Читать книгу The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - Марк Туллий Цицерон, Marcus Cicero - Страница 6

b.c. 67. Coss., C. Calpurnius Piso, M. Acilius Glabrio.

The year of Cicero's election to the prætorship. It is the year also of Pompey's great commission by the lex Gabinia against the Pirates. But Cicero does not seem as yet much concerned with "foreign politics."

TO ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)
Rome

b.c. 67, æt. 39

I get letters from you far too seldom considering that you can much more easily find people starting for Rome than I to Athens: considering, too, that you are more certain of my being at Rome than I of your being at Athens. For instance, it is owing to this uncertainty on my part that this very letter is somewhat short, because not being sure as to where you are, I don't choose my confidential talk to fall into strange hands. The Megaric statues and the Hermæ, which you mentioned in your letters, I am waiting for impatiently. Anything you have of the same kind which may strike you as worthy of my "Academia," do not hesitate to send, and have complete confidence in my money-chest. My present delight is to pick up anything particularly suitable to a "gymnasium." Lentulus promises the use of his ships. I beg you to be zealous in these matters. Thyillus begs you (and I also at his request) to get him some writings of the Eumolpidæ.34

34

Thyillus (sometimes written Chilius), a Greek poet living at Rome. See Letters XVI and XXI. The Eumolpidæ were a family of priests at Athens who had charge of the temple of Demeter at Eleusis. The πάτρια Εὐμολπιδῶν (the phrase used by Cicero here) may be either books of ritual or records such as priests usually kept: πάτρια is an appropriate word for such rituals or records handed down by priests of one race or family.