Latin Texts & Translations

DCCLXX (A XVI, 3)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) POMPEII, 17 JULY

YOU acted wisely—I am now at length answering the letter you sent me after meeting Lucius Antonius at Tibur—well then, you acted wisely in surrendering and even going so far as to thank him. For certainly, as you say, we shall be stripped of the constitution sooner than of our property. Your saying that you take more and more delight in my essay on Old Age increases my energy in writing. You say that you are expecting Eros not to come to you empty-handed. I am glad that you were not disappointed in that expectation: but nevertheless I am sending you the same essay somewhat more carefully revised—and it is indeed the original copy itself with interlineations and corrections in many places. ^[Note] Get this copied on large paper ^[Note] and read it privately to your guests, but, as you love me, when they are cheerful and have had a good dinner, lest they vent their wrath on me, though really angry with you. ^[Note] With my son I only hope things are as I am told. About Xeno ^[Note] I shall learn when I see him: however, I don't think he has acted in any way with carelessness or meanness. About Herodes I will do as you charge me, and I shall get information as to what you mention from Saufeius and Xeno.

As to young Quintus, I am glad that you got my letter sent by my letter-carrier before the one delivered by himself—though in any case you would not have been taken in. Yet, after all-well, I am anxious to hear what he said to you and what you said in your turn: I don't doubt you both spoke characteristically. ^[Note] But I hope Curius will deliver that letter to me. He is in himself indeed an attractive person and a man I like, but now he will have the crowning grace of your recommendation.

I have answered your letter sufficiently. Now listen to what, though I know it is not necessary to write, I yet am going to write. Many things distress me in my departure-first and foremost, by heaven, that I am being separated from you. But I am also distressed by the fatigue of the voyage, so unsuitable not only to my time of life, but also to my rank. Moreover, the time of my departure is rather ridiculous. I am leaving peace to return to war; and the season which might have been spent in my favourite country places—so prettily built and so full of charm—I am wasting on a foreign tour. The consolations are that I shall either do my son some good, or make up my mind how much good he is capable of receiving. In the next place you will—as I hope and as you promise-presently be there. If that happens indeed things will be better all round. But what gives me more uneasiness than anything is the making up of my balances. Though they have been put straight, yet since Dolabella's debt is on the list, and among the debtors assigned to me are some unknown persons, I feel quite at sea, and this matter gives me more uneasiness than everything else. Accordingly, I don't think I have been wrong to write to Balbus more openly than usual, to ask him that, if it should so happen that the debts did not come in at the proper time, he should come to the rescue; and telling him that I had commissioned you, in case of such an occurrence, to communicate with him. Please do so, if you think proper, and all the more if you are starting for Epirus.

I write this when on the point of embarking from my Pompeian house with three ten-oared pinnaces. Brutus is

still at Nesis, Cassius at Naples. Can you love Deiotarus and yet dislike Hieras? When Blesamius came to me about it, though he was charged not to take any step except on the advice of our friend Sextus Peducaeus, he never communicated with him or with any one of our party. ^[Note] I should like to kiss our dear Attica, far off as she is, so delighted was I with the good wishes she sent me by you. Please give her mine in return and many of them, and the. same to Pilia.