58 B.C.]
Cicero in Exile.
237
melancholy journey. After wandering for a while in southern Italy, always in dread lest he should bring ruin on his hosts, he crossed over into Epirus from Brundisium on the last day of April. 58 B.C.He would have preferred Athens for his place of residence, but was afraid of Autronius and other exiled Catilinarians who infested Greece. Finally he resolved to avoid Greece altogether, and proceeded by the great northern road across Macedonia to Thessalonica, where he arrived on the of May. Here he was received with great kindness by Plancius the quæstor of the province, who afforded him ample protection and such consolation as was possible under the circumstances.
But consolation was the last thing of which Cicero would accept at this time. He was crushed in spirit by the blow which had fallen on him, and his letters are full of nothing but lamentation and self-reproach and upbraidings of his friends. His retirement, for which he could find abundance of excellent reasons a few months later, now appears to him an act of incredible folly and perverseness. Why had he not stayed and fought it out as Lucullus recommended? Why had Hortensius and the rest given him such treacherous advice? Why had they said that his absence would be an affair of a few days? Why had Atticus contented himself with tears for his misfortune, when he might have averted it by sager counsel? Why, when all was 1ost, had his friend restrained him from falling on his own sword, the only honourable resource? It will come to that in the end, he thinks, but the opportunity for dying with