inish": well, I have finished what, in my own opinion at least, is a
very pretty "epic" on Caesar, but I am in search of a trustworthy
letter-carrier, lest it should share the fate of your
_Erigona_[684]--the only personage who has missed a safe journey from
Gaul during Caesar's governorship.

What? because I had no good stone was I to pull down the whole
building?--a building which I like better every day of my life: the
lower court especially and the chambers attached to it are admirable. As
to Arcanum, it is a building worthy of Caesar, or, by heaven, of some one
even more tasteful still. For your statues, _palaestra_, fish-pond, and
conduit are worthy of many Philotimuses, and quite above your
Diphiluses. But I will visit them personally, as well as sending men to
look after them and giving orders about them. As to the will of Felix,
you will complain more when you know all. For the document which he
believed himself to have sealed, in which your name was most certainly
entered as heir to a twelfth, this, by a mistake of his own and of his
slave Sicura, he did not seal: while the one which he did not intend to
seal he did seal. But let it go hang, so long as we keep well! I am as
devoted to your son Cicero as you can wish, and as he deserves, and as I
am bound to be. However, I am letting him leave me, both to avoid
keeping him from his teachers, and because his mother is leaving,
without whom I am very much alarmed as to the boy's large appetite. Yet,
after all, we see a great deal of each other. I have now answered all
your letters. Dearest and best of brothers, good-bye.

[Footnote 682: _I.e._, rather than defend him. [Greek: tote moi chanoi
(eureia chthon)], Hom. _Il._ iv. 182.]

[Footnote 683: [Greek: ho de mainetai ouk et' anektos] (Hom. _Il._ viii.
355). The numerals seem doubtful. According to some MSS. the amount
would be 10,000,000, _i.e._, L80,000.]

[Footnote 684: The tragedy written by Quintus and lost in transit.]

CLX (F VII, 10)

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL)

ROME (NOVEMBER)

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

I have read your letter which informs me that our Caesar considers you a
great lawyer. You must be glad to have found a country where you have
the credit of knowing something. But if you had gone to Britain also, I
feel sure that there would not have been in all that great island anyone
more learned in the law than you. However--you won't mind my laughing,
for you invited me to