3 July 44 BCE: To Atticus (at Rome) from Cicero (at Arpinum)
Atticus and Cicero miss one another
[This is the second of two letters from July 3rd.]
I am glad that you urge me to do what I had already done yesterday, of my own volition. For when I sent you a letter on the 2nd, I also gave the letter-carrier one for Sestius, written very affectionately. In following me to Puteoli, he is polite, but in complaining about me, he is unjust. For I had no obligation to wait for him to return from Cosa, just as he had no obligation either to go there before he had seen me, or to return sooner. He knew that I wanted to set out quickly, and he had written to tell me that he would visit me at Tusculum.
I am upset to hear that you wept after you had left me. If you had done it in front of me, perhaps I would have changed my entire plan to travel. But it is brilliant that you were consoled by hope of meeting in a short while; my own expectation of that sustains me more than anything. My letters will not be lacking. I shall write to you with everything about Brutus. Soon I shall send you my book ‘On Glory.’1 I shall hammer out something Herakleidian for you to hide away in your treasure vault.
I remember about Plancus. Attica has a right to complain. I am very glad that you let me know about Bacchis, and about the garlands on the statues; and in future please don’t pass over anything of such importance, or of any importance at all. But I shall remember about Herodes and Metius, and everything that I even suspect you might want.
How disgraceful your sister’s son is!2 He is on his way here as I write this, at dusk, while we are having dinner.
Read Ad Atticum 15.27 in Latin here | Check the glossary here
Cicero’s work ‘On Glory’ is no longer extant.
i.e. the younger Quintus. Footnote borrowed from Shackleton Bailey: ‘Atticus had evidently mentioned some fresh misdemeanour.’