Letter 5.8

I have no doubt that all your friends have written to tell you how much zeal I showed in defending, or rather advancing, your public position. It was not half-hearted, not hidden, and not the kind of service that could be passed over in silence. I carried on a dispute with both consuls and many former consuls with a vehemence I have never shown in any cause before. I took on the continuous defense of all your honors and paid, to the fullest extent, the duty I owed to our friendship, a duty long delayed but interrupted by the tangled condition of events. Believe me, I never lacked the will to show you respect and honor. Certain destructive people, envious of another man's distinction, sometimes alienated you from me and sometimes changed my feelings toward you. But I have gained the opportunity, which I had wished for more than I had hoped for, to show you at the height of your prosperity that I remember our mutual kindness and am faithful to our friendship. I have made not only your whole household but the entire city understand that you have no warmer friend than I am. Accordingly your noble wife, and your two sons, affectionate, upright, and popular as they are, place full confidence in my counsel, advice, zeal, and public action. The senate and people of Rome understand that, in your absence, there is nothing on which you can more completely count than my effort, care, attention, and influence in all matters touching your interests. What has been done and is being done in the senate, I imagine you learn from letters sent by members of your family. For my part, I am very anxious for you to think and believe that I did not stumble into supporting your dignity by a sudden impulse or by chance. From the first moment I entered public life, I have always looked for ways to be most closely united with you. From that time I do not remember either my respect for you or your great kindness and generosity toward me ever failing. If there have been interruptions in friendship, founded more on suspicion than on fact, let them be torn entirely out of our memory and our lives as empty and imaginary. Your character is such, and I want mine to be such, that now fate has brought us face to face with the same condition of public affairs, I hope our union and friendship will be an honor to us both. How much consideration you think should be shown to me is for you to decide, and I hope your decision will match my standing in the state. I, for my part, promise and guarantee an exceptional and unrivaled zeal in every service that can advance your honor and reputation. Even if many rivals compete with me in this, I will still easily surpass them all in the judgment both of the wider public and of your sons. I have a special affection for both of them; but while I am equally well disposed to Marcus, I am more completely devoted to Publius, because although he has always treated me so from boyhood, at this particular time he is showing me the respect and affection of a second father. I want you to regard this letter as having the force of a treaty, not merely of a letter. What I promise and undertake here, I will observe with the greatest scruple and perform with the greatest care. The defense of your political position, which I have taken up in your absence, I will maintain not only for the sake of our friendship but also for the sake of my own reputation for consistency. So I thought it enough, for now, to tell you this: if there is anything I understand to be your wish, or for your advantage, or for your honor, I will do it without waiting to be asked. If I receive even a hint from you or your household on any point, I will make sure you know that no letter of yours and no request from any member of your family has been in vain. Write to me, then, about everything, great, small, or ordinary, as to a most devoted friend. Tell your family to use my activity, advice, authority, and influence in every kind of business, public or private, in court or at home, whether your own or that of your friends, guests, or clients, so that, as far as possible, my labor may lessen the loss of your presence.

CXXX (Fam. V, 8) TO M. LICINIUS CRASSUS (ON HIS WAY TO SYRIA) ROME (JANUARY) I have no doubt all your friends have written to tell you what zeal I displayed on the — - in the defence, or you might call it the promotion, of your official position. For it was neither half-hearted nor inconspicuous, nor of a sort that could be passed over in silence. In fact, I maintained a controversy against both the consuls and many consulars with a vehemence such as I have never shown in any cause before, and I took upon myself the standing defence of all your honours, and paid the duty I owed to our friendship — long in arrears, but interrupted by the great complexity of events — to the very utmost. Not, believe me, that the will to show you attention and honour was ever wanting to me; but certain pestilent persons — vexed at another's fame — did at times alienate you from me, and sometimes changed my feelings towards you. But I have got the opportunity, for which I had rather wished than hoped, of showing you in the very height of your prosperity that I remember our mutual kindness and am faithful to our friendship. For I have secured not only that your whole family, but that the entire city should know that you have no warmer friend than myself. Accordingly, that most noble of women, your wife, as well as your two most affectionate, virtuous, and popular sons, place full confidence in my counsel, advice, zeal, and public actions; and the senate and Roman people understand that in your absence there is nothing upon which you can so absolutely count and depend as upon my exertions, care, attention, and influence in all matters which affect your interests. What has been done and is being done in the senate I imagine that you are informed in the letters from members of your family. For myself, I am very anxious that you should think and believe that I did not stumble upon the task of supporting your dignity from some sudden whim or by chance, but that from the first moment of my entering on public life I have always looked out to see how I might be most closely united to you. And, indeed, from that hour I never remember either my respect for you, or your very great kindness and liberality to me, to have failed. If certain interruptions of friendship have occurred, based rather on suspicion than fact, let them, as groundless and imaginary, be uprooted from our entire memory and life. For such is your character, and such I desire mine to be, that, fate having brought us face to face with the same condition of public affairs, I would fain hope that our union and friendship will turn out to be for the credit of us both. Wherefore how much consideration should in your judgment be shown to me, you will yourself decide, and that decision, I hope, will be in accordance with my position in the state. I, for my part, promise and guarantee a special and unequaled zeal in every service which may tend to your honour and reputation. And even if in this I shall have many rivals, I shall yet easily surpass them all in the judgment of the rest of the world as well as that of your sons, for both of whom I have a particular affection; but while equally well-disposed to Marcus, I am more entirely devoted to Publius for this reason, that, though he always did so from boyhood, he is at this particular time treating me with the respect and affection of a second father. I would have you believe that this letter will have the force of a treaty, not of a mere epistle; and that I will most sacredly observe and most carefully perform what I hereby promise and undertake. The defence of your political position which I have taken up in your absence I will abide by, not only for the sake of our friendship, but also for the sake of my own character for consistency. Therefore I thought it sufficient at this time to tell you this that if there was anything which I understood to be your wish or for your advantage or for your honour, I should do it without waiting to be asked; but that if I received a hint from yourself or your family on any point, I should take care to convince you that no letter of your own or any request from any of your family has been in vain. Wherefore I would wish you to write to me on all matters, great, small, or indifferent, as to a most cordial friend; and to bid your family so to make use of my activity, advice, authority, and influence in all business matters — public or private, forensic or domestic, whether your own or those of your friends, guests, or clients — that, as far as such a thing is possible, the loss of your presence may be lessened by my labour.

