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Updated: May 10, 2025
Of the esteem in which they were often held, we meet with an instance in Tiro, the freedman of Cicero, to whom that illustrious Roman addresses several epistles, written in the most familiar and affectionate strain of friendship.
The third day was employed in examining into an affair which had occasioned a good deal of talk and various reports; it was concerning the codicils of Julius Tiro, part of which was plainly genuine, while the other part, it was alleged, was forged.
I mean to be at Formiæ on the 30th: be sure, my dear Tiro, that I find you there strong and well. My poor studies, or rather ours, have been in a very bad way owing to your absence. However, they have looked up a little owing to this letter from you brought by Acastus. Pompey is staying with me at the moment of writing this, and seems to be cheerful and enjoying himself.
There is Attius Tiro Delphidius, who retired from a legal career into the professorial chair, but could never be got to take any trouble with his men, to the disappointment of their parents. There is Jocundus the grammarian, who did not really deserve his title, but was such a kind man that we will commemorate him among men of worth, although he was, strictly speaking, unequal to the job.
Others of more than average interest are to Terentia, M. Fadius Gallus, C. Scribonius Curio, and Tiro. He was the friend of all the leading men of the day Pompey, Cæsar, Cicero, Antony, Brutus father-in-law of Agrippa, and survived to be a constant correspondent of Augustus, between B.C. 43 and his death in B.C. 32.
Of all Cicero's correspondence, his letters to Tiro supply the most convincing evidence of his natural kindness of heart. Tiro was a slave; but this must be taken with some explanation. The slaves in a household like Cicero's would vary in position from the lowest menial to the important major-domo and the confidential secretary. Tiro was of this higher class.
As I hope to see you again, my dear Marcus, and my own son Cicero, and your Tulliola and your son, I am delighted about Tiro. He was much too good for his position, and I am truly glad that you preferred that he should be our freedman and friend rather than our slave.
A well-timed lenity would now be an act of policy as well as of virtue. Those whom you have reprieved, being pardoned, will be bound to you by a sort of gratitude those of them at least who put a value upon their lives and now that Tiro is fairly out of the way, and his scourgings at an end, they will all value their lives at a higher rate than before.
This is told in a letter to Tiro, a favorite slave belonging to Marcus, of whom we shall hear often in the course of our work. As the old lady sealed up the jars, though they contained no wine, so must Tiro write letters, though he has nothing to say in them.
Only, if you feel it necessary for your recovery to stay a little longer at Patrae, there is nothing I wish so much as for you to get well. If you sail at once, you will catch us at Leucas. But if you want to get well first, take care to secure pleasant companions, fine weather, and a good ship. Mind this, my good Tiro, if you love me let neither Mario's visit nor this letter hurry you.
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