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III
III
To Cn. Pompeius Magnus
Rome, 62 B.C.
M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets Cn. Pompeius, son of Cneius,
Imperator.
If you and the army are well I shall be glad. From your official despatch
I have, in common with everyone else, received the liveliest satisfaction; for
you have given us that strong hope of peace, of which, in sole reliance on
you, I was assuring everyone. But I must inform you that your old enemies -
now posing as your friends - have received a stunning blow by this despatch,
and, being disappointed in the high hopes they were entertaining, are
thoroughly depressed. Though your private letter to me contained a somewhat
slight expression of your affection, yet I can assure you it gave me pleasure:
for there is nothing in which I habitually find greater satisfaction than in
the consciousness of serving my friends; and if on any occasion I do not meet
with an adequate return, I am not at all sorry to have the balance of kindness
in my favour. Of this I feel no doubt - even if my extraordinary zeal in your
behalf has failed to unite you to me - that the interests of the state will
certainly effect a mutual attachment and coalition between us. To let you
know, however, what I missed in your letter I will write with the candour
which my own disposition and our common friendship demand. I did expect some
congratulation in your letter on my achievements, for the sake at once of the
ties between us and of the Republic. This I presume to have been omitted by
you from a fear of hurting anyone`s feelings. But let me tell you that what I
did for the salvation of the country is approved by the judgment and testimony
of the whole world. You are a much greater man than Africanus, but I am not
much inferior to Laelius either; and when you come home you will recognize
that I have acted with such prudence and spirit, that you will not now be
ashamed of being coupled with me in politics as well as in private friendship.
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