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XII
XII
To M. Marius (at Cumae)
Rome, October (?), 55 B.C.
If some bodily pain or weakness of health has prevented your coming to
the games, I put it down to fortune rather than your own wisdom: but if you
have made up your mind that these things which the rest of the world admires
are only worthy of contempt, and, though your health would have allowed of it,
you yet were unwilling to come, then I rejoice at both facts - that you were
free from bodily pain, and that you had the sound sense to disdain what others
causelessly admire. Only I hope that some fruit of your leisure may be
forthcoming, a leisure, indeed, which you had a splendid opportunity of
enjoying to the full, seeing that you were left almost alone in your lovely
country. For I doubt not that in that study of yours, from which you have
opened a window into the Stabian waters of the bay, and obtained a view of
Misenum, you have spent the morning hours of those days in light reading,
while those who left you there were watching the ordinary farces half asleep.
The remaining parts of the day, too, you spent in the pleasures which you had
yourself arranged to suit your own taste, while we had to endure whatever had
met with the approval of Spurius Maecius. On the whole, if you care to know,
the games were most splendid, but not to your taste. I judge from my own. For,
to begin with, as a special honour to the occasion, those actors had come back
to the stage who, I thought, had left it for their own. Indeed, your
favourite, my friend Aesop, was in such a state that no one could say a word
against his retiring from the profession. On beginning to recite the oath his
voice failed him at the words "If I knowingly deceive." Why should I go on
with the story? You know all about the rest of the games, which hadn`t even
that amount of charm which games on a moderate scale generally have: for the
spectacle was so elaborate as to leave no room for cheerful enjoyment, and I
think you need feel no regret at having missed it. For what is the pleasure of
a train of six hundred mules in the "Clytemnestra," or three thousand bowls in
the "Trojan Horse," or gay-coloured armour of infantry and cavalry in some
battle? These things roused the admiration of the vulgar; to you they would
have brought no delight. But if during those days you listened to your reader
Protogenes, so long at least as he read anything rather than my speeches,
surely you had far greater pleasure than any one of us. For I don`t suppose
you wanted to see Greek or Oscan plays, especially as you can see Oscan farces
in your senate-house over there, while you are so far from liking Greeks,
that you generally won`t even go along the Greek road to your villa. Why,
again, should I suppose you to care about missing the athletes, since you
disdained the gladiators? in which even Pompey himself confesses that he lost
his trouble and his pains. There remain the two wild-beast hunts, lasting
five days, magnificent - nobody denies it - and yet, what pleasure can it be
to a man of refinement, when either a weak man is torn by an extremely
powerful animal, or a splendid animal is transfixed by a hunting spear? Things
which, after all, if worth seeing, you have often seen before; nor did I, who
was present at the games, see anything the least new. The last day was that of
the elephants, on which there was a great deal of astonishment on the part of
the vulgar crowd, but no pleasure whatever. Nay, there was even a certain
feeling of compassion aroused by it, and a kind of belief created that that
animal has something in common with mankind. However, for my part, during this
day, while the theatrical exhibitions were on, lest by chance you should think
me too blessed, I almost split my lungs in defending your friend Caninius
Gallus. But if the people were as indulgent to me as they were to Aesop, I
would, by heaven, have been glad to abandon my profession and live with you
and others like us. The fact is I was tired of it before, even when both age
and ambition stirred me on, and when I could also decline any defence that I
didn`t like; but now, with things in the state that they are, there is no life
worth having. For, on the one hand, I expect no profit of my labour; and, on
the other, I am sometimes forced to defend men who have been no friends to me,
at the request of those to whom I am under obligations. Accordingly, I am on
the look-out for every excuse for at last managing my life according to my
own taste, and I loudly applaud and vehemently approve both you and your
retired plan of life: and as to your infrequent appearances among us, I am the
more resigned to that because, were you in Rome, I should be prevented from
enjoying the charm of your society, and so would you of mine, if I have any,
by the overpowering nature of my engagements; from which, if I get any relief
- for entire release I don`t expect - I will give even you, who have been
studying nothing else for many years, some hints as to what it is to live a
life of cultivated enjoyment. Only be careful to nurse your weak health and to
continue your present care of it, so that you may be able to visit my country
houses and make excursions with me in my litter. I have written you a longer
letter than usual, from superabundance, not of leisure, but of affection,
because, if you remember, you asked me in one of your letters to write you
something to prevent you feeling sorry at having missed the games. And if I
have succeeded in that, I am glad: if not, I yet console myself with this
reflexion, that in future you will both come to the games and come to see me,
and will not leave your hope of enjoyment dependent on my letters.
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