For the moment I am satisfied with a modest request, though it is what I desire above everything--that you should come to Rome as soon as possible. 5 December. [Footnote 112: Cicero is evidently very anxious as to the misunderstanding between Quintus and his brother-in-law Atticus, caused, as he hints, or at any rate not allayed, by Pomponia. The letter is very carefully written, without the familiar tone and mixture of jest and earnest common to most of the letters to Atticus.] [Footnote 113: At the end of the _via Egnatia_, which started from Dyrrachium.] [Footnote 114: The election in question is that to be held in B.C. 60 for the consulship of B.C. 59. Cæsar and Bibulus were elected, and apparently were the only two candidates declared as yet. They were, of course, extremists, and Lucceius seems to reckon on getting in by forming a coalition with either one or the other, and so getting the support of one of the extreme parties, with the moderates, for himself. The bargain eventually made was between Lucceius and Cæsar, the former finding the money. But the Optimates found more, and carried Bibulus. Arrius is Q. Arrius the orator (see Index). C. Piso is the consul of B.C. 67.] XXIII (A I, 18) [Sidenote: B.C. 60. Coss., Q. Cæcilius Metellus Celer, L. Afranius.] This was the year in which Cæsar, returning from his proprætorship in Spain, found Pompey in difficulties with the senate (1) as to the confirmation _en bloc_ of his _acta_ in the East, (2) as to the assignation of lands to his veterans; and being met with opposition himself as to the triumph that he claimed, and his candidatureship for the consulship, he formed with Pompey and Crassus the agreement known as the first triumvirate. Cicero saw his favourite political object, the _concordia ordinum_, threatened by any opposition to the triumvirate, which he yet distrusted as dangerous to the constitution. We shall find him, therefore, vacillating between giving his support to its policy or standing by the extreme Optimates. P. Clodius is taking measures to be adopted into a plebeian gens, in order to stand for the tribuneship. Quintus is still in Asia. Pompey's triumph had taken place in the previous September. TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS) ROME, 20 JANUARY [Sidenote: B.C. 60, ÆT. 46] Believe me there is nothing at this moment of which I stand so much in need as a man with whom to share all that causes me anxiety: a man to love me; a man of sense to whom I can speak without affectation, reserve, or concealment. For my brother is away--that most open-hearted and affectionate of men. Metellus is not a human being, but "Mere sound and air, a howling wilderness."