The letters contained in this volume begin with one written just after Caesar's final victory over the remains of the Pompeian party at Thapsus in April, 46 B.C., and cover three of the last four years of Cicero's life. When they open, Cicero was enjoying a restful interval after the troublous times of the Civil War. He had made his peace with Caesar and reconciled himself to a life of retirement and literary activity. In the Senate he never spoke except to deliver a speech pleading for the return from exile of his friend Marcellus; and his only other public appearance was to advocate the cause of another friend, Ligarius. In both he was successful; and, indeed, so he seems also to have been in private appeals to Caesar on behalf of friends. But their relations were never intimate,^[1] and Cicero appears always to have felt ill at ease in Caesar's society,^[2] disliking and fearing him as a possible tyrant or at least an anomaly in a Republican state. He evidently felt, too, some natural qualms at being too much of a turn-coat, as he dissuaded his son from joining Caesar's expedition to Spain at the end of the year on that ground, and persuaded him to go to Athens to study instead.^[3] No doubt he considered that it was more consonant with the dignity which he was always claiming for himself to take no part in public affairs at all than to play a secondary part where he had once been first. Consequently he spent the year 46 peacefully engaged in writing and in his

private affairs; and even of those we hear little, as he was at Rome the greater part of the time. Somewhat under protest he wrote, apparently at the suggestion of the Caesarian party,^[4] with most of whom he was on good terms, a work on Cato, which satisfied neither friend nor foe, as Brutus thought it necessary to write another himself, and Caesar composed an Anti-Cato. Of his other writings, two rhetorical works, the Brutus and the Orator, and one philosophical, the Paradoxa, fall in this year. In the early part of it he divorced Terentia, and at the end of it married his rich and youthful ward Publilia; but he soon separated from her. The unhappy marriage between his daughter Tullia and her profligate husband, Dolabella, was dissolved at much the same time, but she only survived for a few months. Her death, which occurred in February, 45 B.C., seems to have prostrated Cicero with grief, and a long series of daily letters, from March to August of that year, are largely filled with reiterations of his grief and projects for the erection of a shrine in her honour. They are interesting for the light they cast on Atticus' treatment of Cicero when he was unstrung and excited. Atticus evidently disapproved entirely of the project; but from Cicero's answers one infers that he kept on humouring him and at the same time delaying action on his part by continual suggestions of a fresh site for the shrine, knowing that Cicero's ardour would cool and the scheme drop through, as it did.

Much is said, too, in these letters about the literary work to which Cicero turned with more eagerness than ever to assuage his grief; and the output was enormous. A book on consolation in times of sorrow, a general introduction to the philosophical works which followed, the De Finibus, the Academica—rewritten, three times^[5]—and a small rhetorical treatise, the Partitiones Oratoriae, were published during the year, while the Tusculanae Disputationes, the De Natura Deorum and the De Senectute were projected and begun. Certainly Cicero was right in saying that he had no lack of words!^[6]

Of political affairs little is said; indeed, in Caesar's absence there was not much to say. But there are occasional sneers at the honours paid to him^[7] and at his projected extension of Rome.^[8] For the latter part of the year, after Caesar's return from Spain, there are no letters in this collection except two amusing letters in December, one describing a conversation with his nephew, who was trying to make peace with his relatives after a violent quarrel,^[9] and the other Cicero's entertainment of Caesar at Puteoli.^[10]

Not long afterwards came the murder of Caesar, at which Cicero to his regret was not present, though he was in Rome and hastened to the Capitol to lend his support to the murderers. He found, however, the cold Brutus hard to stir into action, and after Antony's speech at the funeral he thought it wiser to retire from Rome. The letters written at the time are full of rejoicing at the death of a man, towards whom he never seems to have felt any attraction, in spite of the kindness he had received at his hands. But he soon realised the hopelessness of the Republican cause, which lacked both a leader and a following. He himself regained something of his old position, and we find him not only consulted by Brutus and the rest of his party, but politely addressed by Antony in a note, asking his permission to recall Cicero's old enemy Clodius.^[11] Cicero, taking the request as a demand, returned an equally polite note of assent;^[12] but what he thought of the request and of Antony is shown by a letter sent to Atticus simultaneously.^[13] For a while there are occasional bursts of hope in a revival of the old constitution, for instance when Dolabella threw down the column erected in the forum in honour of Caesar;^[14] but despair at the inactivity of Brutus and his friends and at Antony's growing influence and the respect shown for Caesar's enactment after his death prevail; and Cicero contemplated crossing to Greece to visit his son and escape from the war he foresaw. Octavian's arrival and opposition to Antony did not comfort him much, in spite of attentions paid to himself by the future emperor, as he mistrusted Octavian's youth, his abilities and his intentions. But, when just on the point of sailing, news reached him that there was a chance of Antony giving way and peace with something of the old conditions being restored; and he hurried back to Rome to take his part in its restoration.^[15] There he found little chance of peace, but, once returned, he recovered sufficient courage to take the lead in the Senate and deliver his first Philippic against Antony. After that there are only a few letters written towards the end of the year. In them he still expresses great mistrust for Octavian, who was continually appealing to him for his support;^[16] and, in spite of his renewed entry into public affairs, one

is rather surprised to find that he was still working at his philosophical treatises, writing the De Officiis to dedicate to his son,^[17] and even eager to turn to history at the suggestion of Atticus.^[18] Such is the last glimpse we get of him in the Letters to Atticus. Shortly afterwards he returned to Rome, and for some six months led the senatorial party in its opposition to Antony; but, when Octavian too turned against the party and the struggle became hopeless, he retired to Tusculum, where he lived until he was proscribed by the Triumvirs early in December. Then he contemplated flight to Greece, but was killed at Astura before he had succeeded in leaving Italy.

I must again acknowledge my indebtedness in preparing the translation to Tyrrell's edition of the Letters and to Shuckburgh's translation, from both of which I have "conveyed" many a phrase. The text is as usual based on the Teubner edition, and textual notes have been mainly confined to passages where a reading not found in that edition was adopted. In those notes the following abbreviations are used:—

M = the Codex Mediceus 49, 18, written in the year 1389 A.D., and now preserved in the Laurentian Library at Florence. M¹ denotes the reading of the first hand, and M² that of a reviser.

? = the reading of M when supported by that of the Codex Urbinas 322, a MS. of the fifteenth century, preserved in the Vatican Library.

O = Codex 1, 5, 34 in the University Library at Turin, written in the fifteenth century. O¹ denotes the reading of the first hand, and O² that of a reviser.

C = the marginal readings in Cratander's edition of 1528, drawn from a MS. which is lost.

Z = the readings of the lost Codex Tornaesianus. Z^b, Z^l, Z^t, the readings of the same MS. when attested only by Bosius, Lambinus, or Turnebus respectively.

L (marg.) = readings in the margin of Lambinus' second edition.

Vict. = the editio Petri Victori (Venice, 1534-37).