Cicero himself began a warm
correspondence with Caesar, and through Quintus sent continued messages to
him. Literature was a neutral ground on which he could approach his
political enemy without too open discredit, and he courted eagerly the
approval of a critic whose literary genius he esteemed as highly as his
own. Men of genuine ability are rarely vain of what they can do really
well. Cicero admired himself as a statesman with the most unbounded
enthusiasm. He was proud of his verses, which were hopelessly commonplace.
In the art in which he was without a rival he was modest and diffident. He
sent his various writings for Caesar's judgment. "Like the traveller who
has overslept himself," he said, "yet by extraordinary exertions reaches
his goal sooner than if he had been earlier on the road, I will follow
your advice and court this man. I have been asleep too long. I will
correct my slowness with my speed; and as you say he approves my verses, I
shall travel not with a common carriage, but with a four-in-hand of
poetry." [1]
"What does Caesar say of my poems?" he wrote again. "He tells me in one of
his letters that he has never read better Greek. At one place he writes
[Greek: rathumotera] [somewhat careless]. This is his word. Tell me the
truth, Was it the matter which did not please him, or the style?" "Do not
be afraid," he added with candid simplicity; "I shall not think a hair the
worse of myself.
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