one
either dearer or more congenial to another than you are to me, and that
I will not only make you feel that to be the case, but will make all the
world and posterity itself to the latest generation aware of it.

Appius used some time back to repeat in conversation, and afterwards
said openly, even in the senate, that if he were allowed to carry a law
in the _comitia curiata_, he would draw lots with his colleague for
their provinces; but if no curiatian law were passed, he would make an
arrangement with his colleague and succeed you: that a curiatian law was
a proper thing for a consul, but was not a necessity: that since he was
in possession of a province by a decree of the senate, he should have
_imperium_ in virtue of the Cornelian law until such time as he entered
the city. I don't know what your several connexions write to you on the
subject: I understand that opinion varies. There are some who think that
you can legally refuse to quit your province, because your successor is
named without a curiatian law: some also hold that, even if you do quit
it, you may leave some one behind you to conduct its government. For
myself, I do not feel so certain about the point of law--although there
is not much doubt even about that--as I do of this, that it is for your
greatest honour, dignity, and independence, which I know you always
value above everything, to hand over your province to a successor
without any delay, especially as you cannot thwart his greediness
without rousing suspicion of your own. I regard my duty as twofold--to
let you know what I think, and to defend what you have done.

P.S.--I had written the above when I received your letter about the
_publicani_, to whom I could not but admire the justice of your conduct.
I could have wished that you had been able by some lucky chance to avoid
running counter to the interests and wishes of that order, whose honour
you have always promoted. For my part, I shall not cease to defend your
decrees: but you know the ways of that class of men; you are aware how
bitterly hostile they were to the famous Q. Scaevola himself. However, I
advise you to reconcile that order to yourself, or at least soften its
feelings, if you can by any means do so. Though difficult, I think it
is, nevertheless, not beyond the reach of your sagacity.

[Footnote 652: Cicero gives him this title, by which he had been greeted
by his soldiers after some victory over the predatory tribes in Cilicia