Translation:Letters to Friends/7.27

Italy, April 49 BC
M. Cicero says hello to T. Fadius

I wonder why you accuse me when it is not right for you to do this. If it were right, you still should not have done it. ‘I had looked out for you in your consulship,’ you say, and that Caesar will restore you: you say many things, but no one trusts you. You say that you sought the office of tribune of the plebs for my sake: I wish you were always a tribune! You would not be looking for a surety. You say I don’t dare to say what I think: as if I did not answer you bravely enough, when you asked me shamelessly.

I have written these things to you so you might realize that in that style of yours in which you want to be somewhat forceful, you are not at all so. If you had complained to me politely, I would have gladly, and easily, justified myself to you; I really am not ungrateful for what you have done, but the things you have written are annoying. Furthermore, I’m at a loss that I, because of whom the rest are free, have not seemed free to you. For if the things which you, as you say, reported to me were false, what do I owe you? If they were true, you are the best witness of what the Roman people owe me.