B.C. 47, ÆT. 59 be more anxious about and vexed at. These latter distress me quite as much as was desired by those who forced me to act against my better judgment.[1] Take care of your health.
4 January.
CCCCXXIII (A XI, 10)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
Brundisium, 19 January
My distresses, already past calculation, have received an
addition by the news brought to me of the elder and younger
Quintus. My connexion Publius Terentius was employed
as deputy master of his company in Asia in collecting the
harbour dues and the pasture rents.[2] He saw the younger
Quintus at Ephesus on the 8th of December, and entertained
him warmly for the sake of our friendship, and on asking
some questions about me, he tells me that Quintus replied
that he was bitterly opposed to me, and shewed him a roll
containing a speech which he intended to deliver against
me before Cæsar.[3] Terentius says that he dissuaded him
from such a senseless proceeding at great length; and that
afterwards at Patræ the elder Quintus talked a great deal to
him in a similar strain of treachery. The latter's furious state
- ↑ Like most irresolute men, Cicero is apt to lay the blame of any step which seems to be turning out badly upon the insidious advice of friends. It was his constant theme in his exile. In this case he is referring, not I think to his abandoning the Pompeian fleet, but to his coming to Italy instead of staying in Achaia. He said before (see p. 19) that this was in consequence of Dolabella writing to say that Cæsar wished it.
- ↑ See vol. ii., p. 44.
- ↑ It was not unusual, it appears, to deliver a set harangue from a written copy to a great man, though in an informal meeting. Suetonius says that Augustus always did so on important matters, even with his wife Livia (Suet. Aug. 84), and Dio has preserved a conversation of the sort between them (55, 15), and two speeches of Agrippa and Mæcenas of the same kind (52, 1, ff.). Tacitus (Ann. iv. 39) says that it was the common custom in the time of Tiberius.
