CCCCLIX (F IX, 2)
TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM)
Rome (April, after the 20th of April)
Caninius, our common friend, having called upon me very
late in the evening, and having told me that he was starting
to join you in the morning, I told him that I would have
something for him to take, and begged him to call for it in
the morning. I finished my letter in the night, but he never
came: I supposed that he had forgotten. Nevertheless, I
should have sent you the letter itself by my own letter-carriers,
had I not heard from the same friend next day that
you were starting from your Tusculan villa in the morning.
But now look at this! All on a sudden a few days later,
when I wasn't in the least expecting it, Caninius called on
me in the morning, and said that he was starting to join you
at once. Though that letter was now stale, especially considering
the importance of the news that have since arrived,[1]
yet I was unwilling that my night's work should be thrown
away, and gave it as it was to Caninius: but I spoke to him
as to a man of learning and one warmly attached to you,
and I presume that he has conveyed my words to you.
However, I give you the same counsel that I give myself—to avoid men's eyes, if we find it difficult to avoid their tongues. For those who give themselves airs about the victory regard us in the light of defeated enemies: while those who are vexed at our friends' defeat regret that we remain alive. You will ask perhaps why, this being the state of things in the city, I have not left town like yourself? You, I presume, you, who surpass both me and others in the clearness of your perceptions, divined it all! Nothing of course escaped you! Why, who is so much of a Lynceus
- ↑ The battle of Thapsus was fought on the 6th of April, according to the unrevised calendar. The news reached Rome on the evening of the 20th (Dio, 43, 42).
