Scr. Asturae VII K. Apr. a. 709
Ego, ut heri ad te scripsi, si et Silius is fuerit, quem tu putas, nec Drusus facilem se praebuerit, Damasippum velim adgrediare. Is, opinor, ita partes
answered that I was even worse than when I told her I wanted to be alone; so she must not think of coming to me at the present time. I thought, if I had not answered, she would come with her mother, now I don't think she will. For evidently that letter is not her own. But the thing that I see will happen—that they will come to me—is the very thing I want to avoid, and the one way of avoiding it is for me to flee. I don't want to, but I must. Now I want you to find out how long I can stay without being caught. Act as you say, with moderation.
Please suggest to my son, that is if you think it fair, that he should keep the expenses of this journey within the rents of my property in the Argiletum and the Aventine, with which he would have been quite contented, if he stayed in Rome and hired a house, as he was thinking of doing: and, when you have made the suggestion, I should like you to arrange the rest, so that we may supply him with what is necessary from those rents. I will guarantee that neither Bibulus nor Acidinus nor Messalla, who I hear are at Athens, will spend more than he will get out of those rents. So please see who the tenants are and what they pay, secondly that they are punctual payers, and what journey money and outfit will suffice. There is certainly no need of a carriage at Athens, while for what he wants on the journey, we have more than enough, as you also observe.
XXXIII
CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Astura, March 26, B.C. 45
As I said in my letter yesterday, if Silius is the sort of man you think him and Drusus is hard to deal with, I should like you to approach Damasippus. He
70fecit in ripa nescio quotenorum iugerum, ut certa pretia constitueret; quae mihi nota non sunt. Scribes ad me igitur, quicquid egeris.
Vehementer me sollicitat Atticae nostrae valetudo, ut verear etiam, ne quae culpa sit. Sed et paedagogi probitas et medici adsiduitas et tota domus in omni genere diligens me rursus id suspicari vetat. Cura igitur; plura enim non possum.