won't make much of us. But what an addition to my selling price will be my declaration that whatever I am or have, and whatever position I enjoy in the world, is all owing to you! Wherefore, my dear Cicero, persevere in your constant care for my welfare, and recommend me in a letter of introduction of the finest brand to the successor of Sulpicius. I shall thereby have greater facility in obeying your maxims, and of seeing you to my joy by the spring, and of breaking up my establishment and bringing my belongings safely home. But, my dear distinguished friend, do not shew this letter to Atticus. Let him continue to regard me as heart and soul his, and not as one who "whitewashes two walls out of the same pot."[1] So, patron mine, good-bye to you, and give Tiro kind regards from me.
29 October.
DCLXXV (F V, 10 a)
P. VATINIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME)
Narona, 5 December.
After the thanksgiving had been decreed in my honour I
started for Dalmatia. I stormed and took six fortified towns.
The largest of them, indeed, I have had practically to storm
four times;[2] for I took four towers and four walls and their
entire citadel, which snow, cold, and rain forced me to
evacuate. It was mortifying to be obliged thus to abandon
a town already taken and a war practically finished. Wherefore
I beg you, if there is any occasion for it, to plead my
cause with Cæsar, and to regard it as your duty to defend
my character in every respect, with the full conviction that
you have no more devoted friend than myself. Good-bye.
5 December, Narona.
