by Daisy Dunn
*
As to the suburban pleasure-grounds, as you approve of them, come to some settlement. You know my means. […]
You urge me to reappear in the forum: that is a place which I ever avoided even in my happier days. Why, what have I to do with a forum when there are no law courts, no senate-house, and when men are always obtruding on my sight whom I cannot see with any patience? You say people call for my presence at Rome, and are unwilling to allow me to be absent, or at any rate beyond a certain time: I assure you that it is long since I have valued your single self higher than all those people. Nor do I undervalue myself even, and I much prefer abiding by my own judgment than by that of all the rest. Yet, after all, I go no farther than the greatest philosophers think allowable, all whose writings of whatever kind bearing on that point I have not only read—which is itself being a brave invalid and taking one’s physic—but have transcribed in my own essay. That at least did not look like a mind crushed and prostrate. From the use of these remedies do not call me back to the crowds of Rome, lest I have a relapse.
*
As to the suburban pleasure-grounds, I am particularly urgent with you. I must employ all my own means, and those of men whom I know will not fail to help me: though I shall be able to do it with my own. I have also some property which I could easily sell. But even if I don’t sell, but pay the vendor interest on the purchase money— though not for more than a year—I can get what I want if you will assist me. The most readily available are those of Drusus, for he wants to sell. The next I think are those of Lamia; but he is away. Nevertheless, pray scent out anything you can. Silius does not make any use of his either, and he will be very easily satisfied by being paid interest on the purchase money. Manage the business your own way; and do not consider what my purse demands— about which I care nothing—but what I want.
*
If we don’t come to terms about pleasure-grounds beyond the Tiber, Cotta has some at Ostia in a very frequented situation, though confined as to space. Enough, however, and more than enough for this purpose. Please think the matter over. And don’t be afraid of the cost of the pleasure-grounds. I don’t want plate, nor rich furniture coverings, nor particular picturesque spots: I want this. I perceive too by whom I can be aided. But speak to Silius about it. There’s no better fellow. I have also given Sicca a commission. He has written back to say that he has made an appointment with him. He will therefore write and tell me what he has arranged, and then you must see to it.
*
Sicca has written to me fully about Silius, and says that he has reported the matter to you—as you too mention in your letter. I am satisfied both with the property and the terms, only I should prefer paying ready money to assigning property at a valuation. For Silius will not care to have mere show-places: while, though I can get on with my present rents, I can scarcely do so with less. How am I to pay ready money? You can get 600 sestertia [about £4,800] from Hermogenes, especially if it is absolutely necessary, and I find I have 600 in hand. For the rest of the purchase money I will even pay interest to Silius, pending the raising of the money from Faberius or from some debtor of Faberius. I shall besides get some from other quarters. But manage the whole business yourself. I, in fact, much prefer these suburban pleasure-grounds to those of Drusus: and the latter have never been regarded as on a level with them. Believe me, I am actuated by a single motive, as to which I know that I am infatuated. But pray continue as before to indulge my aberration. You talk about a “solace for my old age”: that is all over and done with; my objects now are quite different.
*
As to the bargain with Silius, though I am acquainted with the terms, still I expect to hear all about it to-day from Sicca. Cotta’s property, with which you say that you are not acquainted, is beyond Silius’s villa, which I think you do know: it is a shabby and very small house, with no farm land, and with sufficient ground for no purpose except for what I want it. What I am looking out for is a frequented position. But if the bargain for Silius’s pleasure-grounds is completed, that is, if you complete it—for it rests entirely with you—there is of course no occasion for us to be thinking about Cotta’s.
*
I have learnt nothing more about Silius from Sicca in conversation than I knew from his letter: for he had written in full detail. If, therefore, you have an interview with him, write and tell me your views. As to the subject on which you say a message was sent to me, whether it was sent or not I don’t know; at any rate not a word has reached me. Pray therefore go on as you have begun, and if you come to any settlement on such terms as to satisfy her—though I, for my part, think it impossible—take my son with you on your visit, if you think it right. It is of some importance to him to seem to have wished to do something to please. I have no interest in it beyond what you know, which I regard as important.
You call upon me to resume my old way of life: well, it had long been my practice to bewail the republic, and that I was still doing, though somewhat less violently, for I had something capable of giving me ease. Now I positively cannot pursue the old way of life and old employments; nor do I think that in that matter I ought to care for the opinion of others. My own feeling is more in my eyes than the talk of them all. As to finding consolation for myself in literature, I am content with my amount of success. I have lessened the outward signs of mourning: my sorrow I neither could, nor would have wished to lessen if I could.
*
About the suburban pleasure-grounds do, I beseech you, come to some conclusion. The main point is what you know it to be. Another thing is that I want something of the sort for myself: for I cannot exist in a crowd, nor yet remain away from you. For this plan of mine I find nothing more suitable than the spot you mention, and on that matter pray tell me what you advise.
