by the most splendid monuments), but you have to share it with me, and
to hand it down to our children. In regard to which you must be on your
guard lest by any excess of carelessness you should seem not only to
have neglected your own interests, but to have begrudged those of your
family also.

XVI. And these observations are not made with the idea of any speech of
mine appearing to have roused you from your sleep, but to have rather
"added speed to the runner." For you will continue to compel all in the
future, as you have compelled them in the past, to praise your equity,
self-control, strictness, and honesty. But from my extreme affection I
am possessed with a certain insatiable greed for glory for you. However,
I am convinced that, as Asia should now be as well-known to you as each
man's own house is to himself, and since to your supreme good sense such
great experience has now been added, there is nothing that affects
reputation which you do not know as well as possible yourself, and
which does not daily occur to your mind without anybody's exhortation.
But I, who when I read your writing seem to hear your voice, and when I
write to you seem to be talking to you, am therefore always best pleased
with your longest letter, and in writing am often somewhat prolix
myself. My last prayer and advice to you is that, as good poets and
painstaking actors always do, so you should be most attentive in the
last scenes and conclusion of your function and business, so that this
third year of your government, like a third act in a play, may appear to
have been the most elaborated and most highly finished. You will do that
with more ease if you will think that I, whom you always wished to
please more than all the world besides, am always at your side, and am
taking part in everything you say and do. It remains only to beg you to
take the greatest care of your health, if you wish me and all your
friends to be well also.

Farewell.

[Footnote 182: A country festival and general holiday. It was a _feriae
conceptivae_, and therefore the exact day varied. But it was about the
end of the year or beginning of the new year (_in Pis._ Sec. 4; Aul. Gell.
x. 24; Macrob. _Sat._ i. 4; _ad Att._ vii. 5; vii. 7, Sec. 2).]

[Footnote 183: Of the persons mentioned, L. AElius Tubero is elsewhere
praised as a man of learning (_pro Lig._ Sec. 10); A. Allienus (praetor B.C.
49) was a friend and correspondent; M. Gratidius is mentioned in _pro
Fl