Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero
April 45 BC · Roman Republic · His answer, written alone at a villa by the sea after his daughter's death
Yes, Servius, I do wish, as you write, that you had been with me in this heaviest of blows. How much you could have helped me by your presence, consoling me and grieving almost as much as I, I can easily tell from this: reading your letter, I found some rest.
Ego vero, Servi, vellem, ut scribis, in meo gravissimo casu affuisses; quantum enim praesens me adiuvare potueris et consolando et prope aeque dolendo, facile ex eo intelligo, quod litteris lectis aliquantum acquievi.Letters to Friends 4.6, to Servius Sulpicius
In the same thread
Servius Sulpicius Rufus
March 45 BC · Roman Republic · A letter of consolation to Cicero, who had lost his daughter Tullia. He writes that the thought came to him on a voyage, as he looked round at the ruins of Aegina, Megara, Piraeus and Corinth
Ah! Do we little men resent it if one of us, whose lives are bound to be shorter, has died or been killed, when in a single place the corpses of so many towns lie cast down?
hem! nos homunculi indignamur, si quis nostrum interiit aut occisus est, quorum vita brevior esse debet, cum uno loco tot oppidum cadavera proiecta iacent?Cicero, Letters to Friends 4.5, to Cicero
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