s we speak; for as to his changing and omitting
not only letters but whole syllables, it is a vulgar mistake. Nor should
I have taken notice of it, but that it appears strange to me, that any
person should have told us, that he sent a successor to a consular
lieutenant of a province, as an ignorant, illiterate fellow, upon his
observing that he had written ixi for ipsi. When he had occasion to
write in cypher, he put b for a, c for b, and so forth; and instead
of z, aa.

LXXXIX. He was no less fond of the Greek literature, in which he made
considerable proficiency; having had Apollodorus (135) of Pergamus, for
his master in rhetoric; whom, though much advanced in years, he took with
him from The City, when he was himself very young, to Apollonia.
Afterwards, being instructed in philology by Sephaerus, he received into
his family Areus the philosopher, and his sons Dionysius and Nicanor; but
he never could speak the Greek tongue readily, nor ever ventured to
compose in it. For if there was occasion for him to deliver his
sentiments in that language, he always expressed what he had to say in
Latin, and gave it another to translate. He was evidently not
unacquainted with the poetry of the Greeks, and had a great taste for the
ancient comedy, which he often brought upon the stage, in his public
spectacles. In reading the Greek and Latin authors, he paid particular
attention to precepts and examples which might be useful in public or
private life. Those he used to extract verbatim, and gave to his
domestics, or send to the commanders of the armies, the governors of the
provinces, or the magistrates of the city, when any of them seemed to
stand in need of admonition. He likewise read whole books to the senate,
and frequently made them known to the people by his edicts; such as the
orations of Quintus Metellus "for the Encouragement of Marriage," and
those of Rutilius "On the Style of Building;" [239] to shew the people
that he was not the first who had promoted those objects, but that the
ancients likewise had thought them worthy their attention. He patronised
the men of genius of that age in every possible way. He would hear them
read their works with a great deal of patience and good nature; and not
only poetry [240] and history, but orations and dialogues. He was
displeased, however, that anything should be written upon himself, except
in a grave manner, and by men of the most eminent abilities: and he
enjoined