Latin Texts & Translations

CDXC (F VI, 10, §§ 1-3)

TO TREBIANUS (IN EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER)

Of the value I feel and always have felt for you, and of the value which I know you feel for me, I am myself the witness. Two things cause me as much anxiety as my misfortunes always caused you. The first is your policy, or perhaps I should say your misfortune, in remaining too long in the prosecution of a civil war; the second, that the recovery of your property and position is slower than is fair and than I could have wished. Accordingly, I have opened my whole heart to Postumulenus, Sestius, and (most frequently) to our friend Atticus, and recently to your freedman Theudas, and have repeated to them separately on several occasions, that by whatever means I could I desired to do all that you and your sons could wish. And I would have you write and tell your family that, as far at least as it lies in my power, they should regard my efforts, advice, property, and fidelity as at their service for all purposes. If my influence and favour were as great as they ought to be in a state which I have served so well, you too would now be what you

were, worthy in the highest degree of any rank, and at least easily first of your own ordo. But, since at the same time and in the same cause we have both of us lost our position, the things mentioned above, which are still mine to promise, and those also which I seem to myself to be partially retaining as reliques, so to speak, of my old rank-these I hereby promise you. For Caesar himself; as I have been able to gather by many circumstances, is not estranged from me, and nearly all his most intimate friends, bound to me as it happens by important services rendered by me in the past, are constant in their attentions and visits to me. Accordingly, if I find any opening for mooting the subject of your fortunes, that is, of your restoration to civil rights, on which everything depends—and I am daily more induced to hope for it from what these men say—I will do so personally and exert myself to the uttermost. It is not necessary to enter into details: I tender you my zeal and goodwill without reserve. But it is of great importance to me that all your friends should—as they may by a letter from you—know this, that everything which is Cicero's is at the service of Trebianus. To the same effect is it that they should believe that there is nothing too difficult for me to undertake with pleasure for you.