Letter 80

Your letter contained many delightful passages, but nothing to beat the “plate of red herrings.” For as to what you say about the little debt, “don’t holloa till you are out of the wood.” I can’t find anything like a country house for you. In the town there is something, and quite close to me too, but it is not certain if it is for sale. Let me tell you that Antium is the Buthrotum of Rome, and just what your Buthrotum is to Corcyra. Nothing could be quieter or fresher or prettier: “this be my own Postea vero quam Tyrannio mihi libros disposuit, mens addita videtur meis aedibus. Qua quidem in re mirifica opera Dionysi et Menophili tui fuit. Nihil venustius quam illa tua pegmata, postquam mi sillybis libros illustrarunt. Vale. Et scribas ad me velim de gladiatoribus, sed ita, bene si rem gerunt; non quaero, male si se gessere. Apenas had hardly gone when your letter came. Really? Do you think he won’t propose his law? Pray speak a little more clearly, I hardly think I caught your meaning. But let me know at once, if you possibly can. Well, as they have given an extra day to the games, I shall be all the better contented to spend that day here with Dionysius. About Trebonius I heartily agree with you. As for Domitius, his _dénouement_ was as like mine as two peas; the same persons had a hand in it, it was equally unexpected, and the conservative party deserted us both. There is only one point of difference: he deserved his fate. Perhaps my fall was the less hard to bear. For what could be more humiliating than for one, who all his life long has looked forward to the consulship as his birth-right, to fail to obtain it—and that too when there is no one or at most only one other candidate standing against him? But, if it is true that our friend has in his note-books as many pages of names of future consuls as of past, then quid illo miserius nisi res publica, in qua ne speratur quidem melius quicquam? De Natta ex tuis primum scivi litteris; oderam hominem. De poëmate quod quaeris, quid, si cupiat effugere? quid? sinas? De Fabio Lusco quod eram exorsus, homo peramans semper nostri fuit nec mihi umquam odio. Satis enim acutus et permodestus ac bonae frugi. Eum, quia non videbam, abesse putabam: audivi ex Gavio hoc Firmano Romae esse hominem et fuisse adsiduum. Percussit animum. Dices: “Tantulane causa?” Permulta ad me detulerat non dubia de Firmanis fratribus. Quid sit, quod se a me removit, si modo removit, ignoro. De eo, quod me mones, ut et πολιτικῶς me geram et τὴν ἔξω γραμμὴν teneam, ita faciam. Sed opus est maiore prudentia. Quam a te, ut soleo, petam. Tu velim ex Fabio, si quem habes aditum, odorere et istum convivam tuum degustes et ad me de his rebus et de omnibus cotidie scribas. Ubi nihil erit, quod scribas, id ipsum scribito. Cura ut valeas.

multa me in epistula tua delectarunt sed nihil magis quam patina tyrotarichi. nam de raudusculo quod scribis, mepo meg' eipeis prin teleutesant' ideis aedificati tibi in agris nihil reperio. in oppido est quiddam, de quo est dubium sitne venale, ac proximum quidem nostris aedibus. hoc scito, Antium Buthrotum esse Romae, ut Corcyrae illud tuum (Antium). nihil quietius, nihil alsius, nihil amoenius. eie moi houtos philos oikos. [2] postea vero, quam Tyrannio mihi libros disposuit, mens addita videtur meis aedibus. qua quidem in re mirifica opera Dionysi et Menophili tui fuit. nihil venustius quam illa tua pegmata, postquam mi sillybis libros inlustrarunt. vale. et scribas ad me velim de gladiatoribus, sed ita bene si rem gerunt; non quaero, male si se gesserunt.