influence, and
by getting numbers on our side, to endeavour to break through all
difficulties at a rush, to throw your whole weight into the attempt, and
incite others to do the same. But if, as I perceive from your
conjectures as well as my own, there is no hope left, I beg and implore
you to cherish my brother Quintus, whom I to our mutual misery have
ruined, and not allow him to do anything to himself which would be to
the detriment of your sister's son. My little Cicero, to whom, poor boy!
I leave nothing but prejudice and the blot upon my name, pray protect to
the best of your power. Terentia, that most afflicted of women, sustain
by your kindness. I shall start for Epirus as soon as I have received
news of the first days of the new tribunate.[369] Pray describe fully to
me in your next letter what sort of a beginning is made.

29 November.

[Footnote 362: This bill for Cicero's recall would, of course, be vetoed
by Clodius, and could not therefore be passed, but it would probably
influence the action of the new tribunes for B.C. 57.]

[Footnote 363: _I.e._, the tribunes of B.C. 58.]

[Footnote 364: _I.e._, securing indemnity to the proposers if there is a
technical breach of existing laws, something like the common
clause--"all statutes to the contrary notwithstanding."]

[Footnote 365: The Clodian law.]

[Footnote 366: Because they would not be protected as the previous
tribunes were by the fact of the Clodian law (which alone was
contravened) having emanated from their own _collegium_.]

[Footnote 367: L. Quadratus Ninnius, tribune-elect. On the 1st of June
next he brought forward the question of Cicero's restoration in the
senate.]

[Footnote 368: Cicero's cousin, C. Visellius Varro, a learned
jurisconsult (_Brut._ Sec. 264; 1 _Verr._ Sec. 71).]

[Footnote 369: The tribunes came into office on the 10th of December,
nearly three weeks before the consuls, praetors, etc., who entered office
on the 1st of January.]

LXXXIII (F XIV, 3)

TO TERENTIA (AT ROME)

DYRRACHIUM, 29 NOVEMBER

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

Greetings to his Terentia, Tulliola, and Cicero. I have received three
letters from the hands of Aristocritus, which I almost obliterated with
tears. For I am thoroughly weakened with sorrow, my dear Terentia, and
it is not my own miseries that torture me more than yours--and yours, my
children! Moreover, I am more miserable than you in this, that whereas
the disaster is shared by