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dare. Before I arrive the fame of my new magnificence will reach you: and you will be awestruck at it. Yet it is no use building any hope on your hors d'œuvre. I have quite abolished that: for in old times I found my appetite spoilt by your olives and Lucanian sausages. But why all this talk? Let me only get to you. By all means—for I wish to wipe away all fear from your heart—go back to your old cheese-and-sardine dish. The only expense I shall cause you will be that you will have to have the bath heated. All the rest according to my regular habits. What I have just been saying was all a joke.

As to Selicius's villa, you have managed the business carefully and written most wittily. So I think I won't buy. For there is enough salt and not enough savour.

CCCCLXXI (F IX, 18)

TO L. PAPIRIUS PÆTUS (AT NAPLES)



Being quite at leisure in my Tusculan villa, because I had sent my pupils to meet him, that they might at the same time present me in as favourable a light as possible to their friend, I received your most delightful letter, from which I learnt that you approved my idea of having begun—now that legal proceedings are abolished and my old supremacy