14 July 43 BCE: To Brutus (at Dyrrachium) from Cicero (at Rome)

'In times like these, does Brutus only write me three little lines?'

From Cicero to Brutus, greetings.

Your letter was short—should I say ‘short’? It was more like it wasn’t even a letter.¹ In times like these, does Brutus only write me three little lines? You should rather have written nothing at all.² And you ask for more from me! Which of your friends ever visits you without a letter from me? And did any of my letters lack weight? If they have not been delivered to you, I think your family’s letters must not have been delivered to you either. 

You write that you will give my son a longer letter—that’s the right track, but this letter of yours ought to have been fuller as well. For my part, when you wrote to tell me that my son was leaving you, I immediately sent out letter-carriers and letters to my son to say that even if he had reached Italy, he should go back to you; nothing else could be more agreeable to me or more honourable for him. 

I did however write to him several times to say that through a great effort on my part, the elections for the priesthoods have been pushed back to next year. I worked very hard on this,³ for my son’s sake, as well as for that of Domitius, Cato, Lentulus, Bibulus, and the rest.⁴ I had written the same to you, but clearly you were not yet aware of this when you sent me that puny little letter of yours.

So I ask you urgently, my dear Brutus, not to send away my son, but to come back with him at your side. You should be doing this right now, if you have a care for the Republic—which you were born to defend. 

The war has been reborn—and it is no small matter—through Lepidus’ crimes. Caesar’s⁵ army, which was the best, is not only no help, but even forces us to urgently ask for your army. If yours gets to Italy, there will be no citizen who can rightly call himself a citizen who will not take himself off to your camp. And yet we do have Decimus Brutus in a celebrated alliance with Plancus; but you surely know how uncertain the spirits of men are, infected with partisan loyalties, and how uncertain the outcomes of battles are.

But even if, as I hope, we are victorious, still, the situation will need the great governance of your counsel and authority. So come and help us, by the gods, and do it as soon as you can. Believe that you did no greater service for your country on the Ides of March, when you threw off our citizens’ slavery, that you will do if you arrive here in time.

July 14th.

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Latin text of Cic. ad Brut. 1.14 | Glossary | Historia Civilis video overview of 44-43 BCE

1. The letter does not survive.

2. In her biography of Brutus, Kathryn Tempest speculates that Brutus may have only written a brief letter to Cicero as he was ‘holding his tongue in the face of anger and disappointment’ over Cicero’s letter of consolation for the death of Brutus’ wife Porcia, as well as his refusal to help Brutus’ nephews.

3. Footnote borrowed from Shackleton Bailey: ‘Why was this necessary ? Cicero had earlier thought that no elections to priesthoods could be held until a Consul was available to preside (9 (13).4). Manutius, who raised the question, suggests that they might have been held under a Praetor. That would have been irregular, but there would seem to have been a move for this or some other ad hoc procedure, which Cicero successfully opposed.

4. These were the young sons of more famous fathers who had been killed on the Pompeian side of Caesar’s Civil War.

5. i.e. Octavian’s army. The word translated as ‘best’ also here has the sense of ‘loyal to the Republican side.’