Scr. in Cumano VI Non. Mai. a. 705
Et res ipsa monebat, et tu ostenderas, et ego videbam de iis rebus, quas intercipi periculosum esset, finem inter nos scribendi fieri tempus esse. Sed, cum ad me saepe mea Tullia scribat orans, ut, quid in Hispania geratur, exspectem, et semper
do not help the man to whom I am loth to show ingratitude. No. Perhaps he would have been glad if I had helped him less. But that we shall see. Let me only get away. A fair opportunity is offered now that Dolabella is in the Adriatic and Curio in the straits of Sicily.
I have conceived some hope that Servius Sulpicius wishes to see me. I have dispatched Philotimus, my freedman, to him with a letter. If he wishes to play the man, we shall have a fine time together. But if not, well, I shall be my own old self. Curio stayed with me. He thinks that Caesar is falling in popular esteem and he is mistrustful about going to Sicily, if Pompey should begin a naval action.
The boy Quintus got it hot when he came. I see it was greed and the hope of a large bounty. This is a great evil; but disloyalty, which I feared, there was I hope none. But this flaw, I fancy you will gather, did not proceed from my spoiling him, but from his own temperament. Still, I must teach him discipline.
As to the Oppii of Velia, you will arrange with Philotimus as you think fit. Your place in Epirus I shall regard as my own; but it seems I shall go on another tack.
VIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Cumae, May 2, B.C. 49