For my part,nevertheless,I do not cease sending letters asking,urging,chiding the king.Delotarus also has informed me that he has sent emissaries to him on Brutus's business:that they have brought him back word that he has not got the money.And,by Hercules,I believe it is the case;nothing can be stripped cleaner than his kingdom,or be more needy than the king.Accordingly,Iam thinking either of renouncing my guardianship,or,as Scaevola did on behalf of Glabrio,of stopping payment altogether--principal and interest alike.However,I have conferred the prefectures which I promised Brutus through you on M.Scaptius and L.Gavius,who were acting as Brutus's agents in the kingdom:for they were not carrying on business in my own province.You will remember that I made that condition,that he might have as many prefectures as he pleased,so long as it was not for a man in business.Accordingly,I have given him two others besides:but the men for whom he asked them had left the province.Now for the case of the Salaminians,which I see came upon you also as a novelty,as it did upon me.For Brutus never told me that the money was his own.Nay,I have his own document containing the words,"The Salaminians owe my friends M.Scaptius and P.Matinius a sum of money."He recommends them to me:he even adds,as though by way of a spur to me,that he has gone surety for them to a large amount.I had succeeded in arranging that they should pay with interest for six years at the rate of twelve per cent,and added yearly to the capital sum.But Scaptius demanded forty-eight per cent.I was afraid,if he got that,you yourself would cease to have any affection for me.For Ishould have receded from my own edict,and should have titterly ruined a statc which was under the protection not only of Cato,but also of Brutus himself,and had been the recipient of favours from myself.When lo and behold!at this very juncture Scaptius comes down upon me with a letter from Brutus,stating that his own property is being imperilled--a fact that Brutus had never told either me or you.He also begged that I would confer a prefecture on Scaptius.That was the very reservation that I had made to you--"not to a man in business":and if to anyone,to such a man as that--no I for he has been a praefectus to Appius,and had,in fact,had some squadrons of cavalry,with which he had kept the senate under so close a siege in their own council chamber at Salamis,that five senators died of starvation.Accordingly,the first day of my entering my province,Cyprian legates having already visited me at Ephesus,I sent orders for the cavalry to quit the island at once.For these reasons I believe Scaptius has written some unfavorable remarks about me to Brutus.However,my feeling is this:if Brutus holds that I ought to have decided in favour of forty-eight per cent.,though throughout my province I have only recognized twelve per cent.,and had laid down that rule in my edict with the assent even of the most grasping money-lenders;if he complains of my refusal of a prefecture to a man in business,which I refused to our friend Torquatus in the case.
Lamius,and to Pompey himself in the case of Sext.Statius,without offending either of them;if,finally,he is annoyed at my recall of the cavalry,I shall indeed feel some distress at his being angry with me,but much greater distress at finding him not to be the man that I had thought him.Thus much Scaptius will own--that he had the opportunity in my court of taking away with him the whole sum allowed by my edict.I will add a fact which I fear you may not approve.The interest ought to have ceased to run (I mean the interest allowed by my edict),but I induced the Salasninians to say nothing about that.They gave in to me,it is true,but what will become of them if Paullus comes here?However,I have granted all this in favour of Brutus,who writes very kind letters to you about me,but to me myself,even when he has a favour to ask,writes usually in a tone of hauteur,arrogance,and offensive superiority.You,however,I hope will write to him on this business,in order that I may know how he takes what I have done.
For you will tell me.I have,it is true,written you a full and careful account in a former letter,but I wished you clearly to understand that I had not forgotten what you had said to me in one of your letters:that if I brought home from this province nothing else except his goodwill,I should have done enough.By all means,since you will have it so:but I assume my dealings with him to be without breach of duty on my part.Well,then,by my decree the payment of the money to Statius is good at law:whether that is just you must judge for yourself--I will not appeal even to Cato.But don't think that I have cast your exhortations to the winds:they have sunk deeply into my mind.With tears in your eyes you urged me to be careful of my reputation.Have I ever got a letter from you without the same subject being mentioned?So,then,let who will be angry,I will endure it:"for the right is on my side,"especially as I have given six books as bail,so to speak,for my good conduct.I am very glad you like them,though in one point--about Cn.Flavius,son of Annius--you question my history.
He,it is true,did not live before the decemvirs,for he was curule aedile,an office created many years after the decemvirs.What good did he do,then,by publishing the Fasti?It is supposed that the tablet containing them had been kept concealed up to a certain date,in order that information as to days for doing business might have to be sought from a small coterie.And indeed several of our authorities relate that a scribe named Cn.Flavius published the Fasti and composed forms of pleading--so don't imagine that I,or rather Africanus (for he is the spokesman),invented the fact.So you noticed the remark about the "action of an actor,"did you?
You suspect a malicious meaning:I wrote in all simplicity.
