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Updated: May 4, 2025
It is worthy of remark at the same time that the Emperor Tiberius married the granddaughter of Atticus. Cicero when in Cilicia had wished that Nero should be chosen; but the family at home was taken by the fashion and manners of Dolabella, and gave the young widow to him as her third husband when she was yet only twenty-five. This marriage, like the others, was unfortunate.
"Sic vivitur" "So goes the world;" "Tempori serviendum est" "We must bend to circumstances" these are not the noblest mottoes, but they are acted upon continually by the most respectable men in public and private life, who do not open their hearts to their friends so unreservedly as Cicero does to his friend Atticus.
The eleven letters which precede the consulship are happily, from this point of view, addressed to Atticus. For it was to Atticus that he wrote with the least concealment, and with the confidence that any detail, however small, which concerned himself would be interesting to his correspondent.
"You are able enough," replied he; "only unbend yourself a little, or, if you can set your mind at full liberty." "If I remember right," said I, "Atticus, what gave rise to the conversation, was my observing, that the cause of Deiotarus, a most excellent Sovereign, and a faithful ally, was pleaded by our friend Brutus, in my hearing, with the greatest elegance and dignity."
There is almost every sort of letter. Those to Atticus are unstudied, spontaneous, and reflect the varying moods of the writer. At times of special excitement they follow each other day by day, and sometimes more than once in the same day; and the writer seems to conceal nothing, however much it might expose him to ridicule, and to the charge of fickleness, weakness, or even cowardice.
To Atticus, ix. 4. Ibid., ix. 6. To Atticus, ix. 7 and 9. Ibid. "Ita dies et noctes tanquam avis illa mare prospecto, evolare cupio." "Hunc primum mortalem esse, deinde etiam multis modis extingui posse cogitabam." To Atticus, ix. 10.
In one of the letters written early in the year to Atticus from his villa at Antium he declares very plainly how it is with him; and this, too, in a letter written in good-humor, not in a despondent frame of mind, in which he is able pleasantly to ridicule his enemy Clodius, who it seems had expressed a wish to go on an embassy to Tigranes, King of Armenia.
And supposing even that you had managed to pick out such veritable treasures as the exquisite editions of Callinus, or those of the far-famed Atticus, most conscientious of publishers, what does it profit you? Their beauty means nothing to you, my poor friend; you will get precisely as much enjoyment out of them as a blind lover would derive from the possession of a handsome mistress.
He lauds the Prætors and the Tribunes, two of the latter members having opposed his return; but he is loudest in praise of Pompey that "Sampsiceramus," that "Hierosolymarius," that "Arabarches" into whose character he had seen so clearly when writing from Macedonia to Atticus that "Cn.
Put aside those things; look at his flight from the city, his cowardly harangues in the towns, his ignorance of his own strength and that of his enemy! * Cæsar in pursuit of Pompey! Oh, sad! * Will he kill him?" he exclaims. Then, still to Atticus, he defends himself. He will die for Pompey, but he does not believe that he can do any good either to Pompey or to the Republic by a base flight.
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