YOUR note by its strong language has drawn out this letter. For as
to what actually occurred on the day of your start, it supplied me
with absoutely no subject for writing. But as when we are together
we are never at a loss for something to say, so ought our letters at
times to digress into loose chat. Well then, to begin, the liberty of
the Tenedians has received short shrift, no one speaking for them
except myself, Bibulus, Calidius, and Favonius. A complimentary
reference to you was made by the legates from Magnesia and
Sipylum, they saying that you were the man who alone had resisted
the demand of L. Sestius Pansa. On the remaining days of this
business in the senate, if anything occurs which you ought to
know, or even if there is nothing, I will write you something every
day. On the 12th I will not fail you or Pomponius. The poems of
Lucretius are as you say-- with many flashes of genius, yet very
technical. But when you return, . . . if you succeed in reading the
Empedoclea of Sallustius, I shall regard you as a hero, yet scarcely
human.

XLV

To His BROTHER QUINTUS (IN BRITAIN)

ARPINUM AND ROME, 28 SEPTEMBER

AFTER extraordinary hot weather--I never remember greater
heat--I have refreshed myself at Arpinum, and enjoyed the extreme
loveliness of the river during the days of the games, having left my
tribesmen under the charge of Philotimus. I was at Arcanum on the
ioth of September. There I found Mescidius and Philoxenus, and