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M. Porcius Cato to Cicero (in Cilicia)
Rome, June, 50 B.C.
I Gladly obey the call of the state and of our friendship, in rejoicing
that your virtue, integrity, and energy, already known at home in a most
important crisis, when you were a civilian, should be maintained abroad with
the same painstaking care now that you have military command. Therefore what I
could conscientiously do in setting forth in laudatory terms that the province
had been defended by your wisdom; that the kingdom of Ariobarzanes, as well as
the king himself, had been preserved; and that the feelings of the allies had
been won back to loyalty to our empire - that I have done by speech and vote.
That a thanksgiving was decreed I am glad, if you prefer out thanking the gods
rather than giving you the credit for a success which has been in no respect
left to chance, but has been secured for the Republic by your own eminent
prudence and self-control. But if you think a thanksgiving to be a
presumption in favour of a triumph, and therefore prefer fortune having the
credit rather than yourself, let me remind you that a triumph does not always
follow a thanksgiving; and that it is an honour much more brilliant than a
triumph for the senate to declare its opinion, that a province has been
retained rather by the uprightness and mildness of its governor, than by the
strength of an army or the favour of heaven: and that is what I meant to
express by my vote. And I write this to you at greater length than I usually
do write, because I wish above all things that you should think of me as
taking pains to convince you, both that I have wished for you what I believed
to be for your highest honour, and am glad that you have got what you
preferred to it. Farewell: continue to love me; and by the way you conduct
your home-journey, secure to the allies and the Republic the advantages of
your integrity and energy.
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