Please try to forgive me and to believe that delicacy prevented me from appearing against a friend whose very good name was at stake, in the hour of his misfortune, when the friendly attentions he had paid to me had been unfailing. If you cannot take so kind a view, pray consider that my candidature stood in the way. I think even so I may be forgiven: for there is not “a trifle, some eightpenny matter,”[2] at [Sidenote: Iliad xxii, 159] stake. You know the game I am playing, and how important it is for me to keep in with every one and
Lit. “Since it was not for a victim for sacrifice nor for an oxhide shield (they strove).”
putemus. Spero tibi me causam probasse, cupio quidem certe.
Hermathena tua valde me delectat et posita ita belle est, ut totum gymnasium eius ἀνάθημα[3] esse videatur. Multum te amamus.
[Sidenote: _Scr. Romae paulo post ep. 1 a. 689_]
L. Iulio Caesare, C. Marcio Figulo consulibus filiolo me auctum scito salva Terentia. Abs te tam diu nihil litterarum! Ego de meis ad te rationibus scripsi antea diligenter. Hoc tempore Catilinam, competitorem nostrum, defendere cogitamus. Iudices habemus, quos volumus, summa accusatoris voluntate. Spero, si absolutus erit, coniunctiorem illum nobis fore in ratione petitionis; sin aliter acciderit, humaniter feremus.
Tuo adventu nobis opus est maturo; nam prorsus summa hominum est opinio tuos familiares nobiles homines adversarios honori nostro fore. Ad eorum voluntatem mihi conciliandam maximo te mihi usui fore video. Quare Ianuario mense, ut constituisti, cura ut Romae sis.
Aviam tuam scito desiderio tui mortuam esse, et simul quod verita sit, ne Latinae in officio non manerent et in montem Albanum hostias non adducerent.
eius ἀνάθημα, Schütz: eiut αναθμα _M_: eliu onaohma _C_.
even to make new friends. I hope I have justified myself to you. I am really anxious to do so.
I am highly delighted with your Hermathena, and have found such a good position for it, that the whole class-room seems but an offering at its feet.[4] Many thanks for it.
[Sidenote: _Rome, shortly after letter 1_, B.C. _65_]
I beg to inform you that on the very day that L. Julius Caesar and C. Marcius Figulus were elected to the consulship I was blessed with a baby boy; and Terentia is doing well. It is ages since I had a letter from you! I have written before and told you all my affairs. At the present minute I am thinking about defending my fellow candidate Catiline. We can have any jury we like with the greatest good will of the prosecutor. I hope, if Catiline is acquitted, it will make us better friends in our canvassing: but, if it does not, I shall take it quietly.