e
your departure, there are some speeches, which I will give Menocritus,
not so very many, so don't be afraid! I have also written--for I am now
rather withdrawing from oratory and returning to the gentler Muses,
which now give me greater delight than any others, as they have done
since my earliest youth--well, then, I have written in the Aristotelian
style, at least that was my aim, three books in the form of a discussion
in dialogue "On the Orator," which, I think, will be of some service to
your Lentulus. For they differ a good deal from the current maxims, and
embrace a discussion on the whole oratorical theory of the ancients,
both that of Aristotle and Isocrates. I have also written in verse three
books "On my own Times," which I should have sent you some time ago, if
I had thought they ought to be published--for they are witnesses, and
will be eternal witnesses, of your services to me and of my
affection--but I refrained because I was afraid, not of those who might
think themselves attacked, for I have been very sparing and gentle in
that respect, but of my benefactors, of whom it were an endless task to
mention the whole list. Nevertheless, the books, such as they are, if I
find anyone to whom I can safely commit them, I will take care to have
conveyed to you: and as far as that part of my life and conduct is
concerned, I submit it entirely to your judgment. All that I shall
succeed in accomplishing in literature or in learning--my old favourite
relaxations--I shall with the utmost cheerfulness place before the bar
of your criticism, for you have always had a fondness for such things.
As to what you say in your letter about your domestic affairs, and all
you charge me to do, I am so attentive to them that I don't like being
reminded, can scarcely bear, indeed, to be asked without a very painful
feeling. As to your saying, in regard to Quintus's business, that you
could not do anything last summer, because you were prevented by illness
from crossing to Cilicia, but that you will now do everything in your
power to settle it, I may tell you that the fact of the matter is that,
if he can annex this property, my brother thinks that he will owe to you
the consolidation of this ancestral estate. I should like you to write
about all your affairs, and about the studies and training of your son
Lentulus (whom I regard as mine also) as confidentially and as
frequently as possible, and to believe that there never has been any