Cicero

He discovered that much of the public property had been embezzled, and by restoring it he made the cities well-to-do, and men who made restitution he maintained in their civil rights without further penalties. He engaged in war, too, and routed the robbers who made their homes on Mount Amanus;[*](Cf. Cicero, ad fam. ii. 10, 2 f. ) and for this he was actually saluted by his soldiers as Imperator.

When Caelius the orator asked Cicero to send him panthers from Cilicia for a certain spectacle at Rome, Cicero, pluming himself upon his exploits, wrote to him that there were no panthers in Cilicia; for they had fled to Caria in indignation because they alone were warred upon, while everything else enjoyed peace.[*](Ad fam. ii. 11, 2.) On his voyage back from his province he first touched at Rhodes, and then gladly spent some time at Athens in fond remembrance of his old pursuits in that place.

Then, after associating with men who were foremost for their learning, and after greeting his old-time friends and intimates, and after receiving from Greece the tokens of admiration that were his due, he returned to Rome,[*](January 4, 49 B.C. Cf. ad fam. xvi. 11, 2 f. ) where a violent inflammation, as it were, was already forcing matters on towards the civil war.

Accordingly, when the senators were voting him a triumph, he said he would more gladly follow in Caesar’s triumphal procession if matters could be settled; and privately he gave much advice to Caesar by letter, and much to Pompey in person by way of personal entreaty, trying to mollify and pacify each of them. But when things were past healing, and Caesar was advancing upon the city, and Pompey did not stay there, but abandoned the city in the company of many good men, Cicero did not take part in this flight, and was thought to be attaching himself to Caesar.

And it is clear that his judgement drew him strongly in both directions and that he was in distress. For he writes in his letters that he knew not which way he ought to turn, since Pompey had honourable and good grounds for going to war, while Caesar managed matters better and had more ability to save himself and his friends; he therefore knew from whom he should flee, but not to whom he should flee.[*](Ego vero quem fugiam habeo, quem sequar non habeo (ad Att. viii. 7, 2).)

And when Trebatius, one of the companions of Caesar, wrote him a letter stating that Caesar thought he ought above all things to range himself on his side and share his hopes, but that if he declined to do this by reason of his age, he ought to go to Greece and take up a quiet life there out of the way of both, Cicero was amazed that Caesar himself did not write, and replied in a passion that he would do nothing unworthy of his political career. Such, then, is the purport of his letters.