[105] Plato, Ep. 7.
Places without harbours, I see, do not meet with your approval. Nor do I like them, but the place has afforded me hiding and a trusty set of attendants. If I could have had the same at Brundisium, I should have preferred it. But there is no hiding place there. But, as you say, when we know!
I am not going to excuse myself much to the loyalists. What dinners according to Sextus they are giving and receiving, how lavish and how early! They may be loyal, but they are not more loyal than I. They would influence me more if they had shown more courage.
I was wrong about Phamea's estate at Lanuvium. I was dreaming about the Trojan estate.[106] I wanted it for £4,500,[107] but the price is higher. However, I should have liked you to buy that estate for me, if I saw any hope of enjoying it.
[106] Apparently near Antium, cf. ix, 9.
[107] 500,000 sesterces.
What portentous news I read daily you may understand from the pamphlet enclosed in this packet. Lentulus is at Puteoli, and, Caesius says, in a quandary what to do. He dreads a fiasco like that at Corfinium. He thinks he has done his duty by Pompey. He is influenced by Caesar's kindness; but he is influenced more by future prospects.
To think that you can bear this! Everything is
nihil miserius. Pompeius N. Magium de pace misit et tamen oppugnatur. Quod ego non credebam, sed habeo a Balbo litteras, quarum ad te exemplum misi. Lege, quaeso, et illud infimum caput ipsius Balbi optimi, cui Gnaeus noster locum, ubi hortos aedificaret, dedit, quem cui nostrum non saepe praetulit? Itaque miser torquetur. Sed, ne bis eadem legas, ad ipsam te epistulam reicio. Spem autem pacis habeo nullam. Dolabella suis litteris III Idus Mart. datis merum bellum loquitur. Maneamus ergo in illa eadem sententia misera et desperata, quando hoc miserius esse nihil potest.