partly because he knew every one, and had
a hundred wealthy friends besides the lender of the moment and among
them, most faithful of all, the prudent and indefatigable Atticus.
Undoubtedly then it was by borrowing, and regularly paying interest
on the loans, that he raised money whenever he wanted it. He may have
occasionally made money in the companies of tax-collectors; we have
seen that he probably had shares in some of their ventures. But there
is no clear evidence in his letters of this source of wealth,[141] and
there is abundant evidence of the borrowing. After his return from
exile, though the senate had given him somewhat meagre compensation
for the loss of his property, he began at once to borrow and to build:
"I am building in three places," he writes to his brother,[142] "and
am patching up my other houses. I live somewhat more lavishly than I
used to do; I am obliged to do so." Here again we know from whom he
borrowed,--it was this same brother, who of course had no more certain
income than his own, probably less. But he had been governor of Asia
for three years (61-58 B.C.), and must have realised large sums even
in that exhausted province; and at this moment he was legatus to
Pompeius as special commissioner for organising the supply of
corn, and thus was in immediate contact with one of the greatest
millionaires of the day. In order to repay his brother all Marcus
had to do was to borrow from other friends. "In regard to money I am
crippled. But the liberality of my brother I have repaid, in spite of
his protests, by the aid of my friends, that I might not be drained
quite dry myself" (_ad Att._ iv. 3). Two years later an unwary reader
might feel some astonishment at finding that Quintus himself was now
deep in debt;[143] but as he continues to read the correspondence his
astonishment will vanish. With the prospect before him of a prolonged
stay in Gaul with Caesar, Quintus might doubtless have borrowed to any
extent; and in fact with Caesar's help--the proceeds of the Gallic
wars--both brothers found themselves in opulence. The Civil War, and
the repayment of his debts to Caesar, nearly ruined Marcus towards the
end of his life, but nothing prevented his contriving to find money
for any object on which he had set his heart; when in his grief for
the loss of his daughter he wishes to buy suburban gardens where a
shrine to her memory may (strange to say) attract public notice, he
tells Atticus to buy what