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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History

XXIII: To the Emperor Trajan - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero [1909]

Edition used:

Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero: with his Treatises on Friendship and Old Age, trans. E.S. Shuckburgh. And Letters of Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, trans. William Melmoth, revised by F.C.T. Bosanquet (New York: P.F. Collier, 1909).

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XXIII

To the Emperor Trajan

I received, Sir, a dispatch from your freedman, Lycormas, desiring me, if any embassy from Bosporus1 should come here on the way to Rome, that I would detain it till his arrival. None has yet arrived, at least in the city2 where I now am. But a courier passing through this place from the king of Sarmatia,3 I embrace the opportunity which accidentally offers itself, of sending with him the messenger which Lycormas despatched hither, that you might be informed by both their letters of what, perhaps, it may be expedient you should be acquainted with at one and the same time.

[1 ]The town of Panticapoeum, also called Bosporus, standing on the European side of the Cimmerian Bosporus (Straits of Kaffa), in the modern Crimea.

[2 ]Nicea (as appears by the 15th letter of this book), a city in Bithynia, now called Isnik. M.

[3 ]Sarmatia was divided into European, Asiatic, and German Sarmatia. It is not exactly known what bounds the ancients gave to this extensive region; however, in general, it comprehended the northern part of Russia, and the greater part of Poland, &c. M.