B.C. 45, ÆT. 61 exceedingly serious, yet we have lived in such a way and are at such a time of life, that we ought to bear with courage whatever happens to us without fault on our part. Here in Rome all your family are in good health, and with the most perfect loyalty regret your absence, and retain their affection and respect for you. Mind you take care of your health and do not move from where you are without full consideration.
DCXLIII (A XIII, 44)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
Tusculum (20 July)
What a delightful letter! Though the procession was
odious, it is nevertheless not odious "to know everything"—even
about Cotta. The people were splendid not to clap
even the figure of Victory owing to its impious neighbour.
Brutus has been to see me, and is very strongly in favour of
my writing something to Cæsar. I assented, but this procession
puts me off it.[1]
Well, after all, did you venture to make the presentation to Varro? I am anxious for his opinion: but when will he read it through?
As to Attica, I quite approve: for it is something that her melancholy should be relieved both by taking part in the spectacle, as well as by the feeling of its sacred associations and the general talk about it.
Please send me a Cotta; I have got a Libo with me, and
- ↑ The ludi Circenses (at the feast of Apollo) were opened by a procession carrying the figures of the gods. Cæsar's bust was carried on a tensa and fercula next to that of Victory. Cotta is L. Cotta, one of the quindecemviri, who, having with his colleagues the charge of the Sibylline books, was reported to have said that they contained an oracle declaring that the Parthians could only be conquered by a Roman king, and to have expressed an intention of proposing that Cæsar should have that title (Suet. Iul. 76-79). L. Cotta was consul in B.C. 65. See de Divin. ii. § 110, ante, p. 263.
