16 April 44 BCE: To Atticus (at Rome) from Cicero (at Sinuessa)
Cicero's thoughts on a conspiracy against Lepidus: 'I didn't like that'
You thought when you wrote to me that I was already at my seaside property—and I received your letters at my little lodge near Sinuessa. About Marius—it was rightly done, although I grieve for the grandson of Lucius Crassus.1 However, it is very good that even Brutus approves of Antony. On the other hand, about the reasonable and friendly letter you write that Junia brought you; Paullus gave me one that his brother sent him, at the end of which he said that there was a plot against him, and that he had found out about it on firm authority. I didn’t like that, and Paullus like it even less.
I’m not worried about the queen’s flight.2 Please write to me about what Clodia has done. Take care of the Byzantine business, as with the rest, and send for Pelops.3 I, as you demand, will write to you about matters at Baiae and that chorus you want to know about when I have seen how it plays out, so that you don’t miss out on anything.
I am waiting anxiously to hear what the Gauls, and the Spanish, and Sextus are doing. Of course, you will reveal these things to me, and the rest. I am pleased that your slight sickness has given you an excuse for a break; for from what I got from your letter, you seemed to be taking a short rest. Always write to me with anything and everything about Brutus; where he is and what he’s thinking. Indeed, I hope he is now able to wonder around without risk, even alone, throughout the whole city. But as I was saying.
Read Ad Atticum 14.8 in Latin here | Check the glossary here
This probably refers to the news that ‘Marius’ had been killed on Antony’s orders on April 13th. Shuckburgh claims that the reference to Lucius Crassus, whom Cicero had been a student of, is ‘Ironical, for this Amatius, calling himself Marius, claimed to be the son of the younger Marius, who appears to have married a daughter of the celebrated orator L. Crassus.’ But was ‘Marius’ really an imposter?
Cleopatra had been in Rome, but understandably left after Caesar’s assassination.
Plut. Cic. 24.8 mentions that Cicero once wrote a Byzantine called Pelops a very rude and angry letter for not obtaining him honorary decrees.