Latin Texts & Translations

DCCLXV (A XV, 29)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) FORMIAE, 6 JULY

I send you Brutus's letter. Good heavens, what helplessness! You will understand when you have read it. About the celebration of Brutus's games I agree with you. No, don't go to see M. Aelius at his house, but speak to him wherever you may chance to meet him. About the moiety of Tullius's debt consult Marcus Axianus, as you suggest. Your arrangement with Cosianus—first rate! For your disentanglement of my own affairs and yours at the same time—thanks! I am glad my legation is approved. Heaven send that your promises are fulfilled! For what could be more gratifying to me and mine? But I feel misgiving about her, of whom you make an exception. ^[Note] When I have met Brutus, I will send you a full account. About Plancus and Decimus, I wish it may be so ! ^[Note] I wouldn't have Sextus

throw away his shield. ^[Note] About Mundus tell me anything you learn.

So I have answered all your news. Now for my own. The younger Quintus is going to escort me as far as Puteoli—what an admirable loyalist! you might call him a Favonius—Asinius. ^[Note] He has two motives for doing so: my society, and a wish to make terms with Brutus and Cassius. But what say you? For I know you are intimate with the Othones. Quintus says that Tutia offers herself to him, as a divorce has been arranged. His father asked me what sort of reputation she had. I said—for I didn't know why he asked the question—that I had never heard anything except about her looks and her father. "But why do you ask?" said I. Then he said that his son wanted her. Thereupon, though I felt disgusted, I said that I didn't believe those stories. His aim—for that is the truth—is to make our friend no allowance. But the lady says she won't be baulked by the like of him. ^[Note] However, I suspect young Quintus is, as usual, romancing. But please make inquiries—for you can easily do so—and let me know.

Pray what's this all about? When I had already sealed this letter some Formians who were dining with me told me that the day before I write this—that is, on the 5th—they had seen our Buthrotian commissioner Plancus ^[Note] With downcast look and bare of ornament; and that his poor slaves said that he and the land-grabbers

had been turned out of the Country by the Buthrotians. Well done they I But please write me a full account of the whole affair.