CCCCLXXIV (F VII, 27)
TO TITUS FADIUS GALLUS (IN EXILE)
Rome (?)
I am surprised at your finding fault with me, when etiquette
forbids it.[1] Even if there had been no such obstacle, you
ought not to have done it. "Why I shewed you attention
in your consulship"—and then you go on to say that Cæsar
will certainly recall you. Well, you have a great deal to
say, but nobody believes you. You allege that you stood
for the tribuneship for my sake. I wish you had always
been a tribune, then you would not have wanted anyone to
intervene! You say that I dare not speak what I think, on the
ground that I did not give a sufficiently spirited answer to a
shameless request of yours. I write thus to shew you that
even in that peculiar style of composition, in which you
desire to be forcible, you are nil. But if you had presented
your grievance to me in a reasonable spirit, I should have
cleared myself in your eyes with readiness and ease: for I
am not ungrateful for what you have done, but vexed with
what you have written. Now I do wonder that you think
me, the cause of everyone else's freedom, to be but a slave.
For if the information—as you call it—which you gave me
was false, what do I owe you? If true, you are the best
witness of what the Roman people owe me.
- ↑ See vol. i., p. 362 (Fam. v. 18). Fadius had been quæstor in the year of Cicero's consulship. He had been in exile since B.C. 52, and seems to have thought Cicero might have done something more to secure his restitutio, and to have reproached him with the value of his services during the Catilinarian conspiracy, and in securing his recall. Mueller places this letter in March, B.C. 52, but in that year there could have been no question of being recalled by Cæsar.
