Remetente desconhecido → Marcus Tullius Cicero
Tradução moderna em inglês
If you are well, I am glad, and I am well. I have made no progress yet regarding your Dionysius, and all the less because the Dalmatian cold, which drove me from there, has chilled me even here; but I shall not stop until I dig him out eventually. Yet you impose every hard task upon me. You wrote me something about the most careful intercession regarding Catilius. Away with you and our friend Sextus Servilius -- for by Hercules I too am fond of him -- but is this the sort of clients and cases you take on? A man who is the cruelest of all, who killed, abducted, and destroyed so many freeborn men, mothers of families, and Roman citizens, who laid waste to whole regions? That ape, that half-penny of a man, bore arms against me, and I captured him in war. But still, my dear Cicero, what can I do? By Hercules, I wish to do everything you command me. My punishment and the penalty I was going to inflict on the man I had captured, I remit and grant to you. But what can I answer to those who demand legal proceedings on account of their plundered property, their ships seized, their brothers, children, and parents killed? If by Hercules I had the face of Appius, in whose place I was appointed, I still could not endure this. What then? I shall do everything diligently that I know you want. He is being defended by Quintus Volusius, your pupil, in case that matter might put off the accusers; in him lies the greatest hope. If there is any need over there, you will defend us. Caesar is still doing me an injustice: he has still not reported on my thanksgivings and my Dalmatian achievements, as if I had not accomplished deeds most worthy of a triumph in Dalmatia! For if I must wait until I finish the entire war -- there are twenty ancient towns of Dalmatia, which they themselves claimed, and more than sixty besides -- unless I storm all of them, if thanksgivings are not decreed for me, I am in a far different position from other commanders.
Texto latino / grego
X.a. Scr. in Illyria ineunte a.u.c. 710. VATINIUS CICERONI SUO SAL. S. V. B. E. E. Q. V. De Dionysio tuo adhuc nihil extrico, et eo minus, quod me frigus Dalmaticum, quod illinc eiecit, etiam hic refrigeravit; sed tamen non desistam, quin illum aliquando eruam. Sed tamen omnia mihi dura imperas: de Catilio nescio quid ad me scripsisti deprecationis diligentissimae. Apage te cum nostro Sex. Servilio—nam mehercule ego quoque illum amo—; sed huiuscemodi vos clientes, huiusmodi causas recipitis? hominem unum omnium crudelissimum, qui tot ingenuos, matresfamilias, cives Romanos occidit, abripuit, disperdidit, regiones vastavit? simius, non semissis homo, contra me arma tulit, et eum bello cepi. Sed tamen, mi Cicero, quid facere possum? Omnia mehercule cupio, quae tu mihi imperas; meam animadversionem et supplicium, quo usurus eram in eum, quem cepissem, remitto tibi et condono: quid illis respondere possum, qui ob sua bona direpta, naves expugnatas, fratres, liberos, parentes occisos actiones expostulant? Si mehercules Appii os haberem, in cuius locum suffectus sum, tamen hoc sustinere non possem. Quid ergo est? Faciam omnia sedulo, quae te sciam velle. Defenditur a Q. Volusio, tuo discipulo, si forte ea res poterit adversarios fugare; in eo maxima spes est. Nos, si quid erit istic opus, tu defendes: Caesar adhuc mihi iniuriam facit; de meis supplicationibus et rebus gestis Dalmaticis adhuc non refert, quasi vero non iustissimi triumphi in Dalmatia res gesserim! nam, si hoc exspectandum est, dum totum bellum conficiam, viginti oppida sunt Dalmatiae antiqua, quae ipsi sibi asciverunt, amplius sexaginta: haec nisi omnia expugno, si mihi supplicationes non decernuntur, longe alia condicione ego sum ac ceteri imperatores.