Marcus Tullius Cicero→Lucius Munatius Plancus|c. 43 BC|Cicero|From Rome|To Gaul|AI-assisted
Everything being reported from your area was so uncertain that nothing came to mind for me to write to you. One moment the news about Lepidus was what we wanted; the next it was the opposite. About you, however, the report is consistent: you can neither be deceived nor defeated. Fortune has some share in the second of those; the first belongs entirely to your judgment.
But I have received a letter from your colleague, dated May 15, in which he said that you had written to him that Antony was not being received by Lepidus. I shall be more certain of this if you write the same thing to us. Perhaps you hesitate because of the empty cheerfulness of your earlier letters. Yet just as you could have been mistaken, my dear Plancus, for who escapes that, so everyone sees that you could not have been deceived. Now even the excuse of mistake has been removed: the old proverb condemns the fault of stumbling twice on the same stone.
If matters stand as you wrote to your colleague, we are freed from all anxiety; still, we shall not be freed until you make us more certain that this is so. My own view, as I have often written to you, is this: whoever crushes the remnants of this war will be the man who ended the whole war. I both hope and trust that you will be that man.
I am not at all surprised, and I am deeply glad, that my zeal for you, than which certainly nothing could have been greater, is as pleasing to you as I thought it would be. If things go well where you are, you will find that zeal still greater and more effective.
DCCCLXXX (Fam. X, 20) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GAUL) ROME, 29 MAY: ALL the news from your part of the world is so uncertain that nothing occurs to me to say to you. For at one time reports of Lepidus are satisfactory, at another the reverse. However, of you the report is unvarying — that you can be neither hoodwinked nor beaten. The credit for the latter is to a certain extent fortune's, for the former it wholly belongs to your own good sense. But I have received a letter from your colleague dated the 15th of May, in which he said that you had written to tell him that Antony was not being received by Lepidus . I shall feel more certain of this if you give me the same information in a letter, but perhaps you do not venture to do so owing to the ill-grounded cheerfulness of your former letter. But as it was possible for you, my dear Plancus , to make a mistake — for who escapes doing so?-so no one can fail to see that it was impossible that you should be taken in. Now, however, even the plea of being mistaken has been taken away — “Twice on the same stone,” you know, is a fault reproved by a common proverb. But if the truth is as you have written to your colleague, we are freed from all anxiety; yet we shall not be so until you inform us that it is the Case. My opinion indeed, as I have often told you in my letters, is that the man who extinguishes the last embers of this part of the war will be the real victor in the whole war, and I both hope and believe that you will be the man. I am not at all surprised and am deeply gratified that my zeal on your behalf, which certainly Could not have been surpassed, has been as pleasant to your feelings as I thought it would be. You will find it indeed to be greater and more effective still, if things go well with you there. 29 May.
XX. Scr. Romae IV. Kal. Iunias a.u.c. 711. CICERO PLANCO.
Ita erant omnia, quae istim afferebantur, incerta, ut, quid ad te scriberem, non occurreret; modo enim, quae vellemus, de Lepido, modo contra nuntiabantur; de te tamen fama constans, nec decipi posse nec vinci, quorum alterius fortuna partem habet quandam, alterum proprium est prudentiae tuae. Sed accepi litteras a collega tuo, datas Idibus Maiis, in quibus erat te ad se scripsisse a Lepido non recipi Antonium: quod erit certius, si tu ad nos idem scripseris; sed minus audes fortasse propter inanem laetitiam litterarum superiorum. Verum, ut errare, mi Plance, potuisti—quis enim id effugerit?—, sic decipi te non potuisse quis non videt? nunc vero etiam erroris causa sublata est; culpa enim illa "bis ad eundem" vulgari reprehensa proverbio est. Sin, ut scripsisti ad collegam, ita se res habet, omni cura liberati sumus, nec tamen erimus prius, quam ita esse tu nos feceris certiores. Mea quidem, ut ad te saepius scripsi, haec sententia est: qui reliquias huius belli oppresserit, eum totius belli confectorem fore; quem te et opto esse et confido futurum. Studia mea erga te, quibus certe nulla esse maiora potuerunt, tibi tam grata esse, quam ego putavi fore, minime miror vehementerque laetor: quae quidem tu, si recte istic erit, maiora et graviora cognosces. IIII. Kalendas Iunias.
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Everything being reported from your area was so uncertain that nothing came to mind for me to write to you. One moment the news about Lepidus was what we wanted; the next it was the opposite. About you, however, the report is consistent: you can neither be deceived nor defeated. Fortune has some share in the second of those; the first belongs entirely to your judgment.
But I have received a letter from your colleague, dated May 15, in which he said that you had written to him that Antony was not being received by Lepidus. I shall be more certain of this if you write the same thing to us. Perhaps you hesitate because of the empty cheerfulness of your earlier letters. Yet just as you could have been mistaken, my dear Plancus, for who escapes that, so everyone sees that you could not have been deceived. Now even the excuse of mistake has been removed: the old proverb condemns the fault of stumbling twice on the same stone.
If matters stand as you wrote to your colleague, we are freed from all anxiety; still, we shall not be freed until you make us more certain that this is so. My own view, as I have often written to you, is this: whoever crushes the remnants of this war will be the man who ended the whole war. I both hope and trust that you will be that man.
I am not at all surprised, and I am deeply glad, that my zeal for you, than which certainly nothing could have been greater, is as pleasing to you as I thought it would be. If things go well where you are, you will find that zeal still greater and more effective.
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
XX. Scr. Romae IV. Kal. Iunias a.u.c. 711. CICERO PLANCO.
Ita erant omnia, quae istim afferebantur, incerta, ut, quid ad te scriberem, non occurreret; modo enim, quae vellemus, de Lepido, modo contra nuntiabantur; de te tamen fama constans, nec decipi posse nec vinci, quorum alterius fortuna partem habet quandam, alterum proprium est prudentiae tuae. Sed accepi litteras a collega tuo, datas Idibus Maiis, in quibus erat te ad se scripsisse a Lepido non recipi Antonium: quod erit certius, si tu ad nos idem scripseris; sed minus audes fortasse propter inanem laetitiam litterarum superiorum. Verum, ut errare, mi Plance, potuisti—quis enim id effugerit?—, sic decipi te non potuisse quis non videt? nunc vero etiam erroris causa sublata est; culpa enim illa "bis ad eundem" vulgari reprehensa proverbio est. Sin, ut scripsisti ad collegam, ita se res habet, omni cura liberati sumus, nec tamen erimus prius, quam ita esse tu nos feceris certiores. Mea quidem, ut ad te saepius scripsi, haec sententia est: qui reliquias huius belli oppresserit, eum totius belli confectorem fore; quem te et opto esse et confido futurum. Studia mea erga te, quibus certe nulla esse maiora potuerunt, tibi tam grata esse, quam ego putavi fore, minime miror vehementerque laetor: quae quidem tu, si recte istic erit, maiora et graviora cognosces. IIII. Kalendas Iunias.