B.C. 47, ÆT. 59 when my ruin and humiliation are now secured by an actual law? Already Balbus's letters to me become daily less cordial, and a great number from many hands reach Cæsar, perhaps against me. I am perishing by my own fault. It is not chance that has caused me any misfortune, everything has been incurred by my own mistakes. The fact is that when I saw what sort of war it was going to be, and that universal unreadiness and feebleness were pitted against men in the highest state of preparation, I had made up my mind to a policy, not so much courageous, as one that I of all men was justified in adopting. I gave in to my relations, or rather, I obeyed them. What the real sentiments of one of them was-—his whom you recommend to my forbearance[1]—-you will learn from his own letters, which he has sent to you and others. I should never have opened them, had it not been for the following circumstance. The bundle was brought to me. I untied it to see whether there was any letter for me. There was none. There was one for Vatinius, and another for Ligurius.[2] I ordered them to be delivered to these persons. They immediately came to me boiling with indignation, loudly exclaiming against "the villain." They read me the letters full of every kind of abuse of me. Ligurius raved: said, that he knew that Quintus was detested by Cæsar, and yet that the latter had not only favoured him, but had also given him all that money out of compliment to me. Thus outraged I determined to ascertain what he had said in his letters to the rest. For I thought it would be fatal to Quintus himself if such a villainy on his part became generally known. I found that they were of the same kind. I am sending them to you, and if you think that it is for his interest that they should be delivered, please to deliver them. It won't do me any harm. For as to their having had their seals broken, Pomponia possesses his signet, I think.[3] When he displayed that exasperation at*
- ↑ Quintus. Apparently Atticus had tried to soften Cicero's feelings in regard to his brother's unkindness.
- ↑ P. Vatinius was in command at Brundisium (see p. 14). Aulus Ligurius was a prominent Cæsarian, who was also friendly to Cicero.
- ↑ This treatment of his brother's letters addressed to others it is, of course, impossible to justify, and is indeed condemned by his own words as to the confidential nature of letters (2 Phil. § 7). He seems to have
