explanation—he was insolvent. I suppose he had asked some indulgence from Marcellus, who—as was his way—had answered him somewhat decidedly.
DCXXII (A XIII, 11)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
Arpinum, 22 June
"Not the same look."[1] I thought I shouldn't mind. It
was quite the reverse, when I found myself more widely
separated from you. But I had to do it, both in order to
settle the small rents of my properties, and to avoid burdening
Brutus with the necessity of shewing me attention. For
at a future time we shall be able to keep up our acquaintance
at Tusculum on easier terms. But at the present
juncture, when he wanted to see me every day and I could
not go to him,[2] he was losing all enjoyment of his Tusculan
villa. Please therefore write and tell me whether Servilia[3]
has arrived, whether Brutus has taken any decided step, even
if he has determined on doing so, and when he starts to. Cicero, as usual, expects Atticus to fill up any well-known
quotation. It is from Euripides, Ion, 585:
[Greek: ou tauton eidos phainetai tôn pragmatôn
prosôthen outôn, enguthen th' horômenôn.]
"Not the same look wear things when far removed
As when beneath our eyes and close at hand."
]
- ↑ [Greek: ou tauton eidos
- ↑ Why not? It may refer to the morning call or salutatio. Cicero even in the country was accustomed to receive many guests at it, and perhaps as a consularis it was not etiquette for him to go to levées of men of lower official rank, and Brutus had as yet held no curule office. We may remember that Juvenal notices it as a corruption of his period that a prætor is seen at such a levée. Visiting later in the day was not usual except by intimate friends, and Cicero, when he paid a visit to Pompey in the evening, thinks it necessary to offer an explanation (vol. i., p. 223). He always seems to dislike the interruption of late visitors.
- ↑ The mother of Brutus.
