Letter coll=F:book=14:letter=4 Letter XI: ad familiares 14.4
Brundisium, April 29, 58 B.C.
On suis, cf. suis, Ep. XIII. superscription, n.
[sect. 1] litteras: litterae probably indicates here, as in several other pBssages, more than one letter; cf. litteris, Ep. XCIX.1n.
vitae cupidi: Cicero may be regretting either his mistake in not having met death while making an armed resistance to Clodius, as some of his friends advised, or his failure to commit suicide; cf. poenitet viver4 Ep. X. n.
aliquam alicuius [gap in text] aliquando: these words indicate sufficiently Cicero's despair. - dii [gap in text] servivi: a statement suggestive of the respective attitudes of the two sexes in Cicero's time in religious matters.
neque homines [gap in text] rettulerunt: Cicero's friends did, however, stand by him, and many of those outside Rome, like Flaccus at Brundisium (2) and Plancius at Thessalonica (Att. 3.14. 2), assisted him at the peril of their lives and fortunes, while his friends at Rome and the people throughout Italy worked steadily for his recall. For the risk which Flaccus ran, cf. pro Planc. 97 in hortos me M. Laeni Flacci contuli, cui cum omnis metus publicatio bonorum exsilium mors proponeretur haec perpeti, si acciderent, maluit quam custadiam mei capitis dimittere.