DCXXVIII (A XIII, 17 AND 18)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
Arpinum, 28 June
I was expecting some news from Rome on the 27th, so I
could wish that you had given your men some message.[1] As
you have not, I have only the same questions to ask as before:
What is Brutus doing? Or, if he has already taken any step,
is there any news from Cæsar? But why talk of these
things which I care less about? What I am anxious to
know is how Attica is. Though your letter—which however
is now rather out of date—bids me hope for the best,
yet I am anxious for something recent. You see what advantage
there is in our being near each other. By all means
let us get suburban pleasure-grounds: we seemed to be
conversing with each other when I was in my Tusculan
villa—so frequent was the interchange of letters. But that
at least will soon be the case again. Meanwhile, acting on
your hint, I have completed some books—really quite clever
ones—addressed to Varro. Nevertheless I await your
answer to what I wrote to you: first, how you learnt that
he wanted something of the sort from me, since he has
never, for all his extraordinary literary activity, addressed a
line to me: secondly, of whom he was jealous, unless I am
to think it to be Brutus. For if he is not jealous of him, much
less can he be so of Hortensius or of the interlocutors in the
de Republica. I should like you to make this quite clear to
me: especially whether you abide by your opinion that I
should send him what I have written, or whether you think
it unnecessary. But of this when we meet.
- ↑ The reading is very doubtful (imperasses vellem igitur aliquid tuis). Klotz (Teubner text) has non quo imperassem tuis, which would mean, "not that I had given your messengers any orders." Mueller (the new Teubner text) imperassem igitur aliquid tuis. The MSS. have non imperassem.
