(Hom.
_Od._ xxii. 412, where the word is [Greek: ktamenoisin]). Terentius is
some eques who has stopped payment.]

[Footnote 496: Because Clodius was attempting to pull down Cicero's
new-built house on the ground that the site was still consecrated. He
was prevented by Milo (Dio, xxxix. 20).]

[Footnote 497: Something that Quintus had done, perhaps about water, on
his estate which annoyed his fellow townsmen.]

[Footnote 498: [Greek: ho d' ouk empazeto mython] (Hom. _Od._ i. 271).]

CXI (A IV, 8 a)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

ANTIUM (APRIL-MAY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 56, AET. 50]

There were many things in your letter which pleased me, but nothing more
than your "dish of cheese and salt fish"![499] For as to what you say
about the sale,

"Boast not yourself before you see the end,"[500]

I can find nothing in the way of a building for you in the
neighbourhood. In the town there is something of the sort, though it is
doubtful whether it is for sale, and, in fact, close to my own house.
Let me tell you that Antium is the Buthrotum of Rome, just what your
Buthrotum is to Corcyra. Nothing can be quieter, cooler, or
prettier--"be this mine own dear home."[501] Moreover, since Tyrannio
has arranged my books for me, my house seems to have had a soul added to
it; in which matter your Dionysius and Menophilus were of wonderful
service. Nothing can be more charming than those bookcases of yours,
since the title-slips have shewn off the books. Good-bye. I should like
you to write me word about the gladiators, but only if they fight well,
I don't want to know about them if they were failures.

[Footnote 499: We must suppose Atticus to have mentioned some money loss
(see last letter), and to have added that, though a ruinous one, his
tastes were simple, and he could live on simple fare. Cicero laughs at
the affectation of the rich Atticus. _Raudusculum_, "a piece of bronze,"
was the ancient term for the piece of bronze money used in sales, _per
aes et libram_ (Varro, _L. L._ v. 163).]

[Footnote 500: [Greek: mepo meg' eipes prin teleutesant' ides], "Do not
boast till you see a man dead"--a well-known line from a lost play of
Sophocles, containing a sentiment elsewhere often repeated, especially
in Herodotus's account of the interview of Solon and Croesus.]

[Footnote 501: [Greek: eie moi outos philos oikos], according to a
probable restoration of the Greek words (instead of [Greek: eie misetos
philos oikos], "I mig