ith me for being so overwhelmed by my misfortune, you ought to pardon
me when you see that I have sustained a more crushing blow than anyone
you have ever seen or heard of. As to your saying that you are told that
my intellect in even affected by grief, that is not so; my intellect is
quite sound. Oh that it had been as much so in the hour of danger! when
I found those, to whom I thought my safety was the dearest object of
their life, most bitterly and unfeelingly hostile: who, when they saw
that I had somewhat lost my balance from fear, left nothing undone which
malice and treachery could suggest in giving me the final push, to my
utter ruin. Now, as I must go to Cyzicus, where I shall get letters
more rarely, I beg you to write me word all the more carefully of
everything you may think I ought to know. Be sure you are affectionate
to my brother Quintus: if in all my misery I still leave him with rights
undiminished, I shall not consider myself utterly ruined.

5 August.

[Footnote 330: The probable split among the triumvirs, alluded to in
Letter LXIII.]

LXXI (Q FR I, 4)

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (AT ROME)

THESSALONICA, AUGUST

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, AET. 48]

I beg you, my dear brother, if you and all my family have been ruined by
my single misfortune, not to attribute it to dishonesty and bad conduct
on my part, rather than to short-sightedness and the wretched state I
was in. I have committed no fault except in trusting those whom I
believed to be bound by the most sacred obligation not to deceive me, or
whom I thought to be even interested in not doing so. All my most
intimate, nearest and dearest friends were either alarmed for themselves
or jealous of me: the result was that all I lacked was good faith on the
part of my friends and caution on my own.[331] But if your own blameless
character and the compassion of the world prove sufficient to preserve
you at this juncture from molestation, you can, of course, observe
whether any hope of restoration is left for me. For Pomponius, Sestius,
and my son-in-law Piso have caused me as yet to stay at Thessalonica,
forbidding me, on account of certain impending movements, to increase my
distance. But in truth I am awaiting the result more on account of their
letters than from any firm hope of my own. For what can I hope with an
enemy possessed of the most formidable power, with my detractors masters
of the state, with friends unfaithful, with numbers of people