LETTER LXI.

To the fame.

Leacas, Nov. the 7th. [A. U. 703.] YOUR letter produced very different effects on my mind; as the latter part fomewhat alleviated the concern with the former had occafioned. I am Bow convinced that it will not be safe for you to proceed on your voyage, till your heath thall be entirely re-established: and I hall fee you foon enough, if I fee you perfectly recovered.

Ind by your letter that you have a good opinion of your phyfician: and I an told he deferves it. However, I can by no means approve of the regimen he prefcribed for broths cannot certainly be fuitable to fo weak a ftomach. I have written to him very fully concerning you; as alfo to Lyfo. I have done the fame Lewife to my very obliging friend Cus: and have particularly requested him, if it thould be agreeable to yourself, that he would remove you into his house. I am apprehenfive indeed that Lyfo will not give you proper attendance: in the fut place, becaufe careleffnefs is the geteral characteristic of all his countrymen; and in the next, because he has returned no answer to my letter. Neverthelefs, as you mention him with efteem, I leave it to you to continue with him, or not, juft as you shall think proper. Let me only enjoin you, my dear Tiro, tot to fpare any expence that may be tecellary towards your recovery. Το To this end, I have defired Curius to fupply you with whatever money you

fhall re

guire; and I think it would be proper, in order to render your phyfician the more careful in his attendance, to make him fome prefent.

Numberlefs are the fervices I have received from you, both at home and abroad; in my public and my private tracfactions; in the courfe of my ftudies and the concerns of my family. But would you crown them all, let it be by your care that I may fee you (as I hope I foon fhall) perfectly recovered. If your health fhould permit, I think you Cannot do better than to take the opporturity of embarking with my quæftor Mefcinius; for he is a good-natured man, and feems to have conceived a friendship for

The Grecians.

you. The care of your voyage indeed is the next thing I would recommend to you, after that of your health. However, I would now by no means have you hurry yourself, as my fingle concern is for your recovery. Be affured, my dear Tiro, that all my friends are yours; and confequently, as your health is of the greatest importance to me as well as to yourfelf, there are numbers who are folicitous for its prefervation. Your affiduous attendance upon me has hitherto prevented you from paying due regard

to it.

But now that you are wholly at leifure, I conjure you to devote all your application to that fingle object and I fhall judge of the affection you bear me, by your compliance with this request. Adieu, my dear Tiro, adieu! adieu! may you foon be restored to the perfect enjoyment of your health!

Lepta, together with all your other friends, falute you. Farewel.

LETTER LXII.
To the fame.

[A. U. 703.] WE parted, you know, on the fecond

of November: on the fixth I arrived at Leucas, from whence I reached Actium the following day. I was detained there by contrary winds till the next morning, when I failed for Corcyra; where I arrived on the ninth, after having had a very favourable paffage. The weather proving extremely tempeftuous, I was obliged to continue in that place till the fixteenth, when I again proceeded on my voyage: and on the feventeenth, I entered the bay of Caffiope, a maritime town in Corcyra, fituated about an hundred and twenty ftadia from my former port. Here the wind fhifting, I was detained till the 23d. In the mean time, thofe fhips that had accompanied me thither, and were fo impatient as immediately to put to sea again, were many of them loft. However, on the evening of the day I last mentioned, we weighed anchor; and having failed all that night and the next day with a fair gale from the fouth, and a very clear fky, we gained with great cafe the port of Hydruns in Italy. The fame wind carried us the following day, being the twenty-fifth, to Brundium. I was met

at

at this place by Terentia (who defires me to affure you of her efteem), and we entered the town together. On the twenty-feventh, a flave of Plancius arrived here with your very acceptable letter, dated the thirteenth of this month: which, though it did not entirely answer my wishes, contributed greatly to alle viate the uneafinefs I was under upon your account. I had the fatisfaction likewife of hearing at the fame time from your phyfician who confirms me in the hope, that you will foon be well.

:

And now, as I perfectly well know your prudence, your temperance, and the affection you bear me, can it be neceffary that I fhould intreat you to employ your utmost care to re-eftablish your health? I am perfuaded indeed, you will do every thing in your power to return to me as foon as pofiible: however, I would by no means have you more expeditious than your ftrength will bear. I am forry you accepted Lyfo's invitation to his concert; left your going abroad fo foon fhould occafion a relapfe on the fourth critical week *. But fince you were willing to hazard your health rather than appear deficient in point of politenefs, I hope you will guard against any ill confequence that may attend your complaifance.

I have written to Curius to request he would make a proper acknowledgment to your phyfician, and fupply you likewife with whatever money your occafions hall require which I will repay accol ing to his order. You will find an horfe and a mule at Brundifium, which I have left there for your fervice. I am proceeding on my journey to Rome: where I expect to fee great commotions upon the entrance of the new confuls into their

The ancients entertained a variety of furertitious notions concerning the mystical power of numbers, particularly the number of leven, with its feveral multiplicati as and divitions. Cicero, in one of his philofophical treatifes, calls this number rerum omnim frè midas, and it is to its particular influence with regard to the critis of dilempers, that he alludes in the prefent pailage. Macrobius

ha retailed abundance of abfurd learning in relation to this wonder-working number, which he concludes with the following reflection: wide mururas i flus fabricæ di penjator & den, is qu, que corporibus periculum jamtatemos dauntiat. This opinion, however, is not altogether inconfiftent with a more improved philofopay : and experience thews, that the th, the 14th, &c. days, are frequently attended with certain determining fymptoms in the progress of acute alleles. Macro. in Somn. Sep. i. 6.

