Late March 43 BCE: To Cicero (at Rome) from Lucius Munatius Plancus (in Transalpine Gaul)
Plancus can't believe that people would think his approach to the Republic is mercenary!
I would have written a great deal to you about my plans and given an account of everything in great detail, so that you can better judge that I have done everything in service of the Republic—a cause that you encouraged me towards, and I assured I would take up. For I always wanted your approval no less than your love, and I intended for you to defend my failures no more than I wanted you to publicly praise my merits.
But I am being more brief for two reasons: the first, because I have recounted everything in my official letter;1 the other, because I have ordered Marcus Varisidius, a Roman knight and my friend, to travel to you in person so that you can find out everything from him.
By the god of truth,2 I am more than just a bit aggrieved that other people seem to be seizing on claims to glory. But until now I have held myself back, until I could carry out something worthy of both my consulship and you and your friends’ expectations of me. And I hope, if fortune has not led me astray, that I shall succeed in making men believe now and remember in times to come that I have been the Republic’s greatest defence.3
I beg you, support my position in the Senate and motivate me to do more in the future by bringing about the things you have used to encourage me to hope for glory.4 I am certain that your ability is no less than your will.
Take care of your health, and think of me as kindly as I do of you.
Latin text of Ad Familiares 10.7 | Glossary | Historia Civilis video overview of 44-43 BCE
me dius fidius (by the god of truth) is a common interjection or oath. Dius Fidius might be associated with Jupiter.
The introduction to Plancus’ Wikipedia page tells a different story.
Shackleton Bailey suggests Plancus ‘may have been thinking of a Triumph.’