CCXLV (F IX, 25)
TO L. PAPINIUS PAETUS (AT ROME)
LAODICEA (FEBRUARY)
Your letter has made me a consummate general:
I had really no idea that you were so accomplished
a tactician. I see you have been poring over the
treatises of Pyrrhus and Cineas. So I am thinking
of obeying your maxims: more than that, I mean to
have some light vessels on the coast: against your
Parthian horse they say that no better equipment
can be discovered. But why jest? You don't know
what a great general you are talking to! The
Cyropaedeia, which I had well
thumbed over, I have thoroughly exemplified
throughout my command. But we will have our joke
out when we meet, and that I hope before very
long. Now listen to the word of command, or rather
"attention!" as they used to say in old times.
With M. Fadius, as I think you know, I am very
intimate, and I am much attached to him, as well
from his extreme honesty and singular modesty of
behaviour, as from the fact that I am accustomed
to find him of the greatest help in the
controversies which I have with your fellow
tipplers the Epicureans. He came to see me at
Laodicea, and I wanted him to stay with me, but he
was suddenly agitated by a most distressing letter containing the announcement that
an estate near Herculaneum, of which he is joint
owner, had been advertised for sale by his brother
Q. Fadius. M. Fadius was exceedingly annoyed at
this, and thought that his brother (who is not a
wise man) had taken that extreme step at the
instigation of his own private enemies. In these
circumstances, my dear Paetus, as you love me,
take the whole case in hand and free Fadius from
his distress. We want you to use your influence,
to offer your advice, or even to make it a matter
of personal favour. Don't let brothers go to law
and engage in a suit discreditable to both. Two of
Fadius's enemies are Mato and Pollio. Need I say
more? I really cannot, by Hercules, express in
writing how much I shall be obliged to you if you
put Fadius at his ease. He thinks that this
depends on you, and makes me think so also.
LAODICEA (FEBRUARY)
