ROME (MIDDLE OF JULY)

YOU have Messalla with you.What letter,therefore,can I write with such minute care as to enable me to explain to you what is being done and what is occurring in public affairs,more thoroughly than he will describe them to you,who has at once the most intimate knowledge of everything,and the talent for unfolding and conveying it to you in the best possible manner?For beware of thinking,Brutus--for though it is unnecessary for me to write to you what you know already,yet I cannot pass over in silence such eminence in every kind of greatness--beware of thinking,I say,that he has any parallel in honesty and firmness,care and zeal for the Republic.So much so that in him eloquence--in which he is extraordinarily eminent--scarcely seems to offer any opportunity for praise.Yet in this accomplishment itself his wisdom is made more evident;with such excellent judgment and with so much acuteness has he practised himself in the most genuine style of rhetoric.Such also is his industry,and so great the amount of midnight labour that he bestows on this study,that the chief thanks would not seem to be due to natural genius,great as it is in his case.But my affection carries me away:for it is not the purpose of this letter to praise Mesalla,especially to Brutus,to whom his excellence is not less known than it is to me,and these particular accomplishments of his which I am praising even better.Grieved as I was to let him go from my side,my one consolation was that in going to you who are to me a second self,he was performing a duty and following the path of the truest glory.But enough of this.I now come,after a long interval of time,to a certain letter of yours,in which,while paying me many compliments,you find one fault with me--that I was excessive and,as it were,extravagant in proposing votes of honour.That is your criticism:another's,perhaps,might be that I was too stern in inflicting punishment and exacting penalties,unless by chance you blame me for both.If that is so,I desire that my principle in both these things should be very clearly known to you.And I do not rely solely on the dictum of Solon,who was at once the wisest of the Seven and the only lawgiver among them.He said that a state was kept together by two things--reward and punishment.Of course there is a certain moderation to be observed in both,as in everything else,and what we may call a golden mean in both these things.But I have no intention to dilate on such an important subject in this place.

But what has been my aim during this war in the motions I have made in the senate I think it will not be out of place to explain.