Book 4, Letter 5, Part 1 of 2, To Cicero, on Poetry and Tyrants.

Dear Cicero,

It is morning, I sit in bed reading poetry, Sappho suits my mood, she is like the sunshine, like the shade of green trees on warm days, like chilled wine and sweat condensing on skin. I read poem after poem, but I am halted by fragment 27:

...you burn me...

… I swoon. Who was she to write such a line, and what crimes of decay have stolen from us the rest of the poem? Or perhaps that one line is all that mattered of the whole piece. That one line, so perfect in itself that even without the remainder, even without the other fragments and complete poems, Sappho might have kept her immortality on the strength of that one line alone.

You burn me.

I am getting away from myself. I wanted to write to you, Cicero, about those last days under Caesar, and as it happens, about a poetry recital you attended.

DCXXXII

To Atticus

2^nd July 45BCE

...And don't you see how truly philosophical this sentiment is - “that every man is bound not to depart a nail's breadth from the strict path of conscience.” Do you think that it is all for nothing that I am now engaged in these compositions? ... Do you suppose that I care for anything in the whole question except not to be untrue to my past?

These compositions you refer to are the books you wrote, Cicero, The Academia, and de Fininibus, neither of which I have read. This period of your life is written of as being one of extreme literary productivity, and in order to fully grasp the passions and philosophies that motivated your final great speeches, I shall have to read these books. You are accused by some modern scholars of cowardice, for not standing up in opposition to Caesar more strongly, and it seems that you accuse yourself as well. Your nephew, the young Quintus who was serving with Caesar in his camp, was commonly known to speak loudly against you, telling Caesar that you were not to be trusted, that you ought personally to be regarded with suspicion. You wrote to Atticus about this, expressing your unconcern at such accusations:

DCLIV

To Atticus

...this would have been truly terrible had I not perceived that our monarch knew that I had no courage left.

If you were cowardly and ignorant of it, I could criticise you, but self awareness is always laudable, and in your circumstance, what else could you have done? You had chosen to live, and so, life must continue in fear of the tyrant. Meanwhile you did what you could do with courage; you wrote books, you wrote letters, you poured yourself into the only life you had ever desired, that being one of service to Rome and to the Republic which you believed in. You did as your conscience demanded, and you lived up to your past, as much as that was possible in the shadow of your own achievements.

In such times, yours and mine, Cicero, what more can a man hope to do?