8 June 44 BCE: To Atticus (at Rome) from Cicero (at Antium?)
Cicero attends a messy emergency meeting of the Liberators
I reached Antium before noon. Brutus was glad that I arrived. Then, in front of a large audience, and Servilia, Tertulla, and Porcia, he asked my opinion. Favonius was also there. I recommended what I had considered on the way there—that he should accept the Asian grain commission; that there was nothing left for us to do but to see to his safety; that he was the last defence of the Republic. I had just started on this speech when Cassius came in. I repeated the same things. At this point, Cassius said—with a brave look in his eyes—you would have said he was breathing war—that he would not go to Sicily.1 ‘Should I have accepted an insult, as if it were a kindness?’ ‘What then will you do?’ I asked. He said he would go to Greece. ‘What about you, Brutus?’ I asked. He said, ‘To Rome, if you think it right.’ ‘I don’t think it right at all; you won’t be safe there.’ He said, ‘Well, if I could be, would you like it then?’ ‘Yes, entirely, and I would not want you to leave for your province now or after your praetorship; but I don’t advise you to put yourself at risk in Rome.’ I then laid out the reasons, which will surely come to mind, that he would not be safe.
They then (in a long discussion) complained, Cassius especially, about the opportunities they had missed, and they accused Decimus with particular severity. I said that what is past does not matter, although I did agree. I began to say what ought to have happened—nothing new, but the things everyone always talks about—and I did not make any mention of whether any man else ought to have been touched; but they should have called a meeting of the Senate, incited a people burning with spirit more vigorously, and taken up the whole Republic.2 At this, your friend Servilia shouted ‘Really! I’ve never heard anything like it!’ I stopped myself there.3 But it seems to me that Cassius will go (and indeed, Servilia promised that she will make sure the grain commission is removed from the senatorial decree), and our dear Brutus was quickly convinced to stop his empty talk about wanting to be in Rome. He therefore decided that the games would be given in his name, although he would be absent.4 But it seemed to me that he wanted to set out to Asia straight from Antium.
In short, I liked nothing about the trip, other than that it appeased my conscience. I could not have let him leave Italy without talking to me. Other than this obligation of love and duty, all I could do was ask myself ‘What is your journey’s meaning now, prophet?’5 I found the ship coming apart at the seams, or rather, shattered entirely. No plan, no thought, no order. And so despite having no doubts even beforehand, now more than ever I wish to fly away from here, as soon as possible, to ‘Where I may hear neither name nor deed of the Pelopidae.’6
But listen to this! In case you don’t know, Dolabella made me his legate on the 3rd. I was told yesterday evening. You weren’t pleased with a votive legation either, and it really would have been absurd for me to pay a vow which I would have made for the Republic to remain standing, when it has been overturned.7 And (I believe) free legations have a time limit under the Julian Law, nor is it easy to add permission to come and go as you please to that type of legation—and I have now secured this. It is also nice to be permitted to exercise this right for five years. Although why should I think as far as five years?8 I feel like things are drawing to a close. But let’s not say anything ill-omened.
Read Ad Atticum 15.11 in Latin here | Check the glossary here
‘Breathing war’ references Aeschylus’ Agamemnon line 375. Cassius’ grain commission was in Sicily.
‘Whether any man else ought to have been touched’ (‘Shall no man else be touch'd but only Caesar?’) i.e. Cicero thinks the Liberators should have killed Antony as well as Caesar.
Shackleton Bailey emends ‘ego repressi’ (I stopped Servilia) to ‘ego <me> repressi’ (I stopped myself) on the basis that ‘one does not see [Cicero] checking this formidable personage on her own ground.’ But one does not see Cicero managing to stop himself from talking, either.
As Urban Praetor, Brutus was responsible for holding the ludi Apollinares (Games of Apollo) from July 6-13th.
A line from an otherwise unknown Greek tragedy.
A line from a play by Accius or Ennius—or maybe from an Atellan farce? Cicero has also quoted this line at Ad Familiares 7.30 and Ad Atticum 14.12.
From Lewis and Short: A votive legation was ‘a free embassy assumed for the purpose (often a mere pretext) of paying a vow in a province.’ The other type was a free legation, ‘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).’
Cicero would be dead within a year and a half.