Haec ad te scripsi fortasse pluribus, quam necesse fuit, ut videres tuas quoque esse partes instituendi et monendi. Reliquum est, ut, antequam proficiscare, mandata nostra, exhaurias, scribas ad me omnia, Pomptinum
expense, there were no signs of it. So passed that day. On the next day we started from Arpinum. A festival caused Quintus to stop at Arcanum, while I went on to Aquinum: but we lunched together at Arcanum. You know his place there. Well, when we reached it, Quintus said most politely, “Pomponia, you invite the ladies, I will ask the men.” Nothing, so far as I could see, could have been more gentle than his words or his intention or his expression. But before us all she answered “I’m only a stranger here”; just because Statius had been sent on in front to get dinner ready for us, I suppose. Says Quintus to me: “There you are. That’s what I have to put up with every day.” You may say there surely was not much in that. But there was a good deal: indeed she upset me myself; she answered with such uncalled for acrimony in word and look. I concealed my annoyance. We all took our places except her: but Quintus sent her something from the table, which she refused. In a word, it seemed to me that my brother was as good-tempered and your sister as cross as could be, and I have omitted a lot of things that aroused my wrath more than Quintus’. Then I went on to Aquinum. Quintus stayed at Arcanum, and came to me the next morning, and told me that she would not sleep with him and, when she was leaving, she was as cross as when I saw her. In fact, I don’t care if you tell her herself, that to my mind she behaved with a lack of courtesy that day.
I have said perhaps more than necessary about it to show you that it is your turn to do a little instructing and advising too. It only remains for you to fulfil all my commissions before you start, and send me an account of all of them, to rout Pomptinus out,
extrudas, cum profectus eris, cures, ut sciam, sic habeas, nihil mehercule te mihi nec carius esse nec suavius. A. Torquatum amantissime dimisi Menturnis, optimum virum; cui me ad te scripsisse aliquid in sermone significes velim.
[Sidenote: _Scr. in Pompeiano VI Id. Mai. a. 703_]