13 July 45 BCE: To Atticus (at Rome) from Cicero (at Tusculum)
When could they say till now, that talk'd of Rome, that her wide walls encompass'd but one man?
What a disgraceful thing! A countryman of yours* enlarges the city, which he had never seen two years ago, and regards it as too small to hold the great man, too! So I am longing for a letter from you on the subject.
You say that you will hand the books to Varro as soon as he comes to town. So by this time they have been presented and the matter is out of your hands. Ah, well, if you could but know what a risk you are running! Or perhaps my letter has caused you to put it off; though you had not read it when you wrote your last. I am therefore in a flutter to know how the matter stands.*
About Brutus's affection and the walk you had together, though you have nothing new to tell me, only the old story, yet the oftener I hear it the more I like it. It gives me the greater gratification that you find pleasure in it, and I feel all the surer of it that it is you who report it.
Read Ad Atticum 13.35-6 in Latin here | Check the glossary here
Notes from the translator, E.S. Shuckburgh:
A countryman of yours—An Athenian—some architect employed to carry out Caesar's scheme for enlarging the city.
I am therefore in a flutter to know how the matter stands—Varro was the most learned man of the day, and his opinion was as important as a review in "The Times" for the success of a book. Still this extraordinary nervousness as to his being pleased or not seems a little exaggerated.