nto those noble studies,
and let me at length return to what I ought never to have left.

As to what you say about Quintus's letter, when he wrote to me he was
also "in front a lion and behind a ----."[242] I don't know what to say
about it; for in the first lines of his letter he makes such a
lamentation over his continuance in his province, that no one could help
being affected: presently he calms down sufficiently to ask me to
correct and edit his Annals. However, I would wish you to have an eye to
what you mention, I mean the duty on goods transferred from port to
port. He says that by the advice of his council he has referred the
question to the senate. He evidently had not read my letter, in which
after having considered and investigated the matter, I had sent him a
written opinion that they were not payable.[243] If any Greeks have
already arrived at Rome from Asia on that business, please look into it
and, if you think it right, explain to them my opinion on the subject.
If, to save the good cause in the senate, I can retract, I will gratify
the _publicani_: but if not, to be plain with you, I prefer in this
matter the interests of all Asia and the merchants; for it affects the
latter also very seriously. I think it is a matter of great importance
to us. But you will settle it. Are the quaestors, pray, still hesitating
on the _cistophorus_ question?[244] If nothing better is to be had,
after trying everything in our power, I should be for not refusing even
the lowest offer. I shall see you at Arpinum and offer you country
entertainment, since you have despised this at the seaside.

[Footnote 237: Caesar.]

[Footnote 238: The old territory of Capua and the Stellatian Plain had
been specially reserved from distribution under the laws of the Gracchi,
and this reservation had not been repealed in subsequent laws: _ad
subsidia reipublicae vectigalem relictum_ (Suet. _Caes._ 20; cp. Cic. 2
_Phil._ Sec. 101).]

[Footnote 239: According to Suetonius 20,000 citizens had allotments on
the _ager publicus_ in Campania. But Dio says (xxxviii. 1) that the
Campanian land was exempted by the _lex Iulia_ also. Its settlement was
probably later, by colonies of Caesar's veterans. A _iugerum_ is
five-eighths of an acre.]

[Footnote 240: See Letter XXIX, p. 82. They were abolished B.C. 60.]

[Footnote 241: This and the mention of Caesar's "army" (a bodyguard) is
explained by Suet. _Caes._ 20: "Having promulgated his agrarian l