DLXX (F XIII, 15)
TO C. IULIUS CÆSAR (IN SPAIN)
Astura (March[1])
Cicero to Cæsar, imperator. I recommend Precilius to
your special favour, the son of a connexion of your own, a
very intimate friend of mine, and a most excellent man.
For the young man himself I have an extraordinary affection
on account of his rectitude, culture, and the spirit and
affection he has displayed to myself: but of his father also
I have had practical reason to know and thoroughly learn
what a warm friend he has ever been to me. Now see!—this
is the man that more than anyone else has been used
to ridicule and chide me for not attaching myself to you,
especially when invited to do so by you in the most complimentary
manner:
"But in my breast my heart he ne'er could move."
For I heard our nobles shouting: "Be staunch, and unborn men shall speak thee fair."
"He spake, and on him fell black clouds of woe."
However, these same men give me consolation also: they wish even now—though once singed—to inflame me with the fire of glory, and speak thus:
"Nay, not a coward's death nor shorn of fame,
But after some high deed to live for aye."[2]
But they move me less than of yore, as you see. Accord-*
- ↑ I leave this letter in the position it occupies in Tyrrell and Purser's work with great doubt. On the one hand, it seems very unlikely to have been written after Tullia's death; on the other, Cicero—who is careful in such matters—gives Cæsar the title of imperator, with which his soldiers greeted him on the 19th of February. Mueller puts it close to Letter CXLII.
- ↑ Il. xxii. 304, quoted more than once before. See vol. ii., p. 357.
