depends entirely what I have in my mind. If that idea had never occurred to me I should, believe me, have been as indifferent to that as I am about everything else. Wherefore as you are doing at present—and I am sure it cannot be improved upon—push the matter on: don't let it rest: carry it through. Please send me both the books of Dicæarchus—on the "Soul" and on the "Descent." I can't find his "Tripoliticus" and his letter to Aristoxenus. I should be specially glad to have these three books; they would bear upon what I have in my mind. "Torquatus" is at Rome: I have ordered it to be given to you. "Catulus" and "Lucullus" I think you have already. To these books a new preface has been added, in which both of them are spoken of with commendation. I wish you to have these compositions,[1] and there are some others. You didn't quite understand what I said to you about the ten legates, I suppose, because I wrote in shorthand. What I wanted to know was about Tuditanus. Hortensius once told me that he was one of the ten. I see in Libo's annals that he was prætor in the consulship of P. Popilius and P. Rupilius.[2] Could he have been a legatus fourteen years before he was prætor, unless his quæstorship was very late in life?[3] And I don't think that that was so. For I notice that he easily obtained
- [Footnote: which Polybius was employed to explain to the inhabitants. The
labours of the commissioners occupied six months, and Polybius thinks that they did a very noble piece of work in the way of constitution-building. Hence Cicero meant to choose them as speakers in a dialogue on constitutions, which, however, was never composed (Polyb. xxxix. 15-16).]
- ↑ Literas (see vol. i., p. 34). "Torquatus" means the first book of the de Finibus, "Catulus" and "Lucullus" the first and second books of the Academica, in which they are the speakers.
- ↑ B.C. 132.
- ↑ For the ten commissioners in the Peloponnesus, see p. 268. Cicero's difficulty is this. To be a commissioner in B.C. 146 a man must have been a senator, that is, he must at least have been quæstor in B.C. 147 (at latest). But if Tuditanus was quæstor in B.C. 147 and obtained the prætorship in his regular year (legitimo anno) he would be prætor in B.C. 139; whereas Tuditanus was not quæstor till B.C. 145 and prætor till B.C. 132, seven years late. The solution is given in Letter DCXII. It was a son who was quæstor in B.C. 145, prætor in B.C. 132. The commissioner was his father and had held his offices (not, however, the consulship) many years before, and therefore was eligible for the commissionership in B.C. 146.
