B.C. 45, ÆT. 61 If, however, we get any more out[1] of Faberius, there is no difficulty. But even without him I think I can get along. The pleasure-grounds of Drusus at least are for sale, perhaps those of Lamia and Cassius also. But this when we meet.
About Terentia I can say nothing more to the point than you say in your letter. Duty must be my first consideration: if I have made any mistake, I would rather that I had reason to be dissatisfied with her than she with me. A hundred sestertia have to be paid to Ovia, wife of C. Lollius. Eros says he can't do it without me: I suppose because some land has to pass at a valuation between us.[2] I could wish that he had told you. For if the matter, as he writes, is arranged, and he is not lying on that very point, it could have been settled by your agency. Pray look into and settle the business.
You urge me to reappear in the forum: that is a place which I ever avoided even in my happier days. Why, what have I to do with a forum when there are no law courts, no senate-house, and when men are always obtruding on my sight whom I cannot see with any patience? You say people call for my presence at Rome, and are unwilling to allow me to be absent, or at any rate beyond a certain time: I assure you that it is long since I have valued your single self higher than all those people. Nor do I undervalue myself even, and I much prefer abiding by my own judgment than by that of all the rest. Yet, after all, I go no farther than the greatest philosophers think allowable, all whose writings of whatever kind bearing on that point I have not only read—which is itself being a brave invalid and taking one's physic—but have transcribed in my own essay. That at least did not look like a mind crushed and prostrate. From the use of these remedies do not call me back to the crowds of Rome, lest I have a relapse.
- ↑ Reading accedit. But the MSS. have recedit, and many other emendations have been proposed. Faberius (Cæsar's secretary) owed Cicero money, and was slow in paying.
- ↑ Ovia it seems had to take a property at a valuation for her debt. See Letter DCXXXII (A XIII, 22), cp. p. 93, note. Eros is Atticus's steward.
