I had proposed as
my model, criticised by Serapio and Hipparchus: what think you will be
the case if Tyrannio[198] is added to the critics? And, by Hercules, the
subject is difficult of explanation and monotonous, and does not seem to
admit of as much embellishment as I thought, and, in short--which is the
chief point--any excuse for being idle seems to me a good one: for I am
even hesitating as to settling at Antium and spending the rest of my
life there, where, indeed, I would rather have been a duovir[199] than
at Rome. You, indeed, have done more wisely in having made yourself a
home at Buthrotum. But, believe me, next to that free town of yours
comes the borough of the Antiates. Could you have believed that there
could be a town so near Rome, where there are many who have never seen
Vatinius? Where there is no one besides myself who cares whether one of
the twenty commissioners[200] is alive and well? Where no one intrudes
upon me, and yet all are fond of me? This, this is the place to play the
statesman in! For yonder, not only am I not allowed to do so, but I am
sick of it besides. Accordingly, I will compose a book of secret memoirs
for your ear alone in the style of Theopompus, or a more acrid one
still.[201] Nor have I now any politics except to hate the disloyal, and
even that without any bitterness, but rather with a certain enjoyment in
writing. But to return to business: I have written to the city quaestors
about my brother's affair. See what they say to it, whether there is any
hope of the cash in _denarii_, or whether we are to be palmed off with
Pompeian _cistophori_.[202] Farthermore, settle what is to be done about
the wall. Is there anything else? Yes! Let me know when you are thinking
of starting.

[Footnote 198: A captive brought by Lucullus, who became a friend of
Cicero and tutor to his son and nephew.]

[Footnote 199: One of the two yearly officers of a colony--they answer
to the consuls at Rome. Therefore Cicero means, "I wish I had been a
consul in a small colony rather than a consul at Rome."]

[Footnote 200: For distribution of land under Caesar's law. P. Vatinius
was a tribune this year, and worked in Caesar's interests.]

[Footnote 201: Theopompus of Chios, the historian (_Att._ vi. 1, Sec. 12).
Born about B.C. 378. His bitterness censured by Polybius, viii. 11-13.]

[Footnote 202: The money due from the treasury to Q. Cicero in Asia. He
wants it to be paid in Roman currency (_denarii_