have informed you how I, when insisting in the Senate that a considerable party still felt some bitterness at my having been the instrument of saving the country, stated that you had consented, at the request of some relations whom you could not well refuse, to suppress the encomiums you had intended to honor me with in the Senate. In saying this, however, I added that you and I had shared the duty of saving the constitution; for while my part was to defend the capital from intrigues at home and intestine treason, yours was to guard Italy from open attack and secret conspiracy; but that this alliance of ours for so great and glorious a work had been strained by your relations, who, though I had been the means of procuring you a most important and distinguished charge, were afraid of allowing you to pay me any portion of regard in return. As these words of mine showed how much I had looked forward to what you would say, and how entirely I was disappointed, my argument seemed to excite a little amusement, and was followed by a certain amount of laughter, not at you, but rather at my own disappointment, and because I was acknowledging so naïvely and openly that I had eagerly looked forward to being eulogized by you. And surely what I said cannot but be considered complimentary to you if even in the fullest splendor of my renown and achievements I still longed to have some confirmation of this from your own lips.

And as to your reference to our "mutual regard," I know not what you consider reciprocity in friendship. To me it seems to mean that friendly feeling is as freely rendered as it is expected. In my own case, if I affirm that for your sake I have allowed my claim to your province to be passed over, I shall perhaps seem to you to be trifling with words; for selfinterest really brought about this resolution, and every day I reap therefrom additional fruit and satisfaction. What I do affirm is this that from the moment I had declined the province in public, I began to cast about how I could best throw it into your hands. As to the balloting between you and the others I say nothing: I merely wish to suggest a surmise that nothing whatever which my colleague did therein was without my full cognizance. Look at what followed; at the promptness with which I convoked the Senate that very day when the balloting was over, and the ample terms I must have used in your favor when you yourself told me that my speech not only paid a high compliment to you, but was very

disparaging to your colleagues. Nay, the very decree of the Senate passed that day is couched in such terms that as long as it remains extant my services to you cannot possibly be ignored. Then, again, I must beg you to recollect how after your departure I spoke about you in the Senate, how I addressed public meetings and how I corresponded with you; and when you have taken all these things into account, then I must ask you to judge for yourself whether you can fairly say that your late demonstration of coming to Rome was meeting me in a "mutual" spirit.

With reference to what you say about a "reconciliation" between us, I do not understand why you should speak of reconciliation where there has never been an interruption of friendship. As to your brother Metellus not deserving, as you say, to be exposed to attacks from me and all for a single word, I must ask you first of all to believe that I strongly sympathize with your motives in this, and the kindly feeling shown in your brotherly affection, but then to pardon me if for my country's good I have ever opposed your brother; for in patriotism I yield not even to the most ardent of mankind. Nay more, if it prove that I have but been defending my own position against a cruelly unjust attack he himself made upon me, you may well be satisfied that I do not make a personal complaint to you of your brother's injustice to me. For when I had ascertained that he was deliberately aiming a blow delivered with the whole weight of his position as tribune in order to crush me, I applied to your wife Claudia [sister of the notorious Clodius] and your sister Mucia, whose liking for me, owing to my intimacy with Pompeius, I had often tested, to deter him from the wrong he proposed doing me. In spite of this, as I know you must have heard, on the last day of the year he put upon me the consul who had saved the Republic—an insult which the vilest citizen in the most beggarly office was never yet exposed to; actually debarring me when laying down my office from the privilege of a farewell address. Yet this insult of his resulted in a signal honor to myself; for as he would make no concession except that I might take the oath, I pronounced aloud the truest and noblest of oaths, and as loudly the people in answer solemnly attested that I had sworn this truly.

Yet though I had received this signal affront, on that very day I sent an amicable message to Metellus by our common

friends to entreat him to reconsider his attitude toward me. His answer to them was that this was no longer open to him, for that not long before he had publicly expressed his opinion that a man who had punished others unheard ought himself to be debarred the privilege of being heard in his turn. How dignified! how patriotic! A punishment inflicted by the Senate, with the approval of every respectable citizen, on those who would have burned Rome, murdered her magistrates and Senate, and fanned the flames of a widespreading war, he would now inflict on one to whom it was granted to deliver the Senate from murder, the capital from fire, and Italy from civil war.

And so I withstood your brother to his face, for having to answer him in the Senate on the 1st of January about the political situation, I took care to let him know that he would find in me a most resolute and determined opponent. Upon the 3d of January, when he opened the debate upon his proposal, about one word out of three in his speech was aimed at me or contained a threat against me. Nothing could possibly be more deliberate than his attempt to effect my ruin by any means whatever, and that not by legal trial or argument, but by a violent and bullying attack. Had I not brought spirit and determination to meet his reckless onslaught, who could fail to believe that the resolution displayed in my consulship was due not to deliberation but to chance?

