Sallust: Epistula Pompei

1 Si advorsus vos patriamque et deos penatis tot labores et pericula suscepissem, quotiens a prima adulescentia ductu meo scelestissumi hostes fusi et vobis salus quaesita est, nihil amplius in absentem me statuissetis quam adhuc agitis, patres conscripti, quem contra aetatem proiectum ad bellum saevis sumum cum excercitu optume merito, quantum est in vobis, fame, miserruma omnium morte, confecistis.

1 If I had undertaken so many labors and dangers against you and the fatherland and the Penates, as often from my earliest adolescence under my leadership the most wicked enemies have been routed and safety for you has been sought, you would have decreed nothing more against me in my absence than you are now doing, Conscript Fathers—me, who, beyond my years, having been flung into war, together with my army, most well-deserving, you have, so far as in you lies, done to death by famine, the most miserable death of all.

2 Hacine spe populus Romanus liberos suos ad bellum misit? Haec sunt praemia pro volneribus et totiens ob rem publicam fuso sanguine? Fessus scribundo mittundoque legatos omnis opes et spes privatas meas consumpsi, cum interim a vobis per triennium vix annuus sumptus datus est.

2 Was it with this hope that the Roman People sent their children to war? Are these the rewards for wounds and for blood so many times poured out on behalf of the commonwealth? Wearied with writing and with sending legates, I have consumed all my resources and my private hopes, while in the interim from you over a three-year period scarcely a single year’s expense has been granted.

3 Per deos immortalis, utrum censetis me vicem aerari praestare an exercitum sine frumento et stipendio habere posse?

3 By the immortal gods, do you think that I must stand in for the treasury, or that I can keep an army without grain and stipend?

4 Equidem fateor me ad hoc bellum maiore studio quam consilio profectum, quippe qui nomine modo imperi a vobis accepto, diebus quadraginta exercitum paravi hostisque in cervicibus iam Italiae agentis ab Alpibus in Hispaniam submovi; per eas iter aliud atque Hannibal, nobis opportunius, pate feci.

4 I indeed confess that I set out to this war with greater zeal than counsel, since, with only the name of command received from you, in forty days I prepared an army and drove the enemies, who were already at Italy’s throat, from the Alps into Spain; through them I opened up a route other than Hannibal’s, more opportune for us.

5 Recepi Galliam, Pyrenaeum, Lacetaniam, Indigetis et primum impetum Sertori victoris novis militibus et multo paucioribus sustinui hiememque castris inter saevissumos hostis, non per oppida neque ex ambitione mea egi.

5 I recovered Gaul, the Pyrenees, Lacetania, the Indigetes; and I sustained the first impetus of Sertorius the victor with new soldiers and with far fewer; and I spent the winter in camp among the most savage enemies, not through towns nor out of my own ambition.

6 Quid deinde proelia aut expeditiones hibernas, oppida excisa aut recepta enumerem? Quando res plus valet quam verba: castra hostium apud Sucronem capta et proelium apud flumen Turiam et dux hostium C. Herennius cum urbe Valentia et exercitu deleti satis clara vobis sunt; pro quis, o grati patres, egestatem et famem redditis. Itaque meo et hostium exercitui par condicio est;

6 Why then should I enumerate battles or winter expeditions, towns razed or recovered? Since deeds are worth more than words: the enemy camp captured near Sucrone and the battle by the river Turia and the enemy leader C. Herennius, with the city of Valentia and his army, destroyed, are sufficiently clear to you; in return for which, O grateful fathers, you render poverty and hunger. And so for my army and the enemy’s army the condition is equal;

7 namque stipendium neutri datur, victor uterque in Italiam venire potest.

7 for indeed the stipend is given to neither, either victor can come into Italy.

8 Quod ego vos moneo quaesoque ut animadvortatis neu cogatis necessitatibus privatim mihi consulere.

8 This I admonish you of and beseech, that you take notice, and that you do not compel me to provide for necessities out of my private means.

9 Hispaniam citeriorem, quae non ab hostibus tenetur, nos aut Sertorius ad internecionem vastavimus praeter maritumas civitates, ultro nobis sumptui onerique; Gallia superiore anno Metelli exercitum stipendio frumentoque aluit et nunc malis fructibus ipsa vix agitat; ego non rem familiarem modo, verum etiam fidem consumpsi.

9 Nearer Spain, which is not held by the enemy, either we or Sertorius have ravaged to internecine destruction, except for the maritime cities—moreover, at expense and burden to us; Gaul, in the previous year, sustained Metellus’s army with stipend and grain, and now, with bad harvests, she herself scarcely keeps going; I have consumed not only my private estate, but even my credit.

10 Reliqui vos estis: qui nisi subvenitis, invito et praedicente me exercitus hinc et cum eo omne bellum Hispaniae in Italiam transgredientur.

10 You are the remainder: unless you come to help, with me unwilling and foretelling it, the army will cross from here, and with it the whole Spanish war, into Italy.

Hae litterae principio sequentis anni recitatae in senatu. Sed consules decretas a patribus provincias inter se paravere; Cotta Galliam citeriorem habuit, Ciliciam Octavius. Dein proxumi consules, L. Lucullus et M. Cotta, litteris nuntiisque Pompei graviter perculsi, cum summae rei gratia tum ne exercitu in Italiam deducto neque laus sua neque dignitas esset, omni modo stipendium et supplementum paravere, adnitente maxime nobilitate, cuius plerique iam tum lingua ferociam suam et dicta factis sequebantur.

These letters were read in the senate at the beginning of the following year. But the consuls arranged between themselves the provinces decreed by the Fathers: Cotta had Hither Gaul, Octavius Cilicia. Then the next consuls, L. Lucullus and M. Cotta, gravely stricken by Pompey’s letters and messengers—both for the sake of the supreme interest of the state and lest, if the army were led down into Italy, neither their own praise nor dignity would remain—prepared by every means stipend and supplement, with the nobility striving most of all, most of whom even then were matching the ferocity of their tongue and their words with deeds.