DLVIII (A XII, 23)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
Astura (19 March)
I thought that your letter was going to tell me some news,
to judge from the opening sentence, which said that though
I did not care about what was going on in Spain, you would
yet write and tell me of it: but in point of fact you only
answered my remark about the forum and senate-house.
"But your town-house," you say, "is a forum." What do
I want with a town-house itself, if I have no forum?
Ruined, ruined, my dear Atticus! That has been the case
for a long while, I know: but it is only now that I confess
it, when I have lost the one thing that bound me to life.
Accordingly, I seek solitude: and yet, if any necessity does
take me to Rome, I shall try, if I possibly can—and I
know I can—to let no one perceive my grief except you,
and not even you if it can by any means be avoided.
And, besides, there is this reason for my not coming. You
remember the questions Aledius asked you. If they are so
troublesome even now, what do you think they will be, if I
come to Rome? Yes, settle about Terentia in the sense of
your letter; and relieve me from this addition—though not
the heaviest—to my bitter sorrows. To shew you that,
though in mourning, I am not prostrate, listen to this. You
have entered in your Chronicle the consulship in which
Carneades and the famous embassy came to Rome. I want
to know now what the reason of it was. It was about
Oropus I think, but am not certain. And if so, what were
the points in dispute?[1] And farther, who was the best
known Epicurean of that time and head of the Garden
at Athens? Also who were the famous political writers at
Athens? These facts too, I think, you can ascertain from
the book of Apollodorus.
- ↑ B.C. 155 Carneades the Academic, Diogenes the Stoic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic came to Rome to plead against the fine of 500 talents imposed on Athens for a raid upon Oropus.
