LAODTCEA,22FEBRUARY
I RECEIVED your letter on the fifth day before the Terminalia (19th of February)at Laodicea.I was delighted to read it,for it teemed with affection,kindness,and an active and obliging temper.I will,therefore,answer it sentence by sentence--for such is your request--and I will not introduce an arrangement of my own,but will follow your order.
You say that the last letter you had of mine was from Cybistra,dated 21st September,and you want to know which of yours I have received.Nearly all you mention,except the one that you say that you delivered to Lentulus's messengers at Equotuticus and Brundisium.Wherefore your industry has not been thrown away,as you fear,but has been exceedingly well laid out,if,that is to say,your object was to give me pleasure.For I have never been more delighted with anything.I am exceedingly glad that you approve of my self-restraint in the case of Appius,and of my independence even in the case of Brutus:and I had thought that it might be somewhat otherwise.For Appius,in the course of his journey,had sent me two or three rather querulous letters,because I rescinded some of his decisions.It is exactly as if a doctor,upon a patient having been placed under another doctor,should choose to be angry with the latter if he changed some of his prescriptions.
Thus Appius,having treated the province on the system of depletion,bleeding,and removing everything he could,and having handed it over to me in the last state of exhaustion,he cannot bear seeing it treated by me on the nutritive system.Yet he is sometimes angry with me,at other times thanks me;for nothing Iever do is accompanied with any reflexion upon him.It is only the dissimilarity of my system that annoys him.For what could be a more striking difference--under his rule a province drained by charges for maintenance and by losses,under mine,not a penny exacted either from private persons or public bodies?Why speak of his praefecti,staff,and legates?Or even of acts of plunder,licentiousness,and insult?While as things actually are,no private house,by Hercules,is governed with so much system,or on such strict principles,nor is so well disciplined,as is my whole province.Some of Appius's friends put a ridiculous construction on this,holding that I wish for a good reputation to set off his bad one,and act rightly,not for the sake of my own credit,but in order to cast reflexion upon him.But if Appius,as Brutus's letter forwarded by you indicated,expresses gratitude to me,I am satisfied.Nevertheless,this very day on which I write this,before dawn,I am thinking of rescinding many of his inequitable appointments and decisions.
I now come to Brutus,whose friendship I embraced with all possible earnestness on your advice.I had even begun to feel genuine affection for him--but here I pull myself up short,lest Ishould offend you:for don't imagine that there is anything I wish more than to fulfil his commissions,or that there is anything about which I have taken more trouble.Now he gave me a volume of commissions,and you had already spoken with me about the same matters.I have pushed them on with the greatest energy.To begin with,I put such pressure on Ariobarzanes,that he paid him the talents which he promised me.As long as the king was with me,the business was in excellent train:later on he begun to be pressed by countless agents of Pompey.Now Pompey has by himself more influence than all the rest put together for many reasons,and especially because there is an idea that he is coming to undertake the Parthian war.However,even he has to put up with the following scale of payment:on every thirtieth day thirty-three Attic talents (7,920pounds),and that raised by special taxes:nor is it sufficient for the monthly interest.But our friend Gnaeus is an easy creditor:he stands out of his capital,is content with the interest,and even that not in full.The king neither pays anyone else,nor is capable of doing so:for he has no treasury,no regular income,He levies taxes after the method of Appius.They scarcely produce enough to satisfy Pompey's interest.The king has two or three very rich friends,but they stick to their own as energetically as you or I.
