27 May 44 BCE: To Atticus (at Rome) from Cicero (at Tusculum)
Cicero is warned to stay away from the upcoming Senate meeting
The letter-carrier is back from Brutus, and has brought letters both from him and from Cassius. They are very eager to seek my advice, and Brutus even presents two options. What a wretched situation! I have absolutely no idea what to write. So I think I shall stay silent, unless you feel I should do something else; if anything comes to mind, please write to me. Cassius earnestly entreats and petitions me to make Hirtius a member of our party as well as I can. Do you think he is thinking clearly? It would be like trying to do laundry in a charcoal kiln.1 I have sent you his letter.
Balbus and [Oppius?] both write, as you do, about a senatorial decree to assign provinces to Brutus and Cassius.2 Hirtius tells me that he will not be able to attend (in fact, he is already at Tusculum) and he earnestly advises me to stay away. His reason for this advice is the danger that he says has existed even for him. But even if there were no danger, I care so little about avoiding Antony’s suspicion—and I may appear displeased at his success—that the reason I don’t want to come to Rome is that I just don’t want to see him.
But our dear Varro has sent me a letter, sent to him by I’m not sure who (for he has erased the name), in which the writer claims that the veterans whose discharge has been postponed (some of them have already been discharged) are speaking mutinously, and that whoever in Rome seems to be against them will be in great danger. How then should I guard my comings and goings, my expression, my bearing, among that lot? And if, as you write, Lucius Antonius attacks Decimus Brutus, and the rest attack our friends, what then should I do, how should I behave?
So I have decided, if things remain as they are now, to be absent from the city in which I had the greatest honour in the time of my flourishing, and at least some amount of it in the time of my servitude. However, I have not resolved to leave Italy—I shall talk this over with you—I have only resolved not to come to Rome.
Read Ad Atticum 15.5 in Latin here | Check the glossary here
A reference to Aesop’s fable of the charcoal-burner and the fuller.
At the Senate meeting on June 1st.