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Epistulae ad Familiares, VI. xviii.-xix.

⁶ Let Lepta, that most delightful of boys, get up his Hesiod by heart and have this on his lips: τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα,^[1] and the rest of it.

XIX

Cicero to the same

Astura, July, 45 B.C.

¹ I am glad Macula^[2] has done his duty. I have always thought his Falernian villa just the place for a short visit, provided it is capacious enough to take in our retinue. In every other respect it is a place I rather like; but I shall not for that reason turn my back on your Petrine^[3] villa; for both the house itself and its wonderfully beautiful situation suggest a prolonged residence there rather than a flying visit.

² I have had a conversation with Oppius about a certain contract in connexion with the royal shows.^[4] Balbus I have not seen since you left; he has such an attack of gout in the feet that he is disinclined for an interview. On the whole, taking everything into consideration, I think your wiser course is not to undertake that responsibility; for your object in taking all that trouble is one you will by no means attain. So numerous are the applicants in close personal touch with him that there is more likelihood of one of them dropping out than of there being an opening for a fresh candidate, especially for one who has nothing to offer but his own toil and trouble; and as to that Caesar will think that he has conferred a favour, if he ever knows anything at all about it, rather than received one. We will

↑ The full line is τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν (Hesiod, Op. et Dies, 289), "but before excellence the gods set sweat," i.e., excellence can only be reached after hard toil.
↑ Possibly P. Pompeius Macula, a lover of Fausta, daughter of Sulla.
↑ Near Sinuessa, between Latium and Campania.
↑ Lepta was anxious to secure a contract for the supply of wine (curatio vini). Regiorum is a reading supported by Cicero's speaking of Caesar as rex in Att. xiii. 37. 2.

509

[1] The full line is τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν (Hesiod, Op. et Dies, 289), "but before excellence the gods set sweat," i.e., excellence can only be reached after hard toil.

[2] Possibly P. Pompeius Macula, a lover of Fausta, daughter of Sulla.

[3] Near Sinuessa, between Latium and Campania.

[4] Lepta was anxious to secure a contract for the supply of wine (curatio vini). Regiorum is a reading supported by Cicero's speaking of Caesar as rex in Att. xiii. 37. 2.

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