*
Sicca expresses surprise at Silius having changed his mind. He makes his son the excuse, and I don’t think it a bad one, for he is a son after his own heart. Accordingly, I am more surprised at your saying that you think he will sell, if we would include something else which he is anxious to get rid of, as he had of his own accord determined not to do so. You ask me to fix my maximum price and to say how much I prefer those pleasure grounds of Drusus. I have never set foot in them. I know Coponius’s villa to be old and not very spacious, the wood a fine one, but I don’t know what either brings in, and that after all I think we ought to know. But for me either one or the other is to be valued by my occasion for it rather than by the market price. Pray consider whether I could acquire them or not. If I were to sell my claim on Faberius, I don’t doubt my being able to settle for the grounds of Silius even by a ready money payment, if he could only be induced to sell. If he had none for sale, I would have recourse to Drusus, even at the large price at which Egnatius told you that he was willing to sell. For Hermogenes can give me great assistance in finding the money. But I beg you to allow me the disposition of an eager purchaser; yet, though I am under the influence of this eagerness and of my sorrow, I am willing to be ruled by you.
*
To-morrow therefore I shall be in Sicca’s suburban villa; thence, as you advise, I think I shall stay in your house at Ficulea.3 We will talk about the subject you mention when we meet, as I am coming in person. I am extraordinarily touched by your kindness, thoroughness, and wisdom, both in carrying out my business and in forming and suggesting plans to me in your letters. However, if you come to any understanding with Silius, even on the very day on which I am to arrive at Sicca’s house, please let me know, and above all, what part of the site he wishes to withdraw from the sale. You say “the farthest”—take care that it isn’t the very spot, for the sake of which I thought about the matter at all.4
The search for a suitable plot rumbled on for some time after Silius’ land became unavailable. Cicero even sought to purchase some gardens on the Tiber owned by Clodia, whom he had painted in unflattering terms in a court case some ten years previously (see earlier story). But in the end it seems t
hat his project never bore fruit.
1 Cicero wished to build a shrine in honour of Tullia’s memory. His first idea was to do this at Astura: but he soon changed to the plan of purchasing suburban horti.
2 If consecrated, the building would not change hands with a change of owners of the property.
3 Some villa of Atticus’s at Ficulnea, about ten miles from Rome on the Via Nomentana.
4 That is, the part of the property on which he would build the memorial fane to Tullia.
CAESAR VERSUS POMPEY
Pharsalia, Book I
Lucan
Translated by A. S. Kline, 2014
In 60 BC, Julius Caesar forged an alliance for power in Rome with Pompey the Great and a wealthy man named Marcus Licinius Crassus. The deal was sealed with the betrothal of Caesar’s daughter Julia to Pompey. The three leaders were able to dominate Roman politics for a time. But the relationship between Pompey and Caesar deteriorated rapidly after Julia died in childbirth in 54 BC and Crassus perished in a disastrous war against the Parthians in the east a year later. The short life of the poet Lucan (AD 39–65), a nephew of Seneca the Younger, ended when he was forced to commit suicide for allegedly conspiring against the emperor Nero. Happily for us, he had already written his epic Pharsalia, one of the great Roman history poems. Here he describes the moment in 49 BC when Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his forces, initiating civil war. The decisive battle was fought at Pharsalus, in central Greece, and led to Pompey being beheaded.
For a short while a discordant harmony was maintained, there was
peace despite the leaders’ wills, since Crassus stood between them,
a check to imminent war. So the slender Isthmus divides the waves,
and separates two seas, forbidding their waters to merge; and yet
if the land were withdrawn, the Ionian would break on the Aegean.
Thus when Crassus, who kept those fierce competitors apart, died
pitifully, drenching Syrian Carrhae with Roman blood, that defeat
by Parthia let loose the furies on Rome. In that battle the Parthians
wrought better than they knew, visiting civil war on the defeated.
Power was divided by the sword; the wealth of an imperial people
who ruled the sea, the land, possessed the globe, was not enough
for two. For now, when Julia, Caesar’s daughter, Pompey’s wife,
was cut down by fate, she bore with her to the Shades the bonds
of affinity, and a marriage turned, by that dread omen, to mourning.
She, if fate had granted her longer life, might alone have restrained
her husband’s anger on the one side, and her father’s on the other.
She might have struck aside their swords, made them clasp hands,
as the Sabine women stood between their husbands and their fathers
and brought about reconciliation. But at her death bonds of loyalty
were broken, and the generals freed to pursue armed conflict.
