will come straight from the road to me. For we will arrange a day for Tyrannio at the same time,[[25]] and anything else there is to do.
[25]. To read a book he had written, possibly on accents. Cf. Att. XII. 6.
III
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Tusculum, June 11, B.C. 46
You are the only person I know less given to flattery than myself, and, if we both fall into it sometimes in the case of other people, certainly we never use it to one another. So listen to what I am saying with all sincerity. On my life, Atticus, I don't count even the Isles of the Blest, let alone my place at Tusculum—though in other respects I'm comfortable enough there—worth so long a separation from you. So let us harden our hearts for these three days—assuming that you are affected as I am, which I am sure is the case. But I should like to know whether you are starting to-day[[26]] immediately after the auction, and on what day you are coming. In the meantime I am buried in my books, and annoyed that I have not got Vennonius' history. But, not to neglect business altogether, for that debt that Caesar assigned to me[[27]] there are three means I might use. I could buy the property at a public auction; but I would rather lose it—it comes to the same thing in the end, besides the disgrace. I might transfer my rights for a bond payable a year hence by the buyer: but whom can I trust, and when would that "year of Meton"[[28]] come? Or I
[26]. Or, as Tyrrell and Shuckburgh, "whether you are coming to-day or, if not, on what day you are coming." But Cicero does not seem to have anticipated Atticus' arrival before three days.
[27]. Probably a debt owed to Cicero by some proscribed Pompeian.
[28]. Meton, an Athenian mathematician, of the beginning of the 5th century B.C., discovered the solar cycle of 19 years. "Meton's year" was proverbially used for an indefinitely long period.
8Vettieni condicione semissem. Σκέψαι igitur. Ac vereor, ne iste iam auctionem nullam faciat, sed ludis factis Ἀτύπῳ[[29]] subsidio currat, ne talis vir ἀλογηθῇ. Sed μελήσει. Tu Atticam, quaeso, cura et ei salutem et Piliae Tulliae quoque verbis plurimam.
[29]. Ἀτύπῳ Popma: clypo M: Olympo m.