Marcus Tullius Cicero→Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus|c. 43 BC|Cicero|From Rome|To Mutina|AI-assisted
When Lupus brought Libo and your cousin Servius to my house, I think you learned from Marcus Seius, who was present for our conversation, what my opinion was. You will be able to learn the rest from Graeceius, although Graeceius followed Seius almost at once.
The main point is this, and I want you to grasp it and remember it with the greatest care: in preserving the liberty and safety of the Roman people, do not wait for the authority of a Senate that is not yet free. If you do, you condemn your own act, since you freed the republic without any public authorization, which makes that act even greater and more brilliant. You also judge that the young Caesar, or rather the boy Caesar, acted rashly when he took up so great a public cause on his private judgment. Finally, you judge that country men, but very brave men and excellent citizens, were mad: first the veteran soldiers, your old comrades, then the Martian legion and the Fourth, who judged their own consul an enemy and turned themselves to the defense of the republic's safety.
The Senate's will must be treated as its authority when its authority is blocked by fear. Besides, you have already taken up this cause twice, so that the matter is no longer untouched: first on the Ides of March, and now recently by raising a new army and assembling forces. Therefore you ought to be prepared and resolved for everything, not so that you do nothing unless ordered, but so that you do the things that everyone will praise with the greatest admiration.
DCCCVIII (Fam. XI, 7) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME, 19 DECEMBER: LUPUS having brought both Libo and your cousin Servius to see me at my town house, I think that you will have learnt from Marcus Seius , who was present at our conversation, what opinion I expressed. The rest you will be able to learn from Graeceius , though he did stay long behind Seius . But the head and front of it all is that I wish you most carefully to notice and to remember that you must not wait to be authorized by the senate in preserving the safety of the Roman people, for the senate is not yet free. If you do so, in the first place you condemn your own action, for you freed the Republic without any public authority — which makes it still more glorious-and, in the second place, you decide that this young man, or rather this boy, Caesar has acted without justification in having assumed such a grave public responsibility on his own initiative. Lastly, you convict of madness those who are indeed rustics, but yet are most gallant soldiers and loyal citizens — in the first place veterans who have served with you of old, and in the next place the Martian and the fourth legions, which have adjudged their own consul to be a public enemy and have transferred their services to the support of the safety of the Republic. The wishes of the senate must be regarded as its authorization, since that authorization is prevented by fear. Lastly, you have now twice espoused this cause: first on the Ides of March, and again recently by collecting a new army and new forces. Wherefore you ought to be prepared for everything, and inspired with the resolution not to decline doing anything without instructions, but to do what will secure universal praise and the greatest admiration.
VII. Scr. Romae exeunte mense Decembri a.u.c. 710. M. CICERO S. D. D. BRUTO IMP. COS. DESIG.
Cum adhibuisset domi meae Lupus me et Libonem et Servium, consobrinum tuum, quae mea fuerit sententia, cognosse te ex M. Seio arbitror, qui nostro sermoni interfuit: reliqua, quamquam statim Seium Graeceius est subsecutus, tamen ex Graeceio poteris cognoscere. Caput autem est hoc, quod te diligentissime percipere et meminisse volam, ut ne in libertate et salute populi Romani conservanda auctoritatem senatus exspectes nondum liberi, ne et tuum factum condomnes—nullo enim publico consilio rem publicam liberavisti, quo etiam est res illa maior et clarior—, et adolescentem vel puerum potius Caesarem iudices temere fecisse, qui tantam causam publicam privato consilio susceperit, denique homines rusticos, sed fortissimos viros civesque optimos, dementes fuisse iudices, primum milites veteranos, commilitones tuos, deinde legionem Martiam, legionem quartam, quae suum consulem hostem iudicaverunt seque ad salutem rei publicae defendendam contulerunt. Voluntas senatus pro auctoritate haberi debet, cum auctoritas impeditur metu. Postremo suscepta tibi causa iam bis est, ut non sit integrum: primum Idibus Martiis, deinde proxime, exercitu novo et copiis comparatis. Quamobrem ad omnia ita paratus, ita animatus debes esse, non ut nihil facias nisi iussus, sed ut ea geras, quae ab omnibus summa cum admiratione laudentur.
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When Lupus brought Libo and your cousin Servius to my house, I think you learned from Marcus Seius, who was present for our conversation, what my opinion was. You will be able to learn the rest from Graeceius, although Graeceius followed Seius almost at once.
The main point is this, and I want you to grasp it and remember it with the greatest care: in preserving the liberty and safety of the Roman people, do not wait for the authority of a Senate that is not yet free. If you do, you condemn your own act, since you freed the republic without any public authorization, which makes that act even greater and more brilliant. You also judge that the young Caesar, or rather the boy Caesar, acted rashly when he took up so great a public cause on his private judgment. Finally, you judge that country men, but very brave men and excellent citizens, were mad: first the veteran soldiers, your old comrades, then the Martian legion and the Fourth, who judged their own consul an enemy and turned themselves to the defense of the republic's safety.
The Senate's will must be treated as its authority when its authority is blocked by fear. Besides, you have already taken up this cause twice, so that the matter is no longer untouched: first on the Ides of March, and now recently by raising a new army and assembling forces. Therefore you ought to be prepared and resolved for everything, not so that you do nothing unless ordered, but so that you do the things that everyone will praise with the greatest admiration.
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
VII. Scr. Romae exeunte mense Decembri a.u.c. 710. M. CICERO S. D. D. BRUTO IMP. COS. DESIG.
Cum adhibuisset domi meae Lupus me et Libonem et Servium, consobrinum tuum, quae mea fuerit sententia, cognosse te ex M. Seio arbitror, qui nostro sermoni interfuit: reliqua, quamquam statim Seium Graeceius est subsecutus, tamen ex Graeceio poteris cognoscere. Caput autem est hoc, quod te diligentissime percipere et meminisse volam, ut ne in libertate et salute populi Romani conservanda auctoritatem senatus exspectes nondum liberi, ne et tuum factum condomnes—nullo enim publico consilio rem publicam liberavisti, quo etiam est res illa maior et clarior—, et adolescentem vel puerum potius Caesarem iudices temere fecisse, qui tantam causam publicam privato consilio susceperit, denique homines rusticos, sed fortissimos viros civesque optimos, dementes fuisse iudices, primum milites veteranos, commilitones tuos, deinde legionem Martiam, legionem quartam, quae suum consulem hostem iudicaverunt seque ad salutem rei publicae defendendam contulerunt. Voluntas senatus pro auctoritate haberi debet, cum auctoritas impeditur metu. Postremo suscepta tibi causa iam bis est, ut non sit integrum: primum Idibus Martiis, deinde proxime, exercitu novo et copiis comparatis. Quamobrem ad omnia ita paratus, ita animatus debes esse, non ut nihil facias nisi iussus, sed ut ea geras, quae ab omnibus summa cum admiratione laudentur.