Tigellius. For instance, I should much like to know how much he got—yet, after all, I don't care a straw. Where do you think I ought to go,[1] if it is not to be Alsium? And in fact I have written to Murena to ask him to put me up, but I think he has started with Matius. Sallustius therefore shall have the burden of my entertainment.
After I had written the above line, Eros informed me that Murena had answered him with the greatest kindness. Let him be our host, therefore. For Silius has no cushions: while Dida, I believe, has given up his whole villa to guests.
DCLXV (F VII, 25)
TO M. FADIUS GALLUS (AT ROME)
Tusculum (August)
You lament having torn up the letter: don't vex yourself, it
is all safe. You can get it from my house whenever you
please. For the warning you give me I am much obliged,
and I beg you will always act thus. For you seem to fear
that, unless I keep on good terms with him, I may laugh
"a real Sardinian laugh."[2] But look out for yourself.
Hands off: our master is coming sooner than we thought.
I fear we Catonian blockheads may find ourselves on the
block.[3] My dear Gallus, don't imagine that anything could
be better than that part of your letter which begins:
"Everything else is slipping away." This in your ear in
confidence: keep it to yourself: don't tell even your freedman
Apelles. Besides us two no one talks in that tone.). Others read catonium, explaining it to mean the
"world below" ([Greek: katô]), "Hades." The "master" is, of course, Cæsar;
and the metaphor of a school is kept by manus de tabula, (perhaps)
"No more scribbling—here comes the schoolmaster," i.e., we had
better stop writing "Catos" now Cæsar is back home.]
- ↑ To meet Cæsar. For Alsium, see p. 86.
- ↑ A "laugh on the wrong side of my mouth," from a herb found in Sardinia which was said to contort the features with a grin of pain.
- ↑ Keeping the MS. word catomum, said to refer to the hoisting of boys on a man's shoulders to be flogged, as in the well-known picture from Pompeii ([Greek: kat' ômôn
