without a soul. He entertained for these treasures not only the calm love
of a reader, but the passion of a bibliophile; he was particular about his
bindings, and admired the gay colours of the covers in which the precious
manuscripts were kept as well as the more intellectual beauties within. He
had clever Greek slaves employed from time to time in making copies of all
such works as were not to be readily purchased. He could walk across, too,
as he tells us, to his neighbour's, the young Lucullus, a kind of ward
of his, and borrow from the library of that splendid mansion any book he
wanted. His friend Atticus collected for him everywhere--manuscripts,
paintings, statuary; though for sculpture he professes not to care much,
except for such subjects as might form appropriate decorations for his
_palaestra_ and his library. Very pleasant must have been the days
spent together by the two friends--so alike in their private tastes and
habits, so far apart in their chosen course of life--when they met there
in the brief holidays which Cicero stole from the law-courts and the
Forum, and sauntered in the shady walks, or lounged in the cool library,
in that home of lettered ease, where the busy lawyer and politician
declared that he forgot for a while all the toils and vexations of public
life.

[Footnote 1: Near the modern town of Frascati. But there is no certainty
as to the site of Cicero's villa.]

He had his little annoyances, however, even in these happy hours of
retirement. Morning calls were an infliction to which a country gentleman
was liable in ancient Italy as in modern England. A man like Cicero was
very good company, and somewhat of a lion besides; and country neighbours,
wherever he set up his rest, insisted on bestowing their tediousness on
him. His villa at Formiae, his favourite residence next to Tusculum, was,
he protested, more like a public hall. Most of his visitors, indeed, had