Page:The Letters of Cicero Shuckburg III.pdf/281

 concentrate all your methods of consoling me upon this one thing. If you want to know my wishes, they are these: first Scapula's, second Clodia's; then, if Silius refuses and Drusus does not behave fairly, the property of Cusinius and Trebonius. I think there is a third owner; I know for certain that Rebilus was one. If however you are for Tusculum, as you hinted in one of your letters, I will agree to your suggestion. Pray bring this business to a conclusion in any case, if you wish me to feel consoled. You are already finding fault with me in somewhat severer terms than is customary with you; but you do so with the utmost affection, and perhaps tired out by my weakness. Yet all the same, if you wish me to be consoled, this is the very greatest of consolations and, if you would know the truth, the only one.

If you have read Hirtius's letter, which appears to me to be a kind of "first sketch" of the invective which Cæsar has composed against Cato, please let me know, when you can conveniently do so, what you think of it. To return to the shrine: unless it is finished this summer, which you perceive is all before us, I shall not consider myself cleared of positive guilt.

DLXXXVIII (A XII, 42, § 3, 43)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)



It has occurred to me to remind you to do the very thing which you are doing. For I think you can transact the business you have in hand more conveniently at home by preventing any interruption. For myself, I intend, as I told you before, to stay at Lanuvium on the 16th, and thence to go to Tusculum or Rome. You shall know which of the two. You say truly that this erection will be a consolation to me. Thank you for saying so: but it is a consolation to