29 April 58 BCE: From Cicero (at Brundisium) to Atticus (in Rome)
'This is the greatest and most miserable of all my miseries'
[This is the first of two letters from April 29th.]
I reached Brundisium on April 17th. The same day, your boys delivered me a letter from you, and others brought me a second letter two days later.
You invite me—you encourage me—to stay at your place in Epirus. I am grateful for your good will, and I am no stranger to it. Truly, it is the course I would wish for, if I were allowed to spend all my time there; for I hate crowds, I flee before people, I can barely stand the light of day, and I would not find the solitude bitter, especially in such a familiar location. But as a mere stopping-place on my journey? First, it is out of the way; then, it is only four days from Autronius and the others;1 and then—you are not there. It would have provided a defensive stronghold if I were staying there, but it is unnecessary if I am only passing through.
If I dared, I would make for Athens. There were certainly reasons for me to want to. But as it is, my enemies are there, and I don’t have you, and I fear that they will ‘conclude’ that even that town is not far enough away from Italy.2 Nor do you write to tell me when to expect you.3
You implore me to stay alive. While you can hold me back from hurting myself, you cannot stop the pain and regret I feel from deciding to live. For what is there to keep me here, especially if the hope I had when I set out is now gone? I shall not go on to enumerate all the miseries I have faced from the utmost wicked injustice done not by my enemies so much as by those who are jealous of me4—lest I awaken my grief and invite you to mourn with me.
It is true when I say that nobody has ever suffered a calamity so great; nobody has ever had better cause to wish for death. The most honourable opportunity to seek it has passed me by; for the time that remains, I no longer look for healing, but for an end to my pain.
I see you are collecting information about all political goings on that you think can give me some hope of the situation changing. There is almost nothing, but since it pleases you, we shall wait and see.
Likewise, if you hurry, you can still catch up with me. For I shall either approach Epirus or go slowly through Candavia. It is not my inconstancy that makes me hesitate about Epirus, but that I am uncertain about my brother and where I am meeting him5—although in this state I don’t know how to meet him or send him away again. This is the greatest and most miserable of all my miseries.
I would write to you more often and at greater length if my pain had not entirely deprived me of the power to think, and this ability most of all. I long to see you. Take care of your health.
Sent April 29th, while departing Brundisium.
Latin text of Cic. Att. 3.7 | Glossary | Where is Cicero?
And a brief note from me: the Dead Romans Society is now on Substack! If you like textual ghosts you will like the Dead Romans Society. Evil Shadow Cicero from the Pharsalia is there.
Cicero feared he would be in danger from Autronius, who was in exile there as a result of Cicero’s accusations several years earlier.
‘They’ are Clodius and his allies, who could interpret the terms of Cicero’s 400 mile exile from Rome as preventing him from staying in Athens. Shackleton Bailey explains that ‘the doubt about the distance seems to have lain in whether calculation would be based on the route Brundisium—Dyrrachium—Athens or on the route Brundisium (or Hydruntum)—Corcyra—Actium—Athens. The former gives well over 500, the latter something under 400 miles.’
😬
i.e. Cicero’s so-called friends who advised him to accept exile instead of attempting to fight when Clodius put forward his first law effectively exiling Cicero, although not by name. Shackleton Bailey thinks Cicero was thinking of Hortensius and maybe Arrius, but definitely not Cato. He also adds that ‘it seems unlikely that [Cicero’s] charges were well founded.’
Quintus Cicero had been governing the province of Asia since 61 BCE.
Such a DRAMA QUEEN!