As to what you say about Quintus's letter, when he wrote to me he was also "in front a lion and behind a ----."[242] I don't know what to say about it; for in the first lines of his letter he makes such a lamentation over his continuance in his province, that no one could help being affected: presently he calms down sufficiently to ask me to correct and edit his Annals. However, I would wish you to have an eye to what you mention, I mean the duty on goods transferred from port to port. He says that by the advice of his council he has referred the question to the senate. He evidently had not read my letter, in which after having considered and investigated the matter, I had sent him a written opinion that they were not payable.[243] If any Greeks have already arrived at Rome from Asia on that business, please look into it and, if you think it right, explain to them my opinion on the subject. If, to save the good cause in the senate, I can retract, I will gratify the _publicani_: but if not, to be plain with you, I prefer in this matter the interests of all Asia and the merchants; for it affects the latter also very seriously. I think it is a matter of great importance to us. But you will settle it. Are the quæstors, pray, still hesitating on the _cistophorus_ question?[244] If nothing better is to be had, after trying everything in our power, I should be for not refusing even the lowest offer. I shall see you at Arpinum and offer you country entertainment, since you have despised this at the seaside. [Footnote 237: Cæsar.] [Footnote 238: The old territory of Capua and the Stellatian Plain had been specially reserved from distribution under the laws of the Gracchi, and this reservation had not been repealed in subsequent laws: _ad subsidia reipublicæ vectigalem relictum_ (Suet. _Cæs._ 20; cp. Cic. 2 _Phil._ § 101).] [Footnote 239: According to Suetonius 20,000 citizens had allotments on the _ager publicus_ in Campania. But Dio says (xxxviii. 1) that the Campanian land was exempted by the _lex Iulia_ also. Its settlement was probably later, by colonies of Cæsar's veterans. A _iugerum_ is five-eighths of an acre.] [Footnote 240: See Letter XXIX, p. 82. They were abolished B.C. 60.] [Footnote 241: This and the mention of Cæsar's "army" (a bodyguard) is explained by Suet. _Cæs._ 20: "Having promulgated his agrarian law, Cæsar expelled his colleague, Bibulus, by force of arms from the Forum when trying to stop proceedings by announcing bad omens ... and finally reduced him to such despair that for the rest of his year of office he confined himself to his house and only announced his bad omens by means of edicts." Bibulus appears to have been hustled by the mob also.] [Footnote 242: πρόσθε λέων ὄπιθεν δὲ ----. Cicero leaves Atticus, as he often does, to fill up the rest of the line, δράκων, μέσση δὲ χίμαιρα (Hom. _Il._ vi. 181). He means, of course, that Quintus is inconsistent.]