My brother’s affairs are, I trust, as I have always wished them to be and striven to make them. Everything points that way, and not the least that your sister is enceinte. As for my election, I’ve not forgotten that I gave you leave to stop away: and I’ve already warned our common friends, who expect you to come, that I’ve not only forborne to ask you to do so, but even forbidden it, knowing that present business is of much more importance to you than your presence at my election would be to me. I should like you to feel exactly as though it were my business which
causa in ista loca missus esses; me autem eum et offendes erga te et audies, quasi mihi, si quae parta erunt, non modo te praesente, sed per te parta sint. Tulliola tibi diem dat, sponsorem me appellat.
[Sidenote: _Scr. Romae Quint. aut Sext. a. 687_]
Et mea sponte faciebam antea et post duabus epistulis tuis perdiligenter in eandem rationem scriptis magno opere sum commotus. Eo accedebat hortator adsiduus Sallustius, ut agerem quam diligentissime cum Lucceio de vestra vetere gratia reconcilianda. Sed, cum omnia fecissem, non modo eam voluntatem eius, quae fuerat erga te, recuperare non potui, verum ne causam quidem elicere immutatae voluntatis. Tametsi iactat ille quidem illud suum arbitrium, et ea, quae iam tum, cum aderas, offendere eius animum intellegebam, tamen habet quiddam profecto, quod magis in animo eius insederit, quod neque epistulae tuae neque nostra adlegatio tam potest facile delere, quam tu praesens non modo oratione, sed tuo vultu illo familiari tolles, si modo tanti putaris, id quod, si me audies et si humanitati tuae constare voles, certe putabis. Ac, ne illud mirere, cur, cum ego antea significarim tibi per litteras me sperare illum in nostra potestate fore, nunc idem videar diffidere, incredibile est, quanto mihi videatur illius voluntas
had taken you away. And you will find and hear from others that my feelings towards you are just as they would be if my success, supposing I have any, were gained not only with you here, but by your aid.
My little Tullia is for having the law of you, and is dunning me as your representative.
[Sidenote: _Rome, July or Aug._, B.C. _67_]
I had been working for you of my own free will, and my energies were redoubled by the receipt of two letters from you insisting on the same point. Besides Sallustius was continually pressing me to do my best to replace you on your old friendly footing with Lucceius. But when I had done the uttermost, I failed not only to win back his old affection for you, but even to extract from him the reason for his change of feelings towards you. Though he is continually harping on that arbitration case of his, and the other things which I noticed provoked him when you were here, there is something else, I am sure, which is rankling in his mind. And this your presence, a talk with him, and still more the sight of your familiar face, would do more to remove than either your letters or my services as intermediary, if you think it worth while to come. And, if you will listen to me and are disposed to act with your usual courtesy, you will certainly think it worth while. You would never believe how self-willed and stiff-necked he seems to be on the point: so don’t be astonished that I now appear to doubt my ability to manage him, though in former letters I hinted that I thought he would