will have on his side Appius the consul, some praetors and
tribunes. Still, they do threaten--and among the foremost Q. Scaevola,
"breathing war."[651] Most delightful and dearest of brothers, take good
care of your health.

[Footnote 646: Pompey was outside the _pomoerium_ (_ad Romam_) as
having _imperium_.]

[Footnote 647: Two gladiators, one incomparably superior to the other.]

[Footnote 648: A proverbial expression, cp. "snapped my nose off."]

[Footnote 649: C. Pomptinus, praetor in B.C. 63 (when he had supported
Cicero), was afterwards employed against the Allobroges as propraetor of
Narbonensis (B.C. 61). He had been, ever since leaving his province (?
B.C. 58), urging his claim to a triumph. He obtained it now by the
contrivance of the praetor Serv. Sulpicius Galba, who got a vote passed
by the _comitia_ before daybreak, which was unconstitutional (Dio, 39,
65).]

[Footnote 650: P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus (consul B.C. 48) was an
admirer of Cato. See p. 112.]

[Footnote 651: [Greek: Are pneon].]

CLII (F I, 9)

TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA)

ROME (OCTOBER)

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

M. Cicero desires his warmest regards to P. Lentulus, _imperator_.[652]
Your letter was very gratifying to me, from which I gathered that you
fully appreciated my devotion to you: for why use the word kindness,
when even the word "devotion" itself, with all its solemn and holy
associations, seems too weak to express my obligations to you? As for
your saying that my services to you are gratefully accepted, it is you
who in your overflowing affection make things, which cannot be omitted
without criminal negligence, appear deserving of even gratitude.
However, my feelings towards you would have been much more fully known
and conspicuous, if, during all this time that we have been separated,
we had been together, and together at Rome. For precisely in what you
declare your intention of doing--what no one is more capable of doing,
and what I confidently look forward to from you--that is to say, in
speaking in the senate, and in every department of public life and
political activity, we should together have been in a very strong
position (what my feelings and position are in regard to politics I will
explain shortly, and will answer the questions you ask), and at any rate
I should have found in you a supporter, at once most warmly attached and
endowed with supreme wisdom, while in me you would have found