Latin Texts & Translations

DCXVI (A XIII, 6,A)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (4 JUNE)

The Tuditanus you mention—great-grandfather of Hortensius—I was quite unacquainted with, and I had imagined it to have been the son, who at that time could not have been a legatus. ^[Note] I hold it to be certain that Spurius Mummius was at Corinth. For the Spurius of our time, lately dead, frequently used to recite to me his letters written in witty verse sent to his friends from Corinth. But I feel sure he was legatus to his brother, not one of the ten. And, besides, I have been taught that it was not the custom of our ancestors to nominate on a commission men who were related to the imperators, as we—in our ignorance of the best principles of government, or rather from carelessness of them-sent Marcus Lucullus and Lucius Muraena and others closely connected with him as commissioners to Lucius Lucullus. ^[Note] But it is exceedingly natural that he should have been among the first of his brother's legates. What an amount of trouble you have taken—in busying yourself with such matters as these, in clearing up my difficulties, and in being much less earnest in your own business than in mine!