Humanitext Reader

Cicero · Letters to Friends §8.7.1-8.7.2

Parthian War Fears and Roman Society Scandals

Passage 162 of 413 · Latin

Summary

Caelius expresses his concern about the danger of a Parthian war while Cicero is in his province, and explains why this letter is brief. He then reports on the scandalous marriages, divorces, and adultery gossips occurring in Rome.

§8.7.1quam cito tu istinc decedere cupias nescio; ego quidem eo magis, quo adhuc felicius res gessisti, dum istic eris, de belli Parthici periculo cruciabor, ne hunc risum meum metus aliqui perturbet.
How quickly you desire to depart from there, I do not know; as for myself, indeed, the more successfully you have conducted your affairs there so far, the more, as long as you are there, I shall be tormented by the danger of a Parthian war, lest some fear should disturb this laughter of mine.
breviores has litteras properanti publicanorum tabellario subito dedi; tuo liberto pluribus verbis scriptas pridie dederam.
I have suddenly given this rather short letter to a hurrying courier of the tax-contractors; yesterday I had given a longer one to your freedman.
§8.7.2res autem novae nullae sane acciderunt, nisi haec vis tibi scribi, quae certe vis: Cornificius adulescens Orestillae filiam sibi despondit; Paula Valeria, soror Triari, divortium sine causa, quo die vir e provincia venturus erat, fecit nuptura est D. Bruto. †nondum rettuleras.
But indeed no news has happened, unless you wish these things to be written to you, which you certainly do wish: the young Cornificius has betrothed the daughter of Orestilla to himself; Paula Valeria, sister of Triarius, divorced her husband without cause on the very day he was to return from his province, and is going to marry Decimus Brutus. †You had not yet returned.
multa in hoc genere incredibilia te absente acciderunt.
Many incredible things of this kind have happened in your absence.
Servius Ocella nemini persuasisset se moechum esse, nisi triduo bis deprensus esset.
Servius Ocella would have persuaded no one that he was an adulterer, unless he had been caught twice in three days.
quaeres, ubi.
You will ask, where.
Ubi hercules ego minime vellem.
Where, by Hercules, I should least of all wish.
relinquo tibi quod ab aliis quaeras; neque enim displicet mihi imperatorem singulos percontari cum qua sit aliqui deprensus.
I leave it to you to ask from others; for it does not displease me that an imperator should inquire of people one by one, with whom someone was caught.

Notes

  1. §8.7.1eo magis, quo adhuc felicius — The correlative construction eo ... quo ... expresses proportion ('the more..., the more...'). Literally: 'by how much the more successfully you have conducted affairs, by so much the more I shall be tormented.'
  2. §8.7.2nuptura est — The active periphrastic conjugation composed of the future participle nuptura (from nubere, 'to marry' [of a woman]) and est, indicating imminent intention or future event. Since nubere governs the dative case, D. Bruto is in the dative.
  3. §8.7.2nondum rettuleras — This phrase marked with a dagger is highly obscure or corrupt. Some editors suggest emendations like nondum resalutaras ('you had not yet returned the greeting') or nondum rettulerat ('she/he had not yet returned [the dowry]'). It is translated here literally according to the manuscript reading ('you had not yet reported/returned').
  4. §8.7.2nemini persuasisset ... nisi ... deprensus esset — A past counterfactual conditional sentence using the pluperfect subjunctive in both the apodosis (persuasisset) and the protasis (deprensus esset). 'He would have persuaded no one... unless he had been caught...' (implying he was caught, and therefore people were convinced).

Cite this passage

Cicero, Letters to Friends §8.7.1-8.7.2. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0474.phi056.humanitext-lat1:8.7.1-8.7.2

Please note the AI-draft status of the translation and the date accessed.

Translation, notes and summary are AI-generated drafts, revised through reader feedback.