‘Well, there it is,’ said Cicero, when it was finished, ‘a shameful document, and yet if one day it were to be read aloud in court, I don’t believe I would need to blush too deeply.’ He copied it out carefully in his own hand, sealed it, and handed it to me. ‘Keep your eyes open, Tiro. Observe how he seems and who is with him. I want an exact account. If he asks after my condition, hesitate, speak with reluctance, and then confide that I am utterly broken in body and spirit. The more certain he is I’m finished, the more likely he is to let me return.’
By the time the letter was done, our situation had in fact become much more precarious again. In Rome, the senior consul, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, who was Caesar’s father-in-law and an enemy of Cicero’s, had been awarded the governorship of Macedonia in a public vote rigged by Clodius. He would take office at the start of the new year: an advance guard from his staff was expected in the province shortly. If they caught Cicero they might kill him on the spot. Another door was starting to close on us. My departure could no longer be put off.
I dreaded the emotion of our parting, and so, I knew, did Cicero; therefore we colluded to avoid it. On the night before I left, when we had dined together for the final time, he pretended to be tired and retired to bed early, while I assured him I would wake him in the morning to say a final goodbye. In fact I slipped away before dawn, while the house was still in darkness, without a fuss, as he would have wanted.
