3 May 44 BCE: To Dolabella (at Rome) from Cicero (in Pompeii)

Cicero gets a bit over the top in his praise of Dolabella

[This is the first of three letters from May 3rd.]

Although I am content with your glory, my Dolabella, and find it reason enough to greatly rejoice and delight, still, I cannot help but confess that the greatest gladness I feel is increased with how the opinion of the masses associates me with its praise of you. Everyone I meet (and I meet a large number every day, for very many of the best men come here for their health, and besides that many of my friends visit from the towns) praises you to the heavens, and immediately thanks me greatly. They say that they don’t doubt that is in following my teachings and advice that you show yourself to be an outstanding citizen and a singular consul.

I can reply to them very truthfully, saying that you do what you do on your own initiative and of your own will, nor do you need anyone’s advice. Yet I neither agree with them completely, so that I do not diminish your own renown by allowing it to seem like everything was done on my advice, but nor do I deny it emphatically, for I am more greedy for glory than I should be. And yet it is not unworthy of your dignity—as it was honourable even for Agamemnon, the king of kings—to have a Nestor as an advisor. And truly it is glorious to me that you flourish as a young consul, with such praise, and, as it were, as a pupil from my school.

For instance, I visited Lucius Caesar, who is sick at Naples—although his whole body was overwhelmed with pain, even before he finished greeting me, he said ‘Oh my Cicero, I congratulate you! You have so much influence with Dolabella, that if I had as much with my nephew, we might now all be saved.¹ Really, I congratulate and thank your Dolabella, who indeed is the first man that we can truly call a consul since you were consul yourself.’ He then said much more about your action and how you managed it; that no deed was ever more magnificent or more illustrious, nor was anything more advantageous to the Republic. And this is the opinion that everyone shares.

Now, I ask that you allow me to accept this almost false inheritance of someone else’s glory, and allow me some share of allyship when people praise you. Although, my Dolabella (because I am only joking!), I would be more willing to let all my prestige flow to you (if only I had any!) than to drain any part of yours. While you have always been able to tell how much affection I have for you, now these actions of yours have so enflamed me that I have never burned so much with love. Believe me, there is nothing more handsome, nothing more beautiful, nothing more worthy of love than virtue.

As you know, I have always loved Marcus Brutus for his great character, his most charming manners, and his remarkable uprightness and constancy. Yet the Ides of March so added to my love for him that I wondered that there was space for the increase, where it all seemed to me to have been filled up long ago. Who would have thought it possible to add anything to the love which I have for you? Yet so much is added that it seems like it is only now that I love you, while before I only felt affection.

Therefore why should I encourage you to have regard for your dignity and glory? Why should I remind you of celebrated men, as people often do as encouragement? I have no example more celebrated than yourself. You must imitate yourself, you must have yourself as your rival. After such great deeds, it is not right for you not to resemble yourself. Since this is so, encouragement is not necessary, and rejoicing is more what is needed. For it so happens that—and I know nobody else for whom this is so—you have imposed punishment of the greatest severity, not only without hatred, but even with popular approval, and with the greatest thanks from the best men as well as from the most lowly. If this happened by a stroke of fortune, I would rejoice at your good luck; but it came about through your greatness of spirit, as well as your natural talent and judgement. I read your speech. Nothing could be more wise. So step-by-step, bit-by-bit did you lead up to and then away from the main point of the case, so that by everyone’s agreement, the very situation showed that it was the right time for you to impose punishment.

Thus you have freed the city from danger and the state from fear. Not only have you been the greatest help in the current situation, but you have also set an example. You should understand from what you’ve done that the Republic depends upon you, and that those men who brought about the beginnings of freedom are deserving of both your protection and your respect. But more about these things in person, and hopefully quite soon. And since you are preserving both the Republic and myself, make sure that you are very careful to keep yourself safe.

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Read Ad Atticum 14.17A (= Ad Familiares 9.14) in Latin here | Check the glossary here

1. Lucius Caesar’s nephew was Mark Antony.