cause. Here's a letter somewhat more wordy than perhaps you would have wished; and that I shall hold to be your opinion, unless you send me a still longer one in reply. If I can get through with some business which I wish to settle, I shall, I hope, see you before long.
CCCCLXIII (F VI, 22)
TO CN. DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS (IN ITALY)
Rome (May[1])
It was not the fact of your never having written to me since
your arrival in Italy that deterred me from writing to you.
The reason was that I could not think of any promise to
make you in my present state of complete destitution, or of
any advice to give you, being quite at a loss myself as to
what policy to pursue, or of any consolation to offer in the
midst of such grave disasters. Although things here are in
no way improved, and, in fact, are continually becoming
more and more desperate, yet I preferred sending you a
colourless letter to not sending you one at all. For myself,
if I had perceived that you had undertaken a task in the
cause of the Republic greater than you were able to make
good, I should yet to the best of my ability have counselled
you to accept life on such terms as were offered you and
were actually available. But since you have decided that
to your policy, righteously and courageously adopted, there
should be the same limit as fortune herself had laid down
as the finishing point of our struggles, I beg and implore
you, in the name of our old union and friendship, and in
- ↑ There is no certain means of dating this letter; but as the death of Cato is perhaps referred to, it must be not earlier than May. The expression as to the finis of the duty of those engaged in the Civil War seems to put it near in time to the preceding letter to Marius, as Cicero so often uses the same phrase in letters written nearly at the same time. The general point of view (which so often shifts with Cicero) is about the same.
