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 CCCCXVIII (A XI, 7)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

I am much obliged for your letter, in which you have set forth with great care all that you thought had any bearing on my position. Is it the case then, as you say in your letter, that your friends think that I should retain my lictors on the ground that Sestius has been allowed to do so? But in his case I don't consider that his own lictors have been allowed him, but that lictors have been given him by Cæsar himself. For I am told that he refuses to acknowledge any decrees of the Senate passed after the withdrawal of the tribunes. Wherefore he will be able without forfeiting his consistency to acknowledge my lictors. However, why should I talk about lictors, who am all but ordered to quit Italy? For Antony has sent me a copy of Cæsar's letter to him, in which he says that "he has been told that Cato and L. Metellus had come to Italy, with the intention of living openly at Rome: that he disapproved of that, for fear of its being the cause of disturbances: and that all are forbidden to come to Italy except those whose case he had

was serving Cæsar (vol. ii., pp. 392, 400).]
 * [Footnote: been conspicuous at this time. The right owner, the younger Hortensius,