as he walked up and down to take needful exercise.

[Footnote 1: Collections of his letters to Caesar, Brutus, Cornelius Nepos
the historian, Hirtius, Pansa, and to his son, are known to have existed.]

His correspondents were of almost all varieties of position and character,
from Caesar and Pompey, the great men of the day, down to his domestic
servant and secretary, Tiro. Amongst them were rich and ease-loving
Epicureans like Atticus and Paetus, and even men of pleasure like Caelius:
grave Stoics like Cato, eager patriots like Brutus and Cassius, authors
such as Cornelius Nepos and Lucceius the historians, Varro the grammarian,
and Metius the poet; men who dabbled with literature in a gentleman-like
way, like Hirtius and Appius, and the accomplished literary critic and
patron of the day--himself of no mean reputation as poet, orator, and
historian--Caius Asinius Pollio. Cicero's versatile powers found no
difficulty in suiting the contents of his own letters to the various
tastes and interests of his friends. Sometimes he sends to his
correspondent what was in fact a political journal of the day--rather
one-sided, it must be confessed, as all political journals are, but
furnishing us with items of intelligence which throw light, as nothing
else can, on the history of those latter days of the Republic. Sometimes
he jots down the mere gossip of his last dinner-party; sometimes he
notices the speculations of the last new theorist in philosophy, or
discusses with a literary friend some philological question--the latter
being a study in which he was very fond of dabbling, though with little
success, for the science of language was as yet unknown.

His chief correspondent, as has been said, was his old school-fellow and
constant friend through life, Pomponius Atticus. The letters addressed to
him which still remain to us cover a period of twenty-four years, with
a few occasional interruptions, and the correspondence only ceased with
Cicero's death. The Athenianised Roman, though he had deliberately
withdrawn himself from the distracting factions of his native city, which
he seldom revisited, kept on the best terms with the leaders of all
parties, and seems to have taken a very lively interest, though merely in
the character of a looker-on, in the political events which crowded so
fast upon each other during the fifty years of his voluntary expatriation.
Cicero's letters were to him what an English newspaper would be now to