I had all but forgotten my principal reason for writing. Have you heard of the wonderful doings of our censor Appius----how he is rigorously inquiring into our statues and pictures, our amount of land, and our debts? He has persuaded himself that his censorship is a moral soap or toilet powder. He is wrong, I take it; for while he only wants to wash off the dirt, he is really laying bare his veins and his flesh. Heaven and earth! you must run, and come to laugh at the things here----Appius questioning about pictures and statues. You must make haste, I assure you. Our friend Curio is thought to have acted wisely in giving way about the pay of Pompeius's troops. If I must sum up my opinion, as you ask, about what will happen----unless one or other of them consents to go and fight the Parthians, I see a great split impending, which will be settled by the sword and by force; each is well inclined for this and well equipped. If it could only be without danger to yourself, you would find this a great and most attractive drama which Fortune is rehearsing. MATIUS TO CICERO I received great pleasure from your letter, because I found that your opinion of me was what I had hoped and wished it to be; not that I was in any doubt about it, but for the very reason that I valued it so highly, I was most anxious that it should remain unimpaired. Conscious however that I had done nothing which could give offense to the feelings of any good citizen, I was naturally the less inclined to believe that you, adorned as you are with so many excellences of the most admirable kind, could have allowed yourself to be convinced of anything on mere idle report; particularly seeing that you were a friend for whom my spontaneous attachment had been and still was unbroken. And knowing now that it has been as I hoped, I will answer those attacks which you have often opposed on my behalf, as was fairly to be expected from your well-known generosity and the friendship existing between us.