If you have not hitherto been aware that such was Metellus's attitude toward me, you have a right to think that your brother has suppressed some of the most material circumstances from you; while, if he has taken you into his counsels at all, I have a right to be credited with having shown great moderation of temper for not remonstrating with you about this very incident. And if you see now that I was driven into resentment, not by a word from Metellus, as you represent it, but by his deliberate and bitter animosity against myself, let me point out to you my forbearance, if indifference and laxity about resenting so malicious an attack deserves the name of forbearance. Never once did I speak for any motion attacking your brother in the Senate at all whenever attention was called to his conduct I supported without rising those who seemed most moderate in their proposals. I will add this too, that though after what had passed I had no reason to take any trouble about the matter, I regarded without disfavor, and indeed supported to the best of my humble ability, the proposal

for granting a bill of indemnity to my assailant, on the ground that he was your brother.

Thus you see that what I have done was not to "attack" your brother, but to repel your brother's attacks. Nor has my attachment to yourself been light as you say; on the contrary, it has been so strong that my friendship for you remains as ever, though I have had to submit to the loss of your attentions. Even at this very moment, all that I have to say in answer to your (I might almost call it) threatening letter is this: I for my own part not only make allowance for your indignation, but applaud it highly, for my own feelings teach me to remember how strong is the influence of brotherly ties. From you I claim a similar candor in judging of my sense of wrong. If I have been bitterly, cruelly, and unreasonably attacked by one who is dear to you, I claim the admission not only that I was in the right to maintain my position, but that I might have called on you-yes, and your army too to have aided me in so doing. I have ever been desirous of calling you my friend; I have now striven hard to convince you that I have been a true friend to you. To those sentiments I still adhere, and so long as you permit me will continue to retain them. I would far rather forget my resentment against your brother from love for you, than permit that resentment in the smallest degree to impair our good will to each other.

FROM CICERO AT DYRRACHIUM (OR THESSALONICA) TO HIS WIFE TERENTIA AT ROME, Nov. 25, B.C. 58.

I send this with love, my dearest Terentia, hoping that you, and my little Tullia, and my Marcus, are all well.

From the letters of several people and the talk of everybody I hear that your courage and endurance are simply wonderful, and that no troubles of body or mind can exhaust your energy. How unhappy I am to think that with all your courage and devotion, your virtues and gentleness, you should have fallen into such misfortunes for me! And my sweet Tullia too, that she who was once so proud of her father should have to undergo such troubles owing to him! And what shall I say about my boy Marcus, who ever since his faculties of perception awoke has felt the sharpest pangs of sorrow and misery? Now could I but think, as you tell me, that all this comes in

the natural course of things, I could bear it a little easier. But it has been brought about entirely by my own fault, for thinking myself loved by those who were jealous of me, and turning from those who wanted to win me. Yet had I but used my own judgment, and not let the advice of friends who were either weak or perfidious weigh so much with me, we might now be living in perfect happiness.

As it is, since my friends encourage me to hope, I will take care not to let my health be a bad ally to your exertions. I quite understand what a task it is, and how much easier it was to stop at home than to get back there again; still if we are sure of all the tribunes, and of Lentulus (supposing him to be as zealous as he seems), certainly if we are sure of Pompeius as well, and Cæsar too, the case cannot be desperate. About our slaves, we will let it be as you tell me your friends have advised. As to this place, it is true that the epidemic has only just passed off, but I escaped infection while it lasted. Plancius, who has been exceedingly kind, presses me to stay with him, and will not part with me yet. My own wish was to be in some more out-of-the-way place in Epirus, where Hispo and his soldiers would not be likely to come, but Plancius will not yet hear of my going; he hopes he may yet manage to return to Italy himself when I do. If I should ever see that day, and once more return to your arms, and feel that I was restored to you and to myself, I should admit that both your loyalty and mine had been abundantly repaid. Piso's kindness, constancy, and affection are beyond all description. May he reap satisfaction from it- reputation I feel certain he will.

As to Quintus, I make no complaint of you, but you are the very two people I should most wish to see living in harmony, especially since there are none too many of you left to me. I have thanked the people you wanted me to, and mentioned that my information came from you. As to the block of houses which you tell me you mean to sell - why, good heavens! my dear Terentia, what is to be done! Oh, what troubles I have to bear! And if misfortune continues to persecute us, what will become of our poor boy? I cannot continue to writemy tears are too much for me; nor would I wish to betray you into the same emotion. All I can say is, that if our friends act up to their bounden duty we shall not want for money; if they do not, you will not be able to succeed only with your own. Let our unhappy fortunes, I entreat you, be a warning