Tusculum, 15 November
B.C. 55, ÆT. 51
I see that you know of my arrival at Tusculum on the 14th of November. I found Dionysius there. I wish to be at Rome on the 17th. Why do I say "wish"? Rather I am forced to be so. Milo's wedding. There is some idea of an election. Even supposing that to be confirmed,[566] I am glad to have been absent from the wrangling debates which I am told have taken place in the senate. For I should either have defended him, which would have been against my opinion, or have deserted him whom I was bound to defend. But, by Hercules, describe to me to the utmost of your power those events, and the present state of politics, and how the consuls stand this bother. I am very ravenous for news, and, to tell you the truth, I feel no confidence in anything. Our friend Crassus indeed, people say, started in his official robes with less dignity than in the old times did L. Paullus,[567] at the same time of life as he is, and, like him, in his second consulship. What a sorry fellow! About my oratorical books, I have been working hard. They have been long in hand and much revised: you can get them copied.[568] I again beg of you an outline sketch of the present situation, that I may not arrive in Rome quite a stranger.
CXXX (F V, 8)
B.C. 54. Coss., L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Ap. Claudius Pulcher.
During this year politics were comparatively uneventful. Crassus was gone to Syria. Pompey should have gone to Spain, but at the request of the senate he stayed near Rome, and in the autumn his wife Iulia died, thus breaking one strong tie between him and Cæsar. Quintus Cicero went as legatus to Cæsar and accompanied him to Britain. Cicero himself kept up a correspondence with Cæsar, and seems to nurse his friendship with him with an almost feverish eagerness, which, however, lacks spontaneity. He was engaged this year in composing his treatise on the Republic.