21(?) March 44 BCE: To Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus (at Rome) from Decimus Junius Brutus (at Rome)

The Liberators Are Having A Bad Time

Learn from me how we stand. Yesterday evening¹ Hirtius visited me. He described Antony’s disposition—undoubtedly the most wicked and most treacherous. For he said that it was neither possible for him to give me my province,² nor did he judge it safe for any of us to be in the city; since the hearts of the soldiers and the plebs are so shaken.

I think you can tell that both of these are falsehoods, and that the truth is what Hirtius described—that he fears that if we had the slightest assistance in our position, there would be no parts left for these men in the republic. 

While in this difficult position, I decided to demand a free legation³ for myself and the rest of us, to get us an honest reason for leaving. He promised that he would obtain these, but I don’t trust that he will obtain them; so great is people’s insolence, and the persecution of us. And if they had given us what we asked for, I still think that not long after we would have been judged public enemies, or forbidden fire and water.⁴ 

You say, what then is your plan? I think we must give in to fortune, withdraw from Italy, remove ourselves to Rhodes or some other land. If there is a turn for the better, we will turn back to Rome; if there is no great change, we will live in exile; if matters worsen, we will be reduced to our last resorts.

One of you will now think to ask why we should wait until the most extreme circumstances, rather than begin something now. Because we have nowhere to make a stand, except with Sextus Pompey and Caecilius Bassus, who seem like they will only become stronger in their positions when this news about Caesar reaches them. It will be the right time for us to approach them when we know their strengths.

I shall undertake whatever you wish me to undertake, on behalf of Cassius and yourself; for Hirtius demands that I do this. Please write back to me as soon as possible; for I am sure that Hirtius will let me know for certain about these things before the 4th hour. Write back to me with where we can meet and where you want me to come.

After my latest conversation with Hirtius, I decided to demand that we be allowed to stay in Rome with a public guard. I don’t think those men will concede this; for we will be making them seem very hostile. But I thought I shouldn’t not demand something which I had thought was fair.

---

Read Ad Familiares 11.1 in Latin here | Check the glossary here

1. This letter was probably composed at some point between early on the 17th March, and 21st March. Decimus Brutus’ uncertainty over his province makes sense if he was writing either before the senate meeting on the 17th, at which Caesar’s decrees—including the allocation of provinces for the following few years—were confirmed, or soon after the violence that followed Caesar’s funeral on the 20th.

2. Caesar had designated Decimus Brutus as governor of Cisalpine Gaul for the following year.

3. From Lewis and Short: ‘Libera legatio, a free legation, i. e. permission granted to a senator to visit one or more provinces on his private affairs in the character of an ambassador, but without performing the duties of one (such an embassy was called free, because while it lasted the holder of it was at liberty to come to the city of Rome and leave it again without resigning his office)’.

4. To be ‘forbidden fire and water,’ aquae et ignis interdictio, was a legal formula of effective exile, denying the necessities of life and the ability to return to someone who had already left Rome.