Letters to Atticus/1.2

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56507Letters to Atticus — 1.2 (XI)Marcus Tullius Cicero

To Atticus at Athens[edit]

Rome, July 65 BC[edit]

I have to inform you that on the day of the election of L. Iulius Caesar and C. Marcius Figulus to the Consulship, I had an addition to my family in the shape of a baby boy. Terentia doing well.

Why such a time without a letter from you? I have already written to you fully about my circumstances. At this present time I am considering whether to undertake the defence of my fellow candidate, Catiline.[1] We have a jury to our minds with full consent of the prosecutor. I hope that if he is acquitted he will be more closely united with me in the conduct of our canvass; but if the result be otherwise I shall bear it with resignation. Your early return is of great importance to me, for there is a very strong idea prevailing that some intimate friends of yours, persons of high rank, will be opposed to my election. To win me their favour I see that I shall want you very much. Wherefore be sure to be in Rome in January, as you have agreed to be.

Footnotes[edit]

  1. Asconius assigns this to the accusation of embezzlement in Africa. But that seems to have been tried in the previous year, or earlier in his year. The new impeachment threatened seems to have been connected with his crimes in the proscriptions of Sulla (Dio, 37.10). Cicero may have thought of defending him on a charge relating to so distant a period, just as he did Rabirius on the charge of murdering Saturninus (B.C. 100), though he had regarded his guilt in the case of extortion in Africa as glaring.