I write from Tralles. I expect to be in my province on the 1st of August. Let that day, if you love me, be notched[[181]] as the first of my year of office. Meantime the following welcome news has reached me, that the Parthians are at peace; secondly that the contracts with the tax-farmers have been settled, and lastly that Appius has quelled a mutiny of his soldiers and paid them up to the 15th of July.
Asia has given me an astonishing welcome. My coming has cost no one a penny. I trust that my staff are cherishing my good name. I am very nervous: but I hope for the best. All of them have joined me except your friend Tullius. I intend to go straight to my army, to devote the remaining summer months to military matters, and the winter to judicial business.
As you know that I am as interested as you in political business, please write to me everything that is happening and is likely to happen. You can do me no greater service, except the greatest service of all, which is to carry out my commissions, particularly that household matter with which you know I am greatly concerned. This letter is full of dust and hurry: others shall be more in detail.
XV
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Laodicea, Aug. 3, B.C. 51
I reached Laodicea on the 31st of July. So notch that day as the beginning of my year of office. My arrival has been looked forward to with desire and longing.
[181]. παράπηγμα ἐνιαύσιον corresponds to clavus anni of the next letter. The expression arose from the custom of driving a nail into the right wall of the Temple of Jupiter on the Ides of September every year to keep count of the years.
nihil carius. Sed est incredibile, quam me negotii taedeat, non habeat satis magnum campum ille tibi non ignotus cursus animi et industriae meae, praeclara opera cesset. Quippe, ius Laodiceae me dicere, cum Romae A. Plotius dicat, et, cum exercitum noster amicus habeat tantum, me nomen habere duarum legionum exilium? Denique haec non desidero, lucem, forum, urbem, domum, vos desidero. Sed feram, ut potero, sit modo annuum. Si prorogatur, actum est. Verum perfacile resisti potest, tu modo Romae sis.
Quaeris, quid hic agam. Ita vivam, ut maximos sumptus facio. Mirifice delector hoc instituto. Admirabilis abstinentia ex praeceptis tuis, ut verear, ne illud, quod tecum permutavi, versura mihi solvendum sit. Appi vulnera non refrico, sed apparent nec occuli possunt. Iter Laodicea faciebam a. d. III Non. Sextiles, cum has litteras dabam, in castra in Lycaoniam. Inde ad Taurum cogitabam, ut cum Moeragene signis collatis, si possem, de servo tuo deciderem.
“Clitellae bovi sunt impositae; plane non est