don't put yourself to any inconvenience. The truth is, there is no other place that gives me complete rest after all my worries and hard work.
I am expecting my brother Quintus every day. Terentia has a severe attack of rheumatism. She is devoted to you, to your sister, and your mother, and adds her kindest regards in a postscript. So does my pet Tulliola. Love me, and be assured that I love you as a brother.
II (a i, 6)
TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)
Rome, December
b.c. 68, æt. 38
I won't give you any excuse hereafter for accusing me of neglecting to write. It is you that must take care that with all your leisure you keep up with me.
Rabirius's house at Naples,29for the improvement of which you have designs drawn out and completed in imagination, has been bought by M. Fonteius30 for 130,000 sesterces (about £1,040). I wished you to know this in case you were still hankering after it.
We may be quite satisfied, I think, with my brother's feelings towards Pomponia. He is with her at present in his villa at Arpinum, and has Decimus Turanius with him, who is great in belles lettres.
The date of my father's death was the 28th of November.
That is about all my news. If you light on any articles of vertu suitable for a gymnasium, which would look well in the place you wot of,31 please don't let them slip. I am so delighted with my Tusculan villa that I never feel really happy till I get there. Let me know exactly what you are doing and intending to do about everything.
III (a i, 7)
TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)
Rome, December
b.c. 68, æt. 38
All's well at your mother's,32 and I keep an eye on her. I have undertaken to pay L. Cincius 20,400 sesterces33 to your credit on the Ides of February. Pray see that I receive at the earliest possible opportunity what you say in your letters that you have bought and secured for me. I should also be very much obliged if you would, as you promised, think over the means of securing the library for me. My hope of getting the one enjoyment which I care for, when I come to retire, depends entirely on your kindness.
IV (a i, 9)
b.c. 67. Coss., C. Calpurnius Piso, M. Acilius Glabrio.
The year of Cicero's election to the prætorship. It is the year also of Pompey's great commission by the lex Gabinia against the Pirates. But Cicero does not seem as yet much concerned with "foreign politics."
TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)
Rome
b.c. 67, æt. 39
I get letters from you far too seldom considering that you can much more easily find people starting for Rome than I to Athens: considering, too, that you are more certain of my being at Rome than I of your being at Athens. For instance, it is owing to this uncertainty on my part that this very letter is somewhat short, because not being sure as to where you are, I don't choose my confidential talk to fall into strange hands. The Megaric statues and the Hermæ, which you mentioned in your letters, I am waiting for impatiently. Anything you have of the same kind which may strike you as worthy of my "Academia," do not hesitate to send, and have complete confidence in my money-chest. My present delight is to pick up anything particularly suitable to a "gymnasium." Lentulus promises the use of his ships. I beg you to be zealous in these matters. Thyillus begs you (and I also at his request) to get him some writings of the Eumolpidæ.34
V (a i, 8)
TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)
Rome
b.c. 67, æt. 39
All well at your house. Your mother and sister are regarded with affection by me and my brother Quintus. I have spoken to Acutilius. He says that he has not heard from his agent, and professes surprise that you should make any difficulty of his having refused to guarantee you against farther demands. As to the business of Tadius, the announcement in your letter that you have settled the matter out of court I saw gratified and pleased him very much. That friend of mine35—a most excellent man, upon my honour, and most warmly attached to me—is very angry with you. If I could but know how much you care about it, I should be able to decide how much trouble I am to take in the matter. I have paid L. Cincius the 20,400 sesterces for the Megaric statues in accordance with your letter to me. As to your Hermæ of Pentelic marble with bronze heads, about which you wrote to me—I have fallen in love with them on the spot. So pray send both them and the statues, and anything else that may appear to you to suit the place you wot of, my passion, and your taste—as large a supply and as early as possible. Above all, anything you think appropriate to a gymnasium and terrace. I have such a passion for things of this sort that while I expect assistance from you, I must expect something like rebuke from others. If Lentulus has no vessel there, put them on board anyone you please. My pet Tulliola claims your present and duns me as your security. I am resolved, however, to disown the obligation rather than pay up for you.
VI (a i, 10)
TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)
Tusculum
b.c. 67, æt. 39
"Being in my Tusculan villa" (that's for your "being in the Ceramicus")—however, I being there, a courier sent by your sister arrived from Rome and delivered me a letter from you, announcing at the same time that the courier who was going to you started that very afternoon. The result is that, though I do send an answer, I am forced by the shortness of the time to write only these few words. First, as to softening my friend's feeling towards you, or even reconciling him outright, I pledge you my word to do so. Though I have been attempting it already on my own account, I will now urge the point more earnestly and press him closer, as I think I gather from your letter that you are so set upon it. This much I should like you to realize, that he is very deeply offended; but since I cannot see any serious ground for it, I feel confident that he will do as I wish and yield to my influence. As for my statues and Hermeracles, pray put them on board, as you say in your letter, at your very earliest convenience, and anything else you light upon that may seem to you appropriate to the place you wot of, especially anything you think suitable to a palæstra and gymnasium. I say this because I am sitting there as I write, so that the very place itself reminds me. Besides these, I commission you to get me some medallions to let into the walls of my little entrance-court, and two engraved stone-curbs. Mind you don't engage your library to anyone, however keen a lover you may find; for I am hoarding up my little savings expressly to secure that resource for my old age. As to my brother, I trust that all is as I have ever wished and tried to make it. There are many signs of that result—not least that your sister is enceinte. As for my election, I don't forget that I left the question entirely to you, and I have all along been telling our common friends that I have not only not asked you to come, but have positively forbidden you to do so, because I understood that it was much more important to you to carry through the business you have now in hand, than it is to me to have you at my election. I wish you therefore
C. Rabirius, whom Cicero defended in b.c. 63, when prosecuted by Cæsar for his share in the murder of Saturninus (b.c. 100). He lived, we know, in Campania, for his neighbours came to give evidence in his favour at the trial.
M. Fonteius made a fortune in the province of Gaul beyond the Alps, of which he was proprætor, b.c. 77-74. In b.c. 69 he had been accused of malversation, and defended by Cicero. After his acquittal he seems to be buying a seaside residence in Campania, as so many of the men of fashion did.
Cicero's "gymnasium" was some arrangement of buildings and plantations more or less on the model of the Greek gymnasia, at his Tusculan villa.
The mother of Atticus lived to be ninety, dying in b.c. 33, not long before Atticus himself, who at her funeral declared that "he had never been reconciled to her, for he had never had a word of dispute with her" (Nep.
This sum (about £163) is for the works of art purchased for the writer by Atticus.
Thyillus (sometimes written Chilius), a Greek poet living at Rome. See Letters XVI and XXI. The Eumolpidæ were a family of priests at Athens who had charge of the temple of Demeter at Eleusis. The πάτρια Εὐμολπιδῶν (the phrase used by Cicero here) may be either books of ritual or records such as priests usually kept: πάτρια is an appropriate word for such rituals or records handed down by priests of one race or family.
Lucceius, as in the first letter and the next.
