[Footnote 326: Clodius was not re-elected, and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos, who had as tribune (B.C. 63-62) been hostile to Cicero, now as consul supported Pompey in befriending Cicero.] [Footnote 327: The speech in the senate _in Curionem et Clodium_, _i.e._, against the elder C. Curio, who had been Clodius's advocate in B.C. 61 on the charge _de incesto_. Fragments only of it are preserved. They are sufficiently violent. Cicero suggests repudiating the authorship, because the speech had never been delivered, and therefore was not necessarily intended for publication. There is no special reason for abusing Cicero's character on this account. If some enemy had got hold of the MS. and published it without his consent, it was not really the expression of his deliberate sentiments.] [Footnote 328: Reading _nunc tamen intellego_ for _si donatam ut intellego_, which is meaningless. There may be latent in _si donatam_ some proper name, as _Dodonam_ or _Macedoniam_, but it is not possible to extract it now. _Istic_, as usual, means "where you are," _i.e._, at Rome.] LXIX (A III, 14) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) THESSALONICA, 21 JULY [Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48] From your letter I am full of anxiety to hear what Pompey's view is of my case, or what he professes to be his view. The elections, I presume, are over; and when they were over you say that he was of opinion that my case should be mooted. If I seem foolish to you for entertaining hopes, it is at your bidding that I do so: yet I know that you have in your letters been usually inclined rather to check me and my hopes. Now pray write distinctly what your view is. I know that I have fallen into this distress from numerous errors of my own. If certain accidents have in any degree corrected those errors, I shall be less sorry that I preserved my life then and am still living. Owing to the constant traffic along the road[329] and the daily expectation of political change, I have as yet not removed from Thessalonica. But now I am being forced away, not by Plancius--for he, indeed, wishes to keep me here--but by the nature of the place, which is not at all calculated for the residence of a disfranchised man in such a state of sorrow. I have not gone to Epirus, as I had said I would, because all of a sudden the messages and letters that arrived have all indicated it to be unnecessary for me to be in the immediate neighbourhood of Italy. From this place, as soon as I have heard something about the elections, I shall set my face towards Asia, but to what particular part I am not yet certain: however, you shall know. Thessalonica, 21 July. [Footnote 329: The _via Egnatia_, the road across Macedonia, which was one of the great channels of communication between Rome and the East, and which terminated at Thessalonica.] LXX (A III, 13) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) THESSALONICA, 5 AUGUST [Sidenote: B.C. 58, ÆT. 48]