Redeo ad Hirrum. Coeperas eum mihi placare; perfice. Habes Scrofam, habes Silium. Ad eos ego et iam antea scripsi ad ipsum Hirrum. Locutus enim erat cum iis commode se potuisse impedire, sed noluisse; adsensum tamen esse Catoni, amicissimo meo, cum is honorificentissimam in me sententiam dixisset; nec me ad se ullas litteras misisse, cum ad omnes mitterem. Verum dicebat. Ad eum enim solum et ad Crassipedem non scripseram. Atque haec de rebus forensibus; redeamus domum.

Diiungere me ab illo volo. Merus est φυρατής, germanus Lartidius.

Ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν προτετύχθαι ἐάσομεν ἀχνύμενοί περ.

Reliqua expediamus, hoc primum, quod accessit cura dolori meo. Sed tamen hoc, quicquid est, Precianum cum iis rationibus, quas ille meas tractat, admisceri nolo. Scripsi ad Terentiam, scripsi etiam ad ipsum, me, quicquid possem nummorum, ad apparatum sperati triumphi ad te redacturum. Ita puto ἄμεμπτα fore; verum ut lubebit. Hanc quoque suscipe curam, quem ad modum experiamur. Id tu et ostendisti quibusdam litteris ex Epiro an Athenis datis, et in eo ego te adiuvabo.

[Pg 11]

I come back to Hirrus. You have begun to reconcile him to me; accomplish it. Scrofa and Silius are on your side. I have already written to them and to Hirrus himself. For Hirrus had told them in a friendly way that he could easily have prevented the decree, but was reluctant; that, however, he had sided with Cato, my very good friend, when the latter recorded a vote complimenting me in the highest terms. Hirrus added that I had omitted to write to him, though I had sent letters to every one else. He was right. It was only to him and to Crassipes that I did not write. So much for public life. Let us come home.

I wish to dissociate myself from that fellow Philotimus. He is a veritable muddler, a regular Lartidius[8].

[8] Taken by the older commentators to be a Latin form of Λαερτιάδης (i.e. Ulysses); but the sense does not seem to warrant the comparison, which could only mean "as wily as Ulysses."

"A truce to what is past for all our pain."[9]

[9] Iliad xviii, 112; xix, 65, "Let bygones be bygones."