A powerful rivalry drove them on: for Pompey feared fresh exploits
might obscure his former triumphs, his ridding the seas of pirates
yielding second place to Caesar’s victories in Gaul; while Caesar,
used to battle, inured to endless effort, was driven by an ambition
that yearned for supremacy; Caesar could accept none above him,
Pompey no equal. It is wrong to ask who had the greatest right
to seek war; each had great authority to support him: if the victor
had the gods on his side, the defeated had Cato. The contest was
unequal, Pompey being somewhat past his prime, long used
to the toga and forgetting in peace how to play a general’s part;
courting adulation, lavish with his gifts to the people of Rome,
swayed by popularity, overjoyed by the clamour that greeted him
in the theatre he had built, trusting in former claims to greatness,
he did nothing to establish wider power, and stood as the mere
shadow of a mighty name. So some oak-tree towers in a rich grove,
hung with a nation’s ancient trophies, sacred gifts of the victors,
and though its clinging roots have lost their strength, their weight
alone holds it, spreading naked branches to the sky, casting shade
not with leaves but its trunk alone, and though it quivers, doomed
to fall at the next gale, among the host of sounder trees that rise
around it, still it alone is celebrated. But Caesar possessed more
than mere name and military fame: his energies were un-resting,
his only shame in battle not to win; alert and unrestrained, every
summons of anger or ambition his strength answered, he never
shrank from an opportunistic use of the sword; intent on pursuing
each success, grasping the gods’ favour, pushing aside every
obstacle to his supremacy, happy to clear a path through ruin.
So a storm drives a lightning-bolt through the clouds, its flare
shattering the daylight sky, with the sound of thunderous air,
with a crash of the heavens, filling the human mind with terror,
dazzling the eye with its slanting flame. Rushing to a given
quarter of the skies, nothing material prevents its course;
mighty in its descent and its retreat it spreads destruction
far and wide, before gathering its scattered energies again.
Such were the leaders’ motives; but there were those hidden causes
of the war, amongst the people, that will ever destroy powerful
nations. For, the world conquered, and fortune showering excessive
wealth on Rome, virtue yielded to riches, and those enemy spoils drew
men to luxury. They set no bounds to wealth or buildings; greed
disdained its former fare; men wore clothes scarcely decent on women;
austerity, the mother of virtue, fled; and whatever ruined other nations
was brought to Rome. Then estates were increased, until those fields
once tilled by Camillus’ iron ploughshare, or Curius’ spade, became
vast tracts tended by alien farmers. Such a people took no pleasure
in peace and tranquility, no delight in liberty free from the sword.
Thus they were quick to anger, and crime, prompted by need, was
treated lightly; it was a virtue to take up arms and hold more power
than the State, and might became the measure of right. Thence laws
and statutes of the people passed by force, thence the consuls
and tribunes alike confounding all justice; office snared by bribery,
popular support bought at auction, while corruption, year after year
perpetuating venal elections to the magistracy, destroyed the State;
thence voracious usury, interest greedily seeking payment,
trust readily broken, and multitudes profiting greatly from war.
Now, Caesar, swiftly surmounting the frozen Alps,
had set his mind on vast rebellion and future conflict.
On reaching the banks of the Rubicon’s narrow flow
that general saw a vision of his motherland in distress,
her sorrowful face showing clear in nocturnal darkness,
with the white hair streaming from her turreted head,
as with torn tresses and naked arms she stood before him
her speech broken by sobbing: ‘Where are you marching,
whither do you bear those standards, my warriors?
If you come as law-abiding citizens, here you must halt.’
Then the general’s limbs quaked, his hair stood on end,
faintness overcame him and he halted, his feet rooted
to the river-bank. But soon he spoke: ‘O, Jupiter, God
of Thunder, who gazes from the Tarp
eian Rock over
the walls of the mighty city; O Trojan household gods
of the tribe of Iulus, and you, sacred relics of Quirinus;
O Jove of Latium, on Alba’s heights, and you, fires
of Vesta, and you, O Rome, equal in sanctity, favour
my enterprise; I bring no assault on you in wild warfare;
see me here, victorious by land and sea, always your
champion – now as ever, if that be possible. His
shall be the guilt, who forces me to act as your enemy.’
Then Caesar let loose the bonds of war, and led his
standards swiftly over the swollen stream; so a lion
in the untilled wastes of burning Libya, seeing his foes
nearby, crouches at first, uncertain, rousing himself to rage,
but soon maddened, lashing his tail, his mane erect,
sends out a roaring from his cavernous mouth, such
that if a nimble Moor pierces his flesh with the lance
he brandishes, or a spear lances at his vast chest, he
leaps over the weapons careless of such wounds.
The reddish waters of the Rubicon glide through
the valleys and serve as the boundary between
the land of Gaul and the farms of Italy. Born from
a modest spring it is parched by the heat of summer,
but then its volume was increased by winter, its waters
swollen by the third rising of a rain-bearing moon
with its moisture-laden horns, and by Alpine snows
melted by damp gales. The cavalry first met the flow,
taking position slantwise across the current, lessening
