Marcus Tullius Cicero→Titus Pomponius Atticus|c. 45 BC|Cicero|From Rome|To Rome/Athens|AI-assisted
The 28th. I was waiting for some news from Rome; so I would not have given any commission to your people. As it is, I want the same things as before: what Brutus is planning, or, if he has done anything, whether there is any word from Caesar. But why dwell on these matters, which concern me less? What I really long to know is how our dear Attica is doing. Granted your letter (though by now it is quite old) tells me to keep up good hopes, still I am waiting for something fresh.
[2] You see what being near at hand involves. Let us, by all means, settle the matter of the gardens. While I was at the Tusculan villa we seemed to be in conversation, so steady was the stream of letters. But that, at any rate, will soon be over now. Meanwhile, prompted by your suggestion, I have finished some really rather neat little books addressed to Varro; but all the same I am waiting to hear your answer to the points I wrote to you about. First, how you came to understand that he wanted something from me, when the man himself, though the most prolific of writers [polygraphotatos, 'most prolific in writing'], had never once provoked me; and second, whom he is supposed to be jealous of [zelotypein, 'to be jealous'] <unless perhaps Brutus, of whom if you are not> jealous [zelotypeis, 'you are jealous'], then much less of Hortensius, or of those who hold forth on public affairs. I should be glad if you would make this point quite clear to me, and above all whether you stand by your opinion that I should send him what I have written, or think there is no need at all. But of this when we meet.
The copyist Hilarus had just left on the 28th, and I had given him a letter to you, when your messenger came with your letter of the day before. What I was most glad to see in it was the sentence "Our dear Attica begs you not to be anxious" and your own statement that there is no danger.
I see your influence has given my speech for Ligarius a good start. For Balbus has written to me with Oppius, saying that he is extraordinarily pleased with it; and for that reason he has sent the little thing to Caesar. So that is what you wrote to me some time ago.
In Varro's case I should not be disturbed about appearing to be tuft-hunting—for my principle has always been not to insert any living characters in my dialogues; but it was because you say Varro wants it, and appreciates the compliment, that I have finished off the work and have comprised the whole of the Academic philosophy—how well I cannot say, but with all possible care—in four books. All the fine array of arguments against the uncertainty of apperceptions collected by Antiochus I have given to Varro; I answer him myself, and you are the third speaker in our conversation. If I had made Cotta and Varro carry on the argument between them, as you suggest in your last letter, I
should have been a mere lay figure. That suits admirably when the characters are persons of olden times; and that is what Heraclides often did in his works; and I myself did so in my six books De Republica. It is the same, too, in my three books De Oratore, of which I think very highly; in them, too, the characters were such that I could properly keep silent. For the speakers are Crassus, Antonius, old Catulus, his brother C. Julius, Cotta and Sulpicius; and the conversation is supposed to take place when I was a boy, so that I could have no part in it. But in a modern work, I follow Aristotle's practice: the conversation of the others is so put forward as to leave him the principal part. I arranged the five books De Finibus so as to give the Epicurean parts to L. Torquatus, the Stoic to M. Cato, and the Peripatetic to M. Piso. I thought that could not make anybody jealous, as they were all dead. This present work, the Academica, as you know, I had shared between Catulus, Lucullus and Hortensius. I must admit that the work did not suit the characters; for it was far too philosophical for them to have ever dreamt of such things. So, when I read your note about Varro, I jumped at it as a godsend. Nothing could have been more appropriate for expounding the system of philosophy in which he seems to be specially interested, and for introducing a part which prevents me from seeming to give my own cause the superiority. For the views of Antiochus are very persuasive, and I have put them carefully with all Antiochus' acuteness and my own polished style, if I possess one. But do you consider carefully, whether you think I ought to dedicate the books to Varro. Some objections occur to me; but of that when we meet.
iv Kal. exspectabam Roma aliquid; non imperassem igitur aliquid tuis . nunc eadem illa, quid Brutus cogitet, aut si aliquid egit, ecquid a Caesare. sed quid ista quae minus curo? Attica nostra quid agat scire cupio. etsi tuae litterae (sed iam nimis veteres sunt) recte sperare iubent, tamen exspecto recens aliquid. [2] vides propinquitas quid habeat. nos vero conficiamus hortos. conloqui videbamur in Tusculano cum essem . tanta erat crebritas litterarum. sed id quidem iam erit. ego interea admonitu tuo perfeci sane argutulos libros ad Varronem sed tamen exspecto quid ad ea quae scripsi ad te, primum qui intellexeris eum desiderare a me cum ipse homo polugrafw/tatoj numquam me lacessisset; deinde quem zhlotupei=n <nisi forte Brutum, quem si non> zhlotupei=j multo Hortensium minus aut eos qui de re publica loquuntur. plane hoc mihi explices velim, in primis maneasne in sententia ut mittam ad eum quae scripsi, an nihil necesse putes. sed haec coram.
◆
The 28th. I was waiting for some news from Rome; so I would not have given any commission to your people. As it is, I want the same things as before: what Brutus is planning, or, if he has done anything, whether there is any word from Caesar. But why dwell on these matters, which concern me less? What I really long to know is how our dear Attica is doing. Granted your letter (though by now it is quite old) tells me to keep up good hopes, still I am waiting for something fresh.
[2] You see what being near at hand involves. Let us, by all means, settle the matter of the gardens. While I was at the Tusculan villa we seemed to be in conversation, so steady was the stream of letters. But that, at any rate, will soon be over now. Meanwhile, prompted by your suggestion, I have finished some really rather neat little books addressed to Varro; but all the same I am waiting to hear your answer to the points I wrote to you about. First, how you came to understand that he wanted something from me, when the man himself, though the most prolific of writers [polygraphotatos, 'most prolific in writing'], had never once provoked me; and second, whom he is supposed to be jealous of [zelotypein, 'to be jealous'] <unless perhaps Brutus, of whom if you are not> jealous [zelotypeis, 'you are jealous'], then much less of Hortensius, or of those who hold forth on public affairs. I should be glad if you would make this point quite clear to me, and above all whether you stand by your opinion that I should send him what I have written, or think there is no need at all. But of this when we meet.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
iv Kal. exspectabam Roma aliquid; non imperassem igitur aliquid tuis . nunc eadem illa, quid Brutus cogitet, aut si aliquid egit, ecquid a Caesare. sed quid ista quae minus curo? Attica nostra quid agat scire cupio. etsi tuae litterae (sed iam nimis veteres sunt) recte sperare iubent, tamen exspecto recens aliquid. [2] vides propinquitas quid habeat. nos vero conficiamus hortos. conloqui videbamur in Tusculano cum essem . tanta erat crebritas litterarum. sed id quidem iam erit. ego interea admonitu tuo perfeci sane argutulos libros ad Varronem sed tamen exspecto quid ad ea quae scripsi ad te, primum qui intellexeris eum desiderare a me cum ipse homo polugrafw/tatoj numquam me lacessisset; deinde quem zhlotupei=n <nisi forte Brutum, quem si non> zhlotupei=j multo Hortensium minus aut eos qui de re publica loquuntur. plane hoc mihi explices velim, in primis maneasne in sententia ut mittam ad eum quae scripsi, an nihil necesse putes. sed haec coram.