CCCCLXXXI (F IV, 13)
TO P. NIGIDIUS FIGULUS (IN EXILE)[1]
Rome (? September)
Though I have for some time past been on the look-out as
to what I had best write to you, not only does no definite
subject occur to me, but even the usual style of letter seems
impossible. For of one department and habitual element
in those letters,[2] which we used to write in the days of our
prosperity, the state of the times has violently deprived us,
and fortune has ordained that I should be unable to write or
so much as to think of anything of the sort. There only
remained a certain gloomy and wretched style of letter,
and one suited to the state of the times: that, too, fails me.
In it there is bound to be either a promise of some assistance,
or some consolation for your sorrow. I had no such promise
to give: for, cast down by a similar blow of fortune, I am
myself supporting my disasters by the aid of others, and it
more frequently occurs to my mind to complain that I am
living as I do, than to rejoice that I am alive. For although
no signal injury has been inflicted upon me personally apart
from others, and although it has never occurred to my mind
to wish for anything in such circumstances which Cæsar has
not spontaneously offered me, yet nevertheless I am being so
worn out with anxieties, that I regard myself as doing wrong in
the mere fact of remaining alive. For I have lost not only
many very intimate associates whom either death has snatched
- ↑ P. Nigidius Figulus, tribune B.C. 60-59, prætor B.C. 58, had adhered throughout to the Pompeian party. He was a very learned man, who wrote on various subjects of natural history, augural science, and language. Suetonius (Aug. 94) says that he prophesied the future greatness of Augustus by astrology from the hour of his birth. He was not recalled, but died shortly after the date of this letter. He professed to follow Pythagoras in some way.
- ↑ Literary or philosophical subjects, apparently, or perhaps lively and sportive subjects. See vol. i., p. 354.
