Marcus Tullius Cicero→Titus Pomponius Atticus|c. -66 AD|Cicero|AI-assisted
When I was at my Tusculan estate (let this stand as my answer to your "When I was in the Ceramicus")—but in any case, while I was there, a boy sent from Rome by your sister delivered a letter from you and announced that on that very day, after midday, someone would be setting out who was traveling to you. That is why I am writing something in reply to your letter, though the shortness of time forces me to write so little.
First, I promise you that I will appease our friend, or even fully restore him to us. Although I was already doing this on my own initiative, I shall now both pursue it more eagerly and press him more forcefully, since I can see from your letter how much you want this. But I want you to understand that he is very deeply offended. Still, since I can see no serious cause underlying it, I am fully confident he will come around and be in our power.
The statues and the Hermeraclae—as you write—please ship them whenever you most conveniently can, along with anything else you find that suits that place, which you know well, especially whatever strikes you as fitting for a palaestra and gymnasium. For I am sitting right there as I write this to you, so the very place reminds me. Furthermore, I am commissioning you for relief panels that I can set into the stucco of the small atrium, and two carved well-heads. As for your library, don't you dare promise it to anyone, however eager a suitor you may find. I am saving up all my little grape-harvest earnings to secure that provision for my old age.
Regarding my brother, I trust things are as I have always wished and worked for. There are many signs of this, not least that your sister is pregnant. As for my election, I remember that I gave you leave to stay away, and I have already told our mutual friends, who are expecting you, that you have not only not been summoned by me but have actually been forbidden to come, since I understand it is far more in your interest to attend to what needs doing where you are at this time than to be present at my election. So I would like you to feel as though you had been sent to those parts on my business. You will find me, and hear of me, as warmly disposed toward you as ever—as though whatever success I may achieve was won not merely in your presence but through you. Little Tullia sets a date for you and names me as guarantor.
When I was in my house at Tusculum—that’s tit for tat against your “When
I was in Ceramicus”—but when I really was there, your sister sent a man
from Rome with a letter from you, and told me that some one was going to
start for Greece that very afternoon. So for lack of time I must make a
very short answer to your letter.
Primum tibi de nostro amico placando aut etiam plane restituendo
polliceor. Quod ego etsi mea sponte ante faciebam, eo nunc tamen et agam
studiosius et contendam ab illo vehementius, quod tantum ex epistula
voluntatem eius rei tuam perspicere videor. Hoc te intellegere volo,
pergraviter illum esse offensum; sed, quia nullam video gravem subesse
causam, magno opere confido illum fore in officio et in nostra
potestate.
Signa nostra et Hermeraclas, ut scribis, cum commodissime poteris, velim
imponas, et si quod aliud οἰκεῖον eius loci, quem non ignoras, reperies,
et maxime quae tibi palaestrae gymnasiique videbuntur esse. Etenim ibi
sedens haec ad te scribebam, ut me locus ipse admoneret. Praeterea typos
tibi mando, quos in tectorio atrioli possim includere, et putealia
sigillata duo. Bibliothecam tuam cave cuiquam despondeas, quamvis acrem
amatorem inveneris; nam ego omnes meas vindemiolas eo reservo, ut illud
subsidium senectuti parem.
De fratre confido ita esse, ut semper volui et elaboravi. Multa signa
sunt eius rei, non minimum, quod soror praegnans est. De comitiis meis
et tibi me permisisse memini, et ego iam pridem hoc communibus amicis,
qui te exspectant, praedico, te non modo non arcessi a me, sed
prohiberi, quod intellegam multo magis interesse tua te agere, quod
agendum est hoc tempore, quam mea te adesse comitiis. Proinde eo animo
te velim esse, quasi mei negotii
First I promise to patch up the quarrel between you and our friend, even
if I cannot quite make peace. I should have done it before of my own
accord: but now that I see from your note that you have set your heart
on it, I’ll give my mind to it and try harder than ever to win him over.
I would have you to know that he is very seriously annoyed with you:
but, as I cannot see any serious ground for his annoyance, I hope I
shall find him pliable and amenable to my influence.
Please do as you say about the statues and the Hermeraclae: and have
them shipped as soon as you can conveniently, and any other things you
come across that are suitable for the place—you know what it is
like—especially for the Palaestra and Gymnasium. That’s where I am
sitting and writing now, so my thoughts naturally run on it. I give you
a commission too for bas-reliefs for insertion in the stucco walls of
the hall, and for two well-covers in carved relief. Be sure you don’t
promise your library to anyone, however ardent a suitor you may find for
it. I am saving up all my little gleanings to buy it as a prop for my
old age.
My brother’s affairs are, I trust, as I have always wished them to be
and striven to make them. Everything points that way, and not the least
that your sister is enceinte. As for my election, I’ve not forgotten
that I gave you leave to stop away: and I’ve already warned our common
friends, who expect you to come, that I’ve not only forborne to ask you
to do so, but even forbidden it, knowing that present business is of
much more importance to you than your presence at my election would be
to me. I should like you to feel exactly as though it were my business
which
causa in ista loca missus esses; me autem eum et offendes erga te et
audies, quasi mihi, si quae parta erunt, non modo te praesente, sed per
te parta sint. Tulliola tibi diem dat, sponsorem me appellat.
