Latin Texts & Translations

DXXVI (F VI, 9)

TO T. FURFANIUS (PROCONSUL IN SICILY) ROME

No intimacy or friendship could be closer than that which I have always had with Aulus Caecina. For I was constantly in the society of that illustrious and gallant man his father: and my affection for this man also from his childhood has been such as to make the intimacy between us close as it is possible to have with anyone-partly

because he seemed to me to give great promise of supreme excellence, honesty, and eloquence; and partly because he lived with me in the most complete sympathy, not only from our mutual services of friendship, but also from a community of literary tastes. I need not write at greater length. How bound I am to protect his safety and property by every means in my power you see. It only remains, since I know from many circumstances what your sentiments are as to the fortune of the loyalists and the disasters to the Republic, that I should beg nothing of you except that to the goodwill, which you are sure spontaneously to entertain towards him, there may be added a supplement proportionate to the value which I know you have for me. You cannot oblige me more than by doing this. Good-bye.