Cicero's Life and Letters Quote

CICERO’S LIFE AND LETTERS

1. To Pompey, Asia Minor 

• 62 B.C.
• After the Catilinarian Conspiracy 
• “Life everybody else I was delighted with your official dispatch”
• “I have achieved things […] in view of our relationship and the national interest”
• “the reaction to what I did to save our country has been universally favourable”
• “I am confident […] let me join you as a political ally”
• “you being much greater than Scipio Aemilianus, and myself not much inferior to Laelius!”

  
  2. To Atticus, on his way to Epirus

• July 59 B.C.
• Reaction to Caesar’s consulship
• “Only one man opens his mouth and speaks against them publicly and that is young Curio.”
• “there can be no hope of either private individuals or even state officials being free for much longer.”
• “on all sides there is nothing but utter despair.”
• “The Campanian law ordains that candidates for official posts put themselves under a curse if their election speeches make any mention of land being occupied on different terms from those laid down by Caesar’s legislation.”
• “I cannot bear to write any more about politics. I am disgusted with myself and find writing about it extremely painful.”
• “Caesar very generously proposes that I should join his staff.”
• “offers to send me on a mission at state expense”
• “I hate the idea of running away”
• “I wish you were here – I long for you to be. Then I should not feel so short of advice and consolation.”

  3. To Terentia

• November 58 B.C.
• Cicero left for Greece in exile 
• “how unbelievably brave and strong you are being”
• “you are refusing to allow your troubles either of mind or of body to exhaust you”
• “How unhappy it makes me that you with your courage, loyalty, honesty, and kindness should have suffered all these miseries because of me!”
• “darling daughter […] her father who used to give her so many pleasures!”
• “But it is all my own fault!”
• “[…]as for those who did want me, I refused to join them. If only I had acted upon my own judgement.”
• “if we can rely on all the tribunes, and on Lentulus being as friendly as he seems to be, and above all on Pompey and Caesar, there is no need to despair.”
• “If I ever see that day, and come into your arms, and get you back as well as myself, then indeed I shall really feel that our loyalty to one another has been rewarded!”
• 25 November 58 B.C.
• “I have come to Dyrrhachium”

  4. To Atticus

• May 56 B.C.
• Following conference at Luca, and Palinode 
• “One simply cannot credit the treacherous behaviour of those ‘leaders’ – as they claim to be, and would be if there was any loyalty in them.”
• “I had decided to work with them politically. But they have turned out exactly the same as ever.”
• “the fact is that I wanted to commit myself thoroughly to this new alignment, so that I should deprive myself of any chance of slipping back…