B.C. 46, ÆT. 60 and laws. These are my views. You will very much oblige me if you will write and tell me what you mean to do and what your opinion is.
CCCCLX (F IX, 7)
TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM)
Rome (May)
I was dining with Seius when a letter was delivered to each
of us from you. Yes, I really think it is high time. For as
to the personal motive in what I said before, I will own the
cunning of my heart—I wanted you to be somewhere near
in case of anything good turning up: "two heads,"[1] you
know. At present, seeing that it is all over and done,
we should not hesitate to go over, horse, foot, and artillery!
For when I heard about L. Cæsar the younger, I said to
myself:
"What will he do for me, his sire?"[2]
Accordingly, I do not cease dining out with the members of
the party now in power. What else should I do? One
must go with the times. But a truce to jesting, especially as
we have nothing to laugh at:
"With fearsome tumult shakes wild Afric's shore."[3]
Accordingly, there is nothing "undesirable"[4] which I do not, "when two go together one hits one thing first and the other another." "Two heads are better than one." Cicero expects the learned Varro, as he did Atticus, to fill up the quotation.], a technical word of the Stoics. Nothing is good]*
- ↑ For this quotation from Iliad, x. 224, see vol. ii., p. 322. [Greek: syn te dy erchomenô kai te pro ho tou enoêsen
- ↑ Terence, Andr. 112. The old father, seeing his son weep at a funeral of a comparative stranger, says, "I liked that: I thought to myself, what will he do for me, his father?" So, Cicero means, "If Cæsar pardoned his bitter enemy, young Lucius Cæsar, what must he do to me, his old friend?" L. Cæsar is the man who brought the messages to and from Pompey (vol. ii., pp. 249, 250, 255).
- ↑ A fragment of Ennius.
- ↑ [Greek: apoproêgmenon