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office t. However, it is my refolution not to engage in the violent measures o either party.

I have only to add my moft carneft re queft, that you would not embark with out taking all prudent precautions to fe cure a fafe voyage. The mafters of hips, I know, who are governed entirely by their hopes of gain, are always in hafte to fail. But I entreat you, my dear Tiro, not to be too hazardous; and remember that you have a wide and dangerous fea to traverse. I fhould be glad you would, if poffible, take your pafiage with Mefcinius; who is never difpofed to run any imprudent risks in expeditions of this kind. But if your health fhould not permit you to embark fo foon, let me defire you would look out for fome other companion in your voyage, whofe public character may give him an authority with the commander of your fhip. In a word, you cannot more effectually oblige me, than by exerting your utmost care to return to me fate and well. Again, and again, my dear Tiro, I bid you

adizu.

I have recommended You in the frongest terms to the care both of Carins and Lyfo, as well as of your physician,

Adicu.

LETTER LXIII.

To the fame.

Jan. the 12th. [A. U. 704.] NOTWITHSTANDING that I feel the want of your fervices in every place and upon all occafions; yet, be affured, your illness gives me far lefs concern on my own account than on yours. However, fince it has terminated, as Curius informs me, in a quartan ague; I hope, if you are not wanting in proper care, that it will prove a means of more firmly clablishing your health. Be fo just then to the regard you owe me, as not to fuffer any other concern to employ your thoughts but what relates to your recovery. I am fentible, at the fame time, how much you fuffer from this abfence: but believe me, all will be well, whenever you are fo. I would by no means therefore have you in fo much hate to return

The confuls entered upon their office on the first day of the new year.

01

to me, as to expofe yourfelf to the dangen of a winter-voyage; nor indeed to the dangers of a fea-fickness, before you have fufficiently recovered your frength.

I arrived in the fuburbs of Rome on the fourth of January: and nothing co'd be more to my honour, than the manter in which I was met on my approach to the city. But I am unhappily faen into the very midst of public diffenfion, or rather indeed, I find myself farrounded with the flames of a civil war. It was my earnest defire to have compofed thefe dangerous ferments: and I probably might, if the paffions of fome in both parties, who are equally eager for war, had not rendered my endeavours 1 efectual. My friend Cæfar has writtea very warm and menacing letter to the fenate. He has the affurance, notwithtanding their exprefs prohibition, to continue at the head of his army and in the government of his province: to which very extraordinary measures he has been inftigated by Curio. The latter, in conjunction with Quintus Caffius and Mark Antony, without the leaft violence having been offered to them, have withdrawn themselves to Cæfar. They took this fiep immediately after the fenate had given it in charge to the confuls, the prætors, and the tribunes of the people, together with thofe of us who are invefted with proconfular power, to take care of the interefts of the republict. And never, in truth, were our liberties in more imminent danger: as thofe who are difaffected to the commonwealth never were headed by a chief more capable, or better prepared to fupport them. We are raifing forces with poffible diligence, under the authority and with the affiftance of Pompey who now begins, fomewhat too late I fear, to be apprehenfive of Cæfar's power. In the midt however of these alarming commotions, the fenate demanded in a very fall houfe, that a triumph fhould be immediately decreed to me. But the confal Lentulus, in order to appropriate to

The confuls of this year were Clodius Mar

cellus, and Cornelius Lentulus Crus.

By this decree the magiftrates therein named were invefted with a difcretionary power of acting at they should judge proper in the prefent exigency of public affairs: a decree to which the fenate Bever had recourfe but in cafes of the utmost danger and diftrcís. Læf. Bel. Civil. i. 5,

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To Terentia and to Tullia: Minturnæ, Jan. the 25th. [A. U. 704.] IN what manner it may be proper to difpofe of yourselves during the prefent conjuncture, is a queftion which must now be decided by your own judgments as much as by mine. Should Cæfar advance to Rome without committing hoftilities, you may certainly, for the prefent at least, remain there unmolefted but if this madman should give up the city to the rapine of his foldiers, I must doubt whether even Dolabella's credit and authority will be fufficient to protect you. I am under fome apprehenfion likewise, left whilst you are deliberating in what manner to act, you should find yourselves fo furrounded with the army as to render it impoffible to withdraw, though you fhould be ever fo much inclined. The next queftion is (and it is a question which you yourselves are beft able to determine), whether any ladies of your rank venture to continue in the city: if not, will it be confiftent with your character that as it will, you cannot, I think, as to appear fingular in that point? But be affairs are now fituated, be more commodioufly placed, than either with me or at fome of our farms in this district; fuppofing, I mean, that I fhould be able to maintain my prefent poft. I must add likewife, that a fhort time, 'tis to be feared, will produce a great scarcity in Rome. However, I fhould be glad you would take the fentiments of Atticus, or Camillus,