[Footnote 25: This is probably Sext. Peducæus the younger, an intimate friend of Atticus (Nep. _Att._ 21); his father had been prætor in Sicily when Cicero was quæstor (B.C. 76-75), the son was afterwards a partisan of Cæsar in the Civil War, governor of Sardinia, B.C. 48, and proprætor in Spain, B.C. 39.] [Footnote 26: The person alluded to is L. Lucceius, of whom we shall hear again. See Letters V, VII, VIII, CVIII. What his quarrel with Atticus was about, we do not know.] [Footnote 27: Prescriptive right to property was acquired by possession (_usus_) of two years. But no such right could be acquired to the property of a girl under guardianship (_pro Flacco_, § 84).] II (A I, 6) TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS) ROME, DECEMBER [Sidenote: B.C. 68, ÆT. 38] I won't give you any excuse hereafter for accusing me of neglecting to write. It is you that must take care that with all your leisure you keep up with me. Rabirius's house at Naples,[28]for the improvement of which you have designs drawn out and completed in imagination, has been bought by M. Fonteius[29] for 130,000 sesterces (about £1,040). I wished you to know this in case you were still hankering after it. We may be quite satisfied, I think, with my brother's feelings towards Pomponia. He is with her at present in his villa at Arpinum, and has Decimus Turanius with him, who is great in _belles lettres_. The date of my father's death was the 28th of November. That is about all my news. If you light on any articles of _vertu_ suitable for a gymnasium, which would look well in the place you wot of,[30] please don't let them slip. I am so delighted with my Tusculan villa that I never feel really happy till I get there. Let me know exactly what you are doing and intending to do about everything. [Footnote 28: C. Rabirius, whom Cicero defended in B.C. 63, when prosecuted by Cæsar for his share in the murder of Saturninus (B.C. 100). He lived, we know, in Campania, for his neighbours came to give evidence in his favour at the trial.] [Footnote 29: M. Fonteius made a fortune in the province of Gaul beyond the Alps, of which he was proprætor, B.C. 77-74. In B.C. 69 he had been accused of malversation, and defended by Cicero. After his acquittal he seems to be buying a seaside residence in Campania, as so many of the men of fashion did.] [Footnote 30: Cicero's "gymnasium" was some arrangement of buildings and plantations more or less on the model of the Greek gymnasia, at his Tusculan villa.] III (A I, 7) TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS) ROME, DECEMBER [Sidenote: B.C. 68, ÆT. 38]