the epigram on the irs Aurelia attributed to you when candidate for
the aedileship is not proved by false testimony to be yours. For
there is nothing that I am so afraid of as that, when people
understand how much pity for me your prayers and your acquittal
will rouse, they may attack you with all the greater violence.
Messahla I reckon as really attached to you: Pompey I regard as
still pretending only. But may you never have to put these things to
the test! And that prayer I would have offered to the gods had they
not ceased to listen to prayers of mine. However, I do pray that
they may be content with these endless miseries of ours; among
which, after all, there is no discredit for any wrong thing
done--sorrow is the beginning and end, sorrow that punishment is
most severe when our conduct has been most unexceptionable. As
to my daughter and yours and my young Cicero, why should I
recommend them to you, my dear brother? Rather I grieve that
their orphan state will cause you no less sorrow than it does me.
Yet as long as you are uncondemned they will not be fatherless.
The rest, by my hopes of restoration and the privilege of dying in
my fatherland, my tears will not allow me to write! Terentia also I
would ask you to protect, and to write me word on every subject.
Be as brave as the nature of the case admits.

Thessalonica, 13 June.

VII

To ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

ROME (SEPTEMBER)