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this as a sop for my "Cato." There is no more to be said. I am extremely sorry I wrote it; nor could anything in this affair have fallen out more in accordance with my wishes, than to find that my intrusion is not approved. For I should have found myself also involved with that party, and among them with your relative. But to return to the pleasure-grounds. I absolutely will not have you go to them unless entirely convenient to yourself. There is no hurry. Whatever happens let us devote our efforts to Faberius. However, tell me the day of the auction, if you know it. The bearer of this has just come from Cumæ, and as he reported that Attica was quite recovered, and said that he had a letter from her, I have sent him straight to you.

DCIII (A XIII, 28 AND 29, § 1)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)



As you are going to inspect the pleasure-grounds to-day, I shall hear of course to-morrow what you think of them. About Faberius again you will write when he has arrived.

As to the letter to Cæsar, believe my solemn assertion,—I cannot! Nor is it the dishonour of the thing that deters me, though it ought to do so most of all. For where is the disgrace of flattery, in view of the disgrace of living at all? But as I began by saying, it is not the dishonour that deters me: and, indeed, I only wish it could—for then I should have been the man I ought to be—but I cannot think of anything to say. For those exhortations addressed to Alexander by men of eloquence and learning—think of the circumstances in which they were delivered! Here was a young man fired with ambition for the purest glory, desiring to have some suggestions made to him as to how to win undying fame, and they exhort him to follow honour.