declaring in the council of the gods what sort of return that of the two commanders was to be, one of whom had lost, and the other sold his army. From Britain I have a letter of Cæsar's dated the 1st of September, which reached me on the 27th, satisfactory enough as far as the British expedition is concerned, in which, to prevent my wondering at not getting one from you, he tells me that you were not with him when he reached the coast. To that letter I made no reply, not even a formal congratulation, on account of his mourning. Many, many wishes, dear brother, for your health. [Footnote 620: That is, to get them seats at the games. See Letter XXVI, p. 63.] [Footnote 621: The _porticus_ is a kind of cloister round the _peristylium_ or _atrium_.] [Footnote 622: Calventius is said to stand for L. Calpurnius Piso Cæsoninus, the consul of B.C. 58, against whom Cicero's speech was spoken in B.C. 55 in the senate. He calls him Calventius from his maternal grandfather, and Marius because--as he had said, in the speech, § 20--he had himself gone into exile rather than come to open fight with him; just as Q. Metellus had done in B.C. 100, when, declining to take the oath to the agrarian law of Saturninus, rather than fight Marius, who had taken the oath, he went into exile. This seems rather a roundabout explanation; but no better has been proposed, and, of course, Quintus, who had lately read the speech, would be able better to understand the allusion.] [Footnote 623: _I.e._, with money.] [Footnote 624: This tragedy of Quintus's never reached Cicero. It was lost in transit. Perhaps no great loss.] [Footnote 625: Milo was ædile and had just given some splendid games.] [Footnote 626: _Maiestas._ He would be liable to this charge, under a law of Sulla's, for having left his province to interfere in Egypt.] [Footnote 627: See p. 300.] [Footnote 628: Apparently referring to the death of his daughter Iulia.] [Footnote 629: δευτέρας φροντίδας from Eurip. _Hipp._ 436, αἱ δευτέραι πως φροντίδες σοφωτέραι.] [Footnote 630: Or, "as kindly and critical at once as Aristophanes (of Byzantium)," as though Quintus had written a Caxtonian criticism of his son's style.] [Footnote 631: γυῶθι πῶς ἄλλω κέχρηται.] [Footnote 632: Of his poem "On his own Times." Piso in Macedonia, where he had been unsuccessful with border tribes: Gabinius in going to Egypt to support Ptolemy. He left many of his soldiers there.] CXLVIII (A IV, 17 AND PARTS OF 16) TO ATTICUS (ABROAD) ROME, 1 OCTOBER [Sidenote: B.C. 54, ÆT. 52]