Letters of Marcus Tullius CiceroCicero, Marcus Tullius
History
Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Authors, Latin -- Correspondence; Cicero, Marcus Tullius -- Correspondence; Statesmen -- Rome -- Correspondence
be less difficulty in breaking the spirits of all such as were
anywhere disaffected to our rule. I encircled them with a stockade
and trench: I beleaguered them with six forts and huge camps: I
assaulted them by the aid of earth-works, pent-houses, and towers:
and having employed numerous catapults and bowmen, with great
personal labour, and without troubling the allies or costing them
anything, I reduced them to such extremities that, after every
region of their town had been battered down or fired, they
surrendered to me on the fifty-seventh day. Their next neighbours
were the people of Tebra, no less predatory and audacious: from
them after the capture of Pindenissus I received hostages. I then
dismissed the army to winter quarters; and I put my brother in
command, with orders to station the men in villages that had either
been captured or were disaffected.
Well now, I would have you feel convinced that, should a motion
be brought before the senate on these matters, I shall consider that
the highest possible compliment has been paid me, if you give
your vote in favour of a mark of honour being bestowed upon me.
And as to this, though I am aware that in such matters men of the
most respectable character are accustomed to ask and to be asked,
yet I think in your case that it is rather a reminder than a request
which is called for from me. For it is you who have on very many
occasions complimented me in votes which you delivered, who
have praised me to the skies in conversation, in panegyric, in the
most laudatory speeches in senate and public meeting: you are the
man to whose words I ever attached such weight as to hold myself
in possession of my utmost ambition, if your lips joined the chorus
of my praise. It was you finally, as I recollect, who said, when
voting against a supplicatlo in honour of a certain illustrious and
noble person, that you would have voted for it, if the motion had
related to what he had done in the city as consul. It was you, too,
who voted for granting me a supplicatio, though only a civilian,
not as had been done in many instances, "for good services to the
state," but, as I remember, "for having saved the state." I pass over
your having shared the hatred I excited, the dangers I ran, all the
storms' that I have encountered, and your having been entirely
ready to have shared them much more fully if I had allowed it; and
finally your having regarded my enemy as your own; of whose
death even--thus shewing me clearly how much you valued
me--you manifested your approval by supporting the cause of Milo
in the senate. On the other hand, I have borne a testimony to you,
which I do not regard as constituting any claim on your gratitude,
but as a frank expression of genuine opinion: for I did not confine
myself to a silent admiration of your eminent virtues--who does
not admire them? But in all forms of speech, whether in the senate
or at the bar; in all kinds of writing, Greek or Latin; in fine, in all
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account