Page:The Letters of Cicero Shuckburg III.pdf/218

 DXXXVII (F VI, 1)

TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS)



Though the universal upset is such that each man thinks his position the worst possible, and that there is no one who does not wish to be anywhere but where he is, yet I feel no doubt that at the present moment the most miserable place for a good man to be in is Rome. For though wherever any man is, he must have the same feeling and the same pang from the ruin that has overtaken the fortunes both of himself and of the state, yet, after all, one's eyes add to the pain, which force us to see what others only hear,[2] and do not allow us to turn our thoughts from our miseries. Therefore, though you must necessarily be pained by the absence of many objects, yet from that particular sorrow, with which I am told that you are specially overpowered—that you are not at Rome—pray free your mind. For though you must feel great uneasiness at being without your family and your surroundings, yet, after all, the objects of your regret are maintaining all their rights. They could not maintain them better, if you were here, nor are they in any special danger. Nor ought you, when thinking of your family, to demand any special favour of fortune for yourself, or to refuse to bear what is common to all. In regard to

begun the business early in the time of the confiscations of his uncle, the dictator Sulla, see de Off. ii. §29, where Cicero speaks of his conduct now as even worse than in the previous matter. In his defence of him in 60 he put a very different complexion on his character; but his conduct as Cæsar's legatus seems to have alienated him thoroughly. See pp. 51, 53.]
 * [Footnote: bidder or sector, which was always considered discreditable. He had