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CDLXI (F IX, 5)

TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM)
ROME (LATE IN MAY)
Yes, I think the 5th of next month will be in very good time, both in consideration of the state of public affairs and of the season of the year. 1 Wherefore I approve of that day: and will myself accordingly aim at the same. I should not have thought that we ought to repent of our policy, even if those who did not adopt it were not now repentant. For our guiding star was not advantage, but duty: and what we abandoned was not duty, but a hopeless task. So we shewed greater sensitiveness to honour than those who never stirred from home, and greater reasonableness than those who did not return home when all was lost. But nothing irritates me so much as the severe Criticism of the do-nothings, and I am more inclined to feel scrupulous about those who fell in the war, than to trouble myself about those who are angry with us for being alive. If I find a spare moment for coming to Tusculum before the 5th, I will see you there: if not, I will follow you to your Cuman villa, and give you notice beforehand, that the bath may be got ready.


1 For starting to meet Caesar. We must remember that, in spite of an intercalary month inserted after the 23rd of February, the calendar this year was two months in advance, and was not rectified till the autumn. Therefore the 5th of June is really about the 5th of April, and that was full early for Caesar to embark on a voyage from Africa.

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