January 44 BCE: To Cicero (at Rome) from Publius Vatinius (at Narona)
Spare a thought for poor, frozen, supplicatio-less Vatinius
If you are well, that is good. I and the army are also well.
About your Dionysius I have found out nothing yet, particularly because the cold in Dalmatia, which has forced me out of that place, has now frozen me in here. But I will not stop until eventually I have rooted him out. But then you do always give me difficult orders.
You wrote me some sort of earnest entreaty about Catilius. Piss off! And our dear Sextus Servilius with you! By Hercules, I love that man too. But are these the types of clients and cases that you people take on? The single cruellest man of all, who has killed so many freeborn men, matrons, Roman citizens, and who has seized and ruined and laid waste to entire regions? He is an ape, barely half human, and when he brought arms against me I took him as a prisoner of war.
But really, my Cicero, what can I do? I want to do everything which you command, by Hercules. The reproach and punishment which I was going to inflict on him as my prisoner, I hand over to you as a gift. But what can I say to those who demand legal action for their plundered property, captured ships, and murdered brothers, children, parents? Even if, by Hercules,1 I had the bold tongue of Appius, into whose place I was appointed,2 I still could not bear that.
What then can be done? I will be careful to do whatever I know you wish done. He is being defended by Quintus Volusius, your student, if perhaps that fact could put his enemies to flight. That is his greatest hope.
Please support me, if there is any need for it. Caesar still does me wrong. He is still not bringing forth a motion about my supplicationes3 and my achievements in Dalmatia, as if what I had done in Dalmatia was not most worthy of a triumph! Or must I wait until I have finished the whole war—when there are twenty ancient towns in Dalmatia, and more than sixty which they lay claim to. If my supplicationes are not decreed unless I capture all of them, then I am a long way off from the situation of other generals.
Read Ad Familiares 5.10a in Latin here | Check the glossary here
By Hercules, he really did just write that a third time.
Vatinius had replaced the dead Appius Claudius Pulcher in the college of Augurs in 47.
A day (or days) of thanksgiving. A lesser honour than a triumph, but also often granted in anticipation of one.