[Footnote 37: The point of this frigid joke is not clear. Was the grandmother really dead? What was she to do with the Latin _feriæ_? Mr. Strachan Davidson's explanation is perhaps the best, that Cicero means that the old lady was thinking of the Social War in B.C. 89, when the loyalty of the Latin towns must have been a subject of anxiety. She is in her dotage and only remembers old scares. This is understanding _civitates_ with _Latinæ_. Others understand _feriæ_ or _mulieres_. Saufeius, a Roman eques, was an Epicurean, who would hold death to be no evil. He was a close friend of Atticus, who afterwards saved his property from confiscation by the Triumvirs (Nep. _Att._ 12).] [Footnote 38: Cneius Sallustius, a learned friend of Cicero's, of whom we shall often hear again.] [Footnote 39: C. Calpurnius Piso, quæstor B.C. 58, died in B.C. 57. The marriage took place in B.C. 63.] IX (A I, 4) TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS) ROME [Sidenote: B.C. 65, ÆT. 41] You keep on making me expect you again and again. Only the other day, when I thought you on the point of arriving, I was suddenly put off by you till Quintilis (July). Now, however, I _do_ think that you should come at the time you mention if you possibly can. You will thereby be in time for my brother Quintus's election, will pay me a long-deferred visit, and will settle the dispute with Acutilius. This latter Peducæus also suggested my mentioning to you, for I think it is full time that you settled that affair. My good offices are at your service and always have been so. Here at Rome I have conducted the case of Gaius Macer with a popular approval surpassing belief and unparalleled. Though I had been inclined to take a lenient view of his case, yet I gained much more substantial advantage from the popular approval on his condemnation than I should have got from his gratitude if he had been acquitted.[40] I am very glad to hear what you say about the Hermathena. It is an ornament appropriate to my "Academia" for two reasons: Hermes is a sign common to all gymnasia, Minerva specially of this particular one. So I would have you, as you say, adorn the place with the other objects also, and the more the better. The statues which you sent me before I have not yet seen. They are in my villa at Formiæ, whither I am at this moment thinking of going. I shall get them all transferred to my Tusculan villa. If I find myself with more than I want there I shall begin adorning Caieta. Please reserve your books, and don't despair of my being able to make them mine. If I succeed in that, I am superior to Crassus in wealth and look down on everybody's manors and pastures.[41] [Footnote 40: The annalist C. Licinius Macer was impeached _de repetundis_ (he was prætor about B.C. 70 or 69, and afterwards had a province), and finding that he was going to be condemned, committed suicide. He was never therefore condemned regularly (Val. Max. ix. 127; Plut. _Cic._ 9). Cicero presided at the court as prætor.]