ur approval, I think them much more "Attic" than ever. To the
speech in answer to Metellus[84] I have made some additions. The book
shall be sent you, since affection for me gives you a taste for
rhetoric. What news have I for you? Let me see. Oh, yes! The consul
Messalla has bought Antonius's house for 3,400 sestertia (about
L27,200). What is that to me? you will say. Why, thus much. The price
has convinced people that I made no bad bargain, and they begin to
understand that in making a purchase a man may properly use his friends'
means to get what suits his position. The Teucris affair drags on, yet I
have hopes. Pray settle the business you have in hand. You shall have a
more outspoken letter soon.

27 January, in the consulship of M. Messalla and M. Piso.

[Footnote 75: _Ora soluta._ Or, if _ancora sublata_ be read, "when the
anchor was already weighed." In either case it means "just as you were
starting." Atticus wrote on board, and gave the letter to a carrier to
take on shore.]

[Footnote 76: A word lost in the text.]

[Footnote 77: See end of Letter XXI. Cicero playfully supposes that
Atticus only stayed in his villa in Epirus to offer sacrifices to the
nymph in his gymnasium, and then hurried off to Sicyon, where people
owed him money which he wanted to get. He goes to Antonius first to get
his authority for putting pressure on Sicyon, and perhaps even some
military force.]

[Footnote 78: C. Calpurnius Piso (consul B.C. 67), brother of the consul
of the year, had been governor of Gallia Narbonensis (B.C. 66-65), and
had suppressed a rising of the Allobroges, the most troublesome tribe in
the province, who were, in fact, again in rebellion.]

[Footnote 79: M. Pupius Piso.]

[Footnote 80: "By the expression of his face rather than the force of
his expressions" (Tyrrell).]

[Footnote 81: See p. 27, note 2.]

[Footnote 82: Pompey.]

[Footnote 83: Or, "inclose with my speech"; in both cases the dative
_orationi meae_ is peculiar. No speech exists containing such a
description, but we have only two of the previous year extant (_pro
Flacco_ and _pro Archia Poeta_). Cicero was probably sending it,
whichever it was, to Atticus to be copied by his _librarii_, and
published. Atticus had apparently some other works of Cicero's in hand,
for which he had sent him some "queries."]

[Footnote 84: Apparently the speech in the senate referred to in Letter
XIV, p. 23, spoken on 1st January, B.C. 62. Metellus had pre