_To Lucius Lucceius, the Historian_ B.C. 56
I have often intended to speak to you about the subject of this letter, and have always been restrained by a certain awkward bashfulness. But a letter will not blush; I can make my request at a distance. It is this: I am incredibly eager, and, after all, there is nothing disgraceful in my eagerness, that the history which you are writing should give prominence to my name, and praise it frequently. You have often given me to understand that I should receive that honour, but you must pardon my impatience to see it actually conferred. I have always expected that your work would be of great excellence, but the part which I have lately seen exceeds all that I had imagined, and has inflamed me with the keenest desire that my career should at once be celebrated in your records. What I desire is not only that my name should go down to future ages, but also that even while I live I may see my reputation endorsed by your authority and illumined by your genius.
Of course, I know very well that you are sufficiently occupied with the period on which you are engaged. But, realising that your account of the Italian and Marian civil wars is almost completed, and that you are already entering upon our later annals, I cannot refrain from asking you to consider whether it would be better to weave my career into the general texture of your work, or to mould it into a distinct episode. Several Greek writers have given examples of the latter method; thus Callisthenes, Timaeus, and Polybius, treating respectively of the Trojan war, and of the wars of Pyrrhus and of Numantia, detached their narratives of these conflicts from their main treatises; and it is open to you, in a similar way, to treat of the Catiline conspiracy independently of the main current of your history.
In suggesting this course, I do not suppose that it will make much difference to my reputation; my point is rather that my desire to appear in your work will be satisfied so much the earlier if you proceed to deal with my affairs separately and by anticipation, instead of waiting until they arise as elements in the general course of affairs. Besides, by concentrating your mind on one episode and on one person, your matter will be much more detailed and your treatment of it far more elaborate.