Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
CICERO
LETTERS TO ATTICUS
INTRODUCTION
The letters contained in this volume begin with onewritten just after Caesar's final victory over theremains of the Pompeian party at Thapsus in April,46 B.C., and cover three of the last four years ofCicero's life. When they open, Cicero was enjoyinga restful interval after the troublous times of theCivil War. He had made his peace with Caesar andreconciled himself to a life of retirement and literaryactivity. In the Senate he never spoke except todeliver a speech pleading for the return from exileof his friend Marcellus; and his only other publicappearance was to advocate the cause of anotherfriend, Ligarius. In both he was successful; and,indeed, so he seems also to have been in privateappeals to Caesar on behalf of friends. But theirrelations were never intimate,[1] and Cicero appearsalways to have felt ill at ease in Caesar's society,[2]disliking and fearing him as a possible tyrant or atleast an anomaly in a Republican state. He evidentlyfelt, too, some natural qualms at being too much ofa turn-coat, as he dissuaded his son from joiningCaesar's expedition to Spain at the end of the yearon that ground, and persuaded him to go to Athensto study instead.[3] No doubt he considered thatit was more consonant with the dignity which hewas always claiming for himself to take no part inpublic affairs at all than to play a secondary partwhere he had once been first. Consequently he spentthe year 46 peacefully engaged in writing and in his
1. XIV. 1 and 2.
2. XIII. 52.
3. XII. 7.
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