[25] This is probably Sext. Peducæus the younger, an intimate friend of Atticus (Nep. Att. 21); his father had been prætor in Sicily when Cicero was quæstor (B.C. 76-75), the son was afterwards a partisan of Cæsar in the Civil War, governor of Sardinia, B.C. 48, and proprætor in Spain, B.C. 39.
[26] The person alluded to is L. Lucceius, of whom we shall hear again. See Letters [V], [VII], [VIII], [CVIII]. What his quarrel with Atticus was about, we do not know.
[27] Prescriptive right to property was acquired by possession (usus) of two years. But no such right could be acquired to the property of a girl under guardianship (pro Flacco, § 84).
[28] C. Rabirius, whom Cicero defended in B.C. 63, when prosecuted by Cæsar for his share in the murder of Saturninus (B.C. 100). He lived, we know, in Campania, for his neighbours came to give evidence in his favour at the trial.
[29] M. Fonteius made a fortune in the province of Gaul beyond the Alps, of which he was proprætor, B.C. 77-74. In B.C. 69 he had been accused of malversation, and defended by Cicero. After his acquittal he seems to be buying a seaside residence in Campania, as so many of the men of fashion did.
[30] Cicero's "gymnasium" was some arrangement of buildings and plantations more or less on the model of the Greek gymnasia, at his Tusculan villa.
[31] The mother of Atticus lived to be ninety, dying in B.C. 33, not long before Atticus himself, who at her funeral declared that "he had never been reconciled to her, for he had never had a word of dispute with her" (Nep. Att. 17).
[32] This sum (about £163) is for the works of art purchased for the writer by Atticus.
[33] Thyillus (sometimes written Chilius), a Greek poet living at Rome. See Letters [XVI] and [XXI]. The Eumolpidæ were a family of priests at Athens who had charge of the temple of Demeter at Eleusis. The πάτρια Εὐμολπιδῶν (the phrase used by Cicero here) may be either books of ritual or records such as priests usually kept: πάτρια is an appropriate word for such rituals or records handed down by priests of one race or family.
[34] Lucceius, as in the first letter and the next.