{"id":1912,"date":"2014-12-29T00:48:04","date_gmt":"2014-12-28T19:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/?p=1912"},"modified":"2022-03-08T14:00:11","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T19:00:11","slug":"ciceros-nephew-goes-to-fight-for-caesar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/ciceros-nephew-goes-to-fight-for-caesar\/","title":{"rendered":"Cicero’s Nephew Goes to Fight for Caesar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nile<\/a>Cicero\u2019s nephew Quintus \u2013 Quintus the Younger \u2013 was a boy dear to his uncle\u2019s heart. His father, Quintus the Elder, was Cicero\u2019s brother and the two brothers were close. The boy\u2019s mother, Pomponia, was the sister of Cicero\u2019s dear friend, Atticus.
\nThe year 45 B.C. was not an easy one for the nineteen-year-old Quintus. His long-squabbling parents finally divorced. Meanwhile his mother and his uncle Atticus were both unhappy with Quintus because he couldn\u2019t make up his mind whom to marry. Understandable, given his parents\u2019 experience! Quintus was enjoying life in the fast lane but then he crashed. He was in debt, hopelessly so. And so he took the time-tested path of rich bad boys who run out of money: he joined the army.
\n\tQuintus decided to join Caesar\u2019s war on Parthia. It would be an enormous military expedition, slated to last several years. Trumpets would sound, tens of thousands would march, banners would fly, armies would clash and there would be blood and horror and loot. Quintus hoped to come back victorious and rich. The legions were already gathering. Caesar himself was due to leave Rome for the military campaign in the spring.
\n\tIn late December 45 B.C. Quintus visited his uncle Cicero. Cicero writes about the meeting in a letter to his friend Atticus. His face all gloomy, Quintus confessed his shame at putting himself in harm\u2019s way just for the sake of money. But maybe he thought that was what his uncle wanted to hear. Quintus surely knew how much Cicero hated Caesar\u2019s dictatorship, and the war might tighten Caesar\u2019s grip on Rome.
\n\tBut Cicero knew that Quintus\u2019s father had fought for Caesar in Gaul, and even so, Quintus Senior was a staunch political ally of Cicero. So Cicero probably took his nephew\u2019s news in stride. Besides, it might prove useful for Cicero to have an insider in Caesar\u2019s camp to send him regular news.
\n\tQuintus told his uncle that he didn\u2019t even have enough money to pay his travel expenses to the front, as an elite Roman was expected to do. Was that a hint for a loan? Maybe, but Cicero wasn\u2019t born yesterday. He just kept silent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[142,153,156,157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}