or
Epirus: if not, I shall make for Cyzicus or some other place. Your
letter is cheerful[343] indeed, but at the same time, the oftener I read
it, the more it weakens the suggested ground for hope, so that it is
easy to see that you are trying to minister at once to consolation and
to truth. Accordingly, I beg you to write to me exactly what you know
and exactly what you think.

19 August.

[Footnote 343: Reading _laetae_ for _lectae_.]

LXXIV (A III, 17)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

THESSALONICA, 4 SEPTEMBER

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, AET. 48]

News of my brother Quintus of an invariably gloomy nature reached me
from the 3rd of June up to the 29th of August. On that day, however,
Livineius, a freedman of Lucius Regulus, came to me by the direction of
Regulus himself.[344] He announced that absolutely no notice whatever
had been given of a prosecution, but that there had, nevertheless, been
some talk about the son of C. Clodius.[345] He also brought me a letter
from my brother Quintus. But next day came the slaves of Sestius, who
brought me a letter from you not so positive in regard to this alarm as
the conversation of Livineius had been. I am rendered very anxious in
the midst of my own endless distress, and the more so as Appius[346] has
the trial of the case. As to other circumstances mentioned in the same
letter by you in connexion with my hopes, I understand that things are
going less well than other people represent them. I, however, since we
are now not far from the time at which the matter will be decided, will
either go to your house or will still remain somewhere in this
neighbourhood. My brother writes me word that his interests are being
supported by you more than by anyone else. Why should I urge you to do
what you are already doing? or offer you thanks which you do not expect?
I only pray that fortune may give us the opportunity of enjoying our
mutual affection in security. I am always very anxious to get your
letters, in which I beg you not to be afraid of your minuteness boring
me, or your plain speaking giving me pain.

4 September.

[Footnote 344: L. Livineius Regulus, whom Cicero (_F._ xiii. 60) calls a
very intimate friend, and says that his freedman Trypho stood his friend
in the hour of need. He seems to have been condemned (in B.C. 56?) for
something, but he afterwards served under Iulius Caesar (_B. Afr._ Sec. 9).
The freedman's full name was L. Livineius Trypho.]

[Footnote 345: About