and the Roman knights have been
alienated. So, in one year, two pillars of the republic, which had been
established by me alone, have been overturned; the authority of the
senate has been destroyed and the concord of the two orders has been
violated.

_To Lucius Lucceius, the Historian_ B.C. 56

I have often intended to speak to you about the subject of this letter,
and have always been restrained by a certain awkward bashfulness. But a
letter will not blush; I can make my request at a distance. It is this:
I am incredibly eager, and, after all, there is nothing disgraceful in
my eagerness, that the history which you are writing should give
prominence to my name, and praise it frequently. You have often given me
to understand that I should receive that honour, but you must pardon my
impatience to see it actually conferred. I have always expected that
your work would be of great excellence, but the part which I have lately
seen exceeds all that I had imagined, and has inflamed me with the
keenest desire that my career should at once be celebrated in your
records. What I desire is not only that my name should go down to future
ages, but also that even while I live I may see my reputation endorsed
by your authority and illumined by your genius.

Of course, I know very well that you are sufficiently occupied with the
period on which you are engaged. But, realising that your account of the
Italian and Marian civil wars is almost completed, and that you are
already entering upon our later annals, I cannot refrain from asking you
to consider whether it would be better to weave my career into the
general texture of your work, or to mould it into a distinct episode.
Several Greek writers have given examples of the latter method; thus
Callisthenes, Timaeus, and Polybius, treating respectively of the Trojan
war, and of the wars of Pyrrhus and of Numantia, detached their
narratives of these conflicts from their main treatises; and it is open
to you, in a similar way, to treat of the Catiline conspiracy
independently of the main current of your history.

In suggesting this course, I do not suppose that it will make much
difference to my reputation; my point is rather that my desire to appear
in your work will be satisfied so much the earlier if you proceed to
deal with my affairs separately and by anticipation, instead of waiting
until they arise as elements in the general course of affairs. Besides,
by concentrating your mi