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Epistulae ad Familiares, V. xiv.-xv.

exclusively your own. I am anxious not to pester you, if this friendly earnestness on my part is distasteful to you; but I am anxious to discourage your persistence in the course you have adopted. Now I am distracted by those two incompatible desires; and I should wish you either to take my advice, if possible, as regards the latter of them, or not to be offended with me as regards the former.[1] Farewell.

XV

Cicero to Lucceius

Astura, May 10-12, 45 B.C.

1 The full measure of your affection for me stands completely revealed in the letter I last received from you; not that I was unaware of it, but it is none the less agreeable and welcome to me—I should have said "delightful" had not that word dropped out of my vocabulary for all time, and not for that reason only which you surmise, and as to which, while employing the most gentle and loving terms, in substance you reprimand me severely, but because everything that should have helped to heal the bitter wound has ceased to exist.

2 For what am I to do? Am I to take refuge with my friends? How many, tell me, are left of them? For they were for the most part yours as much as mine; but some of them have fallen, and others have somehow grown callous. I certainly might have lived with you, and nothing would have given me greater pleasure; old acquaintance, affection,

  1. ↑ i.e., "my pestering you by my importunity."
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