t derogating from my dignity. His good feeling towards us,
however, according to all accounts, is marked. The letter, indeed, on
the point of which you expect to hear, will almost coincide with your
return:[577] the other business of each day I will write on condition of
your furnishing me with letter-carriers. However, such cold weather is
threatening,[578] that there is very great danger that Appius may find
his house frost-bitten and deserted![579]

[Footnote 573: Retaining _populi convicio_, and explaining _populus_ to
have the general meaning of the crowd, including senators and
spectators. Cicero uses _populus_ in this vague way elsewhere.]

[Footnote 574: Zeugma I take to mean the "territory of Zeugma," a town
on the Euphrates, part of the Roman province of Syria, and close to the
frontier of Commagene. Antiochus had asked that some stronghold should
be reckoned as his rather than as belonging to the province.]

[Footnote 575: Appius, he insinuates, hoped to make money by granting
the request of Antiochus, left king of Commagene by Pompey, for some
special privileges, among which was the right of wearing the _toga
praetexta_, which symbolized some position with a shadow of Roman
_imperium_, while at the same time conveying a compliment to the Roman
suzernainty. See Polyb. lib. xxvi.; xxx. 26; Suet. _Aug._ 60.]

[Footnote 576: Some petty prince of Bostra (_Bozra_), in Arabia, of whom
we know nothing.]

[Footnote 577: Quintus was expecting, what he got, the offer of serving
under Caesar as _legatus_. Caesar was preparing for his second invasion of
Britain.]

[Footnote 578: Which will prevent meetings of the senate, and so give me
no news to send you.]

[Footnote 579: There is a _double entendre_. Cold weather will prevent
the meetings of the senate actually, but metaphorically politics will be
also cold and dull, and that dullness will probably be nowhere so
evident as in the deserted state of the consul Appius's house, which in
all probability will miss its usual bevy of callers. This
explanation--put forward by Prof. Tyrrell--is not wholly satisfactory,
yet it is the best that has been given.]

CXXXIII (F VII, 5)

TO CAESAR (IN GAUL)

ROME (FEBRUARY)

[Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

Cicero greets Caesar, _imperator_. Observe how far I have convinced
myself that you are my second self, not only in matters which concern me
personally, but even in those which concern my friends. It had been my