M. Tullius Cicero, Letters to Atticus, CXX (A IV, 10)

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CXX (A IV, 10)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
CUME, 20 APRIL

At Puteoli there is a great report that Ptolemy has been restored. If you have any more certain news, I should like to know it. I am here devouring the library of Faustus. ¹ Perhaps you thought I was feasting on the beauties of Puteoli and the Lucrine lake. Well, I have them too. But I declare to heaven that the more I am debarred from the enjoyment of ordinary pleasures, owing to the political situation, the more do I find support and refreshment in literature; and I would rather be sitting in that charming seat of yours, under your bust of Aristotle, than in their ² curule chair, and be taking a stroll with you rather than with the great man ³ with whom I see I shall have to walk. But as to that walk, let fortune look to it, or god, if there is any god who cares for such things. I wish, when possible, you would come and see my walk and Spartan bath, and the buildings planned by Cyrus, and would urge Philotimus to make haste, that I may have something to match with yours in that department. ⁴ Pompey came to his Cuman property on the Parilia (19th April). He at once sent a man to me with his compliments. I am going to call on him on the morning of the 20th, as soon as I have written this letter.

1 Son of the dictator Sulla, who is known to have brought back from Athens a famous Aristotelian library.

2 Pompey and Crassus, the consuls.

3 Pompey, as the context shews. In the next clause ambulatio has a double meaning of physical walking and of a political course of conduct.

4 Philotimus, a freedman of Terentia's, seems to have been engaged at Rome in the reconstruction of Cicero's house. The Spartan bath (Laconicum) was a hot-air bath, like a Turkish bath.

Cicero. The Letters of Cicero; the whole extant correspondence in chronological order, in four volumes. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. London. George Bell and Sons. 1908-1909.

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M. Tullius Cicero, Letters to Atticus
Evelyn Shuckburgh, Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, Ed.

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CXX (A IV, 10)

M. Tullius Cicero, Letters to Atticus Evelyn Shuckburgh, Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, Ed.

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CXX (A IV, 10)

M. Tullius Cicero, Letters to Atticus
Evelyn Shuckburgh, Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, Ed.