DLXXIV (F VI, 2)
TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS)
(Ficulea, 20 April)
I beg you not to think that forgetfulness of you is the
cause of my writing to you less often than I used to do;
but either illness—from which however I am now recovering—or
absence from the city, which prevents my knowing
who is starting to where you are. Wherefore I would have
you make up your mind that I always remember you with
the most perfect affection, and regard all your interests as
of no less concern to me than my own. That your case has
experienced more vicissitudes than people either wished or
expected is not, believe me, in these bad times a thing to
give you anxiety. For it is inevitable that the republic
should either be burdened by an unending war, or should
at last recover itself by its cessation, or should utterly
perish. If arms are to carry the day, you have no need to
fear either the party by whom you are being taken back, nor
that which you actually assisted; if—when arms are either
laid down by a composition or thrown down from sheer
weariness—the state ever recovers its breath, you will be
permitted to enjoy your position and property. But if
universal ruin is to be the result, and the end is to be what
that very clear-sighted man Marcus Antonius used long ago to
fear when he suspected that all this misfortune was impending,
there is this consolation—a wretched one indeed,
especially for such a citizen and such a man as yourself, but
yet the only one we can have—that no one may make a
private grievance of what affects all alike. If, as I am sure
you will, you rightly conceive the meaning of these few
words—for it was not proper to trust more to an epistle—you
will certainly understand even without a letter from me
that you have something to hope, nothing under this or
any definite form of the constitution to fear. If there is
general ruin, as you would not wish, even if you could, to