VIII. Scr. mense Ianuario a.u.c. 700. M. CICERO S. D. M. LICINIO P. F. CRASSO. Quantum a. d. (missing date) meum studium exstiterit dignitatis tuae vel tuendae vel etiam augendae, non dubito quin ad te omnes tui scripserint; non enim fuit aut mediocre aut obscurum aut eiusmodi, quod silentio posset praeteriri: nam et cum consulibus et cum multis consularibus tanta contentione decertavi, quanta numquam antea ulla in causa, suscepique mihi perpetuam propugnationem pro omnibus ornamentis tuis veterique nostrae necessitudini iamdiu debitum, sed multa varietate temporum interruptum officium cumulate reddidi. Neque mehercule umquam mihi tui aut colendi aut ornandi voluntas defuit; sed quaedam pestes hominum laude aliena dolentium et te nonnumquam a me alienarunt et me aliquando immutarunt tibi. Sed exstitit tempus optatum mihi magis quam speratum, ut florentissimis tuis rebus mea perspici posset et memoria nostrae voluntatis et amicitiae fides; sum enim consecutus non modo ut domus tua tota, sed ut cuncta civitas me tibi amicissimum esse cognosceret. Itaque et praestantissima omnium feminarum, uxor tua, et eximia pietate, virtute, gratia tui Crassi meis consiliis, monitis, studiis actionibusque nituntur et senatus populusque Romanus intelligit tibi absenti nihil esse tam promptum aut tam paratum quam in omnibus rebus, quae ad te pertineant, operam, curam, diligentiam, auctoritatem meam. Quae sint acta quaeque agantur, domesticorum tibi litteris declarari puto: de me sic existimes ac tibi persuadeas vehementer velim, non me repentina aliqua voluntate aut fortuito ad tuam amplitudinem meis officiis amplectendam incidisse, sed, ut primum forum attigerim, spectasse semper, ut tibi possem quam maxime esse coniunctus; quo quidem ex tempore memoria teneo neque meam tibi observantiam neque mihi tuam summam benevolentiam ac liberalitatem defuisse. Si quae interciderunt non tam re quam suspicione violata, ea, cum fuerint et falsa et inania, sint evulsa ex omni memoria vitaque nostra; is enim tu vir es et eum me esse cupio, ut, quoniam in eadem rei publicae tempora incidimus, coniunctionem amicitiamque nostram utrique nostrum laudi sperem fore. Quamobrem tu, quantum tuo iudicio tribuendum esse nobis putes, statues ipse et, ut spero, statues ex nostra dignitate, ego vero tibi profiteor atque polliceor eximium et singulare meum studium in omni genere officii, quod ad honestatem et gloriam tuam spectet. In quo, etiamsi multi mecum contendent, tamen cum reliquis omnibus, tum Crassis tuis iudicibus omnes facile superabo; quos quidem ego ambo unice diligo, sed in Marcum benevolentia pari hoc magis sum Publio deditus, quod me, quamquam a pueritia sua semper, tamen hoc tempore maxime sicut alterum parentem et observat et deligit. Has litteras velim existimes foederis habituras esse vim, non epistulae, meque ea, quae tibi promitto ac recipio, sanctissime esse observaturum diligentissimeque esse facturum: quae a me suscepta defensio est te absente dignitatis tuae, in ea iam ego non solum amicitiae nostrae, sed etiam constantiae meae causa permanebo. Quamobrem satis esse hoc tempore arbitratus sum hoc ad te scribere: me, si quid ipse intelligerem aut ad voluntatem aut ad commodum aut ad amplitudinem tuam pertinere, mea sponte id esse facturum; sin autem quidpiam aut a te essem admonitus aut a tuis, effecturum, ut intelligeres nihil neque te scripsisse neque quemquam tuorum frustra ad me detulisse. Quamobrem velim ita et ipse ad me scribas de omnibus, minimis maximis mediocribus, rebus, ut ad hominem amicissimum, et tuis praecipias, ut opera consilio, auctoritate gratia mea sic utantur in omnibus, publicis privatis, forensibus domesticis, tuis amicorum hospitum clientium tuorum, negotiis, ut, quod eius fieri possit, praesentiae tuae desiderium meo labore minuatur.