- ship,[1] and anything else you can that is worth having. I
don't say a word to stir you up about the Aufidian debt: I know you are looking after it. But settle the business. If that is what is detaining you, I accept the excuse; if it is not, fly to me. I am very anxious for a letter from you. Good-bye.
DCLIII (A XIII, 48)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
Tusculum, 2 August
Yesterday, in the midst of the noise, I seem to have
caught a remark of yours, that you were coming to Tusculum.
Oh, that it may be so! Oh, that it may! I repeat.
But only if convenient to yourself. Lepta begs me
to hurry to Rome if he wants me in any way. For Babullius
is dead. Cæsar, I imagine, is heir to a twelfth—though I
don't know anything for certain as yet—but Lepta to a third.
Now he is in a fright that he may not be allowed to keep
the inheritance. His fear is unreasonable, but nevertheless
he is afraid. So if he does summon me, I will hurry to
town: if he doesn't, it won't be in any way necessary.[2] Yes,
send Pollex as soon as you can. I am sending you Porcia's
funeral oration corrected: I have been expeditious in order
that, if it is by any chance being sent to Domitius's son or
to Brutus, it may be this edition that is sent.[3] If it isn't
inconvenient to you I should like you to see to this very
- ↑ Demetrius (see p. 317) seems not to have been satisfied with Cicero's reception of him.
- ↑ Reading neutiquam. The MSS. have antequam, and Mueller reads non antequam, "not till it is necessary."
- ↑ Porcia, sister of Cato Uticensis, was wife of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (who fell at Pharsalia) and mother of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who was afterwards implicated in the plot against Cæsar, and played a considerable part in the later civil wars. She was aunt to Brutus's wife Porcia. Therefore Cicero expects a copy of his laudatio to be sent to Brutus as well as to Porcia's son.
