CCLXVII (A VI, 4)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
TARSUS, JUNE
I arrived at Tarsus on the 5th of June. There
I was disturbed on many accounts—a
serious war in Syria; serious cases
of brigandage in Cilicia; difficulty in fixing on
any definite scheme of administration, considering
that only a few days remained of my year of
office; and, greatest difficulty of all, the
necessity, according to the decree of the senate,
of leaving some one at the head of the province.
No one could be less suitable than the quaestor
Mescinius 1 —for of Caelius I don't hear a
word. Far the best course appears to be to leave
my brother Quintus with imperium. But in doing
that many disagreeable consequences are
involved—our separation, the risk of a
war, the ill-conduct of the soldiers, 2 hundreds of others. What a nuisance the
whole business is! But let fortune look to it,
since any great exercise of reason is out of the
question. As for you, since by this time, I hope,
you are safe at Rome, you will as usual be good
enough to look after everything which you may
understand to affect my interests, especially in
regard to my Tullia, about whose marriage I have
written to Terentia my decision, since you were in
Greece. In the next place, see to the honour to be
decreed to me: for owing to your absence from
Rome, I fear that the motion in the senate, in
virtue of my despatch, was not sufficiently
pressed. The following I will write to you in a
more enigmatical style than usual-your sagacity
will smell out the meaning: my wife's
freedman —you know whom I
mean—seemed to me, from a remark he
casually let fall the other day, to have cooked
his accounts as to the purchase of the property of
the Crotonian tyrannicide. I really fear that you
may kave noticed something. Pray on your sole
responsibility, examine thoroughly into the matter
and make the remainder completely secure.
3
I cannot express the
extent of my fear. Pray let a letter from you fly
to meet me. I write this in haste, being on the
march, and with the army. Love to Pilia, and the
prettiest of maids, Caecilia.
TARSUS, JUNE
