mpeius, son of Cneius,
Imperator._

[Sidenote: B.C. 62. AET. 44]

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 be ashamed of being coupled with me in politics as well as
in private friendship.

XIII (F V, I)

Q. METELLUS CELER TO CICERO

CISALPINE GAUL

_Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul, greets M. Tullius
Cicero._[57]

[Sidenote: B.C. 62. AET. 44]

If you are well I am glad. I had thought, considering our mutual regard
and the reconciliation effected between us, that I was not likely to be
held up to ridicule in my absence, nor my brother attacked by you in his
civil existence and property for the sake of a mere word. If his own
high character was not a sufficient protection to him, yet either the
position of our famil