DLXXXII (A XII, 39)
TO ATTICUS (AT A VILLA NEAR ROME)
Astura (8 May)
As the letter-carrier arrived without a letter from you, I
imagined that your reason for not writing was what you
mentioned yesterday in the very epistle to which I am
now replying. Yet, after all, I was expecting to hear something
from you about Asinius Pollio's letter. But I am
too apt to judge of your leisure by my own. However,
if nothing imperative occurs, I absolve you from the necessity
of writing, unless you are quite at leisure. About
the letter-carriers I would have done as you suggest, had
there been any letters positively necessary, as there were
some time ago, when, though the days were shorter, the
carriers nevertheless arrived every day up to time, and
there was something to say—about Silius, Drusus, and
certain other things. At present, if Otho had not cropped
up, there would have been nothing to write about: and
even that has been deferred. Nevertheless, I feel relieved
when I talk to you at a distance, and much more even when
I read a letter from you. But since you are out of town—for
so I suppose—and there is no immediate necessity for
writing, there shall be a lull in our letters, unless anything
new turns up.
