B.C. 46, ÆT. 60 love me, and have done so for a long while and without interruption, is indeed a great thing, or rather the greatest, but it is shared with you by many: but that you are yourself so lovable, so gracious, and so delightful in every way—that you have all to yourself. Added to that is your wit, not Attic, but more pungent than that of the Attics, good Roman wit of the true old city style. Now I—think what you will of it—am astonishingly attracted by witticisms, above all of the native kind, especially when I see that they were first infected by Latinism, when the foreign element found its way into the city, and now-a-days by the breeched[1] and Transalpine tribes also, so that no trace of the old-fashioned style of wit can be seen. Accordingly when I see you, I seem—to confess the truth—to see all the Granii, the Lucilii, as well as the Crassi and Lælii. Upon my life, I have no one left but you in whom I can recognize any likeness of the old racy cheerfulness. And when to these graces of wit there is added your strong affection for me, do you wonder that I have been so severely alarmed at so grave a blow to your health?
In your second letter you say in self-defence that you did not advise me against the purchase at Naples,[2] but recommended caution. You put it politely, and I did not regard it in any other light. However, I gathered the same idea as I do from this letter, that you did not think it open to me to take the course which I thought I might—namely, to abandon politics here, not indeed entirely, but to a great extent. You quote Catulus and all that period.[3] Where is the analogy? I did not myself at that time desire to absent myself for any length of time from the guardianship of the constitution: for I was sitting at the helm and holding the rudder; whereas now I have scarcely a place in the hold. Do you suppose the number of senatorial decrees will be any the less if I am at Naples? While I am at Rome and
- ↑ Technically Gallia bracata was the Province, i.e., Narbonensis.
- ↑ See pp. 94, 107.
- ↑ He is referring to the period of his own consulship, and the years immediately preceding it. Q. Lutatius Catulus (consul B.C. 78) had been a consistent supporter of the party of the Optimates, supported Cicero against the Catilinarian conspirators, and hailed him as pater patriæ (pro Sest. § 121). He died in B.C. 60. See vol. i., pp. 59, 124.
