13)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

TUSCULUM, 15 NOVEMBER

[Sidenote: B.C. 55, AET. 51]

I see that you know of my arrival at Tusculum on the 14th of November. I
found Dionysius there. I wish to be at Rome on the 17th. Why do I say
"wish"? Rather I am forced to be so. Milo's wedding. There is some idea
of an election. Even supposing that to be confirmed,[566] I am glad to
have been absent from the wrangling debates which I am told have taken
place in the senate. For I should either have defended him, which would
have been against my opinion, or have deserted him whom I was bound to
defend. But, by Hercules, describe to me to the utmost of your power
those events, and the present state of politics, and how the consuls
stand this bother. I am very ravenous for news, and, to tell you the
truth, I feel no confidence in anything. Our friend Crassus indeed,
people say, started in his official robes with less dignity than in the
old times did L. Paullus,[567] at the same time of life as he is, and,
like him, in his second consulship. What a sorry fellow! About my
oratorical books, I have been working hard. They have been long in hand
and much revised: you can get them copied.[568] I again beg of you an
outline sketch of the present situation, that I may not arrive in Rome
quite a stranger.

[Footnote 566: _Ego, ut sit rata_, Schutz's reading, which seems the
best for the unintelligible _ergo et si irata_ of the MSS. It would
mean, "though I regret not having been back for Domitius's election (if
it has taken place), I am glad to have been away from the previous
wrangling in the senate."]

[Footnote 567: Crassus starts for Syria; he compares him to L. AEmilius
Paullus starting for the war with Perses (B.C. 168). Paullus was, like
Crassus, sixty years old, and in his second consulship. Paullus set out
with good omens, Crassus with a curse, denounced by the tribune C.
Ateius Capito (_de Div._ i. Sec. 29; Plutarch, _Crass._ 16).]

[Footnote 568: By his _librarii_. Atticus was again acting as his
publisher.]

CXXX (F V, 8)

[Sidenote: B.C. 54. Coss., L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Ap. Claudius
Pulcher.]

During this year politics were comparatively uneventful. Crassus
was gone to Syria. Pompey should have gone to Spain, but at the
request of the senate he stayed near Rome, and in the autumn his
wife Iulia died, thus breaking one strong tie between him and
Caesar. Quintus Cicero went as _legatus_ t