M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
other business; and I never care to write at all to you unless my mind is unbent and at ease and free. Therefore, if our news is correct, assure me of it. For you know what I wish, and I know how rightly I wish it. Farewell, my master, so rightly first in my thoughts before all others on all occasions. See, my master, I am not sleepy, yet force myself to sleep that you may not be angry. You realize, at any rate, that I am writing this in the evening.
M. Caesar to his master M. Fronto, greeting.
1. After getting into the carriage, when I had said good-bye to you, we did not have such a bad journey, though we got a slight wetting from the rain. But before reaching our country house we turned aside to Anagnia, about a mile off the main road. Then we inspected that ancient township, a tiny place, indeed, but containing many antiquities and buildings, and religious ceremonies beyond number. There was not a corner without its chapel or shrine or temple. Many books too, written on linen,[1] and this has a religious significance. Then on the gate, as we came out, we found an inscription twice over to this effect: Flamen sume samentum.[2] I asked one of the townsmen what the last word meant. He said it was Hernican for the pelt of the victim, which the priest draws over his peaked cap on entering the city. Quite a number of other
- ↑ Probably of Etruscan origin, and a sort of "Book of the Dead"; cp. Livy, iv. 7. 12. It is said that such books have recently been found.
- ↑ "Priest, don the fell" (Dr. Rouse).
