Caesar Imp. sal. d. Ciceroni Imp.

My dear friend, you wound my pride again. How can you have such thoughts I do not know. It is not your custom, as I said in my letter many years ago,^1 to act foolishly but I fear that you make as grave an error as you did then. For what has Gaius Caesar done that is so distasteful?^2 My reputation was attacked unjustly despite such great works and deeds. The will of the people was violated along with the tribunes. What sort of man would I be to kneel to such tyranny and injustice?

It brings great dolor that you seem to value the advice of a friend so little. For when have I ever given you poor advice? During your consulship I advised you not to execute the Catilinarians without trial, warning that the price to the state would far outweigh the good. Was I not right then? When I was consul I invited you to sit as legate alongside your brother, lest Publius Clodius and his agents target you. In this you refused, and was I not right to have warned you of his vengeance? When Pompey and Cato entered into their plot against the state did I not implore you to retire until the end of the conflict? And yet you rejected our old bonds of friendship then, which I fear have never been the same; was I not right that Fortune and Justice were on our side?

This is a deep blow, and you, it seems, do not value our friendship as I always have. When I was consul I asked only that you not speak out against me, appealing to our good relations. Yet then you caused me great pain when you attacked my legate and tribune during my consulship, Publius Vatinius. When I defended the city from those who would overturn it you, having delayed many months in what I had thought to be wise deliberation, threw in with the enemies of the state. A greater blow has never been dealt a friend before, yet now you cast invidia on me again and again you spurn our friendship. I can only counsel what I did then, that there is no greater joy for a man of your reputation than honorable living in peace--my reputation is still to be made, for there are many still who would oppose not only me but the state itself. But I am utterly confused by your thoughts that perhaps I intend to bring kingship to the Romans people; I am Caesar, not Rex.^3

No one is dearer to me than you. I only beg, for your own health and honor, that you do the becoming and honorable thing, and live in peace as we all wish. May I soon join you in life without civil strife, my dearest friend

Kal. Apr. apud Thapsum

1. ad Atticum 10.8B, one of Caesar's few surviving letters. Written on the march during April of 49, the letter urges Cicero not to act rashly and consider what is right--which, Caesar thinks, is naturally to join his forces or to abstain entirely. Cicero left Italy in June

2. For the interested, Caesar's dictatorship was extended to ten years, to which OP refers, in 46. The Lupercalia affair, which our sources generally consider to be the point at which Caesar was suspected of entertaining the idea of kingship, would not happen until early 44

3. Caesar's famous remark here is utterly anachronistic, but too good to pass up

I know nothing of the wants of my husband's late father, but I know this, senator: I wish that my son, Tiberius might experience peace in his life. Oh, how dreadful it must be to have to flee - on foot nonetheless - from one place to another because of the civil war that you and your friends started because you couldn't let an aging consul live out his days in peace.

My dearest friend Cicero,

It gives me great sadness to see your doubts so clearly and patently voiced, but I must admit that the pain I feel on the behalf of our personal friendship pales in comparison to the injury upon the whole of the Roman civitas. For what have you accomplished but to endanger the very fabric of our brotherly unity, to foment such disagreeable thoughts of civil war amongst fratres?

You know as well as I that it was my father (deified as one of the very immortal gods you have invoked, must I remind you!) who defended our great Republic against the threat of that tyrant Pompey, father to a common pirate. And had it not been for myself with the divine guidance of Apollo, Sextus may well have permanently crippled the grain supply to our beloved city.^1

Perhaps the turbulence of the times has clouded your otherwise astute and exceptional powers of thought and rhetoric. Is it not my father’s fellow triumvir, Marcus Licinius Crassus, whom you must despise, for it was he who lost the symbol of Roman glory and power in our standards (I was able to recover those, by the by — you may not have heard but I did it)? Or perhaps those murderous instigators of civil war, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, the men who brought violence upon Rome for their own motives of personal power (I dealt with them as well; they won’t be bothering Rome anymore)? Or surely you must mean to direct your odium towards that most shameful and villainous of characters, Mark Antony, who dared renounce Rome for his love of Egypt, and who (my apologies for bringing this up again) vomited morsels reeking of wine in the presence of a Roman assembly?^2 You are the greatest of orators that Rome has seen, Marcus Tullius Cicero, and you have stated yourself: had it not been for the army that I myself, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, had raised with my own efforts and funds, the return of Mark Antony to Rome surely would have heralded her destruction.^3

I would like to remind you that when you question my father, you are not simply questioning the actions and intent of a man, but the history and stock of Rome herself. For I am the pater patriae, and Julius Caesar is not only my father, but the son of Venus, of Aeneas, of Romulus, of Mars. He is not only a son of Rome, but he is a god.^4 You would do well to refresh yourself of the piety required of the exemplary Roman citizen.

I beg of you, my friend, to please reconsider the weight of your heavy words. I would hate for you to find yourself on the wrong list.^5

SPQR,

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, Pater Patriae, Princeps Senatus, Pontifex Maximus, Augur, Quindecimvir Sacris Faciundis, Septemvir Epulonum, Frater Arvalis, Sodalis Titius, Fetialis

1. Sextus Pompey had occupied Sicily through the early years of the 30s BCE and had disrupted the shipments of grain to Rome. Octavian (or, really, his admiral Agrippa), defeated Sextus at the Battle of Naulochus in 36 BCE.
2. Philippics, 2.63
3. Philippics, 4.4
4. Julius Caesar was deified by the Senate in 42 BCE.
5. Though it was technically Mark Antony who had Cicero proscripted, Octavian ostensibly did nothing to stop Antony from doing so.

Are we flirting with becoming a full fledged member of the Boni (or Optimates if you prefer) now Cicero? Has the Third Founder of Rome at last gotten tired of self aggrandizement and reflecting on his role in the "Conspiracy" of Catiline? Perhaps you seek another for whom you can target your paranoia at and seek execution for without a trial? A Roman citizen to murder without a trial? Indeed what way to top yourself other than to execute a consular with Imperium, again in absentia, without due process, and without a voice in his own defense.

Still whats to worry? Your friend Pompeius Magnus and I, Marcus Crassus, are the two main pillars of the Triumvirate. Sure, Caesar may pacify a few Gauls but what is that compared to defeating the Great Mithridates and his son in law Tigranes or sweeping the pirates out of Our Sea? And soon I will finish Pompey's - well really Lucullus' (he doesn't get enough credit for doing most of Pompey's Job in the east) - job and take over the Parthians and in short order the Egyptians.

Then it will be I who is the most famous of the Triumvirate. Will you oppose me then Cicero? Clodius is already baying for your head. Push us too far Cicero and the Pontifex Maximus will unleash that hound upon you.