no basin in the bath, have one put in: and so with everything necessary for supporting life and health. Good-bye.[1]
1 October, from Venusia.
CCCCXLVIII (F XV, 21)
TO GAIUS TREBONIUS (IN SPAIN)
Rome (December?)
I found pleasure in reading your letter, and a very great
one in reading your book: yet in the midst of that pleasure
I experienced this sorrow, that, after having inflamed my
desire of increasing the closeness of our intercourse—for as
far as affection goes no addition was possible—you at once
quit us, and inspire me with such deep regret, as to leave
me but one consolation, namely, that our mutual regret for
each other's absence may be softened by long and frequent
letters.[2] This I can guarantee not only from myself to you,
but also from you to me. For you left no doubt in my
mind as to how much you were attached to me. I will
pass over what you did in the sight of the whole state, when
you took upon you a share of my quarrels, when you de-*
- ↑ This, the last letter to Terentia, is as cold and abrupt as all those which he wrote from Brundisium. What must have been especially galling to her was being referred to Atticus for all information, while receiving such barren notelets herself. The divorce followed shortly.
- ↑ Gaius Trebonius had been all along a strong Cæsarian. In his tribuneship (Dec. B.C. 56-Dec. B.C. 55) he proposed the law for the extension of Cæsar's governorship. From B.C. 54 he was his legatus in Gaul. He helped to conduct the siege of Marseilles B.C. 49. He was prætor urbanus in the year B.C. 48, and maintained Cæsar's financial enactments against Cælius. Some time in B.C. 47 he was sent to southern Spain as proconsul in place of Cassius. He seems to have been an admirer of Cicero, in spite of politics, and to have made a collection of his bons mots. He did not succeed in Bætica, and though afterwards nominated by Cæsar to the province of Asia, he was one of his assassins. Of his own miserable death we shall hear later on. He had some tincture of letters, and wrote verses on the model of Lucilius.
