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so universal is the decay, indeed I may almost say, the destruction of our public interests. But I am not sure that it is safe to have entrusted to a letter even what I have just written; so you will be told all the rest by others.

As to yourself however, whether you have some hope left of the Republic, or whether you have none, be prepared with such aspirations and projects as ought to find room in the heart of that citizen, that hero, who is destined to rescue the State, prostrated and crushed as she is with the miseries of the times and the subversion of morals, and restore her to her pristine dignity and independence.

¹ We had not yet heard of your approaching arrival in Italy when I sent Sextus Villius, the intimate friend of my friend Milo, to you with this letter. Still, since it was supposed that you would arrive very shortly, and there was no doubt that you had set out from Asia en route for Rome, the matter was so pressing that I was not afraid of being in too great a hurry in dispatching the letter, as I was extremely anxious that it should reach you at the earliest possible moment.

If, my dear Curio, there were nothing to be considered but my services to you—services such as you constantly proclaim them to be rather than as I appraise them—I should not be so forward in