(2) Either the date at the end of the letter is wrong, or _prid._ must be used here (3) There is no such date properly as _a. d. II. Kal._ The day before _prid._ is _a. d. III_. In regard to dates we must remember that Cicero is using the præ-Julian calendar, in which all months, except February, March, May, July, and October, had twenty-nine days. These last four had thirty-one and February twenty-eight.] [Footnote 310: Cicero does not mean that young Marcus is to come to him at once, but that, when Tullia's marriage portion is settled, Terentia is to bring him with her if she comes. Really he didn't mean any of them to come, at any rate for a long while. Piso is Tullia's husband.] [Footnote 311: If Cicero's property was confiscated, it might be held that the slaves went with it, and would be sold with it, and that his manumission of them was an evasion, which could not hold good at law. If his property was not confiscated, they were to remain in their status as slaves. See Letter CXCII.] LXII (A III, 7) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 29 APRIL [Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48] I arrived at Brundisium on the 17th of April. On that day your slaves delivered me your letter, and some other slaves, on the next day but one, brought me another. As to your invitation and advice to stay at your house in Epirus, your kindness is most gratifying, and far from being a novelty. It is a plan that would have exactly suited my wishes, if I might have spent all my time there: for I loathe a crowd of visitors, I can scarcely bear the light, and that solitude, especially in a spot so familiar, would have been the reverse of disagreeable. But to put up there as a mere stage in my journey! In the first place it is far out of my way, and in the next it is only four days from Autronius and the rest, and in the third place you are not there. Had I been going to reside permanently, a fortified castle would have been an advantage, but to one only passing through it is unnecessary. Why, if I had not been afraid, I should have made for Athens[312]--there were circumstances that made me much wish to go--but as it is, I have enemies in the neighbourhood, you are not there, and I fear they[313] might hold even that town not to be the legal distance from Italy, nor do you mention by what day I am to expect you. As to your urging me to remain alive, you carry one point--that I should not lay violent hands upon myself: the other you cannot bring to pass--that I should not regret my policy and my continuance in life. For what is there to attach me to it, especially if the hope which accompanied me on my departure is non-existent? I will not attempt to enumerate all the miseries into which I have fallen through the extreme injustice and unprincipled conduct, not so much of my enemies, as of those who were jealous of me, because I do not wish to stir up a fresh burst of grief in myself, or invite you to share the same sorrow. I say this deliberately--that no