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¹ If you are in good health, it is well; I, too, am in good health. So far I have ferreted out nothing about your Dionysius^[1]; and I am the less likely to do so since the cold of Dalmatia which drove me thence has again frozen me up here. I shall not stop, however, until I rout him out some time or other. But you are setting me all sorts of hard tasks. You wrote me some rigmarole of an intercession, and a very earnest one it was, on behalf of Catilius.^[2] Then there's our friend Sextus Servilius,^[3]—a plague upon you both! for I swear I am as fond of him as you are. But are these the kind of clients, these the kind of cases you gentlemen undertake to defend? A man like Catilius, the most bloodthirsty ruffian alive, who has murdered, roughly handled, utterly ruined so many free-born folk, mothers of families, Roman citizens, and devastated whole districts? The ape—I wouldn't give a groat for the fellow^[4]—took up arms against me, so I made him a prisoner of war.

² But when all is said and done, my dear Cicero, what can I do? On my oath, I am anxious to carry out your commands to the letter, and I remit and cancel at your request the punishment—it was of a corporal nature—I had intended inflicting upon him if ever I got hold of him. But what answer can I give those who demand legal reparation for the pillage of their property, the capture of their ships, the murder of their brothers, children, and parents?