28 June 44 BCE: To Atticus (at Rome) from Cicero (at Tusculum)
Cicero forwards Atticus his excessive thank you to Dolabella
I received a letter from Dolabella on the 26th—I sent you a copy—in which he said that he had done everything you wished.1 I replied at once, and thanked him profusely. However, so that he does not wonder why I did the same thing again, I have given him the reason that I had been unable to learn anything from you in person. But why say any more? This is a copy of what I sent him:
Cicero to his friend Dolabella, consul:
When I was previously informed by a letter from our dear Atticus about your great kindness and great favour towards him, and when you also wrote to me that you had done everything that we wished, I thanked you by letter, in words by which I hoped you would understand that you could have done nothing more welcome to me. But later, after Atticus himself visited me at Tusculum, for the sole purpose of showing me how grateful he is to you—he saw your particularly extraordinary and wonderful goodwill in the case of Buthrotum, as well as your remarkable love for me—I could not hold myself back from letting you know that same thing again, more clearly, in this letter. For of all your devotion and kindness to me, my Dolabella, as great as that is—most important and dear to me is that you have made Atticus understand how much I love him, and how much you love me.
For the rest, the case and the community of Buthrotum: although you have settled the matter (and we usually uphold the favours we grant), still, I should wish that you should wish them to be sheltered by your authority and assistance—they who have been kept under your care, and whom I have frequently entrusted to you. That will be enough protection for the Buthrotians in perpetuity, and you will have freed Atticus and myself from terrible worry and anxiety, if out of respect for me you commit to always defending them. I ask this as an important and pressing favour.
When I had written this letter, I devoted myself to my treatises, which I fear must by corrected with your red wax in a great number of places. I’ve had my head in the clouds, and am so weighed down by important thoughts.
Read Ad Atticum 15.14 in Latin here | Check the glossary here
About Buthrotum.