M. Tullius Cicero, Letters to Atticus, DCCI (A XIV, 2)

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DCCI (A XIV, 2)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
TUSCULUM, 8 APRIL

I received two letters from you yesterday. The first informed me of the scene in the theatre and at Publilius's mime ¹ —a good sign of the unanimous feeling of the people at large. Indeed the applause given to Lucius Cassius appeared to me even a trifle effusive. ²

Your second letter was about our friend Bald-pate. ³ He has no tendency to savage measures, as you imagine. For he has advanced, though not very far.

I have been detained rather a long time by his talk: but as to what I told you in my last, perhaps I did put it obscurely. It was this. He said Caesar remarked to him, on the occasion of my calling on him at the request of Sestius and having to sit waiting: "Do you suppose I am such a fool as to think that this man, good-natured as he is, can like me, when he has to sit all this time waiting on my convenience?" ⁴

Well then, there is your Bald-pate bitterly opposed to the public peace, that is, to Brutus.

I go to Tusculum today; tomorrow at Lanuvium; thence I think of staying at Astura. I shall be glad to see Pilia, but I could have wished for Attica also. However, I forgive you. Kind regards to both.

1 At the representation of a mime of Publilius Sura, during which the people, as usual, had cheered their favourites.

2 L. Cassius (brother of C. Cassius) had been a Caesarian, but had in some way shewn sympathy with the assassins, and though tribune had been threatened with death by Antony if he came into the senate (Phil. 3.35). Cicero thinks applause given to him shews popular feeling for the party of the assassins.

3 Madaro = μαδαρῷ =" Baldhead," a pun on the cognomen of Cicero's host, C. Matius Calvena. The next sentence is almost desperate. The MSS. have φαλάκωμα, which means nothing. I think that Atticus from Cicero's last letter gathered that Matius—a strong Caesarian—was for violent measures; that Cicero means here to modify it, and to say that he has moved somewhat in the direction of conciliation, though not far enough, for he is still bitterly opposed to Brutus. I therefore propose for the unintelligible φαλάκωμα a word used by Atticus before (vii. 12), nullus φαλαρισμός.

4 It is very likely that Cicero wrote this letter in his carriage on the way to Tusculum. He explains that he is late, having been detained by the talk of Matius, but he has just time to repeat the story that follows more clearly than in his last letter. It comes in parenthetically in the middle of his observations about Matius, just as a man might jot down things on a journey.

Cicero. The Letters of Cicero; the whole extant correspondence in chronological order, in four volumes. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. London. George Bell and Sons. 1908-1909.

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M. Tullius Cicero, Letters to Atticus
Evelyn Shuckburgh, Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, Ed.

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DCCI (A XIV, 2)

M. Tullius Cicero, Letters to Atticus Evelyn Shuckburgh, Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, Ed.

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DCCI (A XIV, 2)

M. Tullius Cicero, Letters to Atticus
Evelyn Shuckburgh, Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, Ed.