ny, I care
not what." It was not likely that a man with his stormy past would do
for the delicate duties of the censorship, and he would save appearances
by going on a _votiva legatio_. See Letter XLIV.]

[Footnote 397: _Facile careo_, others read _non facile_, "I don't like
being without a suburban residence."]

[Footnote 398: The thing which brought him "nothing but dishonour" was
his quitting Rome, and the consequent expenses connected with winning
over friends, or paying for Milo's bravoes to face those of Clodius. In
the last part of the sentence he seems to mean that, had his supporters
backed him properly, he would have got everything necessary to make good
his losses from the liberality of the senate. Others explain that
_defensores_ really means Pompey only.]

[Footnote 399: This and the omission of his wife in the next clause, as
the similar hint at the end of the last letter, seem to point to some
misunderstanding with Terentia, with whom, however, a final rupture was
postponed for nearly twelve years (B.C. 46.)]

XCI (A IV, 3)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

ROME, 24 NOVEMBER

[Sidenote: B.C. 57, AET. 49]

I am very well aware that you long to know what is going on here, and
also to know it from me, not because things done before the eyes of the
whole world are better realized when narrated by my hand than when
reported to you by the pens or lips of others, but because it is from my
letters that you get what you want--a knowledge of _my_ feelings in
regard to the occurrences, and what at such a juncture is the state of
my mind, or, in a word, the conditions in which I am living. On the 3rd
of November the workmen were driven from the site of my house by armed
ruffians: the _porticus Catuli_,[400] which was being rebuilt on a
contract given out by the consuls, in accordance with a decree of the
senate, and had nearly reached the roof, was battered down: the house of
my brother Quintus[401] was first smashed with volleys of stones thrown
from my site, and then set on fire by order of Clodius, firebrands
having been thrown into it in the sight of the whole town, amidst loud
exclamations of indignation and sorrow, I will not say of the
loyalists--for I rather think there _are_ none--but of simply every
human being. That madman runs riot: thinks after this mad prank of
nothing short of murdering his opponents: canvasses the city street by
street: makes open offers of freedom to slaves. For the fact is