CCCCXLIII (A XI, 21)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
Brundisium, 25 August
On the 25th of August I received a letter from you dated
the 19th, and I experienced on reading his epistle a very
painful renewal of the sorrow which had been long ago
caused me by Quintus's misconduct, but which I had by
this time shaken off. Though it was impossible for you not
to send me that letter, yet I should have preferred that it
had not been sent.
In regard to what you say about the will, please consider what should be done and how. In regard to the money, she has herself written in the sense of my previous letter to you, and, if it is necessary, I will draw on the sum you mention.
Cæsar does not seem likely to be at Athens by the 1st of September. Many things are said to detain him in Asia, above all Pharnaces.[1] The 12th legion, which Sulla[2] visited first, is said to have driven him off with a shower of stones. It is thought that none of the legions will stir. Cæsar, people think, will go straight to Sicily from Patræ.[3] But if that is so, he must necessarily come here.[4] Yet I should
- [Footnote: reasonably been suggested that a letter, dated as that to Terentia on
the 12th, has been lost.]
- ↑ Pharnaces, son of Mithradates, left by Pompey king of part of his father's dominions, was trying to recover Pontus, now part of a Roman province. He had already defeated Domitius Calvinus (pro Deiot. §14). He was beaten by Cæsar at Zela on the 2nd of August—the veni, vidi, vici battle.
- ↑ P. Cornelius Sulla, a nephew of the dictator, whom Cicero defended in B.C. 62 on a charge of complicity with Catiline's conspiracy. He had fought at Pharsalia on the side of Cæsar, and was now sent over to Italy to conduct legions to Sicily for the war against the Pompeians in Africa. The mutiny of the soldiers was for the rewards promised them in the campaign of B.C. 48. See next letter.
- ↑ Cæsar, however, came to Italy from Asia, landing at Tarentum.
- ↑ He would touch at Brundisium as he was coasting down the southeastern shores of Italy.
