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 DLVIII (A XII, 23)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)



I thought that your letter was going to tell me some news, to judge from the opening sentence, which said that though I did not care about what was going on in Spain, you would yet write and tell me of it: but in point of fact you only answered my remark about the forum and senate-house. "But your town-house," you say, "is a forum." What do I want with a town-house itself, if I have no forum? Ruined, ruined, my dear Atticus! That has been the case for a long while, I know: but it is only now that I confess it, when I have lost the one thing that bound me to life. Accordingly, I seek solitude: and yet, if any necessity does take me to Rome, I shall try, if I possibly can—and I know I can—to let no one perceive my grief except you, and not even you if it can by any means be avoided. And, besides, there is this reason for my not coming. You remember the questions Aledius asked you. If they are so troublesome even now, what do you think they will be, if I come to Rome? Yes, settle about Terentia in the sense of your letter; and relieve me from this addition—though not the heaviest—to my bitter sorrows. To shew you that, though in mourning, I am not prostrate, listen to this. You have entered in your Chronicle the consulship in which Carneades and the famous embassy came to Rome. I want to know now what the reason of it was. It was about Oropus I think, but am not certain. And if so, what were the points in dispute? And farther, who was the best known Epicurean of that time and head of the Garden at Athens? Also who were the famous political writers at Athens? These facts too, I think, you can ascertain from the book of Apollodorus.