Cum essem in Tusculano (erit hoc tibi pro illo tuo: "Cum essem in Ceramico ") verum tamen cum ibi essem, Roma puer a sorore tua missus epistulam mihi abs te adlatam dedit nuntiavitque eo ipso die post meridiem iturum eum, qui ad te proficisceretur. Eo factum est, ut epistulae tuae rescriberem aliquid, brevitate temporis tam pauca cogerer scribere. Primum tibi de nostro amico placando aut etiam plane restituendo polliceor. Quod ego etsi mea sponte ante faciebam, eo nunc tamen et agam studiosius et contendam ab illo vehementius, quod tantum ex epistula voluntatem eius rei tuam perspicere videor. Hoc te intellegere volo, pergraviter illum esse oftensum; sed, quia nullam video gravem subesse causam, magno opere confido illum fore in officio et in nostra potestate. Signa nostra et Hermeraclas, ut scribis, cum commodissime poteris, velim imponas, et si quod aliud oikeion eius loci, quem non ignoras, reperies, et maxime quae tibi palaestrae gymnasiique videbuntur esse. Etenim ibi sedens haec ad te scribebam, ut me locus ipse admoneret. Praeterea t tibi mando, quos in tectorio atrioli possim includere, et putealia sigillata duo. Bibliothecam tuam cave cuiquam des pondeas, quamvis acrem amatorem inveneris; nam ego omnes meas vindemiolas eo reservo, ut illud subsidium senectuti parem. De fratre confido ita esse, ut semper volui et elaboravi. Multa signa sunt eius rei, non minimum, quod soror praegnans est. De comitiis meis et tibi me permisisse memini, et ego iam pridem hoc communibus amicis, qui te exspectant, praedico, te non modo non arcessi a me, sed prohiberi, quod intellegam multo magis interesse tua te agere, quod agendum est hoc tempore, quam mea te adesse comitiis. Proinde eo animo te velim esse, quasi mei negotii causa in ista loca missus esses; me autem eum et offendes erga te et audies, quasi mihi, si quae parta erunt, non modo te praesente, sed per te parta sint. Tulliola tibi dicm dat, sponsorem me appellat.
◆
When I was at my Tusculan estate (let this stand as my answer to your "When I was in the Ceramicus")—but in any case, while I was there, a boy sent from Rome by your sister delivered a letter from you and announced that on that very day, after midday, someone would be setting out who was traveling to you. That is why I am writing something in reply to your letter, though the shortness of time forces me to write so little.
First, I promise you that I will appease our friend, or even fully restore him to us. Although I was already doing this on my own initiative, I shall now both pursue it more eagerly and press him more forcefully, since I can see from your letter how much you want this. But I want you to understand that he is very deeply offended. Still, since I can see no serious cause underlying it, I am fully confident he will come around and be in our power.
The statues and the Hermeraclae—as you write—please ship them whenever you most conveniently can, along with anything else you find that suits that place, which you know well, especially whatever strikes you as fitting for a palaestra and gymnasium. For I am sitting right there as I write this to you, so the very place reminds me. Furthermore, I am commissioning you for relief panels that I can set into the stucco of the small atrium, and two carved well-heads. As for your library, don't you dare promise it to anyone, however eager a suitor you may find. I am saving up all my little grape-harvest earnings to secure that provision for my old age.
Regarding my brother, I trust things are as I have always wished and worked for. There are many signs of this, not least that your sister is pregnant. As for my election, I remember that I gave you leave to stay away, and I have already told our mutual friends, who are expecting you, that you have not only not been summoned by me but have actually been forbidden to come, since I understand it is far more in your interest to attend to what needs doing where you are at this time than to be present at my election. So I would like you to feel as though you had been sent to those parts on my business. You will find me, and hear of me, as warmly disposed toward you as ever—as though whatever success I may achieve was won not merely in your presence but through you. Little Tullia sets a date for you and names me as guarantor.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Cum essem in Tusculano (erit hoc tibi pro illo tuo: "Cum essem in Ceramico ") verum tamen cum ibi essem, Roma puer a sorore tua missus epistulam mihi abs te adlatam dedit nuntiavitque eo ipso die post meridiem iturum eum, qui ad te proficisceretur. Eo factum est, ut epistulae tuae rescriberem aliquid, brevitate temporis tam pauca cogerer scribere. Primum tibi de nostro amico placando aut etiam plane restituendo polliceor. Quod ego etsi mea sponte ante faciebam, eo nunc tamen et agam studiosius et contendam ab illo vehementius, quod tantum ex epistula voluntatem eius rei tuam perspicere videor. Hoc te intellegere volo, pergraviter illum esse oftensum; sed, quia nullam video gravem subesse causam, magno opere confido illum fore in officio et in nostra potestate. Signa nostra et Hermeraclas, ut scribis, cum commodissime poteris, velim imponas, et si quod aliud oikeion eius loci, quem non ignoras, reperies, et maxime quae tibi palaestrae gymnasiique videbuntur esse. Etenim ibi sedens haec ad te scribebam, ut me locus ipse admoneret. Praeterea t tibi mando, quos in tectorio atrioli possim includere, et putealia sigillata duo. Bibliothecam tuam cave cuiquam des pondeas, quamvis acrem amatorem inveneris; nam ego omnes meas vindemiolas eo reservo, ut illud subsidium senectuti parem. De fratre confido ita esse, ut semper volui et elaboravi. Multa signa sunt eius rei, non minimum, quod soror praegnans est. De comitiis meis et tibi me permisisse memini, et ego iam pridem hoc communibus amicis, qui te exspectant, praedico, te non modo non arcessi a me, sed prohiberi, quod intellegam multo magis interesse tua te agere, quod agendum est hoc tempore, quam mea te adesse comitiis. Proinde eo animo te velim esse, quasi mei negotii causa in ista loca missus esses; me autem eum et offendes erga te et audies, quasi mihi, si quae parta erunt, non modo te praesente, sed per te parta sint. Tulliola tibi dicm dat, sponsorem me appellat.