"Meanwhile the tenor of thy youth's first spring, Which still as consul thou with all thy soul And all thy manhood heldest, see thou keep, And swell the chorus of all good men's praise."[180]
These verses Calliope herself dictated to me in that book, which contains much written in an "aristocratic" spirit, and I cannot, therefore, doubt that I shall always hold that
"The best of omens is our country's cause."[181]
But let us reserve all this for our walks during the Compitalia[182]. Remember the day before the Compitalia. I will order the bath to be heated, and Terentia is going to invite Pomponia. We will add your mother to the party. Please bring me Theophrastus _de Ambitione_ from my brother's library.
[Footnote 172: "The Conqueror," _i.e._, Pompey. Aulus's son is L. Afranius.]
[Footnote 173: _I.e._, his military get-up.]
[Footnote 174: Cyrus was Cicero's architect; his argument or theory he calls Cyropædeia, after Xenophon's book.]
[Footnote 175: He supposes himself to be making a mathematical figure in optics:
[Footnote 176: The theory of sight held by Democritus, denounced as unphilosophical by Plutarch (_Timoleon_, Introd.).]
[Footnote 177: Apparently a villa in the _Solonius ager_, near Lanuvium.]
[Footnote 178: The Cornelius Balbus of Gades, whose citizenship Cicero defended B.C. 56 (consul B.C. 40). He was Cæsar's close friend and agent.]
[Footnote 179: Cicero was apparently not behind the scenes. The coalition with Pompey certainly, and with Crassus probably, had been already made and the terms agreed upon soon after the elections. If Cicero afterwards discovered this it must have shewn him how little he could trust Pompey's show of friendship and Cæsar's candour. Cæsar desired Cicero's private friendship and public acquiescence, but was prepared to do without them.]
[Footnote 180: From Cicero's Latin poem on his consulship.]
[Footnote 181: εἶς οἰωνός ἄριστος ἀμύνεσθαι περὶ πάτρης (Hom. _Il._ xii. 243).]
Quintus Cicero was prætor in B.C. 62. In B.C. 61 (March) he went out to "Asia" as proprætor; his first year of office would be up in March, B.C. 60, but his governorship was, as was very common, extended till March, B.C. 59. Towards the end of B.C. 60 the senate seems to have arranged not to appoint his successor, that is, he would be left in office till about March, B.C. 58. It is in view of this third year of office that Cicero writes this essay-letter to him on the duties of a provincial governor. Apparently Quintus had faults of temper which had caused some scandals to reach Rome. We have seen how he was one of the few who managed to quarrel with Atticus; and in B.C. 48 we shall find how fiercely he resented the exercise of his brother's influence which had led him to take the losing side, which from his attachment to Cæsar he may have been half inclined to think the wrong side. His constant squabbles with his wife (though the fault was evidently in great part hers) also go towards forming our conclusion about him that, with some ability and honesty, he was _un peu difficile_.