Nunc vides quibus fluctibus iactemur, et, si ex iis, quae scripsimus tanta, etiam a me non scripta perspicis, revise nos aliquando et, quamquam sunt haec
usual reception in the Senate; but he is the most phlegmatic of mortals. Metellus is an excellent consul and an admirer of mine; but he has lessened his influence by making, only for form’s sake, the very same proposal about Clodius. But Aulus’ son—heavens above! what a cowardly and spiritless wretch for a soldier! Just fit to be exposed, as he is, to the daily abuse of Palicanus. An agrarian law has been proposed by Flavius,—a very paltry production, almost identical with the Plotian law. And in the meantime not the ghost of a real statesman is to be found. The man who could be one, my intimate friend—for so he is, I would have you to know—Pompey, wraps that precious triumphal cloak of his around him in silence. Crassus never utters a word to risk his popularity. The others you know well enough—fools who seem to hope that their fish-ponds may be saved, though the country go to rack and ruin. There is one who can be said to take some pains, but, according to my view, with more constancy and honesty than judgement and ability—Cato. It is now three months that he has been worrying those wretched tax-collectors, who used to be great friends of his, and won’t let the Senate give them an answer. So we are forced to suspend all decrees on other subjects until the tax-collectors have had an answer. And I suppose even the embassies[37] will have to be postponed for the same reason.
Now you see the storm we have to weather; and, as you can grasp from what I have written with such emphasis, something of what I have left unwritten, come and see me again, for it is high time. Though
Foreign embassies were received in February.
fugienda, quo te voco, tamen fac ut amorem nostrum tanti aestimes, ut eo vel cum his molestiis perfrui velis. Nam, ne absens censeare, curabo edicendum et proponendum locis omnibus; sub lustrum autem censeri germani negotiatoris est. Quare cura, ut te quam primum videamus. Vale.
XI Kal. Febr. Q. Metello, L. Afranio coss.
[Sidenote: _Scr. Romae Id. Mart. a. 694_]
Non modo si mihi tantum esset otii, quantum est tibi, verum etiam si tam breves epistulas vellem mittere, quam tu soles, facile te superarem et in scribendo multo essem crebrior quam tu. Sed ad summas atque incredibiles occupationes meas accedit, quod nullam a me volo[38] epistulam ad te sine argumento ac sententia pervenire. Et primum tibi, ut aequum est civi amanti patriam, quae sint in re publica, exponam; deinde, quoniam tibi amore nos proximi sumus, scribemus etiam de nobis ea, quae scire te non nolle arbitramur.