Mid October 44 BCE: To Gaius Matius (at Rome) from Cicero (at Tusculum)
Cicero is upset that Caesar's friend is acting like a Caesarian
I have not yet fully decided whether our dear friend Trebatius (that very dutiful man, who is most affectionate with us both) has brought me more trouble or joy. For when I had reached Tusculum in the evening, he visited me the following morning, although he was not yet physically recovered. When I chastised him for being too careless with his health, he said that nothing had been more tedious to him than waiting to visit me. I asked him whether there was any news at all: he passed on your complaint. Before I respond to it, I shall set out a few things.
As far back as I can recall in my memories of the past, you have been my oldest friend. But the age of a friendship is something shared with many others—the affection of one is not. You have been dear to me since the day I met you, and I think I have been dear to you, too. Then, your long absence and my political ambition and the differences of our lives did not allow our desires to be united through habitual companionship; still, I recognised your affection for me in the many years before the Civil War, when Caesar was in Gaul.1 For you brought about something that was very convenient to me, and not inconvenient to Caesar himself—that he should love me, respect me, and count me as a friend.
I pass over the many very friendly conversations, letters, and communications between us in those times—for what followed was more serious. And at the start of the Civil War, when you were going to join Caesar at Brundisium, you visited me at Formiae.2 That already means a great deal, and especially so in those times. And then, do you think I have forgotten your advice, words, and kindness? I remember that Trebatius took part in these. Nor indeed have I forgotten the letters that you sent me when you had met Caesar in the district of Trebula, I think.3
That time followed, when either my shame or my duty or my fate compelled me to set out for Pompey. Was your kindness or your devotion ever absent, either to me while I was away from Italy, or to my family who were here? Moreover, who did all my family think was most of a friend to me and to them? I came to Brundisium.4 Do you think I have forgotten how quickly—as soon as you heard about it—you flew to meet me at Tarentum? How you sat with me, and spoke with me, and pieced together my spirit that had been shattered by fear of collective suffering?
Eventually, we both came to be living at Rome. Could our friendship have been any closer? For the most important matters, I made use of your advice on how to conduct myself towards Caesar, and for the rest, I benefited from your kindness. Except for Caesar, who else but me did you care to visit (frequently!) at home and often take up several hours of sweet conversation with? That was also when, if you remember, you compelled me to write these philosophical works. After Caesar’s return, what greater care did you have, than that I should be on as friendly terms with him as possible? And you had achieved this.
In that case, what is the purpose of all these words (more of them than I had expected)? It is to express my astonishment that you, who ought to know these things, believe that I have done anything unworthy of our friendship. For besides these well-known and respectable events I have reminded you of, there are many more secret things which I am scarcely able to express in words. Everything about you delights me, but most of all your great faith, good counsel, seriousness, and constancy in friendship, as well as your wit, kindness, and learning.
And so (I return now to your complaint) I first of all did not believe that you had voted for that law;5 then, if I had believed it, I never would have believed that you would have done so without some just cause. Your position is such that nothing you do escapes notice. But people’s ill-will means that some things come across as harsher than they really were. If you don’t hear these things, I don’t know what to say. For my part, whenever I hear them, I defend you as I know you always defend me against those who are unkind to me. But there are two forms of defence: some things, I usually deny outright, like the matter of that vote of yours; others, which I defend on the basis of you doing them out of duty and kindness, like your supervision of the Games.6
But it does not escape a man as learned as you that, if Caesar was a king (and I really think he was), there are two possibilities for explaining the service you did. Either—and this is what I argue—your loyalty and kindness in loving your friend even after his death should be praised, or—as some people argue—the liberty of our country should be put before the life of a friend. I just wish my arguments from conversations like these had reached you! And in fact there are two other things you should be praised for, which no-one recalls more gladly or more often than I do: that you were the most serious voice both against taking up the Civil War to begin with, and for moderation in victory. I have found nobody who disagrees with me in this.
And so I am grateful to Trebatius, our dear friend, who gave me a reason for writing this letter. If you do not believe it, it will be because you judge me devoid of duty and kindness—and nothing can be more painful to me than that, or more unlike you.
Read Ad Familiares 11.27 in Latin here | Check the glossary here
Caesar was in Gaul from 58 until very early 49 BCE.
Cicero mentions this visit (on 19th March 49 BCE) in a letter to Atticus.
Probably the same letter that Cicero forwarded to Atticus.
Cicero returned to Italy in November 48 BCE, after Pompey was defeated by Caesar at the battle of Pharsalus, but before the end of the Civil War. He was pardoned by Caesar.
Footnote borrowed from Shackleton Bailey: ‘The old view that this was a lex Julia on debt is in no way borne out by section 2 of Matius’ reply and can be finally dismissed. For (a) even in Cicero’s eyes there could be nothing very reprehensible in a supporter of Caesar voting for one of Caesar’s laws. (b) If Matius did so vote he would have been voting against his own interest (cf. ibid. section 2 and M. W. Frederiksen, Journ. Rom. Stud. 56 (1966), 138). (c) It was evidently Matius’ more recent behaviour that was under fire. The law will therefore have been one of Antony’s, perhaps that de permutatione provinciarum giving him command of the legions in Macedonia, which according to Appian (B.C. III.30) struck terror into the Senate. Sternkopf (Zu Ciceros Briefen (Dortmund, 1901), 19) thought of L. Antonius’ lex agraria, whereas Gelzer (Cicero, 354 n. 69) would make it the lex iudicaria of Phil. VIII.27. The latter’s suggestion that Matius voted first in the first voting tribe (principium, cf. Taylor, Assemblies, 79) does not seem very likely; the fact of such a vote would hardly be in dispute.’
Footnote borrowed from Shackleton Bailey: ‘On these games, celebrated by Octavian at his own expense from 20 to 30 July, see Weinstick, Div. Jul. 368f. They were a combination of the ludi Victoriae Caesaris, created in 46, and funeral games in Caesar’s memory. In the latter character especially they would attract the assistance of Caesar’s friends: cf. Att. 379 (XV.2).’