nostrum onus.”
Sed feremus, modo, si me amas, sim annuus. Adsis tu ad tempus, ut senatum totum excites. Mirifice sollicitus sum, quod iam diu mihi ignota sunt ista omnia. Quare, ut ad te ante scripsi, cum cetera tum res publica cura ut mihi nota sit. Plura scribam. Tarde tibi redditu iri,[[182]] sed dabam familiari homini ac domestico, C. Andronico Puteolano. Tu autem
[182]. The text here is uncertain.
You would never believe how sick I am of the business and I cannot find sufficient scope for the wide interests and energy you know I possess, and do nothing noticeable. To think that I hold court in Laodicea, while A. Plotius does so at Rome, and that I have the nominal command of two skeleton legions, while Caesar has a huge army! However, it is not these advantages I miss: it is the world, the Forum, the city, my home and you. I will bear as best I can a year of office: an extension would kill me. Still we may combat that very easily if only you are at Rome.
You ask what I am doing. Upon my life I am spending a fortune. I am marvellously pleased with the rule of conduct I have formed: and you have taught me to be so admirably self restrained that I fear I may have to borrow to pay off the money I took from you. I avoid opening the wounds which Appius has inflicted on the province: but they are patent and cannot be hidden. I travel from Laodicea on the 3rd of August, the date of this letter, to the camp in Lycaonia. Thence I intend to go to Taurus, so that I may settle the matter of your slave, if possible, by pitched battle with Moeragenes.
“’Tis the ox that bears the load, not I.”
I can endure; but, for heaven’s sake, let it be only for a year. You must be in town at the proper time to stir up every member of the House. I am marvellously anxious, because it is so long since I have had news: so, as I wrote before, give me news of political matters as well as other things. I will write more fully. [This letter I know] will be a long time in reaching you: but I am giving it to a trusty and intimate friend, C. Andronicus of
saepe dare tabellariis publicanorum poteris per magistros scripturae et portus nostrarum dioecesium.
XVI
CICERO ATTICO SAL.
Scr. in itinere a Synnada ad Philomelium inter a. d. V et III Id. Sext. a. 703