Marcus Tullius Cicero→Titus Pomponius Atticus|c. 45 BC|Cicero|From Rome|To Rome/Athens|AI-assisted
I had just sent Demeas off to you when Eros arrived at my door. But there was nothing new in his letter except that the auction is set for two days from now. From that, then, as you write, and as I should wish, once the Faberius business is wrapped up [the settlement of accounts with the banker Faberius, which Cicero is anxious to conclude]. Eros says it will not be today; he thinks tomorrow morning. He must be cultivated by you; yet those flatteries of theirs [kolakeiai, "acts of flattery"] are not far removed from crime. I shall see you, I hope, the day after tomorrow.
My dear fellow, if you can get it from any source, dig out for me who the ten commissioners assigned to Mummius were [the senatorial board of ten that settled Greek affairs after the sack of Corinth in 146 BC]. Polybius does not name them. I myself recall Albinus, the ex-consul, and Spurius Mummius; I seem to have heard the name Tuditanus from Hortensius. But in Libo's annal Tuditanus was made praetor fourteen years after Mummius was consul. It really does not fit. I want someone, at Olympia or wherever seems suitable, for a political gathering [politikon syllogon, "a political assembly"] in the manner of your friend Dicaearchus.
As I have received two letters from you to-day, I did not think it right that you should content yourself with only one of mine. Pray do as you say about Faberius. For on that depends entirely what I am thinking of. And, if that idea had never occurred to me, believe me I should not bother about that any more than anything else. So continue your energy—for you cannot add to it—and push on and finish the matter.
Please send me Dicaearchus' two books About the Soul and the Descent. I can't find the Mixed Constitution and the letter he sent to Aristoxenus. I should much like to have those three books now; they would bear on what I am planning. Torquatus is in Rome. I have sent orders for it to be given to you. Catulus and Lucullus I believe you have already. I have added new prefaces to the books, in which each of them is mentioned with honour. Those compositions I should like you to have, and there are some others too. What I said about the ten legates, you did not fully understand, I suppose because I wrote it in shorthand. I was asking about C. Tuditanus, who Hortensius told me was one of them. I see in Libo that he was praetor in the consulship of P. Popilius and P. Rupilius. Could he have been legate fourteen years before he was praetor, unless he was very late in getting the quaestorship? I don't think that was the case; for
I see he won the curule offices quite easily in the proper years. But I did not know that Postumius, whose statue you say you remember in the Isthmus, was one of them. He was the man who was consul with L. Lucullus; and it is a very suitable person you have added to my conference. So please look up the others too, if you can, that I may make a show with my dramatis personæ, as well as my subject.
commodum ad te miseram Demean quom Eros ad me venit. sed in eius epistula nihil erat novi nisi auctionem biduum. ab ea igitur, ut scribis, et velim confecto negotio Faberiano; quem quidem negat Eros hodie, cras mane putat. <A> te colendus est; istae autem kolakei=ai ?at non longe absunt a scelere. <te>, ut spero, perendie. [2] mi, sicunde potes, erues qui decem legati Mummio fuerint. Polybius non nominat. ego memini Albinum consularem et Sp. Mummium; videor audisse ex Hortensio Tuditanum. sed in Libonis annali xiiii annis post praetor est factus Tuditanus quam consul Mummius. non sane quadrat. volo aliquem Olympiae aut ubi visum politiko\n su/llogon more Dicaearchi familiaris tui.
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I had just sent Demeas off to you when Eros arrived at my door. But there was nothing new in his letter except that the auction is set for two days from now. From that, then, as you write, and as I should wish, once the Faberius business is wrapped up [the settlement of accounts with the banker Faberius, which Cicero is anxious to conclude]. Eros says it will not be today; he thinks tomorrow morning. He must be cultivated by you; yet those flatteries of theirs [kolakeiai, "acts of flattery"] are not far removed from crime. I shall see you, I hope, the day after tomorrow.
My dear fellow, if you can get it from any source, dig out for me who the ten commissioners assigned to Mummius were [the senatorial board of ten that settled Greek affairs after the sack of Corinth in 146 BC]. Polybius does not name them. I myself recall Albinus, the ex-consul, and Spurius Mummius; I seem to have heard the name Tuditanus from Hortensius. But in Libo's annal Tuditanus was made praetor fourteen years after Mummius was consul. It really does not fit. I want someone, at Olympia or wherever seems suitable, for a political gathering [politikon syllogon, "a political assembly"] in the manner of your friend Dicaearchus.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
commodum ad te miseram Demean quom Eros ad me venit. sed in eius epistula nihil erat novi nisi auctionem biduum. ab ea igitur, ut scribis, et velim confecto negotio Faberiano; quem quidem negat Eros hodie, cras mane putat. <A> te colendus est; istae autem kolakei=ai ?at non longe absunt a scelere. <te>, ut spero, perendie. [2] mi, sicunde potes, erues qui decem legati Mummio fuerint. Polybius non nominat. ego memini Albinum consularem et Sp. Mummium; videor audisse ex Hortensio Tuditanum. sed in Libonis annali xiiii annis post praetor est factus Tuditanus quam consul Mummius. non sane quadrat. volo aliquem Olympiae aut ubi visum politiko\n su/llogon more Dicaearchi familiaris tui.