleius (II.87.3). Valerius Maximus (1.7.7), who gives more details about his death, does not mention it; neither is there any clear allusion in this letter, the opening paragraphs of which rather give the impression that the writer had only recently come into the public eye. Moreover, Velleius appears to be wrong in making this Cassius the last survivor. He seems to have been killed at Athens soon after the battle, whereas another of the assassins, Turullius (§3), was with Antony almost to the end. The suspicion arises that Velleius confused the two. Cassius styles himself Quaestor, and in a letter-heading this can hardly be used for pro quaestore. But if he took part in Caesar's murder he must have been a Senator in 44, presumably allected by Caesar (cf. Broughton, Suppl. 15).’
During his consulship in 63 BCE, Cicero had saved the Republic from the (alleged) Catilinarian Conspiracy.
Perhaps thinking of the line cedant arma togae (let arms yield to the toga) from Cicero’s famously bad epic poem about his own consulship.
i.e. during Caesar’s dictatorship, when Cicero and Cassius Parmensis were both free members of the Senatorial class, and enslavers themselves.
Cicero had one son. His daughter Tullia had died in 45 BCE.
Shackleton Bailey notes that this name means ‘Onion Point’.