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¹ It, is not because I have forgotten our friendship or wilfully broken off my customary correspondence with you that I have sent you no letter for some years past. No; it is because the earlier part of that period was sunk in the common ruin of the state and myself, while during the later part of it I found a difficulty in writing to you on account of your own most unmerited and distressing troubles. Now, however, after a sufficiently long interval and a more searching consideration of your admirable character and high courage, I have thought it no deviation from the course I have set myself to send you these words.

² Well, my dear P. Sittius, how have I treated you? In those earliest days when you were being ill-naturedly attacked in your absence, and even had a criminal charge brought against you, it was I who defended you; and because, when your most intimate friend^[2] was under trial and in danger, a charge against yourself was involved in that against him, I spared no pains in safeguarding you and your cause; and quite recently, just after my return, although I found that proceedings had been begun in a way that would not at all have satisfied me had I been on the spot, still in no single respect did I fail to promote your welfare; and again, when, as