Letters to Atticus/3.26

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

To Atticus (in Epirus?)

Dyrrachium, January 57 BC

I have received a letter from my brother Quintus inclosing the decree of the senate passed Concerning me. My intention is to await the time for legislation, and, if the law is defeated, I shall avail myself of the resolution of the senate,^[1] and prefer to be deprived of my life rather than of my country. Make haste, I beg, to come to me.

Footnotes

1. 1 On 1st January, B.C. 57, P. Lentulus brought the case of Cicero before the senate. The prevailing opinion was that his interdictio having been illegal, the senate could quash it. But Pompey, for the sake of security, recommended a lex. One of the tribunes, without actually vetoing the senatus consultum, demanded a night for consideration. The question was again debated in succeeding meetings of the senate, but on the 25th was not decided. Technically an auctoritas was a decree that had been vetoed by a tribune, and Cicero (pro Sest. § 74) implies that such a veto had been put in, and at any rate the noctispostulatio was equivalent to a veto.