he feelings of
anyone. So, too, though he cared for literature, it was rather as a
friendly critic of others than as an author. He did, it is true, compile
some books on Roman history, on historical portraits, and certain family
biographies; but they were not such as made him a rival of any of his
contemporaries. They were rather the productions of a rich amateur, who
had leisure to indulge a quasi-literary taste, without any thought of
joining the ranks of professed writers. Thirdly, he had great wealth,
partly inherited, partly acquired by prudent speculation in the purchase
of town properties, or in loans to states or public bodies on fair
terms: and this wealth was at the service of his friends, but not in the
lavish or reckless manner, which often earns only ingratitude without
being of any permanent service to the recipients. He lent money, but
expected to be repaid even by his brother-in-law. And this prudence
helped to retain the confidence, while his sympathetic temperament
secured the liking, of most. Again, he had the valuable knack of
constantly replenishing the number of his friends among men junior to
himself. His character attracted the liking of Sulla, who was
twenty-seven years his senior, and he remained the close friend of his
contemporaries Hortensius and Cicero (the former five years his senior,
the latter three years his junior) till the day of their death. But we
also find him on intimate terms with Brutus, twenty-four, and Octavian,
forty-six years junior to himself. Lastly, he was not too much at Rome.
More than twenty years of his earlier manhood (B.C. 87-65) were spent in
Greece, principally at Athens, partly in study and partly in business.
And Athens at this time, long deprived of political importance, had
still the charm not only of its illustrious past, but also of its
surviving character as the home of culture and refinement. When he at
length returned to Rome in B.C. 65, he had already purchased a property
in Epirus, near Buthrotum (see p. 3), where he built a villa, in which
he continued to spend a considerable part of his remaining years. This
was sufficiently remote, not only from Rome, but from the summer
residences of the Roman nobles, to secure his isolation from the
intrigues and enmities of Roman society. He did not indeed--as who
does?--always escape giving offence. At the very beginning of the
correspondence we hear of his vain attempts to mollify the anger of L.
Lucceius--how i