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DCVII (A XIII, 30)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
TUSCULUM, 28 MAY
I am sending you back Q. Cicero's letter. 1 How hard-hearted of you not to be agitated by his dangers! He has something to say against me also. I am sending you half the letter. For the other half, with the account of his achievements, I think you have in duplicate. I have sent a letter-carrier to Cumae today. I have given him your letter to Vestorius, which you had given Pharnaces. I had just sent Demeas to you when Eros arrived, but there was nothing new in the letter he brought except that the auction was to last two days. So you will come after it is over, as you say; and I hope with the Faberius affair settled. But Eros says that he won't settle today: he thinks he will tomorrow morning. You must be very polite to him. But such flatteries are almost criminal. I shall see you, I hope, the day after tomorrow. If you can do so from any source, find out who Mummius's ten legates were. Polybius doesn't give their names. I remember the consular Albinus and Spurius Mummius: I think Hortensius told me Tuditanus; but in Libo's annals Tuditanus was praetor fourteen years after Mummius's Consulship. That certainly doesn't square with it. I have in my mind a Political Conference, to be held at Olympia or where you will, after the manner of your friend Dicaearchus. 2


1 The younger Quintus Cicero was with Caesar in Spain. He appears to have written to his uncle Atticus, making the most of his adventures. His habit of romancing is again illustrated in Letter DCCL (Att. 15.21). Some editors put this paragraph (down to "today") at the end of Letter DCIII: but it seems no more in place there, and leaves this letter beginning with ei dedi, without anyone for ei to refer to.

2 He is referring to the ten commissioners sent out to settle the affairs of the towns of Achaia after the destruction of Corinth by Mummius, B.C. 146. They drew out constitutions for the several towns,

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