DC (A XIII, I)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
TUSCULUM, 23 MAY
In your letter to my son you spoke with a
serious gravity, and yet with a moderation which
nothing could surpass. It is exactly what I should
have wished. Your letters to the Tullii 1 also are extremely wise. So either these
letters will fulfil their object or we must think
of other measures. As to
money moreover I perceive that you are making
every effort or rather have done so. If you
succeed, I shall owe the suburban pleasure-grounds
to you. There is indeed no other kind of property
that I should prefer, principally of
course for the purpose which I have resolved to
carry out. And in regard to this you relieve my
impatience by your promise, or rather your
undertaking as to this summer. In the second
place, there is nothing that can possibly be
better adapted for my declining years and for an
alleviation of my melancholy. My eagerness for
this drives me at times to wish to spur you on.
But I suppress the impulse: for I have no doubt
that, when you know me to be very much set on a
thing, your eagerness will surpass my own.
Accordingly I look upon it as already done.
I am anxious to hear what
those friends of yours 2 decide as to the
letter to Caesar. Nicias is as devoted to you as
he is bound to be, and is greatly delighted at
your remembering him. I am indeed strongly
attached to our friend Peducaeus. For I have on
the one hand transferred to him all the esteem
which I had for his father, and on the other I
love him for his own sake as much as I loved the
other,—but it is you that I love the
most for wishing us to be thus mutually attached.
If you inspect the pleasure-grounds and tell me
about the letter, you will give me something to
write to you about: if not, I shall yet write
something. For a subject will never be quite
wanting.
TUSCULUM, 23 MAY
