“Reasonable!” The signore swung himself to the ground. “Say to him, with my compliments, that I implore him to take charge of a horse that is altogether worthy,—if that could be—of his master! I shall walk! _He_ ought to be made to ride!”
We begged off the cowering delinquent from this extreme of retribution. Picking up the bridle flung to him, he followed us at a disconsolate and respectful distance. Cicero had a fine, peppery temper of his own. Did he ever have a fracas with his charioteer in this steep lane, I wonder?
We dismounted at what are supposed to be the ruins of his Villa. Some archæologists give the preference to the spot now occupied by the Villa Ruffinella, which we had seen on our way up. The best authorities had decided, at the date of our excursion to Tusculum, that the orator’s favorite residence, “_ad latera superiora_” of the eminence culminating in the Tusculan fortress, stood nearer the city than was once thought, and that its remains are the thick walls and vaulted doorway we examined in profound belief in this theory. It is not an extensive nor a very picturesque remainder, although the buried foundations may be traced over a vast area. Against the sunniest wall grows an immense ivy-tree, spreading broad arms and tenacious fingers over the brick-work. The side adhering to the wall is flat, of course. We measured the outer surface, at the height of five feet from the ground. It was thirty-nine inches from side to side. This may almost be rated as the diameter, the bark being very slightly protuberant.
For beauty of situation the Villa was without an equal. Forsyth says,—“On the acclivity of the hill were scattered the villas of Balbus, Brutus, Catullus, Metellus, Crassus, Pompey, Cæsar, Gabinus, Lucullus, Lentulus and Varro, so that Cicero was in the midst of his acquaintances and friends.”
“In that place, alone”—wrote Cicero of his Tusculan home to his best friend and correspondent—“do I find rest and repose from all my troubles and toil.”
In his “Essay upon Old Age,” he drawls an attractive picture of the country-life of a gentleman-farmer at that time. I have not room to transcribe it here, faithfully as it portrays the real tastes and longings of the ambitious lawyer and successful politician. “What need”—and there is a sigh for the Tusculan upper hillside in the sentence—“to dwell upon the charm of the green fields, the well-ordered shrubberies, the beauty of vineyards and olive-groves?”